Have a Mixed Reef and Can’t Dial in Your Flow? Let me see if I can help.

Come check out a few tips, tricks, and strategies I often leverage when trying to optimize flow for a mixed reef. Yes, some sacrifices have to be made, but a thriving mixed reef is definitely doable!
Limpet Wide Flow Pump Guard: www.bulkreefsupply.com/limpet...

[@mrshipman6675]

Great content, nice work!

[@xXRadioRamboXx]

Very good video

[@zburnreefing]

Thanks so much! Hopefully a few tidbits of useful information in there!

[@tbaum101]

You deserve more subs my man. That was an amazing, informative video

[@zburnreefing]

Thanks! Really appreciate it!

[@arsenioseslpodcast3143]

You got the product! I see "LPS" to the right, and I use two of their products, which shows SIGNIFICANT coral growth and fish color!

[@doghousereefer]

Great video Mr ZBurn.

[@zburnreefing]

Thank you sir!

[@Reef.Devils]

This was a really helpful video, thanks for making this. Love when you got a new video be I have the same tank and like to follow along with some of you tips. I am getting a hippo blue and wanted to know where does this fish like to sleep at night? Under rocks, corners of tank? Are you running Red Sea light? If so what intensity are you running those at? I never know what the right intensity is for mine. I need to rent a par meter out to find out the par. Thanks

[@zburnreefing]

Hey @Reef.Devils the blue hippo sleeps in the cracks of the rock work. Love that fish, but he is growing quite fast. We’ll see how long until he outgrows the tank. For lighting I am running just an old school metal halide fixture. It’s just plug and play, nothing too fancy. Most of the corals are getting 200 (on sides) and up to 400 PAR. Good luck tuning your lighting. I think bulk reef supply has a par meter rental program in place, just fyi.

[@Reef.Devils]

@@zburnreefing Hey thanks for getting back to me. Good to know about the hippo blue. I am excited to get him in almost done with qt. I will look into the par meter renting on BRS. Thanks for letting me know. I will be on the look out for your r next video!!!

[@jtdr2023]

Man second Neptune product that took a dump on you in a month? Was the Neptune Dose new or was it older. I’m asking because I just went out and bought a bunch of Neptune equipment including the dose. Thanks for the video.

[@zburnreefing]

Yea, super frustrating. I think these failures are more a by product of buying used stuff. However, I’d still expect the Neptune products to work well for 3-5 years. The DOS was used, had about 2 years of use on it….just replaced it with a brand new one. I’m going to rethink whether I buy used stuff in the future…I suppose I can use the now half working DOS to dose kalkwasser or something. Lame…just glad I caught pretty quickly. Dosed about 60 ml extra of alk, while the calcium side wasn’t working before I noticed.

[@Messier87_M87]

I don’t blame you one bit for purchasing used equipment. The price of these premium products are extremely outrageous. We tend to want quality products for our aquariums, but don’t want to over pay. I totally buy used equipment and usually have good luck. I make a pretty decent living for myself, but still find these products to be very expensive new. I see a lot of used equipment for sale on the marketplace of my local reefing club, and most of the equipment sells very quickly. Thanks for sharing your experience, great video!

[@zburnreefing]

Yea, I’m with you. I usually have had very good luck the last several years buying used. This hobby has a lot of turn over so it just makes sense to save some cash and buy products that folks got but are leaving the hobby after a year or so. It’s tough though as I’ve spent more now on buying used and then having to replace the item with new in just a few months. Probably just bad luck…

[@orange422]

@@Messier87_M87 They are especially expensive if they are of such low build quality. The pump in question is meant to be used frequently and it sounds as if the gear wore out. I wouldnt have expected dinky plastic gears for that application.

[@jtdr2023]

I agree that the hobby can get expensive. I’m trying to have a nice balance of budget and “higher end” equipment. I just purchased Neptune dose, EB8, & trident used for a really good price. I’m going to set them up this week. Fingers crossed. 😂 😓. We will see. Used is definitely a gamble.

[@xblrn2231]

I struggle with a finding a good spot for my 2 Nero’s in my 60 cube. The dimensions of the tank I feel like make it so you can’t use the traditional pump placements

[@zburnreefing]

Yes, that is a very difficult task. I ran a mixed reef 60 gallon tank 5-6 years ago. I ended up having to go with directional pumps to get the flow I wanted, but directional pumps are big, bulky, and ugly! I really like the Nero's because they are low profile. If I were to do a 60 gallon cube again, I might would consider a gyre pump positioned in a back corner in vertical position. You might be in a situation where a 3rd smaller nero would do the trick and then you run all your pumps at a fairly low intensity. That 3rd pump could cause a little chaotic disturbance and then also fill in some dead spots that your other two current pumps can't address since you may not be able to run them at too high of an intensity since they are in a cube. Cubes are hard because you can experience sandstorms and dead spots all at the same time.

[@xblrn2231]

@@zburnreefing right now I have one sitting on the back pushing to the front and then one sitting on the side in the back to get behind the rock work it’s working ok but not the greatest

[@Easy_Reef]

I have a 45 cube and was thinking about placing them on the back wall on each side.

[@arsenioseslpodcast3143]

To be honest, I have literally a 10 gallon cube, LOL! And I have some Chinese wavemakers that I have to rinse out on a weekly basis to get the full 100%. So, as long as you have flow all around your tank -- that's your goal. To master THAT art.

[@christophertywood4022]

can you by chance upload your schedule for the mp40s?

[@zburnreefing]

Hi @christophertywood4022, I can certainly do that just need to figure it out, lol. Is that possible in mobius? In the mean time, its pretty simple. I'm running Gyre, intensity set at 55% (started at 35% several weeks ago and slowly worked up), duration is 30 seconds (if tank is longer than 4 ft I would increase, if less than 4 ft I would decrease duration), pumps are in master/slave mode anti-sync. This gives some periodic moments of chaotic flow in each region of the tank, and while one side is getting this chaos, the other side is recovering with a lull, which helps keep my LPS happy. I run this 24 hours a day.

[@arsenioseslpodcast3143]

Absolutely gorgeous tank.

[@jrodfilms2293]

what mode are you running the mp40s

[@zburnreefing]

Hi there, I’m running gyre mode, 30 seconds, anti-sync. Hope that helps!

[@arsenioseslpodcast3143]

I have literally two Japanese wavemakers, make that three, that are in my tank. To be honest, they go up and down, based on how much Bubble Algae are in them, but with my canister, and my now three makers working, it's enough flow -- for my 10 gallon. I can't imagine much is needed for yours. But going with Chinese makers won't be good. Nero, if I'm not mistaken, or a wavemaker that starts with N, are the best.