When was the last time we saw the sea stand still with no water movement, don’t remember long time back may be. Well if you are owning a saltwater tank then movement of water is very important. This is the least we can do to mimic the sea in our tanks. Creating proper water movement can be one of the least expensive aspects of setting up a saltwater tank, but it is one of the most important.
The currents of the sea brings these organisms food, oxygen, and nutrients, and also carry away waste. This is reason that stony corals do best in areas with strong water movement. Most of the algae blooms happen due to excessive nutrients deposited in one location. A good water movement is considered if it is 5-10 times the tanks volume per hour.
There are two main types of water movement which we are able to generate or replicate in our aquarium. These flow patterns are single direction flow and random flow. Single direction is straight directional flow which is produced from a power head or the wave maker. Random is the flow of water in multiple directions. Of the two the random flow is the desirable to produce.
This kind of flow can be created via power heads or the wave makers available in the market. There are other factors which come in the play with flow like the substrate, smaller the grains harder the current of the flow the substrate will start blowing in the aquarium this should be controlled and to do this various types of controller wave maker are available. Other factor is your return water out let, this should allow twice the amount of flow back in to the sump or the tank will overflow.
