Powerhead help for a 75G acrylic

[saltwater-girl]

Hello All:

This is my 1st question I'm posting to the forum. I did a few searches but still think I need one on one ...

hwell:

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For background I have a FOWLR tank. Tank came with very small amount of live rock. We have added maybe 30-40lbs since our acquiring it (not knowing what we were doing I believe the rock was uncured as we have had die-off but it seems to be doing ok other than we are curing it in our tank). We have 2 clowns, 1 firefish, and 3 chromis, 40 hermit crabs, 24 snails, and 1 urchin. Liverock is placed more to the back of the tank, higher in the middle and sloping down on both sides right now.

Tank returns from built-in (rear) trickles and sump are on right side of tank and intakes to rear of tank are located on the left side. This is a Seaclear acrylic with built-in bio and sump in rear.

My questions go to where to place powerheads in tanks and how much flow is necessary. We currently have the following 3 powerheads in our tank, two came with the tank and one we purchased:

1) unidentified powerhead that looks similar to the Marineland types with a intake on the bottom and a outflow on the front which shoots either straight out or can be flipped to shoot to the side, flowrate on this one is unknown
2) Hydor Koralia Evolution 550 gph
3) Hydor Koralia Evolution 1400 gph

Current placement is Marineland type is located towards lower left of tank shooting straight across close to front of tank, Koralia 550 is in upper right shooting at slight angle maybe 15 degrees down and onto back of tank (it agitates the surface as well) and the Koralia 1400 is on the right side of the tank shooting down at about a 30 degree angle directly towards the middle of the tank onto the live rock.

So questions are:

A) what is the best way to position your powerheads?

B) do you want your powerheads to blow directly on your live rock?

C) do you want to have your powerheads cycle on and off during the day (the wavemakers) and what are the advantages to this? I am kinda doing this manually now as I am unplugging the big powerhead a couple of times a day and letting things just rest for a bit as it seems to really have some powerful flow to it

D) do we need more powerheads...possibly one on the left side pointing towards the center of the tank

Your help and replies are much appreciated. Thank you

:high5:





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[pandora32]

1st, welcome. You will get ALL kinds of help here. As far as your pumps go, you didnt say if your going to keep corals or not. Corals dont like direct flow on them. You dont want "stuff" to settle. You want to keep it up in the water column so your sump can collect it and process the waste.Maybe krish wil chime in. I think he told me once he had a 100xcall turnover in his tank. I have a 215g mixed reef and i have 2 ecotec mp40, opposite ends facing eachother and a 1100 gph return pump with 2 of the returns blowing down behind my liverock to keep it clean back there. The other 2 returns are pointed straight at the front of the tank. Thats a total of about 9000 gph and that still isnt enough to keep it all clean.Your ultimate goal is to keep it all up so it can go to the sump and your biological, as well as your other filtering, can take care of it.Good luck! Have fun!Jason

 

[NC2WA]

Welcome to RF!!

you want a circular motion that moves the detrius (or "stuff" Jason calls it) up the water column to your skimmer...you don't want the powerheads to directly hit the live rock esp if corals are on them..might have one powerhead in the middle of tank then the other two at the top of the tank to generate good circulation on the top...you might want to play with this configuration til you get it the way you want it..

 

[Skimmy]

mkay, this is a FOWLR tank soooo....
imo, if anything it might be more benificial to have water hitting the rocks, not at all bad, but nothing you need to strive to do...
and if you have minimal live rock then you should bump it up to at least 1 lb per gallon if not a tad more...
in a fowlr tank, your relying more heavily on bacteria on the live rocks to eat the extra foods and waste from fish, and since the focus is fish in this aquarium,
and there are six fish, and over 60 critters fir clean up(too much imo, they will eat wot there is, then start to die, releasing even more nutrients producing even more algae that wot you bought them for in the first place, try 1 clean up critter for every 3-4 gallons, instead of so close to almost a critter a gal)
that amount of bioload in a 75 i would consider high bioload. so you want to make sure that the bacteria colonies on/in live rock are efficently breaking down nutrients, uneaten foods and fish wastes, you do this by providing that live rock extra flow, to allow the transportation of nutrients to and away from those bac colonies.

you should be thinking on the lines of bare minimum of 30x more like 50x total display tank volume per hour for flow as a starting point.
so... 75 x 30 =2250gph 75 x 50 = 3750gph and your somewhere at about 1950+gph??? depending upon the flow of your unknown powerhead.

now, as for placement, a gyre would be best, heres wot one looks like in a big aquarium, but i think you'll get the idea
Vortech pumps push a large gyre in a 1200 stony coral reef - YouTube

 

[Krish]

On the powerheads, when I had my 75gal, I had a Tunze stream on either end of the tank pointing at the front center of the tank where the flow collided. Made great random flow in the tank and didn't really have any deadspots. Here's a pic of the tank. It was a FOWLR. One powerhead was rated at 1600 gph and the other 1850 gph and then I had about a 700 gph return.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[saltwater-girl]

Thank you for your replies and input...I am in the digest mode as we speak.

you didnt say if your going to keep corals or not.

We would like to add corals once we understand the saltwater environment a little better as well as the impact our choices make on that environment.

NC2WA...I just changed the directional flow on the powerheads on the right side of the tank to 1) blow more to the back of the tank behind the live rock and up the tank wall bringing good surface agitation and 2) the larger Koralia to blow more to the center front of the tank.

Skimmy...Based on input I think I will purchase another large powerhead (1400 or larger) and place it to the right side of the tank with directional flow at the center front also. This should bring my flow rate up enough for now for the FOWLR tank and when I start to add corals I can look at adding additional powerhead flow. As for the cleanup critters...what can I say...I'm a neatnik and a newbie...still learning...at least they are small guys

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Krish..I do not know what our return gallons per hour is...I will have to do some research on the tank (System II) for that info.

One thing of note is that even with the small changes I made today I see a lot better flow in the tank and a general pushing of material through to the intake returns.

Again...thanks for the replies everyone.

 

[NC2WA]

good to hear...that is what you want as this will help from algae being an issue in your tank..remember, algae needs two things to grow: nutrients and lights...take away the nutrients by exporting them out of your tank is one way to minimize algae growth.

 

[pandora32]

Algae sucks...sorry. Didnt means to burst out like that...lol. Anyways. Glad we could help. Good luck.

 

[saltwater-girl]

mkay, this is a FOWLR tank soooo....
there are six fish, and over 60 critters fir clean up(too much imo, they will eat wot there is, then start to die, releasing even more nutrients producing even more algae that wot you bought them for in the first place, try 1 clean up critter for every 3-4 gallons, instead of so close to almost a critter a gal

wondering if there is anything I can do to feed these critters when their "real" diet runs out...everyone is still working and cleaning right now but if I've overstocked I would maybe need to supplement food in some way...any suggestions?? I've seen some people mention pellets that they are feeding to their crabs and such...are those just a regular food that is a sinking pellet?

 

[Derbird]

wondering if there is anything I can do to feed these critters when their "real" diet runs out...everyone is still working and cleaning right now but if I've overstocked I would maybe need to supplement food in some way...any suggestions?? I've seen some people mention pellets that they are feeding to their crabs and such...are those just a regular food that is a sinking pellet?

Yep just sinking pellets. When I give the tank some pellets I see little crabs and snails popping up everywere to get the choice pieces. Really fun to watch actually.

Also if you have too many some local reefers would most likely take some off your hands

 

[pandora32]

I know i would for sure! My cleanup crew is WAY to small!! So how is the tank doin?

 

[saltwater-girl]

I know i would for sure! My cleanup crew is WAY to small!! So how is the tank doin?

So far so good...I do think I've lost some crabs as I saw a crab body floating by just yesterday but think that was my clownfish being overly aggressive in their removal techniques...LOL...they cannot stand when the crabs get down in their "nest" and actually become quite violent in putting these little crabs in their place so to speak

I read the protein skimmer article/thread...some was a little technical and specific to certain types of skimmers..but I learned a lot.... I now have our skimmer running pretty nice I think..producing dark matter instead of light liquid...so think I'm on the right track

Ordered in a new book based on a recommendation from this forum...The Conscientious Marine Aquarist...it arrived today so lots of reading to do

Ordered my husband a calcium test kit...he did that tonight and found our calcium to be at 360ppm (I think that was it)...which is OK for a FOWLR but my comment was if he is looking at corals he might want to start moving the water parameters towards those levels

Left my husband to clean the front of the tank .. gave him the magnet cleaner and went to fix dinner... he came in all flustered... apparently he was not being very careful and picked up a piece of something something under the magnet and put some decent scratches in our nice clean acrylic tank (arrrrrrrhhhhhh)...oh well...I'm sure they won't be the last

I've ordered a couple of new powerheads and I'm running lights based on input received.

The hardest thing has been trying to figure out how to feed my urchin...he's lost some spines (I think he's a tuxedo urchin or that family anyway)...but have found that he loves algea/seaweed sheets...I'm just not sure how often to feed them...I think I'll try to find the appropriate thread and post up the question

So...we are moving along...each day is a journey and learning experience...and I often find myself just sitting in front of this tank and watching all the activity...

OH and the best thing (but I thought it was the worst) was when I moved some live rock and resituated it...I thought I had squished our fire shrimp as I found a shrimp body that was broken in half...a sulked around for a day and then the next day when I was feeding...out came the shrimp...apparently he had shed....wonders never cease

 

[pandora32]

I did the same thing with my first fire shrimp...lol. I have 3 now. As well a a couple cleaners. As for the urchin. If you have algae in your tank, hell eat that. I dont know exactly how often your supposed to feed them.

 

[saltwater-girl]

My grandkids favorite thing in the tank is the fire shrimp...they all race to the tank and then kinda play a game with themselves...watching for his antennae/feelers .. to see where he is hiding...and then they shout to me...there he is .. there he is... total awe and wonder and fun

and I posted a question in the invertebrates section for the urchin questions that I had

Loving this forum and all the info and help I've received already...you guys rock

:dance: :dance: :dance:​

 

[NC2WA]

put some decent scratches in our nice clean acrylic tank

this is the only downside to acrylic. I have an acrylic tank and have several scratches, but they can easily be buffed out.

 

[saltwater-girl]

this is the only downside to acrylic. I have an acrylic tank and have several scratches, but they can easily be buffed out.

What product do you recommend for buffing those nasty scratches out? There are a couple that I see so I'm not sure what to get for my husband

 

[saltwater-girl]

Oh and my youngest granddaughter (3 years old) noticed those scratches right away on the tank asking me what those lines were grandma? I told her here grandpa was trying to play tic-tac-toe with the fishes last night

:rofl:​

 

[NC2WA]

saltwater girl,

Novus products:

Novus Polish Scratch Remover

need to know the thickness of your tank and then get the correct product.

 

[N1Husker]

I just drop shrimp pellets in and what my fish don't grab, the crabs will scamper over and tuck the pellet up under them and munch away.

 

[saltwater-girl]

thanks all