Anyone use Surge Devices? How do they work?

[Reefdude5]

Just wondering, anyone use them? From what i understand, many shallow water species such as many of the ones that we keep, benefit from surge action while deeper water species enjoy "currents", such as created by Phs. So, how do they work, are they easy enough to make and integrate?

[mapster]

I have never used on but they seem easy enough to build. As for intergration into your system thats another story. They need to be seperate from and above the main display and can be quite noisy. I know you have a in wall tank so if you had the space it would not be difficult to add. The water level in the display will fluctuate(lower as the surge fills and raise as the water surges into the tank) and you will have to accomadate for this. If I remember correctly you have a 120. Maybe somebody with experience with a surge can tell you what size you would need to make an impact.

The benefits of having one are great, I think its incorporating one into ones set-up that limits the amount of people using them.

Links:

one
two
three (carlson)

Plenty of other and probably better info on the web. I'm toying with the idea myself.

p.s. rumor has it MRC is producing a"revolutionary" surge device with the help and input of Eric Borneman. EB flapper surge device can be seen in his book "Aquarium Corals" and on the net. Not sur how much water that holds though (not the surge, the rumor )

MAP

[Reefdude5]

Dang map, you have really good memory! Yeah, they don't seem to hard to use and build, and they sem really helpfull for sps corals. The downside i see is that unless you have a large part of the rim of the top of the tank covered(usually the black rim thing), you would be able to see the water level drop when you are observing the tank, do you think this would look bad?

[Geoff]

not necessarily bad looking, but it may look strange. you may also need to build a slosh rim around the tank depending on the amount of water in the surge. there can be a sizeable displacement wave across the tank when the surge device lets things flow.

G~

[Reefdude5]

Good idea, if the tank is a 120g, and the surge container empties 25g a time, would the water level drop a whole heck of a lot?

[Asbjorn]

I have a 5 gallon surge tank on a 120. Reliable operation depends on a number of things; pipe diameter, distance above the tank pump flow rate etc...

I avoided a lot of these problems by finding someone who had a similar setup and copying pipe diameters and flow rates with some modifications.

I would recommed testing your plan before fully assembling and installing your surge tank. They can be very tempermental, however once you get them working they are very reliable.

[Stang69]

To make up for the unsitely (sp) empty space on the uptake side of this if I am reading right you could install a board on the upper part of the tank so as to cover it when the depth of the water drops ya wont see it. If that makes any sence


Jeff