Water flow in the planted aquarium?

[Barbara Turner]

There is no right or wrong way.. It depends a bit on your flow rate and where your plants and hardscape are.
Also which direction you want the plants to get pushed.

You can see whats happening quickly enough and try a few different things.


I tend to find lilly pipes work better than spray bars at not knocking all the Co2 back out of the water.

Here are a few different options..

 

[Jwilliams0487]

There is no right or wrong way.. It depends a bit on your flow rate and where your plants and hardscape are.
Also which direction you want the plants to get pushed.

You can see whats happening quickly enough and try a few different things.


I tend to find lilly pipes work better than spray bars at not knocking all the Co2 back out of the water.

Here are a few different options..
View attachment 227040

View attachment 227042

Thank you. You're right. Depends on the hardscape and plants when optimising the outflow position and strength of flow. Depends on live stock too. Some fish prefer strong flows, others not so much.

Copying your design lol. My set up is in the diagram which is similar to your first diagram

 

[Jwilliams0487]

Hi all,

It is now you've posted in it🙂 .

Normally you would have them pointing in the same direction.

It looks fine for low tech, you don't need as much turn-over if you aren't distributing CO2.

I'd put a sponge on them, ideally you <"don't want any crud"> getting into the filter, just water and dissolved gases.

Having an <"intake pre-filter sponge"> often improves flow, purely because it carries out the mechanical filtration and it is easy to clean without opening the filter etc.

cheers Darrel

That's sound advice, thank you.

You've given me a pre filter idea which I actioned today. I'm sure that'll work!

I always believed pre filters were only designed to prevent small live stock getting injured. It makes sense that another benefit is to protect the filter's internal systems. Such as the delicate impellers.

I cleaned the Fluval 407 today. I will clean the other one in a couple of weeks. The 407 sponges had a lot of crud on them 😬

 

[Barbara Turner]

If you get sick of cleaning the blue sponge too often, I found these mesh tubes are marginally quicker to clean and block up slightly less.
you can also scoop / knock off the crud off without taking everything apart.

The challange is reducing the dead spots without any flow.. if your injecting Co2 you can often see tiny bubles moving around the tank.
You can also tell where the dead spots are because all the crap collects in them.

I'm sure someone on here advised me that all the plants in the aquarium should be slowly moving.. Something I've never achieved.

Filters always do fill up with crap, just means there doing there job.