Water Movement

chen88

chen88

Super Moderator
Looking at putting in some pumps inside my new tank for water movement to get rid of the junk in the bottom. Noticed as I'm cycling that the bottom isn't really moving too much. In my current tank, I have 2 Hydor Koralia 4's which works great....was looking at potentially getting a couple of Hydor 8's which moves approx. 3200gph....but they are rather expensive at more then $250 each!

What do you guys use for water movement?
 
well...let's keep this within this board...I was thinking I might love you but as I went through the specs...it's only good for thickness of 3/4" or less. My acrylic is 1"!...sigh.

the koralia's got both suction cup and magnets but unlike the vortech the wires are inside the tank...trying to keep as many wires out of the tank then in!...
 
chen88 said:
well...let's keep this within this board...I was thinking I might love you but as I went through the specs...it's only good for thickness of 3/4" or less. My acrylic is 1"!...sigh.

the koralia's got both suction cup and magnets but unlike the vortech the wires are inside the tank...trying to keep as many wires out of the tank then in!...
Click to expand...

That sucks...I wonder if there is a mod. Vortech create real "wave" water movement rather than just pushing water.
 
its true, the vortec MP40 are great pumps, but your best bet would be propeller pumps, look at other manufacturers such as Tunze maybe that helps. i have used their products and they are pretty good. but chen why dont you make a closed loop on a smaller return pump for only circulation. i have done so on a mag drive pump for a saltwater tank maybe that could help if you cant find any mounts for 1" thick. hope that helps.
 
Chen. contact tendecor and ask them if they have close loop for your tank. I have it on my tank, Close loop makes WC so much easier.
 
I like the Seio power heads move a ton of water and i have been runing 2 2600's on my aro tank for almost 3 years with out a problem. They have suction cups that have lasted that long and you can use them with the water directing nozzel or like i do with out. You can also get a wave maker for them for anyone looking.
 
I have 2 Vortech pumps on my 200g sw tank and they do work well. I did have to replace one of the power supplies after 3 years of use but otherwise works great (it should for the price). I like that they keep the heat out of the water for sw.

My other sw tank (130g) uses 2 Koralia 4's and they also work well and are much cheaper. They do add extra heat in the tank and don't move quite as much water.

My larger fw tanks (320g, 270g, 165g) use closed loop pumps connected to Ultima filters and/or a sump.

The smaller fw tank (130g) with baby rays uses 3 maxijet ph on top of 2 Hydrosponge V's (total of 6 hydrosponges). These really clean up the bottom and have a large surface area for bacteria.
 
Do you have pics of your close loop system? I'm trying to avoid putting in anymore devices inside of the tank where and when possible. also no more holes in the tank to connect to and not willing to drill any in the tank...hrm....
 
closed loop would have been good but you're pretty much all set up so I would just add powerheads now.

go with the vortechs ;)
 
I was rethinking this last night!....I'm going to put in my 2 kor 4's poweheads in there to begin with once I move them over since they are appx.1200gph....I'll add one or two more as we go forward.

My concerns was the fact I noticed small particles currently on the bottom of the new tank during cycling and how the heck is that going to get into the water flow....then i dawned on me!....I have BIG RAYS...rays swim on the bottom for the most part, Rays stir up the bottom of the tank causing current and the bottom crap light as they are gets swirled into the current up higher!...so that along of having rays will help!...we'll see if that's true :-)

Dee, I'd be staying from close loop now...like you said, i'm pretty much already set up...just waiting for the cycling to go through it's process...
 
I used to use the kor 4's on my 3/4" acrylic tank but the magnets aren't that strong and the rays were forever knocking them off. My vote would also be a closed loop system.
 
Yeah...mags on my 1/2 glass not strong either but I'll try them out and see...if it doesn't work I'll figure something else out
 
homebrewed said:
I agree, once the rays are in they will keep the sediment off the bottom
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I only realized that when I was watching them in their current tank and noticed them stirring things up....

Electrician just left and installed 2 20amps inside my cabinets....good to go..glad i had him put in 2 20amp as I tried plugging 2 pumps, uv, a few power bars full of lights and booom the circuit tripped...so split the 20amp and all is good!..full steam ahead
 
aaronc said:
its true, the vortec MP40 are great pumps, but your best bet would be propeller pumps, look at other manufacturers such as Tunze maybe that helps. i have used their products and they are pretty good. but chen why dont you make a closed loop on a smaller return pump for only circulation. i have done so on a mag drive pump for a saltwater tank maybe that could help if you cant find any mounts for 1" thick. hope that helps.
Click to expand...

What's "close loop"?
 
Vortech's won't work on tanks thicker than 3/4".
Also, they've been known to have issues with crazing acrylic tanks from the heat generated from the dryside (motor side).
I'm running 2 MP40W's on my reef tank currently, but will be switching out for closed loop during my next upgrade with 2 Iwaki MD40's running on 2 separate closed loops for redundancy with Oceans Motions 4 ways (8 closed loop outputs and 2 intakes). My tanks gonna resemble swiss cheese! :D

For the money, I would suggest you go with Korallia Magnum 8's. Heat isn't really an issue since it's FW, and you can get 2 for the price of 1 Vortech. The DC 12V controllable models are starting to surface, which gives you an option of throttling them down for night time and drop the price of the regular K8 Magnums. The magnets are a little bit on the weak side, but they have a suction cup which helps hold it in place a little better than the Vortech's would.
 
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