water movement tunze and mocean

[Delphinus]

I am running two Tunzes mounted onto Wavysea's. To be honest I am thinking of taking them off the tank. The flow they produce is awesome, so it's a disappointing choice, but here are the drawbacks that have made it necessary in my case:

1) The Tunzes are the old style and they are enormous. There is a perfect storm of the size of the Tunze, the size of the Eurobracing that puts the Tunze hanging in the tank a solid 6-8" away from the tank wall (size of the Eurobracing plus the additional gap because of the way the Wavysea extends past the edge of the glass), and the length of the pipe the mounting bracket attaches to. The end result is that the pump sits VERY prominently in the tank and it's a huge visual disturbance. It literally draws the eyes away from the tank aquascaping.

2) The Tunzes are 6080 and they push out 2000gph or thereabouts. This is too much flow for the width of the tank, the flow hits the glass and explodes out in all directions and pushes the sand away from the glass in this 4" wide "ditch" that creates a small dike as well. I tried to compensate by mounting another Wavysea combo on the front pane aiming back but instead of preventing the trench at the front, all that's done is create a second trench in the back. A barebottom tank won't have this problem of course.

3) The wire to the Tunze has to be subjected to wiggling because of the back and forth motion of the Wavysea. Just like anything if you bend something back and forth enough eventually it will wear out and break. I noticed a crack in the outer insulation of one of the Tunze's wires.

4) I also tried a controllable Tunze on the Wavysea. The flow was very random and chaotic and while that might sound like a good thing, it really wasn't. Flow on the real reef may be strong and alternating but it tends to be in a somewhat predictable fashion. Fish know what to expect. In this case the sweeping motion that was alternating between strong and slack was really quite unnatural looking.


I would only recommend trying this if:

a) You can mount the Wavysea in such a way that the Tunze is flush up against a tank wall. If you have Eurobracing, consider drilling a hole in the bracing for the pipe (assuming that this can be done without compromising the structural integrity of the tank - I don't know how safe this idea would be)

b) You don't have a full 180 degree sweep - restrict the motion to maybe 90 degrees or so. So instead of in the back centre of the tank, maybe along a side blowing down the long dimension of the tank.