current

[dinks]

Before I fired the maintenace guy, we were talking, during his last visit, and I told him i was going reef. He told me I had too much current???
I thought I was supposed to have a lot of current for sponges and such, I guess it would be hard to get them to stick somewhere...lol
I do have a LOT of current, but I don't have enough rock yet...buying more, wouldn't this redirect of the flow? I have a sump, with a nozzle that directs the flow kind of sideways, then the flow bounces off the side wall, and is redirect downward then back up.
stace

 

[reefforbrains]

Yep, rockwork signifigantly breaks flow down. Just pure GPH is the raw number but the challange is to have no hurricanes and at same time no deadspots.
A tank can be pushing massive flow. 30x turnover without anyhting wagging in the current, but spraybars are the way to set up if going for huge turnover. The forced jet streams of larger pumps are actually quite damaging to some corals. A fan head or spraybar make all the difference in the world.
Cheap and simple testing around the tank.
Tie some bright colored yarn around a few small rocks and put them in different spots in the tank to check currents for deadspots and wagging areas.

 

[dinks]

What is a spray bar? I do have a LOT of current.
Thank you very much for the reply
Stace

 

[reefforbrains]

on larger pumps instead of the flow coming straight out the end,
Have the output from the pump run through a longer say 12 or 24 inch rigid peice of black tube that is hidden along top of backwall in the tank. Cap the far end and drill a hole in it every 3/4 inch or so. The flow wont be a jet stream but more even and all across the tank.
Where rockwork may have gotten in the way before or even forced something closer to the pumps original output to absorb a direct pounding. Now whole tank is even and happy