Current? Flow? Powerheads? ungh..

[Feron]

OK... Finally gotten the tank (90g reef ready AGA) with the sand in it and filled with RO water (those things take forever to make water!).

So I crank it up and begin to salt things and get that whole thing going..

And I have a little too much water in the sump, so the skimmer isn't hitting my foam bubble diffuser brick thingy, which is causing alot of tiny bubbles in the water.

Those bubbles are handy at this point tho, because I can see how the current is flowing through the tank.

So the setup is 'stock' reef-ready. Two 1" pipes - one return and one drain, wet/dry bio ball thing, return pump is a mag7 and the end of the return pipe has a V on it with two fan like heads shooting water out across the top of the water.
On side of the V is pointed towards the front, one towards the right side of the tank.

In watching the bubbles/salt when added, it appears that the current is not 'dead' in any place, but how do I know if I have enough current?

I really don't want too much machinery in the tank at all really..
And what I do add I want to be able to hide somehow.
The tank is visible from the front and the back, so no hiding gizmos on the back of the tank.

Any advice for a newb?

Thanks in advance.
(sry for long post)

 

[theatrus]

You're shooting 10-30x water turnover per hour in the display tank (corals like it higher, fish don't mind the lower end). This means 90 (tank size) * 10 = 900 gallons per hour for 10x turnover.

You need to calculate the head loss from the piping to figure out the flow you're getting.

http://reefcentral.com/calc/hlc2.php is a good calculator.

 

[Feron]

hmmmm about 500gph atm then...
It's not going to be housing corals..

So should I up the return pump then?

 

[seaham358]

IN a FO IMO you are fine.... If you bump the return pump the overflow may not be able to keep up with it. Do not worry too much about the 10x or the 20x. If you want more flow adding a power head will help out with flow.
If you do go bigger, like a mag 9.5 you will want to put a valve on it to cut it back some.

 

[Feron]

Does adding live rock to the equation change anything to that statement?

 

[theatrus]

No, not really. If you feel you want more flow, the fastest/easiest way is to add a MaxiJet 1200 powerhead. You can hide one on the side near the rockline if you'd like (creating more water movement at the lower levels as well, and keeping the rocks cleaner)

 

[oyf709]

well lower water flow doesn't really mean u can't host coral in the tank, if purely cuz not enough flow, add a power head might just solve the problem.Corals love different directions in water flow anyways,so add a powerhead to break the main flow would be nice.