Too Much Flow for Efflo?

miwoodar · #1 12/10/2007, 03:38 PM

I stopped by a fellow hobbyist's house last night and did some trading. My goal was to fill a vacant spot in my tank with a very high flow acro. I've tried a number of different pieces but all had poor (very poor) PE until I moved them elsewhere. Long story short, he recommended an efflo. So now I'm really excited, I have my first piece ever (never even seen it in the LFS). It looks good. It has stopped sliming and I can see the polyps starting to emerge a little.

The spot: 6" in front of a 1600gph DIY MJ mod mounted on a DIY swirler stein. It gets blasted by a 15 inch/second wave 4x a minute as the swirler stein ocillates. When the MJ mod swings in the other direction, it gets maybe a 6 inch/second reverse current.

Is this TOO much?

hockeyismylife · #2 12/10/2007, 03:42 PM

does it get direct flow?

Kinetic · #3 12/10/2007, 03:46 PM

high flow corals doesn't mean direct flow from a powerhead. high flow should be reworded to high turnover in turbulent fashions.

miwoodar · #4 12/10/2007, 03:51 PM

Being a prop pump, it is a stream flow, not at all like that of a powerhead.

15 inches/second, very turbulant and always changing (both direction and strength), down to as little as 6 inches/second.

miwoodar · #5 12/10/2007, 06:12 PM

How much does yours have? Can you take a guess on inches/second?

twon8 · #6 12/10/2007, 06:57 PM

give it a day and see if it is showing pe, if so then it's likely all right.

gsoaxionsk8 · #7 12/10/2007, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kinetic
high flow corals doesn't mean direct flow from a powerhead. high flow should be reworded to high turnover in turbulent fashions.

well put, it wont take long to know if the coral likes this spot or not. its been my experience that very few acros like to be put directly in front of a powerhead. Just check for PE and move it accordingly.

miwoodar · #8 12/10/2007, 10:36 PM

It's looking OK right now. Hopefully it will like the heavy tossing/turning. I was going to try a humilis or a gemmifera if it doesn't like the location.

Who said I placed it in front of a powerhead?

miwoodar · #9 12/14/2007, 12:05 PM

Update - too much flow. The efflo couldn't take it.

The good news - now that one of my other SPS nubs has started to grow up, it has started to look more and more like a humilis. I decided to try it in the higher flow area again. After about an hour of rearranging the rocks, I was able to position the humilis-like piece in the spot the efflo had been in. All is well.

The efflo is in a spot that gets bi-directional 6 inch/second surges. It's a little battered but I think it will pull through. How quickly does efflo grow?

The humilis is now getting the 15 inch/second and 6 inch/second and it seems to be liking it this time. PE is as good, if not better, than ever before.

stony_corals · #10 12/14/2007, 02:13 PM

Where did you come up with "15in/sec" and other readings? On the reef crest and reef front, many acros are getting 3meters/sec. I don't think you can give it too much, and PE definitely isn't a good way to indicate whether the coral is 'happy'. I have a purple efflo between 2 vortechs, it's growing like a weed....

miwoodar · #11 12/14/2007, 02:48 PM

I put dropped flakes into the intake of the pump to get the estimate. I agree - it's rough. My wife guessed 20 inch/second.

I don't know a lot about efflos yet. Are they from the crest or front?

stony_corals · #12 12/14/2007, 03:00 PM

Most tabling species are higher wave action.... I think only time we could provide too much flow is if a coral was sitting directly in front of a maxijet powerhead.... and that's just due to the concentration....

I was just curious as that's a better measure than x turnover, but so hard to measure.

miwoodar · #13 12/14/2007, 03:12 PM

I thought the efflo would be OK given the recommendation of my buddy. He hasn't seen my tank yet though. The strong bursts from the prop pump only last a few seconds at a time due to the swirler steins. Maybe after the efflo attaches to the rock and grows up a little I will be able to move it back to that spot. The humilis-like SPS didn't like it last year either.

I have a table on the other side of the tank a few inches further away from a similar setup (~10 inch/second bursts) and it seems to like the flow pattern a LOT. For the first year I had it, it didn't do anything but encrust the rock. It had eight tips the entire time. This summer, after reading some threads on RC, I decided to crack off all of the branches to see what would happen. Last time I counted, it had ~75 tips.

---edit---
BTW - I just went home for lunch. The efflo looks much happier in it's new spot. The PE is about the same but it's not looking as pale as it did a few days ago.

---double edit (damn, I edit too much!)---
FYI - I wish the reefing community would try to give quantitative descriptions in inch/second a little more often too. Terms like 'high flow' can mean very different things to different people. My tank has 65x turnover but my flow patterns are much different than the next guy's 65x due to the surging caused by the ocillating prop pumps.

reefkoi · #14 12/14/2007, 04:01 PM

It would be great if we could get our hands on a meter that gave a reading in inches per second! We'd be set then!
C

miwoodar · #15 12/14/2007, 04:09 PM

Now that you mention the meter idea - I'm surprised it hasn't been DIY'd already. Until then, it's a pinch of flakes, a ruler, and one mississippi.