Are you going to arrange your rock work in a specific way to encourage a reversible gyre to form?

The other benefit that I *think* (I've never set one up before) they have is that powerheads like vortech's, tunze's, jaebo's etc. draw water in from all around the sides, then push it forward. On my tank, where my vortech's are sandwiched between an overflow and the glass this causes a wicked undercurrent where the water on the sand bed moves very rapidly in the opposite direction that the vortech's push. If you're trying to create a horizontal gyre where all the water moves either clockwise or counter-clockwise, you'll always be fighting the fact that water a few inches below and above the direction your powerhead pushes is going to be pulled in the opposite direction that you want the water in your tank to be moving.

With a closed loop, you'll still get some of back current as the water leaves the nozzle, but since the water being ejected from the nozzle is being siphoned from somewhere else, I think it would be way less severe of an effect.

Plus, you can hide the closed loop piping in rock work and it doesn't require you to have ugly powerhead glass acne that spends most of it's life in desperate need of cleaning.

Got it; thanks. Learn something new every day...

Interesting, now scratching my head on the reversible gyre idea. Currently both the front and back inlets create the same circular motion at opposite times and not reversed. My theory with the positioning of them is that they would lift the detritus 'up' into the water column and then the sump return would blast along the top to help push over the weir. As much as we can direct the flow in our glass boxes when we add rock work it messes with the mojo. I have a plan to position my rock work to aid in flow and get detritus out as much as possible. I can see reversible gyre would create a more chaotic flow (good thing) and hit more dead spots where waste could build up.

I've never really gone out of my way to ever hide much of my plumping. Maybe I'm just lazy but at the same time it's a aquarium and it's going to have plumping. I'm all for some of the inventive ways people hide it but in my world it seems like a lot of work and a maintenance issue. I'm a simple guy.

Do you mean the 'gyre' will always flow in the same direction? I've got that problem sort of by accident in my tank because of poor overflow/rockwork placement and it's causing some weird growth patterns on my corals, a bunch of them look like they've been windswept. If you were to have the the front left and back right outlet going, then switch it up to the front right and back left, you should theoretically get a circular gyre that runs counter clockwise for a while, then reverses and flows clockwise for a while. Would come close to approximating a reversing tide. On my next tank I'm going to try for that.

But you're right, rock work makes everything weird. For it to work "perfectly" you'd need like a really tall tower right in the middle for the water to rotate around or something, which might not be to your taste aesthetically. You might be able to fudge it and get something close.

This article has some really cool thoughts on the idea. I only mentioned it because you're plumbing set up and tank shape (no internal overflows to mess things up) would be perfect for it:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/1/aafeature

There will always be some chaotic flow in mine with the turning off and on and the sump return in the mix. My gyre does not flow clockwise or counter clock wise, it flows like a front loading washing machine.

Wow nice another 300 gal build, glad to see I'm not the only one that takes a long time to build a big system like this. Nice work on everything thus far. :thumb:

Looks great, Dave.
What are you doing for heating?
I got rid of my electric heaters and replaced it with a closed loop from my domestic hot water tank.
I'm really happy with it, wish I did it a long time ago.

asylumdown

Thanks for the link it was a good read. I think I've accomplished some of that effect but better ha. Better being to spin the gyre from top to bottom, bottom to top.


Grizz Thanks.