Mr. Saltwater Tank

Mr. Saltwater Tank TV Friday AM Quick Tip #36: Your Corals’ Night Time Friend


Be kind to your corals and leave me on.

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Comments for this article (12)

  • Bob says:

    I look forward to your videos each week Mark, but they seem to be shorter and shorter. (Probably due to my anticipation and not the length.) Anyway I wanted to tell you how much I appreciate the work you put into them. Keep it up!

  • Joe says:

    Great tip Mark, what kind of dead rock and substrate do you use

  • Joe…the rock I got from a vendor local to me but you can pick it up online here

    For sand I went with Carrib Sea Special Grade Reef Sand. It has a grain size large enough that it won’t get blown away, yet small enough that sifting fish can not get harmed by it.

  • Bob…glad you like the show and thanks for the input. My shows are indeed getting shorter as I’m always wanting to improve the show, so when I watched it, I saw myself repeating myself a lot. If I can say what I need to say in 5 minutes and get the point across, then I don’t want to take another 5 minutes repeating what I’ve already said. After all, you could take that 5 min and go stare at your tank more!

  • This sounds like great advice, but in reality I don’t think it is a option for most reefers to increase the flow at night. I run tunze on controller and they can be set to increase flow at night. But I prefer to give my fish a bit of a break from all that flow.

    Agree you dont turn them off at night.

  • Mad Hatter Reef says:

    I’ve been thinking about placing Some nano powerheads within my aquascaping and have then kick on when the lights go off.

  • Kevin says:

    I’ve always kept my powerheads on, i don’t really get why you should put them low/off.

    I also don’t get why to put them off at feeding time, in the ocean fish feed with the current.

    My fish still get upto my hand (except my surgeon-fish) and even bite in it (my anemone-fish) if I feed them.

    Imho keep the powerheads on except for cleaning them.

    Anyhow great tips, most of them are logical, and all reefkeepers should stick to 95% of the tips (I personally do not agree with starting on dead rock). I think the advantages outway disadvantages fresh live rock has. I even got some stylopora for “free”. Although its still a tiny spot its finaly recognizable.

  • Kovy says:

    You are so right. In nature, actually the ocean ISNT calmer at night, it just seems so from the beach. During the day the flow is towards the beach, but at night it is flowing in the opposite direction away from the beach, hence the different position of the moon at night. There is just as much flow at night as there is during the day. Like you said, keep your powerheads on, all night.

  • Matt says:

    Don’t some of the pumps you recommend come with a night mode or the like Mark?

    Great tip… Never really thought about it although I’d never turn the pumps off… That flow round the LR shouldn’t ever be reduced!

    As always… Thanks for your vid chap… 😉

  • Matt…the Tunze wavebox has a photocell sensor that can cut off the wavebox when the lights go off. The vortecs also have a night setting that I don’t use.

  • Kovy…I’ve been on plenty night dives and fought plenty of surge and current. Anyone who thinks the ocean if quiet at night needs to go under water.

  • Lecter says:

    I would rather let the fish rest.

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