Tunze Powerheads and Anemones ???

[no_sushi_for_you]

I do not own a Tunze but I have a 75 gallon tank that has a Bubble-tip Anemone among other soft and hard coral in it.

I am looking to purchase a Tunze Nanostream Powerheads to get some additional flow replaceing the Maxi-jets I have, but I had some questions on it's compatability with a wandering Anemone.

My Anemone already got caught in a unprotected Maxi-jet and got shredded...and lived!! I don't want that to happen again.

How would you modify a Tunze Nanostream Powerhead from sucking in an Anemone?

[crvz]

Most protection for any powerhead would involve a sponge filter of some sort. Putting any screening or simple mesh material isnt really going to help. I just use my powerheads as is and at risk, hoping that the anemone decides it's happy where it's at (never has it moved about).

[betamed]

they don't really have an intake hole that you could put a sponge on. I don't see how anything could get drawn in and chopped up as water doesn't really pass through the propeller.

[no_sushi_for_you]

With the wide open area for the water intake on the Tunze, is the water intake suction very low?

Or do you think if an Anemone went to the Powerhead would there be enough back draft to preventing it from getting away from the fan?

[Geoff]

your first thinking is correct. the intake surface area on Tunze is much larger and there is significantly less suction than from a normal power head.

G~

[crvz]

But I've still seen it happen. An anemone can still get sucked into a Tunze, it's just a little less likely,

[Sun-n-Fun]

Oddly enough, I found this thread because it just happened to me last night! I was searching for ideas to prevent it from happening again. I just bought a rose bubble tip anemone and acclimated it yesterday afternoon. I kept the Tunze heads off for several hours to give the little guy a chance to take hold. Placed it over a deep crack and saw it plant its foot quite deep. Thought it was secure, powered up the Tunzes and all seemed good. Checked on him a few times over the next couple of hours and everything seemed fine. Lights went out, a few hours later - heard some weird noises like when the powerheads first fire up - went to investigate and found him shredded by the Tunze

A sponge doesn't seem very practical around a Tunze. I know quite a bit more than the average person about fan design (I'm an engineer in the air filtration industry) and I would assume the water dynamics are similar - the prop style blade of the Tunze would be extremely sensitive to even small changes in resistance and a sponge would likely have very significant impact on its delivered flow. I was thinking next time I might rig some sort of cage around the Tunze or maybe just not run it for a day or two and just use my return pump and Maxijet powerhead for flow.

Do people experience bubble tip anemones on the move quite frequently? Or when they just put them in? Has anyone else rigged additional protection around the Tunze? Was this a freak occurence that is not likely to repeat?

[no_sushi_for_you]

Sorry to hear that.

My Bubble-tip had lost 98% of it's tentacles to a Maxijet. It was new to the tank and did a lot of wandering for the first 2 months until it met the powerhead and got shredded.

It survived, but I had to reposition it facing up to be able to place small amounts of food right on it's oral disk without them falling off.

It gradually came back and moved one more time (about 4 months ago) and has been there since.

I have 4 Tunze's in the tank now and I hope that the gelatinous blob will remember not to go near them

[hansmatt]

Sun n fun...was this on a nanostream, or a 6000xxx stream? I ask because I have 3 nanostreams, all mod'd a bit for better flow, but the suction on the outer ball is quite low. I don't have anemones, but I regularly have snails feeding on the intake grills. Granted, snail feet are pretty small, and maybe tougher than an anemone.
Sorry to hear about the anemone, that sure is a bummer.

[redvipe2010]

[quote=Sun-n-Fun;1157655]Do people experience bubble tip anemones on the move quite frequently? Or when they just put them in? quote]

They will move if they are unhappy.