leave all powerheads on 24/7?
 

so i was thinking of turning off my koralia 4 and 3 at night and just leave 2 koralias running at night? just for the fish to relax a bit? would this harm anything? i dont got any serious corals that require alot of flow just some softies

and i dont have the money to get a wavemaker

thx for the help!

As long as you don't have anything that has any major flow requirements it shouldn't be too bad. In fact I remember seeing several wavemakers and other control units having a quiet nighttime mode.

I personally have a similar set-up (aka the ghetto wavemaker) in my 20G using electronic programmable plugs from Wal-mart ($20! Have two plug sockets and they are more bomb-proof than anything else I have used) to control my two bigger K2's through out the day to mimic the directions of the tides (actually set to tide times... nerdy, I know...). So at my "simulated" ebb and slack tides, the only thing I have running for a short time is a koralia nano. Nothing seems overly unhappy with this, in fact some of my corals really started to flourish with this. If you have a lot of fish, I would be a little concerned with keeping the water turned over for good O2 concentrations though.

I'd suggest trying a night without the K3, see how things do. Then try a night without the K4 and see how it goes. Then finally give it a go with both of them off and pray. Oh, and don't forget to turn them back on again!

thx alot for the advice im going to try that i think my fish kinda want a rest for a bit cause i got a cowfish and its not the best swimmer and having 81.25 turnover rate he can get cranky with that :mrgreen:

The ocean doesn't get calmer at night.

The only time I turn my powerheads off is during target feeding. Fish will find calm places to sleep.

I agree with corpusse. Your fish usually sleep right in the rockwork anyway I wouldnt worry too much about.

It's also important to keep the dissolved oxygen levels up, especially at night when everything in your DT is respiring so the O2 levels drop much more - turning down the current can reduce the O2 in your tank and cause problems - same thing with turning off your skimmer at night. I wouldn't do it.

alright ill leave it all on just thought it was a concern for my cowfish but he just sleeps in the corner so i think its fine


thx guys!:mrgreen:

Just for the Record Fish don't sleep.

My Tunzes go into a slower night mode. Not sure if it helps any, but it doesn't hurt anything either.

It may be helpful in that I just dump a slurry of Reefroids etc in after lights out and the polyps seem to have an easier time feeding with the lower flow.

I put my two Tunze into sleep mode as well (50% of normal output). I have a couple of fish that hover to sleep and they seem to appreciate it (not as restless at night). I also have tiny shrimp (sexy and glass) that come out at night. No problems with anyone in this mode of operation so far.

the only problem i would see if you have them set up on a timer smaller fish may crawl into where the propeller is and when its time for start up get mangled. i would leave them on. unless you have the tunze or vortech which like previously stated just slows down at night

Since installing a second VorTech in my system I've started using the 'slower' night mode. Been quite a while now and no apparent problems with lack of O2 at night. I wouldn't do it with just one though, don't think it would have been sufficient.

Yes they do :)

Many wrasses for example secrete a mucus sac in which they sleep - helps avoid predation while they're out for the night. I've seen my sixline do it myself - wedged in the rock, unresponsive to stimuli such as a moving feeding stick and a shining beam of light.

yea my valentini puffer goes on a rock and sticks to it and sleeps its quite cool to watch