Few writers offer recommendations on what constitutes adequate water motion in the reef tank. Those daring souls who offer a suggestion generally express the recommendation based on tank volume turnover. The assumption has been that higher turnover rates translate into higher tank turbulent flow. This turned out to be untrue for the hobbyist tanks studied. Figure 3 shows the results of the first wave of testing.
Regression suggests a negative relationship in which dissolution goes down as turnover goes up.
Because dissolution in the powerhead tests was not related to tank size, one could hypothesize that the volume of a hobbyist's tank would have little to do with energy transfer as measured by dissolution. The R-squared for the hobbyist test is 55.48 percent, with a probability level of 0.01. In other words, there is a 99-percent chance that the relationship is more than just chance. Removing two raises the R-squared to 84 percent. In the course of the tests, two hobbyists reworked their water motion regime, giving them an opportunity to evaluate the impact of their changes.