Closed Loop

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charlie said:
Wow, that is good news. Have you ever run the thing at 100%? What setting did you have it on?
I have heard that they will suck air if placed to high, you ever find that?

Sorry James, I didn't mean to rip your thread, if you want us to move on we can.
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Yeah BLAME Charlie for hijacking your thread James LOL. Any how Charlie I have mines about 3-4'' from the water surface the only time it sucks air is when my WS rotates and the tunze flow clash with the vortechs flow and that some times make it suck air. Besides that 3-4'' below seems to be working great. I have them all running full speed on different modes. I have 2 on reef crest and one on lagoon and I would switch them around every so often.
 
tdgates10 said:
I think I saw this posted on here somewhere, but couldn't find it so here is the direct link. This is a 1200g setup with just Vortechs synced into make a Gyre effect. Pretty cool and looks like a ton of flow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz15R0gVMPA&feature=player_embedded If not what your looking for, still pretty neat video.
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I just watched that video James. IMO it is lacking flow big time. The water looks almost calm and still and there is hardly any movement with his corals. I guess I like ALOT of flow in my tanks.
 
nsamouroux said:
Saltyfish, I'm curious after seeing your troubles with the k7 pumps since I'm in a very similar boat with my new system... I at first had similar problems with my four k8 pumps not staying where I aligned them (they would slowly point downwards, as you described) until I took them out to see what I could do about it. I realized that the little post wasn't all the way inserted into the pump housing which changed the center of gravity and made it not stay in place. You have to REALLY push the suction cup base into the pump, almost to the point where the pump is sitting less than 1/4" from the swivel ball / suction cup base. Once I realized that, I haven't had these pumps move at all from where I point them.

I was aiming for 50+ times turnover in the display when designing mine, but if you're having so many problems with your sand then I might be in for some annoyances other than silt clouds once I transfer everything. I decided not to do a closed loop because I wanted the tank to be completely silent with all equipment running downstairs, and wanted the energy savings plus very high flow of four Koralia 8 pumps to be able to accomodate whatever SPS I wanted if I steer away from a mixed reef. Since there's so many similarities between our two systems I'm going to keep an eye on this and use your experiences with your setup as a lab rat / sounding board for mine since I'm a month or so behind you in progress :)
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I have my brackets all the way in and they still fall. I cannot superglue them because it will not hold under the water. It gets close but breaks off after a week from the vibration of the pumps. I have tried moving them all to one side and I get issues with not enough flow on the other end. I have tried bouncing them off rocks and the sides. This causes the sand to move more. I have set them as low as possible and pointed them up and this works the best but then I get dead spots.

I was thinking of going to 3 K6's and 2 K3's the K3's would point directly down on my rocks and the K6 would replace the K7's once again it only money but For the money it would cost to change that out I was thinking of just putting in a closed loop since I have the pump and OM's 8way.
 
roscoe said:
I just watched that video James. IMO it is lacking flow big time. The water looks almost calm and still and there is hardly any movement with his corals. I guess I like ALOT of flow in my tanks.
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I agree, that tank does not have enough flow, if you look at his sand he had pockets of fish poop. I dont have them this bad. I am turning over at 30 to 31 times per hour and I don't feel it is, no I feel it is enough just not in the right places.
 
Weird, it might be a difference in construction between the k7 pump and the k8, because my four k8s have no problems with staying aimed anymore after I realized I hadn't fully attached the base to the pump housing. My tank is a bit wider than yours, but probably shorter, so I'll try aiming the two pumps on the outside corners towards the surface and leaving out the middle two as you suggested a while back and see what happens.
 
Saltyfish said:
I have my brackets all the way in and they still fall. I cannot superglue them because it will not hold under the water. It gets close but breaks off after a week from the vibration of the pumps. I have tried moving them all to one side and I get issues with not enough flow on the other end. I have tried bouncing them off rocks and the sides. This causes the sand to move more. I have set them as low as possible and pointed them up and this works the best but then I get dead spots.

I was thinking of going to 3 K6's and 2 K3's the K3's would point directly down on my rocks and the K6 would replace the K7's once again it only money but For the money it would cost to change that out I was thinking of just putting in a closed loop since I have the pump and OM's 8way.
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Should've went with vortecs! I love them!!
Saltyfish said:
I agree, that tank does not have enough flow, if you look at his sand he had pockets of fish poop. I dont have them this bad. I am turning over at 30 to 31 times per hour and I don't feel it is, no I feel it is enough just not in the right places.
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31 thats it? Danm son I'm at about 75. My sand stays where I want them except for the left front side where the flow from the vortec and Tunze clash and that pushes the sand back from the front of my tank but I don't mind it too much.
 
So it's only started drooping in the last couple months? Have you tried the blue pill?

:) Sorry, couldn't resist!
 
I saw the thread for that tank over on Reef Central, that was one of the aquariums that inspired me to set up my new large tank. I loved that video, the music was perfect for it :) Hard to tell since there's no real close-up shots of polyps and whatnot to determine if the far side of the tank has much water movement, but I looked pretty closely when he zoomed in on the rockwork and didn't see any of the usual signs of dead spots under / behind rocks like detritus piles, algae, cyano, etc. The fish look like they're cruising on the currents even at the far side of the tank. I know my Koralia 8s can reach from one end of an 8' tank and still have enough force in the waterflow to bounce back quite a ways after hitting the far panel, so I'd imagine all those vortecs are doing a pretty good job, especially if set up in some sort of sequence that switches from side to side or something.
 
All I can say is WOW what an education.

I need to thank Paul from Oceans Motions. I talked to him for about an hour this morning and I learned more about flow and skimmers in that hour then a year of asking everyone.

When Paul talked about flow, so of it was over my head but then he broke it down which made it all make sense.

As far as the Hydor's KORALIA MAGNUM 7's I have. Looks like I will be replacing them with a closed loop. Now that they have been explained to me it does not make sense to have three of them in there. One pushing across the top of the water towards the overflow is enough. Might even use two but remember my tank is 8 feet long TO the over flow. I do not have a coast to coast over flow along the back that is only a few feet. I have to push it 8 feet. I might even just use a sea swirl with the return.

I think the biggest mistake I made and what most everyone makes with the KORALIA MAGNUM series is the ratings. And it was finally pointed out to me today.

The KORALIA's are rated by FLOW which means passing through the flow pump. So if the rating is say 2700 that is 1350 in and 1350 out for total flow.

Now take that K7 at 2700 and put it against a Dart pump. Pumps are rated GPH output not pass through.

So much learning on this call and great ideas on a closed loop without drilling. I think I will drill some just not all. Really depends on the space I have once I get started.

Thank you Paul from OceansMotions.com HUGE HELP!
 
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