Tank Flow Rate and GPH

[canuck]

Good day all,
I've had my tank going for about 6 weeks now and everything seems to be going well. It finished its cycle about 4 weeks ago, went through the diatom cycle, and now I'm just trying to figure out what to put in it. Here's my stats,
46 gallon bowfront
71 pounds live rock
20 pounds live sand
Salinity 1.023
PH 8.3 (and stable)
Temp 79 degrees
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 20
2 damsels
10 blue legged hermit crabs
20 Astrea Snails
3 Sally Lightfoot crabs
2 Cleaner Shrimp
I also think I have about half a dozen Stomatella snails that were hitchhikers on the live rock.
I have a question about flow rates. Currently I am just running a Fluval 310 Canister filter which is rated at 260 GPH. From what I've read, that's a little on the low side, especially if I decide to put some coral in there. However, I've got tons of current, in fact so much that my shrimp have trouble swimming from one side of the tank to the other. I'm attaching a pic (all my critters seem to be hiding) and as you can see, I'm getting lots of aeration, the water is full of micro bubbles swirling around and as mentioned, my PH seems to be quite stable. Should I be looking at increasing my GPH? I don't have any powerheads now, although I've been thinking about picking up a protein skimmer. Thanks in advance.

 

[sammiefish]

shoot for somewhere between 10 and 20x turnover... so for 46 gallons that is 460-920 gph total turnover.... so 2 or 3 200-300 gph PH's would do the trick...

 

[canuck]

So if I get some powerheads, should I try to position them so that they cancel out the existing current? Again, I'm a bit worried that the current is too strong. My poor shrimp try to walk to the other side of the tank and then the current happens to get under them and blows them back to where they started from.

 

[stang66200]

You want to set up the power heads to eliminate any "dead spots." You want to make sure that the entire tank has some current. If you get a dead spot, debris will tend to settle there.

 

[wwfstyle]

You most deffently want some current under your LR or behind. Use 2 power heads and some PVC pipe. Drill like 1/4" holes or smaller in pipe. Have the PH on bottom of tank and stack your rocks around and on top of the PVC pipe. Make sure the holes are pointing some up the tank and towards the from of tank. You want more water movement through out your tank with these holes. But the more holes you drill the less the current comes out of them. Have the water suck through the PH and out through the PVC pipe. Make sure you are able to remove one or the other PH due to replaceing, or cleaning. Then at the top of your tank place another PH pointing down towards the other sides bottom corner. You shrimp maybe having trouble because there is only 1 current but with more current movement it will help stabilize him on his movement around the tank. hope the helps or gives you more of an idea. On the bottom PH I would recommend you getting a bigger PH then what is on top due to more holes need more current.