Water flow in the planted aquarium?

[Wookii]

Okay thanks now I know . So tetra would probably be a better option

Only the smallest tetra I would say. Maybe some Embers or Green Neons if you can provide some hiding places in the hardscape design. Even then though - I have Embers in a 60 litre tank, and whilst they are fine, they can lap the tank in about three seconds, and think they would be more comfortable in a larger tank.

 

[hypnogogia]

Wouldn’t something less active like a Betta be preferable?

 

[Bowman]

Hi everyone, I know this is a really old thread but I'm hoping someone could help me. I have a Jewel 190 trigon corner aquarium and have major problems with flow around the tank. I admit, its not a highly planted tank, so may not be the best thread to post on but there have been some very good suggestions regarding spray bars. As the tank is basically a wedge I am struggling to find a good solution. If anyone has any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Luketendo]

Hi everyone, I know this is a really old thread but I'm hoping someone could help me. I have a Jewel 190 trigon corner aquarium and have major problems with flow around the tank. I admit, its not a highly planted tank, so may not be the best thread to post on but there have been some very good suggestions regarding spray bars. As the tank is basically a wedge I am struggling to find a good solution. If anyone has any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.

Could use a circulation pump or two, like the ones used in marine aquariums.

 

[Andrew Butler]

Hi everyone, I know this is a really old thread but I'm hoping someone could help me. I have a Jewel 190 trigon corner aquarium and have major problems with flow around the tank. I admit, its not a highly planted tank, so may not be the best thread to post on but there have been some very good suggestions regarding spray bars. As the tank is basically a wedge I am struggling to find a good solution. If anyone has any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.

I'm unsure where but there's a thread on this forum about the exact same issue you are talking about, if you or someone else can find it then it would hopefully help. I recall them trying a spraybar that went vertically, instead of horizontally but unsure exactly what the result was, sorry.

 

[G H Nelson]

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/trigon-190-crypt-corner-pfk-featured.22238/

 

[Bowman]

Thanks hogan, very interesting read as have the exact same tank. Can't believe how good all his scapes are! The Mrs decided to have her 2p last weekend and now I have to accommodate a pirate ship and some other novelty pirate items. Makes it exceptionally hard to scape but may try a cove type setting or something similar.

 

[aeneas]

As some of you have seen I am currently building a ~1100L planted tank for discus and intending the scape to be inspired by Josh Sim's 2017 IAPLC winning "Congo" aquascape. Precise measurements of the tank are 243cm L x 65cm W x 70cm H (schemes below are drawn with exact proportions and I've already drafted in an approximate layout of the hardscape (black) and possible positioning of the outflow pipes (purple). I will have a 81cm wide (32") Exotic Marine Systems overflow box installed (as shown in the scheme below). The return pump from the sump will be Red Dragon 3 with 100W power and 12.000L/h flow, so plenty enough.
In order to plan the drilling of the tank, I now need to think about the most appropriate positioning of the return pipes in order to have the appropriate water circulation in the tank.
In the second picture below I was just "imagining" how a water flow might look like from three outflows, but I have no idea how the water would actually behave...
Any suggestions with the tank that large, what would be the ideal positioning of the outflow pipes? Equally spread like this, or more on one end to create a more horizontal-like flow? Should I use some additional powerheads for moving the water around the tank? What about airstones? I would prefer not to use them - they are noisy and I assume not helpful in retaining CO2? Any other suggestions / ideas regarding setting up the tank so it receives appropriate water flow and minimal possible dead spots?
Any help much appreciated!

 

[Andrew Butler]

@aeneas - looking through your main build thread quickly I'm unsure how far along you are so you will likely have to correct me.

Do you plan on having the background painted? Likely worth considering as there will be quite a lot of ugly pipework behind the aquarium.

Firstly are you having the aquarium built for you, if you are then why not just add a dedicated external overflow box built into/onto the aquarium with a removable weir comb?
Is there a reason you don't want to have the overflow central as I think suggest this is worth considering.

As for returns I think the overflow and sump will be there mainly to provide filtration and not the sole provider of flow, especially on a system this size and look towards some kind of powerheads to help instead. You can choose what you want and put them where you choose, the choice out there is so big now.
You could then dial the turnover of the sump right down and also wouldn't need such large returns either and I think you could reduce this to 2; one close to either end.
If you're unsure about things then you can always run them up and over like @Geoffrey Rea has in his smaller 600.
Is there any reason you opted for the Red Dragon? In the UK the Jecod pumps are great, very adjustable and cheap to both buy and run. Personally I always think it's a good idea to keep a spare with something like this.

Just to go back to your main thread, assuming you go down the AWC route I think it's very important to not entirely rely upon this system to clean the water as you would normally siphon and the easy way out could be to just have an external canister filter that you can go over the substrate with and essentially vacuum it, unless you planned to get clever with adding some kind of bypass onto your sump intake where you could tee off from one of your intakes, add a hose on and allow this to give you the same kind of feature. Not really thought through I know!

I'm unsure what supply and availability of certain materials are in your country so pointing you towards products becomes a little tricky.

 

[aeneas]

@aeneas - looking through your main build thread quickly I'm unsure how far along you are so you will likely have to correct me.

Do you plan on having the background painted? Likely worth considering as there will be quite a lot of ugly pipework behind the aquarium.

Firstly are you having the aquarium built for you, if you are then why not just add a dedicated external overflow box built into/onto the aquarium with a removable weir comb?
Is there a reason you don't want to have the overflow central as I think suggest this is worth considering.

As for returns I think the overflow and sump will be there mainly to provide filtration and not the sole provider of flow, especially on a system this size and look towards some kind of powerheads to help instead. You can choose what you want and put them where you choose, the choice out there is so big now.
You could then dial the turnover of the sump right down and also wouldn't need such large returns either and I think you could reduce this to 2; one close to either end.
If you're unsure about things then you can always run them up and over like @Geoffrey Rea has in his smaller 600.
Is there any reason you opted for the Red Dragon? In the UK the Jecod pumps are great, very adjustable and cheap to both buy and run. Personally I always think it's a good idea to keep a spare with something like this.

Just to go back to your main thread, assuming you go down the AWC route I think it's very important to not entirely rely upon this system to clean the water as you would normally siphon and the easy way out could be to just have an external canister filter that you can go over the substrate with and essentially vacuum it, unless you planned to get clever with adding some kind of bypass onto your sump intake where you could tee off from one of your intakes, add a hose on and allow this to give you the same kind of feature. Not really thought through I know!

I'm unsure what supply and availability of certain materials are in your country so pointing you towards products becomes a little tricky.

Hi @Andrew Butler , thanks for the suggestions. Several topics raised so I will address each one separately:
1) background: I was planning to add a "cloudy/frosted" white sticky film to the background. This way I could keep lighter areas for some focal points but avoid seeing the pipes. I do not like black backgrounds or pictures as they would steer the attention away. Keep it simple.

2) overflow: Yes, I'm having the aquarium custom built. I was thinking about that but to me it seems that none of the DIY solutions come close to aesthetics of the boxes made by EMS or MM. The only thing I would maybe change is to spray paint them to a light grey or something like that... they all make boxes black so that one does not see algae too quickly... but I could make the box blend more with the cloudy background if I painted it lighter. Do you have an overflow with a removable weir comb in mind that you would recommend me to look into? I've not purchased the overflow box, so I can still change my mind and ask the builder to make the overflow if I give them a good design. Regarding central or offset positioning - I felt this gives me a better chance of hiding it with the aquascape; rule of thirds - I will not be building an "island" style aquascape so centre will not be as dense as edges... no other reason. Also this way I maybe create a more directional surface flow from left to right...

3) flow: powerheads would probably make a lot of sense... I'd rather have them work from the back end though - not adding anything to the sides to keep the aesthetics clean. Any idea how to envisage water flow on paper? ...any thoughts on airstones for water movement? I'm not too sure about airstones... some people are very much in favour, but with my limited understanding of CO2 (it will be the first time I'll be using a high-tech CO2 tank) is that airstones would create too much surface agitation and CO2 loss? For the returns drilling 2 instead of 3 would be even better... but on a tank 240cm long, would this be enough? Again - any idea how to envisage a reasonable approximation of the water flow that might give an idea of what will be happening and to identify where flow needs to go? Adding powerheads will be easy; but drilling additional holes once the tank is installed will be impossible.

4) pump: I opted for Red Dragon after watching and reading many reviews; supposedly extremely reliable, durable and dead silent. Jebao next to it was way louder. It is expensive, but it should last a decade or more, so I wouldn't worry too much about the price then.

5) vacuuming: certainly I still intend to vacuum the gravel every now and then - I've got drains behind the aquarium so it will be an easy feature to do that once in a while while also trimming the plants etc. The whole AWC idea is more to keep the fresh water coming in continuously at small amounts not to lead to water parameter swings etc. Also I will make sure to think through the rest of the fail-safe features before getting the whole thing up and running... these are just the initial concepts where the general tank set-up is going.

6) supplies: whatever you can get in UK I can get here as well so if you have any good suggestions, feel free to mention - always keen to get good advice 😉

 

[erwin123]

I have been reading about using Twinstar bubbles or fish food to trace the flow around the aquarium.

Here's my contribution - set your CO2 to produce a lot more mist than normal in order to saturate the tank. Before the main lights come on, in a preferably dim room, dip a high-powered narrow beam LED flashlight into your tank and you can see the CO2 mist movement of only the small area that your narrow-beam LED flashlight illuminates. Using this 'narrow beam', I can see areas of higher flow and slower flow, areas of higher and lower 'mist density'. Even if I can't change the flow (its inevitable that some areas will be lower flow than others where Lily pipes are used), at least I can plant accordingly (i.e. plants that like flow put in areas of better flow)

 

[aeneas]

That’s a very good tip, thank you [mention]erwin123 [/mention] !! I will certainly use this technique! 🙂

 

[raharlow]

This was a very good read, thank you to all. I am currently designing a 65gal tank but I'm stuck on what to do. I want to use a spray bar, high on back wall, aiming slightly down and towards front for the circular flow, across top, down front, across bottom and up back. This tank will have a sump, so no surface agitation is needed nor wanted. I'll be incorporating an overflow, so this will take care of surface film. The internal box 3.75" tall, thru bulkhead fittings into external box, plumbed beananimal style and 8" wide (only 1.125 thick). I was considering putting it center back, but then how do I place the back spraybar? If under the box, will that be too low and not look good from an aesthetics standpoint? Tank is 36" wide, so do I incorporate 2 spraybars, 14" in length on either side of inner box? What about flow in center? Thoughts, ideas, suggestions?? Thanks!

 

[ceg4048]

Hello,
It might help to provide some sketches as it's not really clear what the geometry you are thinking of/ If you have a center overflow box at the back then using two spraybars on either side will be fine, but it means you have to think harder about how to distribute CO2 to the spraybars using in-line injection. Gas splitters can be used but they are problematic trying to get equal gas amounts into each.

Cheers,

 

[raharlow]

Hello,
It might help to provide some sketches as it's not really clear what the geometry you are thinking of/ If you have a center overflow box at the back then using two spraybars on either side will be fine, but it means you have to think harder about how to distribute CO2 to the spraybars using in-line injection. Gas splitters can be used but they are problematic trying to get equal gas amounts into each.

Cheers,

So have changed up my thinking. Here is a pic of where I'm at. Thinking of using a gyre pump to direct the flow across the top, length-wise, down side and then across bottom and back up. Then dumping the return on opposite wall from gyre, directed down. Currently looking to use an existing AM1000 CO2 reactor on its own loop (only 3/8" id inlet and outlet so too restrictive to use in line with just return) feeding into return pump. Probably will use 3/4" loc-line to direct flow down opposite wall. With this flow, it made more sense to me to put overflow off center to maybe catch the updraft from counter-clockwise flow.

Not sure if gyre pump will be too powerful with a 36"/90cm length. Would use lowest flow on gyre, but not sure. May just try to see if return flow is enough on its own. Not looking for surface agitation as I plan on have an aeration chamber in sump at point of entry. Just need overflow to break the surface film.

Very open to thoughts and ideas.

 

[ceg4048]

So have changed up my thinking. Here is a pic of where I'm at. Thinking of using a gyre pump to direct the flow across the top, length-wise, down side and then across bottom and back up. Then dumping the return on opposite wall from gyre, directed down. Currently looking to use an existing AM1000 CO2 reactor on its own loop (only 3/8" id inlet and outlet so too restrictive to use in line with just return) feeding into return pump. Probably will use 3/4" loc-line to direct flow down opposite wall. With this flow, it made more sense to me to put overflow off center to maybe catch the updraft from counter-clockwise flow.

Hmm, OK, wow this sounds very complicated. I always prefer the simpler approaches if I can get away with it. A popular general approach with sumps is one of first, covering or otherwise sealing the sump against gas leakage and then injecting CO2 directly into the sump. A major disadvantage of sumps is that they quickly off-gas CO2 which becomes counter-productive. During the day, when the plants are producing oxygen an aeration chamber is redundant, and uncovered or unsealed sumps will reduce the oxygen being produced.
During the night, this is when aeration is a good thing because the plants are competing with fauna for oxygen. In a sealed sump this can easily be addressed by having an airstone in the sump with the pump on a timer to go on a few hours after lights off when the extra oxygen produced during the day is depleted.
Once this is accomplished, the distribution of return water is made simpler and you can go back to having the bars mounted on the back wall on either side of the overflow box. It's really not a big deal that the box takes up space in the center. The advantage of having the spraybars mounted on the back is that there is a shorter distance to the front glass and it's easier to get the desired flow pattern with this shorter distance.

Cheers,

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

Looks like your overflow is in the right hand corner, just like my setup. Why not run a spray bar from the left all the way up until the overflow box. That’s how I have mine, and I run a cerges in the sump with the output directed right into my return pump. My sump is not sealed and I do use a solid amount of CO2. My 5lb tanks lasts about 2-3 months depending on how hard I run the co2. Some would think it’s a leak but it’s just what I have to do to get the co2 at the right level with the overflow