power head to increase flow question

usmcr0811 · #1 09/30/2007, 08:58 PM

I have 4 foot 75 gallon FOWLR with a 29 gallon sump/fuge. All I have for water circulation is the overflow/siphon and a rio pump for the return. The return has to be up near the surface to prevent overflow from the main back to the return if the pump fails. Do I need more circulation then that, and if so what is the best power head to use for that size of tank.

usmcr0811 · #2 10/01/2007, 02:22 PM

I seem to have a lot of waste sitting in the bottom of my tank...I am not using anything for a base, it is bare

usmcr0811 · #3 10/01/2007, 07:41 PM

bump

jski711 · #4 10/01/2007, 07:44 PM

i have two 1200 gph powerheads in my 75 reef. as far a a fowlr in not sure but letting the detrius settle at the bottom like that isn't good, you want to keep it suspended in the water column so your skimmer can take it out. how many gph is your return pump. mine is 1200 gph.

hth.

jake

usmcr0811 · #5 10/02/2007, 12:45 AM

My return pump is a rio 2100 pushing about 4 feet up. I think it was around 450/600 gph. Nothing is suspended in my tank. I am also finding it hard to get my ammonia to spike. I started with 50 lbs of live rock, 2.5 gallons of used sand (that smelled like something had died in it literally) and 2 damsel. One of the damsel's died because it got sucked into the sump and my wife couldn't find it while I was out of town for a week. When I returned I tried to take the damsel out and it broke apart into pieces so I basically left it in to see if that would help spike the amonia. That didn't seem to help so I added another 2 damsels so now I have 3 damsels and it still doesn't seem like it is spiking that much. I guess I just assumed that it had cycled enough. I do have a lot of stuff growing on my live rock. I added 7 turbo snails and 6 small hermit crabs. Also added Cheato to my live sand in the sump.