Dissipating water flow from a power filter (plus PS on Kribs)

Hi Everyone,

Thanks to all who gave me advice on a more striking fish (or pair of
fish) for my community tank. In the end I got a beautiful pair of
Dwarf Gouramis who seem very happy in their new home. However, "Mr.
Gourami" has decided, after two days in the tank, to build a
bubblenest and my filter is making this more difficult for him. He is
still managing, having found a quieter place in the tank where my
floating plants (Salvinia natans) collect. But if the angle of flow
moves just a little bit, as happens when I'm cleaning the glass or
using the gravel vac his efforts are blown away.

I'm thinking of rigging something up which will dissapate the flow but
I have some questions:

Firstly, will dissipating the flow adversly affect the tank in any
way? (My understanding is that it should be fine so long as I keep up
my normal maintenance routine - flow is only absolutely necessary in
reef tanks??)

Secondly - what is the best way of going about this? I have in mind
simply using some aquarium tubing with holes punched all the way
along, attached to the filter outlet at one end and fixed all along
the back wall of the tank with rubber suckers. I've never done this
before though so maybe there are some kits to do this kind of thing?

Any advice anyone has would be really appreciated.

Many thanks,

Sal Fox

PS: In a previous discussion about Kribs someone said that a 15 UK
Gallon (18 US Gallon) tank would be too small for a pair of Kribs on
their own. I'm not prepared to put fish in conditions which are not
suitable for them - I would rather miss out on keeping them - but
I've also read in several sources that they would be very happy in a
tank that size. Can anyone shed any light?

Get a length of polyethylene or polyproplene tubeing and make a
miniature hoop with it, so t of like a miniature hula hoop or feeding
ring. Join it together with a piece of wood dowel, shoved in each
end. Float the ring to where you want it and if necessary use a piece
of monofiliament line to hold it in place. My paradise fish used to
have the same problem and even though I did not really care if any of
the eggs hatched or not, I still did not want to deprive them of their
nest buidling etc with too much current. I made and used a hoop as
described above along with floating plants and have even had some fry
survive and grow to adult hood. I normally bring in my bubble nest
builders to over winter in the indoor tanks, where they have to share
space with other fish and they have more than sufficient time to build
nests and spawn outside in warmer months in heavily planated preformed
ponds....Been usuing a hop for about 4 years now and it works just
fine.

Reef tanbks a re marine (sal****er ) tanks, not freshwater. Flow or
current is essential to all types of aquariums, how much flow id
dependant on the speices kept. If your looking to duplicate its ideal
inhabitat, then shoot for that, however in a community tank all one
can do is hit a happy medium unless yu have a larger tank. Diverting
the flow should not hurt anything,(short term anyhow) but I can';t say
about reducing the flow as I have no idea what size tank or filter
setup you h ave and what the bio load is......


On 8 Feb 2007 11:51:53 -0800, "muddyfox"
wrote:

Hi Everyone,

Thanks to all who gave me advice on a more striking fish (or pair of
fish) for my community tank. In the end I got a beautiful pair of
Dwarf Gouramis who seem very happy in their new home. However, "Mr.
Gourami" has decided, after two days in the tank, to build a
bubblenest and my filter is making this more difficult for him. He is
still managing, having found a quieter place in the tank where my
floating plants (Salvinia natans) collect. But if the angle of flow
moves just a little bit, as happens when I'm cleaning the glass or
using the gravel vac his efforts are blown away.

I'm thinking of rigging something up which will dissapate the flow but
I have some questions:

Firstly, will dissipating the flow adversly affect the tank in any
way? (My understanding is that it should be fine so long as I keep up
my normal maintenance routine - flow is only absolutely necessary in
reef tanks??)

Secondly - what is the best way of going about this? I have in mind
simply using some aquarium tubing with holes punched all the way
along, attached to the filter outlet at one end and fixed all along
the back wall of the tank with rubber suckers. I've never done this
before though so maybe there are some kits to do this kind of thing?

Any advice anyone has would be really appreciated.

Many thanks,

Sal Fox

PS: In a previous discussion about Kribs someone said that a 15 UK
Gallon (18 US Gallon) tank would be too small for a pair of Kribs on
their own. I'm not prepared to put fish in conditions which are not
suitable for them - I would rather miss out on keeping them - but
I've also read in several sources that they would be very happy in a
tank that size. Can anyone shed any light?



-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

On 8 Feb, 20:09, Tristan wrote:
Get a length of polyethylene or polyproplene tubeing and make a
miniature hoop with it, so t of like a miniature hula hoop or feeding
ring. Join it together with a piece of wood dowel, shoved in each
end. Float the ring to where you want it and if necessary use a piece
of monofiliament line to hold it in place. My paradise fish used to
have the same problem and even though I did not really care if any of
the eggs hatched or not, I still did not want to deprive them of their
nest buidling etc with too much current. I made and used a hoop as
described above along with floating plants and have even had some fry
survive and grow to adult hood. I normally bring in my bubble nest
builders to over winter in the indoor tanks, where they have to share
space with other fish and they have more than sufficient time to build
nests and spawn outside in warmer months in heavily planated preformed
ponds....Been usuing a hop for about 4 years now and it works just
fine.


Hi Tristan,

Thanks for the tip. I've given it a go, although I didn't have any
dowel so I used a small plastic airflow regulator. I've hooked the
air flow thingy onto a sucker and attached it to the side of the tank
to hold the hoop in place and put some floating weed inside.
Hopefully he'll like it. The tank's running on moonlights right now
so he's gone to bed - I'll have to wait until morning to see his
reaction. Sounds like it's a really great idea though.


Reef tanbks a re marine (sal****er ) tanks, not freshwater. Flow or
current is essential to all types of aquariums, how much flow id
dependant on the speices kept. If your looking to duplicate its ideal
inhabitat, then shoot for that, however in a community tank all one
can do is hit a happy medium unless yu have a larger tank. Diverting
the flow should not hurt anything,(short term anyhow) but I can';t say
about reducing the flow as I have no idea what size tank or filter
setup you h ave and what the bio load is......

Bioload is just over half an inch per gallon and the tank is very
heavily planted with java fern on bogwood, amazon swords, various
cryptocorne spp, cabomba and a number of anubias. Water quality is
NH4+/NH3 = 0ppm, NO2 = 0ppm and NO3 = 10ppm. The filter has a slider
which can vary the flow and I have that set down low (I've always done
that on planted tanks). I wouldn't feel comfortable reducing the flow
further but I think I might be able to distribute it more evenly.

Thanks again for the excellent tip!

With kind regards,

Muddy

PS: In a previous discussion about Kribs someone said that a 15 UK
Gallon (18 US Gallon) tank would be too small for a pair of Kribs on
their own. I'm not prepared to put fish in conditions which are not
suitable for them - I would rather miss out on keeping them - but
I've also read in several sources that they would be very happy in a
tank that size. Can anyone shed any light?


A pair of Kribs will be fine. Be sure to have dither fish such as 3 or 4
Neon Tetras or Zebra Danios.

--
Rich
http://www.richdavies.com
http://www.richdavies.com/fishkeeping.htm