Water flow at night!

[toptank]

For those of you that are running a lot of water flow in your SPS tank, do you shut some of it down at night after lights out or just keep them going?

In my 180 I have a ampmaster3000 that is turning 1800 to 2100gph and a Gemini that does 960gph and 2 x 1200 MaxiJets. I have 2 more Gemini's but waiting for parts, waiting, waiting and waiting. That's another story.

 

[toptank]

I don't shut mine down but rotate the current. I was just wondering as I say a post on another BB and this person has a awsome SPS tank and he says in his site that he reduces his flow at night.

 

[wnfaknd]

I leave my 4000gph running 24/7.
I have seen livestock die due to lack of oxigenation from people that turn off the skimmer and pumps at night.

 

[newreefman1]

The ocean doesnt particularly slow down at night ....does in cycles as we know but why would you want to slow the flow at night?

just curious.

J

 

[2poor2reef]

I believe it is more natural not to have the exact same flow patterns all the time. Even with the majority of my flow coming from sea swirls I would like to run reduced flows part of the day but I can't. My system is small and I have only two pumps. One drives the closed loop and one the sump return. No way to shut either one off without drastically reducing flow which I don't want to do. But if I had a wavemaker or some other controller with more pumps I would consider reducing flow by 25 or 30 percent during certain periods of the day.

On the same line of thought, I would like to gain a better understanding of natural water movement along a reef. I believe that there are several forces interacting at once: tidal laminar flows that reverse twice per day, localized random edies from variations in local rock formations, and I understand that there is some kind of localized back and forth surge around the reef also. Not to mention wave action on crests. Would be nice to be able to reproduce these more accurately.

 

[kipreefer]

Think about many corals at night open up at night to capture food so why would you want to stop the process that does this (the current) at night. Just my 2 cents