Flow

[marcingo]

Hi.

I'm not a very experienced reefer and so I havent seen many reef setups in person. Here is my question. When people tell me this coral likes low, moderate or high flow I have no idea what it is. Would low flow be something where you see particulates in the water moving back and forth or when you see gsp tentacles moving in the flow? Or is this moderate flow? Can someone give me an idea what low, moderate, or high flow is supposed to look like? How can a new reefer like myself know?

Another question what type of "flow" do most zoanthids like. I know they can withstand a variety of flow but what type is best. Someone told me to lower my flow for my zoo's and a few days later all the polyps are completely open does that mean they like the flow as it is? Because to me it seems a little slow. Also when I try to spot feed my zoo's with cyclopeeze it seems the cyclo peeze doesnt fall on the polyps, would it just be better to turn off my mechanical filtration and leave my powerhead on and just add cyclopeeze randomly to the tank to see if they catch it later turning my filtration back on?

[mark]

Timely as just was re-reading Borneman's book on corals, the section on water movement.

He describes flow in cm/sec and like you mentioned observing particles in the water column.

Low flow 1-5cm/sec
Med flow 6-20cm/sec
High flow 21-50cm/sec
Very high flow >50cm/sec.

Another way flow is give is by turnovers per hour, I'm probably around 25x tank volume per hour , guessing that would be medium.

New to zoos, so no experience there.

[marcingo]

Good stuff. Makes sense. I dont know I think if the corals didnt like the flow they would close up or something same with the gsp but who knows I guess only time will tell.