adjustable wavemakers?

[jrossjr79]

I have a few wavemakers, but was looking at a lot of different reef tanks. My tanks have good flow, all around in my tank, I have a few dead spots, but its under the rocks in caves.

Figured I could make my powerheads alternate to make more of a reef current (waves), rather than a single flow of the water column. But I am not sure if any of my wavemakers are able to power on and off or adjust the speed with out damaging the motors within them. So how do I tell if I can do these with my wave makers.


Also while we are on the subject, which is better, several powerheads for water flow, alternating wavemakers, or a wavebox?

If it helps these are the wavemakers I have:
Koralia (not sure of which model number it is, bought from Jeremy, so maybe he will chime in with more info on this one.)
Aqueon ACP 1250
Tunze 6080 A

[alton]

When I had my Tunze Wave Box on my 300 I wanted to se how it moved the water in my tank other than I could see the wave. So I poured a bunch of coral frenzy on the opposite side from the wave box. It was amazing to watch in a matter of a few seconds the coral frenzy move across my 300 evenly until it made it to the wave box. Sadly my Frogspawn did not like the wave box as much as me so I sold it.

[rrasco]

Both Koralia and Tunze make controllable pumps, but they also make non-controllable units, so that depends on which version you have. If they have a regular AC plug on them, they are not the controllable versions. In this case, the only option for 'controlling' them is a simple on/off which will work, but has the potential to shorten the motor life of the pumps.

If you have the controllable versions, they require controllers to run them. The Tunze can be run off of third-party controllers as they are DC pumps (AFAIK) but the Koralias are switching AC and there are no third-party controllers I am aware of.

[jrossjr79]

Well that settles it, I dont have controllable ones then. Thanks for the info :)

[rrasco]

You *can* "control" them, but not with variable flow. You can do an on/off wave using something like the Koralia SmartWave.

[ramsey]

Both Koralia and Tunze make controllable pumps, but they also make non-controllable units, so that depends on which version you have. If they have a regular AC plug on them, they are not the controllable versions. In this case, the only option for 'controlling' them is a simple on/off which will work, but has the potential to shorten the motor life of the pumps.

If you have the controllable versions, they require controllers to run them. The Tunze can be run off of third-party controllers as they are DC pumps (AFAIK) but the Koralias are switching AC and there are no third-party controllers I am aware of.

A lot of the older koralias have problems turning back on. Specially, the propeller starts in reverse.

[rrasco]

Well yeah, there is that. Some of the newer evos have a bump stop that is supposed to prevent this, but mine have done it once or twice even with the bump stops. I don't use them in that method anymore so it's a non-issue for me, but that is a possibility with the koralias.