sps and flow

[MitchM]

"I have my Tunze on full power for 30 seconds" doesn't really identify the water movement.
A lot depends on the rockwork structure and the direction the power head is pointed vs the placement of the coral.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by MitchM

"I have my Tunze on full power for 30 seconds" doesn't really identify the water movement.
A lot depends on the rockwork structure and the direction the power head is pointed vs the placement of the coral.

Agreed. In my setup, the Tunzes are at opposing ends facing each other, simulating a wave. Moderate rock, flow is above rock, but wave hits most areas.

The comments are more for personal reference in the code

[Ram3500]

I have set my tunze wave box so it is producing a small gentle wave and will run that durning the night . This way at least the fish will get a break. The wave box doesn't blast the tank like the wp40s do so I think this is a better alternative and could be more natural maybe .

[Craigdillman]

I read a thread on RC about a week ago and it had a article quoted from one of the magazines " reef keeping" i think and it stated that waves and turbulence don't slow down at night so there was no advantage to slowing the pumps down at night, the fish and corals are used to the waves and in some cases its shown to improve sps corals especially cause the detrius continues to be blown off and they can feed better with the same flow as during the day

[MitchM]

Ocean currents may not slow down at night, other than tidal changes, but there are many more places for fish to find a quiet place to rest in the ocean than there are in our tanks.
Higher flow is better for corals no doubt. If you read that PDF I posted, you'll understand why.
What is best for corals and what is best for fish are different conditions.
That's one of the limitations of our small tanks.

[asylumdown]

It also depends on the fish. My long horn cow fish doesn't really hide at night, not that he could fit in to any tight spaces anyway. He's about as graceful as as cube van.

At night he just sort of goes in to this weird non-reactive stupor, even though his eyes are still moving around. You could drop his favourite food literally right between his eyes and he wouldn't react to it. He sits right in the middle of the tank just above a colony of SPS for the whole night. He's not the best of swimmers when he's alert, and he really seems to visibly struggle in strong current at night.

I reprogrammed my apex a while back and forgot to add back the night mode, which meant that "tidal swell" mode, which ramps up to all pumps at 100% every couple of hours was running all night. On the third morning of that I woke up to find the cowfish inside one of my overflow boxes. He didn't actually fit so large parts of him were out of the water and he was as close to death as I think I've seen a fish that managed to live. He lost most of his tail and his dorsal fin from that. Since adding back a night mode where everything runs at a seriously reduced power, there hasn't been another incident.

My anthias on the other hand all disappear in to the rocks and wedge themselves in to tight spaces together every night, and my trigger fish has dug a cave so deep you can't see any part of him when he's inside it, so I think I could simulate a hurricane every night and they wouldn't even notice.