# Fish for high flow river tank



## Vinkenoog1977

Hey guys,

I'm starting preparations for a new project in the coming weeks and months. This will be a (very) high flow river biotope. The main occupants and focus of the tank will be half a dozen Sewellia Lineolata, but I'm looking for some fish to occupy the higher regions of the tank. I'm not going for the 100% accurate biotope, so fish from all over the globe are welcome.
The tank will be a 125 liter, 80 x 35 x 45 cm., with two powerheads (still not sure if they will be 700 or 1200 lph) and a 1000 lph external filter with a spraybar. So the turnover will be somewhere between ~20 and 30 times an hour.

Any ideas what middle and higher region fish would be able to take this kind of flow, or rather, which would thrive in such a high flow tank? I've been Google searching for a bit, and while there are plenty of fish databases, I have not found one that lets you search on amount of flow.

Thanks for the input!

Paul.


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## Edvet

I think most fish will hug the botom/substrate/rocks in those environments (or hide in/near a clump of plants if available). Even big fish like trout and salmon do that in high flow areas.
It's all about conserving energy in nature, so i don't think you will find a lot in the middle /higher region except from the occassional dart to the top.


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## dw1305

Hi all, 
White Cloud Mountain Minnows (_Tanichthys albonubes_)? or _Tanichthys micagemmae_?

cheers Darrel


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## greenmac75

my pseudomugil furcatus - blue eyed forktail rainbows liked to play in the direct flow of filter, but flow not quite a high as your going for.


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## Vinkenoog1977

dw1305 said:


> Hi all,
> White Cloud Mountain Minnows (_Tanichthys albonubes_)? or _Tanichthys micagemmae_?
> 
> cheers Darrel



Those look like fun little fish, thanks Darrel!


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## alto

Have you looked at some of the river tanks over on LOL? (PFK even did an article, Nathan Hill I think, so he may have some ideas & fish in his shop) - one of the LOL tanks has been up since 2012 & steady stream of juveniles now.


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## Vinkenoog1977

alto said:


> Have you looked at some of the river tanks over on LOL? (PFK even did an article, Nathan Hill I think, so he may have some ideas & fish in his shop) - one of the LOL tanks has been up since 2012 & steady stream of juveniles now.



Thanks for that, I did see the article on PFK, got the flow system from them even. Did not like the suggested species, and most were bottom dwellers as well. Will have a look on LOL, but again, I believe most are bottom huggers, and I was looking for something for the upper layers. Have been thinking about an alternative, by keeping the water level around 30 cm., and go paludarium-style. I do like the minnows Darrel suggested though.


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## Edvet

Vinkenoog1977 said:


> 30 cm., and go paludarium-style


 I think that could look very nice, some mossed logs on the side, a few small twigs and some emerged bacopa or so


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## Another Phil

Hi Paul,
I was looking at a similar idea for a 5ft long tank a while back with a mesh/grill at one end behind which are pipes which go down into 5ft long pipes in the substrate to the other end and up to several powerheads (different height up-tubes are an option) which gives a more laminar waterflow.
PlanetCatfish has a number of posts about different fish options if you search for "high current". (not sure about linking to other forums?).
cheers phil


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## Tim Harrison

Zebra danio, and if you need a few suggestions for suitable plants check this out...http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/plants-that-like-strong-water-flow.34777/#post-372066


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## Iain Sutherland

This was a friend of mines 8ft, species names in the description. Bit of inspiration...



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## sciencefiction

I have 20x flow in a couple of tanks and no fish is bothered at all. As long as the flow is circular and not chaotic like in a marine tank, fish do just fine in my opinion. It's the powerheads directional flow that causes a problem. If you have the equivalents in spraybars and such that moves water from top to bottom and vice versa then one can go high in flow as far as fish are concerned.


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## Vinkenoog1977

Thanks for all the tips guys, will be doing some more research on this later today!


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## Tim Harrison

Iain Sutherland said:


> This was a friend of mines 8ft, species names in the description. Bit of inspiration...
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk



Holy moly! That's some hurricane force flow...and it's causing quite a bit of saltation, I guess the finer substrate ends up at the furthest end of the tank after a while. The Danios, or whatever they are, seem to love the flow tho'.


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## Vinkenoog1977

Another Phil said:


> Hi Paul,
> I was looking at a similar idea for a 5ft long tank a while back with a mesh/grill at one end behind which are pipes which go down into 5ft long pipes in the substrate to the other end and up to several powerheads (different height up-tubes are an option) which gives a more laminar waterflow.
> PlanetCatfish has a number of posts about different fish options if you search for "high current". (not sure about linking to other forums?).
> cheers phil


I was thinking of doing the style similar to what I found in a PFK article.



 
And then add the spraybar above the two powerheads, to keep the flow as linear as possible. Will be using the Eheim Powerheads 1212, they give around 650 lph. each, which should be more than plenty with the powerheads running, and not go too far overboard flow-wise.



Edvet said:


> I think that could look very nice, some mossed logs on the side, a few small twigs and some emerged bacopa or so


Yeah, something like that would be the idea. Have a couple more weeks to make up my mind.



Iain Sutherland said:


> This was a friend of mines 8ft, species names in the description. Bit of inspiration...
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk



That's just gorgeous!


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## Another Phil

wow, that pic is identical to what I'd visualised.
The only extra thought I had was blocking off the outlet end with a filter pad like Edvet's #14 post here; http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/liberty-hob-aquaball-or-another.35200/#post-377490 as I was concerned about too much getting sucked into them.
cheers phil


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## Vinkenoog1977

Yeah, I'll be using one of these, just to be sure, and I'll use a guard on the filter inlet, since I'm hoping the Sewellia will breed in this tank.


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## Edvet

That APO one might clog fast i would take coarser foam


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## Vinkenoog1977

Hadn't thought of that, thanks Ed! Any suggestions, couldn't find any on the (crappy) Veldhuis site either.

Am leaning more and more towards the paludarium-style, and throwing any notion of a SAE biotope out the window, using some nice Anubias sp. and Echinodorus sp. for the emersed sections, and some Bolbitis of course then! Maybe even use Spatiphyllum and Anthurium or even Bromelia. There are some nice, smaller once out there, will need to take in account that there will be a maximum 15 cm. of open space between the water line and the fluorescent tubes, which will burn the leaves if everything gets too big.

As far as fish go, I might add some of the more elongated loaches I found on the forums suggested, some nice colours to be found there! And some of the Chinese Danios, they do look lovely and lively! I have some Zebra Danios in a 60x30x30 with a alledged turnover of around 7, from an internal filter, and they do seem to prefer hanging around in the area in front of the filter outlet, so might give a smallish school of say 9-ish a go. Plus a colony of 20-ish Yellow Cherry shrimp, the stones and wood I'll be using should provide enough cover for them to thrive. I've had them (the Red Cherry anyway) breed in conditions varying from no filtration to 10x turnover so far.


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## Edvet

Try to get some Stiphodon, they are nice looking fish.
I would do the paludarium style combined with 15 cm of water or so (easier to hide some hardware), and water splattering on the moss-logs
Foam can be found for instance at Intratuin, they have black too, just cut desired shape


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## Vinkenoog1977




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## stu_

Edvet said:


> Try to get some Stiphodon, they are nice looking fish.



MA stores seem to get these in from time to time.


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