RE: Spray Bars Behind Rock

[Joe Stiene]

Just a note of experience;  I built this spray bar and it worked great but there are a few things to consider when you do it.   1.) After about a year, the holes will start to calcify and close up in some spots.  Various hard crusted life forms grew on my spray bar by the holes.  This caused circulation to slow down in some spots.  It was difficult to get my hand down to some areas of the spray bar to open the holes back up with a sharp object because of the rock work.   2.) You will have strong water flow evenly across the entire bottom of the tank.  You may or may not like this.  After a while I noticed some corals just would not open up all the way because I could not control the water flow in specific spots of the tank.     3.) I decided to add a dsb (Deep sand bed).  This was the deciding factor that made me remove the spray bar and plumb a dual return to each top corner of the tank.  I now have a circular water motion in the tank and can control certain areas of the tank for low motion if I want to.   Just some thoughts for you to consider.  The spray bar is nice, as I used it for quite a long term.    Joe   -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 1:12 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Spray Bars Behind Rock That is basically what Ron suggested to me. Running two iwaki 70's from my sump and plumbing them into either end of a 1" spraybar with 5/16" holes drilled every inch at the bottom of the tank blowing down toward the bottom of the tank. Glen