Lagoon Reef

[BigLar]

What’s in a lagoon reef tank? What are the requirements?

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-BigLar

[Rin]

A lagoon is basically a low-flow area of the reef. The water in a lagoon tends to be more nutrient rich (or polluted) than the open reef.

Any reef tank is a lagoon reef. It's very very difficult to emulate the conditions of an open reef. The water flow requirement is simply too high.

There is a person over at RC who is setting up an electric motor from a boat to simulate this flow over his reef tank. I don't have the thread handy, but it sounds like quite an undertaking.

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-Todd
'There're only 3 types of people in the world: Those who can count and those who can't'

[Biomanjcs72]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rin:
There is a person over at RC who is setting up an electric motor from a boat to simulate this flow over his reef tank. I don't have the thread handy, but it sounds like quite an undertaking.

I haven't read the post or anything, but wouldn't the propeller be kind of detrimental to any fish life? I know everybody's heard the story of the frog in the blender.....
[img]/ubb/lol.gif[/img]


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JCS
"Too much of everything is just enough." Hunter/Weir

[Rin]

I tried looking for the thread, again, but couldn't find it.

The basic idea is to have the ends of this extremely large tank blocked off with eggcrate to allow full water flow and have one or two motors running to get the flow moving. I think he was going for 10-50cm/sec.

I guess noise isn't a concern. It sounded almost like some kind of research project.

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-Todd
'There're only 3 types of people in the world: Those who can count and those who can't'

[Biomanjcs72]

Why doesn't the guy just buy a wave pool and salt it [img]/ubb/lol.gif[/img] [img]/ubb/lol.gif[/img] Yes, it sounds like QUITE the undertaking. Eletctric Trolling motors for boats are actually fairly quiet (at least on a lake or in the bay anyway.

[SPasse]

BigLar,

This is also a question of degrees.

Because I like LPS corals, (brain, bubble, plate, etc.) my system emphasizes a large sand bed area and moderate water flow. Most of these types of corals are from lagoon type environments in nature. Corals like Heliofungia (long tentacle plate) are actually fairly hardy if kept in a logon/sand bed environment. (and fed)

But I have also had the dedicated SPS coral (arcopora etc.) tanks where the live rock was emphasized and higher water flow used.

Too each his own.

Regards,

Scott

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The definition of an expert is a washed-up drip under pressure.
You can see my reeftank at http://www.homestead.com/spasse/