Circulation Options

[HappyGeorge]

So the new tank is ordered 37x24x24 Godiva Supreme with twin standpipe and a 90l sump, the 5-6 week wait begins. Now the quest of kit research begins. So I have some big kit decisions to make, have the 6 x 39w ATI sunpower lighting, and planning on running a skimmer to start and then going to a miracle mud and algae refugium. First thing I'm trying to decide is what to run for circulation, looked at the Vortech stuff and it's very sexy but must be a perfectly adequate solution for a lot less money, seems that many people run 2 ordinary powerheads at opposite ends of the tank blasting towards each other to form currents and eddies around tank. What does everyone else do and what would you recommend for a 340l tank?

 

[ozzie2011]

Vortech or the Tunze with controller is the way to go. I personally would go with the Tunze

 

[ben1987]

Vortech gets my vote

 

[HappyGeorge]

Ok thanks guys, going to play devils advocate now as I am the adult version of the "but why" 3 year old. The questions I ask in order to learn, I promise I'm not trying to be a smart a**e.

I understand these are controllable and programmable but I wouldn't know what to do with them except to turn them on and leave them so wouldn't that be making a controller worthless. I do appreciate what they can do in terms of changing direction as per tidal movement and imitating slack water etc, but the stuff we have in our tanks comes from dozens of different bio-types, so what are we trying to mimic? Mediterranean with its lowly 2 feet of circular tidal movement or the strong surge current of Bali, or even recreating something for a tank bred specimen that has never seen such conditions.

Also I know that I have been running a Newave 6500 on my cichlid tank and it is silent, has a lower power consumption than the equivalent Koralia or Tunze and is just a touch over half the price, so if I did go for a Tunze or Vortech which model/output and how many, and why not 2 Newave 6500 for £110 shifting 13000 lph between them and aimed at each other, with a programmable socket controlled wavemaker?

I ask these questions as many years ago I had a mate who bought a Ducati which was prettier (in some peoples eyes) and more expensive than all of our Japanese sports bikes. He found out that his extra £3500 had bought him a bike which accelerated slower, had a lower top speed, didn't handle as well, didn't stop as well and wasn't very comfortable although on the few occasions he made it to our destination without breaking down it did sound nice!

 

[ben1987]

I find the vortechs good because...


they have loads of different modes and can connect to each other and work with or against each other. They are easy to operate aswel.

The motor actually sits outside your tank and stops any heat escaping into your tank from the pump itself.

The major downsides imo being

Price...Mine were £300 each
Noise...running at 100% they arent quiet!

 

[kj23502]

I vote for vortech!!! Love mine


In fact, I may get another one for my 75g. If not, I'll use one of my Seio's. Seio's are great pumps too! A bit bulkier than vortech's, though.

 

[ozzie2011]

This is the advantage of Tunze over Vortech, the newer models are a substantially quieter in my opinion. At the end of the day you have spent good money on the glass, dont skimp on the important stuff. For me flow is one of the most important factors with marines. Just my pennies worth

 

[kj23502]

And remember to keep a powerhead or two on hand. Even just a used maxijet or something. You never know when something might go awry and seize up or whatever. You may need that back up pump to circulate your water while you sort out your main. Can happen at any given time. I currently have 7 pumps that I can think of. Only two will be in the tank and a third (koralia 2) in my Brute garbage can mixing my saltwater. The other 4 are purely backup.

 

[HappyGeorge]

Thankyou all

Well it definately won't be the Vortechs, nice looking if the tank ends are hidden but one end of mine is on full view and I am used to my silent powerheads so noise won't be tolerated, and they are and always will be with the motor on the outside without the damping from the water. I have looked at the heat thing and by my calculations I reckon the risk of powerheads heating the water to any degree is a great marketing ploy but doesn't stand up to scrutiny. Even if the pump was converting it's full 10 Watt usage into heat from the motor its effect would still be more than counteracted in the heat loss from sump etc, given that most people have at least 2 watts per gallon of lighting and a thermostat that turns off any direct heating and given that there will still be a small amount of transfered heat through the glass if the motor is outside, I just can't see that a tiny motor is an issue.

The Tunze units look good but I'm still yet to be swayed by anything they do that a cheap one can't as the figures for the cheap ones on output and power consumption are better and the Newave has a 3 yr warranty against the Tunze 2 year. I have taken my Newave 1 and a Koralia Nano to pieces and there isn't anything to choose between them, and at the end of the day they are a very very simple piece of kit. So can anyone tell me what I'm paying for?

I accept the controllers are great but the only issue I can see is the actual pattern of wave movement and the choices, so how many cycles are people running? I may have to get a demo of one from someone and then see if the patterns could be replicated. As I'm pretty sure they are just using cyclic timers to control the pump function and they are cheap as chips at about £25 a piece. I can see a homemade wavemaker coming on I think, time to research.

 

[ozzie2011]

You wont do this with Koralia

I have Koralia 4 (3000lph) and not a patch on the current these create

Your choice though

http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9L2FaZwfwo

 

[HappyGeorge]

Wow pretty impressive mate , if just a little overkill parts of the world don't see that much tidal action in a year and of course you wouldn't want your powerheads way down there and the unbroken sufrace I would think doesn't help gas exchange but I take the point.

The Koralia control box is a bit of rip off in my very humble opinion and the ones I have seen I don;t think have the right time delays for that wave motion, just some simple switching circuitry, as for whether I could recreate that I'm thinking I might start working on that and I reckon if my brief look is correct I can do it for about £100 including powerheads it would be a completely different circuit board to create that effect from a useful timing sequence but for a £15 outlay its worth a crack and I can't resist a challenge.
Just need to read up a bit more on cyclic timers as I haven't used them except for lighting systems and CCTV controls, and never tried to sync them to seconds accuracy.

So the question is now what are you guys using a guide for turnover from Powerheads, I had read 3 x tank volume turnover per hour in a couple of places? Doesn't sound like much to me.

 

[ozzie2011]

I have about 40 + times turn over. But mine is overkill. I always say you cant have enough flow. I think the recommended is about 25

6000lph in PH's, 1300 ext fluval with rubble, 400 in reactors, 800 for refugium

I think with that sump your buying wou will be looking at a return of about 6000 lph by itself

If your thinking of using stock powerheads with a handmade wavemaker then take care, pulsing stock will result in burning them out relatively quickly from what I have read.

 

[HappyGeorge]

I agree more is better...........well up until you start an 80 litre with a 800lph return pump, and you add your live rock and sand and use your 6500 lph cichlid tank powerhead just until your baby one arrives.........can't say I recommend 90x turnover in a nano tank for anything other than seperating all the big bits of sand from the little bits and making piles 8 inches high at the corners.

The pump recommended by the manufacturer is an Eheim 3000, I had expressed a concern over noise from the weir given that the tanks in my living room, they say that the biggest problem with their tanks are complaints of noisy weirs where people are trying to force too much water round the system, strange that Seabray dealer said same thing.

Just been reading up on the start/stop problem and you can stick a soft start in the circuit, although that demo definitely doesn't involve a soft start up.

 

[kj23502]

I think the general consensus for reef tanks is 20x-40x tank turnover per hour. Usually sps tanks are the higher flow.