Coast to coast overflow hampers wave?

[asylumdown]

I'm no physics expert, but with the water level lower in the tank but the pumps at the same height, they'd be relatively closer to the surface, so to me that seems like you'd see more of a wave. Hopefully someone who actually knows the physics of liquids will chime in and tell me I'm an idiot, but when you've got a powerhead angled horizontal to the plane of gravity under 7 or 8 inches of water, you barely see any surface disturbance, but when that power head is only 2 or 3 inches below the surface of water, the surface turbulence is enough to create splashing.

I also know with a standing wave the whole mass of water is moving, but I still feel like the total mass of the water in your tank, relative to the output of your powerheads, will affect the kind of wave you develop. With less water in your tank, it seems like it would be easier for the powerbeads to create a bigger wave.

The C2C is probably affecting it somewhat, because as water flows over it, it's also taking some amount of kinetic energy from your wave with it, but any overflow will likely do that.

Not sure which of those things contributes more to what you're seeing, or if it's something else completely and I just don't know what I'm talking about.

[Slick Fork]

Coast to coasts and corner overflow boxes do dampen waves considerably since they cut them off at their "height". You could play around with covering the ends and see if you can get a result you like that still allows for decent flow through your overflow.