refugium flow

[MAreefer]

I had read something you wrote awhile back and had a few questions about it,

"In the case of 'fuge water flow... it has been grossly underestimated to date. I'd say 10X turnover bare minimum in general... but more like 20X is better/best. You will find that Chaetomorpha and Graciliaria, etc grow much faster and with better vigor in such flow."

I understand that Chaeto grows best in high flow situations but does that mean that the turnover rate has to be high? I am using Tunze Streams in the display so there is no need of strong flow coming back from the returns from my sump/fuge ... why waste the electricity on a large return pump when I could create flow from 2 surge devices provided by my Dual ATScrubbers? This would indeed create a good amount of flow within the refugium itself but the turn over rate of the sump/fuge would be less then 10x. Do you see any problems with this?

 

[Krish]

I'm not Anthony Calfo but I just wanted to welcome you to the forum! Hope you enjoy it here!

 

[Anthony Calfo]

yup... welcome to RF

As for flow, yes... I certainly do agree with harnessing more efficient means of creating flow (exploiting gravity and in-line paths).

But less than 10X flow will fail IMO. ALmost certainly. When you see these macros on the reef, they are getting pummeled in many cases (Gracilaria is line or basket grown at the surface of the water!)

And all the baggage that comes with low flow (lower O2 levels, poor off-gassing, sinking of solids, increasing DOs, etc) is going to catch up with you sooner rather than later.

And some modern pumps are so effieicnt that if you had to run them, its a small expense. Cheap to buy and cheap to operate. Look at the Aquarium Systems Maxi-jets for example. Dirt cheap to run per month.

Keep that Chaeto or Gracilaria ball tumbling