current flow

There is no magic formula.

What are you keeping for corals?
How open is it?
BB or Sand?

 

Wow,

600 gallon reef, that is huge.

Do you have that flow coming from several sources? If you add some frozen food does it seem to get thrown around everywhere?

 

That is huge...but your flow is huge too...20x your volume. That should be sufficient for anything...in fact, too much for some things. Maybe it has more to do with all of the flow being concentrated in one area vs being more distributed. Do you see dead spots where food and detritus settles? Is that near the corals that you're loosing? What kind of bulbs? Are these corals long established or new additions? What do the water parameters look like? Is it possible that nearby corals (like LPS or softies) are stinging your SPS and killing it?

--AJ

 

For me I use a basic rule of 10X the water volume to get a starting point. This is just my refrence for where to start and then I can tweek it from there. Shaun

 

Posted By AJ on 05/18/2010 01:23 PM
That is huge...but your flow is huge too...20x your volume. That should be sufficient for anything...in fact, too much for some things. Maybe it has more to do with all of the flow being concentrated in one area vs being more distributed. Do you see dead spots where food and detritus settles? Is that near the corals that you're loosing? What kind of bulbs? Are these corals long established or new additions? What do the water parameters look like? Is it possible that nearby corals (like LPS or softies) are stinging your SPS and killing it?
--AJ
It all depends on the tank setup and what requirements the inhabitants have... 20x is far from huge though, I'm at 85x in mine during peak flow

 

with it being 36" deep i would say the T5's are not enough light. how many T5's are there? and where is the coral placement in the tank, high up, mid level?? to me you would need a ton of T5's to sufficiently keep pretty much all sps in that size of a tank. most people use 8 t5's on a 120g. one guy on here recently put in 10 t5's on his 150g cube...that to me would be the culprit...just my opinion though

 

Yeah, but 20x should be sufficient flow to keep anything, right?  I'm surprised at 85x that you're not stripping the flesh from the skeleton!  /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/wink.gif  I've always been told that it depends on how focused the flow is.  If you have a really focused and constant flow like from a Koralia, that can be very bad to have that much flow...but if you have a broader flow like from a Vortech, or random flow like other controllable pumps, you can do stronger flow in short bursts.  I'm not sure what I do at peak flow since my Vortechs are running in anti-synch mode..probably around 30x
--AJ

 

Posted By AJ on 05/18/2010 08:57 PM

Posted By rc1214b on 05/18/2010 02:18 PM

Posted By AJ on 05/18/2010 01:23 PM
That is huge...but your flow is huge too...20x your volume. That should be sufficient for anything...in fact, too much for some things. Maybe it has more to do with all of the flow being concentrated in one area vs being more distributed. Do you see dead spots where food and detritus settles? Is that near the corals that you're loosing? What kind of bulbs? Are these corals long established or new additions? What do the water parameters look like? Is it possible that nearby corals (like LPS or softies) are stinging your SPS and killing it?
--AJ
It all depends on the tank setup and what requirements the inhabitants have... 20x is far from huge though, I'm at 85x in mine during peak flow
Yeah, but 20x should be sufficient flow to keep anything, right?  I'm surprised at 85x that you're not stripping the flesh from the skeleton!  /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/wink.gif  I've always been told that it depends on how focused the flow is.  If you have a really focused and constant flow like from a Koralia, that can be very bad to have that much flow...but if you have a broader flow like from a Vortech, or random flow like other controllable pumps, you can do stronger flow in short bursts.  I'm not sure what I do at peak flow since my Vortechs are running in anti-synch mode..probably around 30x
--AJ
Like I said it all depends on tank setup and coral requirements.  I was only stating that 20x on any tank is not a huge amount of flow. Also keeping alive and thriving are not the same
For example...20x on a 100g tank could be just fine if setup properly but if the person is running 1000 gph through a return pointed across the water surface and a 1000gph from a single source aimed poorly certain tank inhabitants may suffer.
 
I could go on but in the end it's just a number with a lot of variables and each reefkeeper has to see how their tank is responding to things.  Some advice would be plan ahead of time for coral location, growth, and pump placement as once things get full it's hard to add another few thousand gph. 
 
I've got some stags that have hit the high velocity and lost tissue but they just adapt and grow around it. 
To the original poster... it's hard to say without seeing to say what's wrong, could be flow but could be many other things.. Redbugs alone do not cause death but can cause a coral that's already stressed to die.  There are some out there with fantastic color, growth and redbugs.    AEFW will most certainly cause damage.  I would identify the pests if you think you have them,
 

 

There are some good pics here   http://www.melevsreef.com/redbugs.html   so that you can get an idea of what size they are.

--AJ

 

redbugs might be hard to see at first but once you've seen them they stand out quite easily. You will see them most on smoother tissue acros like torts, slimers, etc. At night after lights are out take a flashlight to the coral, you should see the red.

The above link doesn't seem to be working... here it is, check out AEFW also

http://www.melevsreef.com/redbugs.html
http://www.melevsreef.com/aefw.html

 

Read the articles...it's all in there.
--AJ