Reef aquaria can be expensive to set up and maintain while electrical costs are of primary concern in the month-to-month operational costs. Note the two small waves to the center left – something I noticed only in photographs. Approximately 1 second later, this wave will crest on the right hand side. The wave is almost at maximum height (about 1.5″) on the left hand side of the aquarium. A wave generated by the tunze pump and controller. Adjustments are done with a rotary knob (a potentiometer).įigure 3. Sophisticated electronics allow fast cycling (approximately 1 second on and one second off) and slow cycling (2 seconds on/2 seconds off) with a practically infinite number of adjustments in between. The controller does exactly that – it controls the timing of the pump’s on/off cycles. The size of this box would make it too large for use in testing, and this concludes our discussion of the Wavebox itself. Tunze recommends it for aquaria sized from150 to 1,500 liters (39 to 396 US gallons). It is rather large and intrusive in all but the largest aquarium.
The Wavebox is simply a rectangular container that houses the pump and collects water to be pumped.
Power consumption differs at various wattages – 18 watts on average 26 watts 24v per tunze’s website) Power Consumption: The tunze pump and controller operate on Direct Current at reduced voltage and is rated by Tunze at 62 watts (1.49 kWh per day).How do these claims hold up under scrutiny? Tunze makes many claims about the Wavebox – a pump producing ‘high speed’ currents while using little power, wave heights of 3 cm (1.18 inches) with oscillations corresponding ‘precisely’ to wave action seen on natural reefs. The box was too large to fit inside the rectangular aquarium so I used only the pump and controller – with profoundly different results from those originally seen. Almost two years later, I decided to try again. Even after weeks of trying to tweak the controller and timing of the waves, I failed to do so and considered the test a failure and abandoned use of the Wavebox.
Since I had to build a frame of PVC pipe to hold the box in place, this positioning allowed the waves to pass behind the Wavebox, where they then formed an odd rebound (reflection) once striking the curved wall of the tub. In initial experiments, the Wavebox produced a lot of flow but failed to produce significant wave action (a subjective opinion) when used in a 100-gallon Rubber Maid™ tub. It is not that the product did not achieve results I would have expected based on tunze’s reputation – it was that the application was incorrect, although it would take a while to realize this fact. Other times, the testing protocol does not generate results worthy of publication, and this was my initial experience with the tunze In some cases, the product performs so poorly that the manufacturer’s business fails before the possibility of publication. For a variety of reasons, not every report on products I purchase and test makes it to print.
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