Wave action

[Scott]

All,

I saw a 'gadget' on a tank earlier this week sat just on the surface of the water and produced small waves. It was basically a rocking chair arrangement power by water flowing from above. (I'm sure there is a technical term for it...I just don't know it!http://www.ultimatereef.net/ibv3/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif.

Anyway - to get to the point do these things have any physical benefits to the system? There wasn't enough power for any real 'wave' as such, nor did it appear to be dosing the system with anything. The conclusion I came to was that it must be for aesthetic reasons to do with the casting of light on the tanks floor.

Has anyone built or experimented with these?

Thoughts?

Regards,

Scott.

[marc]

Scott,

I was one of these gadgets a few years back at a LFS on the south coast (Portsmouth i think) but didn't really get a good look at either output or mechanics. Maybe Simon G has been to that LFS and seen it as i think he lives down that way ?



marc

[CodeMonkey]

I've seen one in STM's tanks - I think it is aesthetic as all it effects is the surface movement and not the internal movement that most of strive for (well it didn't appear to) - though it might help make good light ripples on the floor of the tank

[tlp]

Its a wave bucket!

Basically fills up then tips over and dump the content into the tank. A large one can produce a real wave and therefore a lot more natural than switching on/off a few pumps! I believe a few of the larger aquariums uses these to great effects - and oh boy, the mass of water movement is huge! Imagine real waves crashing against the reef!

Alas - not one for the home tank as it will create huge splashes, and some serious drop in the sump's volume and screw up all ya float switches!

[simon garratt]

Hi scott.

Yep marc your right they still have it (the wave bucket) in Portsmouth http://www.ultimatereef.net/ibv3/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif IMO a decent size one could work, although the benifits are limited as they dont actually shift water around, it just seems to move forward and back a few inches the crud in the tank shows this as it just moves 4in in one direction then back again, but doesnt really go anywhere......

pumps deffinately IMO.

cheers

Si.

[Tim Hunt]

There's another option to this. Never tried it but the theories good.

You pump the water from the sump to a header tank. The header tank fills and overflows down some large bore tube. If set up right, this creates a siphon and the contents of the header is dumped into you aquarium below. The siphon then breaks as it flows quicker than the water pumped to the header and the process starts again.

By placing the overflow tube below the aquarium water level would prevent splashing.

Interesting project for a Sunday afternoon, but pumps are still easier.

Tim

[ziggy]

Hi All,

Yup, have a look at this http://www.breeders-registry.gen.ca.us/Reprint....rge.htm (http://www.breeders-registry.gen.ca.us/Reprints/SeaScope/v13_sumr/surge.htm)


Cheers


Ziggy

[Nathan]

like the idea of that, but it'd cause hell with any water level monitoring devices.

[les]

UK marines have a good home made type device that works on a syphon principal. A header tank is filled from a sump by a pump. When it is full water overflows into a large bore pipe with the outlet just a few inches below the surface. When the header tank has almost emptied the syphon breaks and the whole proccess start all over again. a large surge of water creates a wave like motion right across the tank. Very effective.

[Rabbit]

Les,

Yes....Ive seen it

BUT

As above...how do you manage the auto toppup systems? http://www.ultimatereef.net/ibv3/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[tlp]

With such devices - you can auto-topup using a conductivity monitor instead of level/float switches.

A combination of two float switches can be used also, one in the reservoir to switch on at the lowest level, and one in the sump also. So that the pump is only one when both floats drop.

There will be a slight lag as it will take time for the tank to overflow into the sump - but it should work in theory.

[mal]

I use a carlson surge on my main tank with 2 switches this stops the over filling with fresh water. Its very noisy but cheap to run all the water movement on a 6 x 2x 2 is done with 25 gallons of header on a mini jet. More power than most pumps.

Malc