Hey folks,

Was just curious what you guys thought about flow in a nano reef. As of late, I've become a little obsessed with flow in my fifteen gallon bowfront. I'm of the belief that most people that keep reefs don't circulate nearly enough water in their reef tanks. The thought I keep coming back to is trying to recreate the ocean current. Those of us that have lived near the ocean know the ppwer of these currents even in fairly low current areas, you can still feel water movement.

Of course this water movement doesn't come out of a half inch jet. It's much more spread out. There are a few pumps out there that reproduce this sort of flow. The new EcoTech VorTech pumps come to mind so do the Tunze Streams. These pumps put out a ton of flow, over a thousand gallons an hour but in such a way so that it's not blowing your corals around. More gentle flow but more spread out.

I want to do this but in a fifteen gallon tank. I'm thinking 1000 gph is way too much for a tank my size nut I want the same effect. What I've got right now are two maxijet 1200s on opposite ends of the tank and on a wavemaker timer so that only one is on at a time. I"m gonna be adding a product from Hydor that distributes the flow more evenly and hopefully creates more of a wave action. This is a link to where you can find them:

http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=HY-H01401&Category_Code=Wavemaking

Now I'm not sure about all the products that are out there. Are there really small versions of the Tunze Streams? Or maybe something similiar? I don't want anything that takes up a lot of space or looks obtrusive. Any help would be appreaciated.

theres that maxijet mod out there that you can do. i run a seio 620, and that seems okay?

Can you run Seios on a wavemaker timer?

...also, I read your tank journal and was curious how that hydor deflector is doing? Does it create up and down motion on the surface? In other words, are you creating small waves on the surface? Just curious.

im using 2 hydor for my 2 maxijet 1200. check out my pix.. they are placed directly opposite each other.. since i put the hydor, my cyano is gone. the hydor rotates circularly...

uhh i know for sure the seio arent meant to be on timers, so thats a no. and the hydor..well i just started to use it again since my MJ900 kept falling due to those crappy suction cups. but now they are working alittle better. yeah anyway, i dont know if id call them waves on the surface, but then again im imagining like a beach with crashing waves and white foam. lol. so when it goes up against the surface, it creates a sort of like large ripple, and if you took the included deflector on a power head and aimed it towards to surface, sort of. haha iono if that made sense, but from my understanding, all it does it widens the flow and little and rotates it at about a 45 degree angle. haha yeah i still dont know if you are getting that, but yeah ask away what you dont understand. i guess i would say im sort of happy with it? lol

hahaha u are so funny mark. im chatting wt u on aim and responding to ur post here =]
anywayz if your powerheads fall (my MJ1200 falls once in a while) do this: put the magnet cleaning bar right underneath the powerhead. it will keep the powerhead from slidding down.. try it!

hahah but i use my magfloat! lol nah it like lets go of the suction, not slides down. i am looking into those magnetic ones, but for 25 bucks...iono thats more than the powerhead itself...haha i know someone had some design for a braaaaaacket

i hope this helps you. this is a picture i just took. the one on the left is the hydor facing down. the one on the right is it facing directly up. can you see the difference. of course the size of the wave thing will depend on your pump and how deep it is. mine is a MJ900 and roughly 5-7 inches below the surfacehttp://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y153/keyozoxmfc/CopyofIMG_0423.jpg

ialso took a video, but it is still loading

i GLOW ce (11:54:51 PM): i put my hydor facing horizontally
i GLOW ce (11:55:06 PM): i want more of like an internal wave to get rid of dead spots
i GLOW ce (11:55:17 PM): uh haha i should put that in the forum, let me copy and paste hehe

to be honest guys a flow paddle (SCFD) would be long term solution without the clutter, but if hang-ons are the go i hear the guys raveing about these mini tunzies
with bang for your buck

i have always watned to do a closed loop system with a smallerish pump. mag 3?

i mean mag 3 for you,too small for me

click here

theres the video! lol sorry if its sideways. you can try to look in the pictures and then identify what is happening in the video

I have an Oceanic 14 Gal Bio Cube. I have the return pump from the filter area with a hyd

Sorry, dropped the keyboard and it posted. Anyway, I have an Oceanic 14 gal. Bio Cube with a lot of flow in it. Here is a list: 1) I have a hydor on the return from the filter area. 2) A Mini Jet 909 with a second hydor on the opposite side of the rear wall (this pump runs on the light timer). 3) The smallest Mini Jet pump I could find, it moves water across the back of the tank just above the sand behind the live rock and it alternates on and off every fifteen minutes. 4) A second Mini Jet 909 that is positioned below the return hydor that has a power head deflector that aims the flow up diagonally toward the surface at the center of the tank. This pump is dialed down to a low flow rate and comes on when the lights go off at night.
With this set up I get a nice flow with alternating currents during the day and a softer current at night. The small pump that blows across the rear of the tanks keeps me from having dead spots behind the rock. I am very happy with the result.

Thanks Mark for the pics. Have you guys heard of the podcast called ReefVideo? There's an episode in it with a talk from Eric Borneman about oxygen. I was listening to it the other day (while studyinf gor midterms) and it was pretty surprising. Turns out flow in an aquarium may not do as much to introduce oxygen as you would hav thought. You should have a look.

yeah i am a subscriber to reef videos. pretty good stuff