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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

flow rates

  • wolfsburg (wolfsburg)
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21 Jan 2011 23:54 #1 by wolfsburg (wolfsburg)
flow rates was created by wolfsburg (wolfsburg)
Talk about complicating matters and having too many options! :blink: ...
I'm just playing with my new filter in yet another tank that I'll be sorting over the next few weeks. It is an electronic jobby that you program from a computer.
The tank is a 300 litre open-top 5 foot tank. It will (of course :whistle: ) be quite heavily planted and stocked reasonably lightly with fish.
What flow rate would you set it to?

Chuurs! ;)

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22 Jan 2011 00:10 #2 by joey (joe watson)
Replied by joey (joe watson) on topic Re: flow rates
do they not recomment a high rate of turnover around 8-10 times the volume per hour, for planted tanks? if i'm not mistaken this is to stop dead spots and deterrs alot of algae growth. i hope i'm right, i just got a bloody massive 6800l/h return pump that puts out 4000l/h at the 2m head height its operating at in the 450l!

Location: Portlaoise, Midlands

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22 Jan 2011 00:17 #3 by wolfsburg (wolfsburg)
Replied by wolfsburg (wolfsburg) on topic Re: flow rates
I wouldn't really go that far Joey. 10x turnover would be 3000LPH in this tank. The filter is rated for tanks 300-700l and max LPH is 1850. Personally I would set it around 775 to 825 LPH but I want more opinions on it.
With such a high flow I think I would "wash away" CO2 and allow for too much gaseous exchange to take place at the surface. Even at max 1850LPH the flow is fierce :blink:



Thanks for you thoughts.

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22 Jan 2011 00:31 #4 by joey (joe watson)
Replied by joey (joe watson) on topic Re: flow rates
depend on your outflow, i'd be putting a fat b*stard spray bar on it with huge holes/slots pointing into the water so as not to give too much surface ripple and not put a jet thru the water column. i'm using a koralia number one powerhead the other end to point at a dead spot i'll get behind decor but thats it. all river fish, all lovin high flow. you see, those filter's outputs are rated from the hole and they are empty and pointing the water down. at 2m mine will probably only realistically put out 3000l/h if that, and yours would only put out around 1300 if the motor was the height of the outflow pipe. the recommended volume on the filters is bull, most put a tank half the output but that's only good if they are empty, and the lower number (in your case 300l) means the filter is only 4-5 times the volume or thereabouts in turnover, which is fine for lake fish like tangs or malawi's and if there's no plants but i'd say its always better to over filter by at least 1.5 (ie a filter rated for min 200l i'd use as a max for a 125l) plus your tank is 5' it'd need some big filter to push water around that. just my opinion, i dont think there's harm overfiltering

Location: Portlaoise, Midlands

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22 Jan 2011 00:48 #5 by SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
Is it not good to have the spraybar breaking the water surface on a planted tank??



Mark

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22 Jan 2011 00:58 #6 by wolfsburg (wolfsburg)
Replied by wolfsburg (wolfsburg) on topic Re: flow rates
Interesting points made. I'm still not convinced on 3000LPH but that's not to say that you are wrong Joey!
I can see the flow rate of this filter on a computer screen in real time so I have no reason to doubt what the out put is.
I also believe there is no harm in overfiltering... as I said the filter is rated for 300 - 700 litres and the tank is at the very bottom of the scale at 300 litres.

Other opinions are welcome

@ dickiedocker... I tend to keep surface agitation to a minimum in planted tanks if CO2 or liquid carbon is used as the agitation allows for increased gaseous exchange at the water's surface, you want that to be done by the photosynthesizing plants, ie taking in the CO2 and converting it to oxygen etc. That seems to be the rough jist of what the books and product manufacturers are saying.

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22 Jan 2011 01:00 #7 by joey (joe watson)
Replied by joey (joe watson) on topic Re: flow rates
if you are using alot of plants and no co2, then not really as the plants need the co2 and will put oxygen back in. the gaseous exchange with slight ripples is plenty, from what i have sourced. on heavily stocked tanks without plants yes you do want alot of surface agitation as its the only way to get rid of the co2

Location: Portlaoise, Midlands

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22 Jan 2011 01:10 #8 by SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
Thanks lads I thought the ripple from the spraybar was ok and my tank is't heavily planted just six plants in a 155 liter.
So should I push the spraybar down a bit?

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22 Jan 2011 01:17 #9 by wolfsburg (wolfsburg)
Replied by wolfsburg (wolfsburg) on topic Re: flow rates
In your case I would probably leave the spray bar the way you have it. That few plants won't be producing enough oxygen on their own for the livestock to breath.

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22 Jan 2011 01:22 #10 by SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
Cool. Can you recommend any good books on planted tanks and co2

Thanks for the help :)


Mark

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22 Jan 2011 01:32 - 22 Jan 2011 01:39 #11 by wolfsburg (wolfsburg)
Replied by wolfsburg (wolfsburg) on topic Re: flow rates
not too many books about CO2. You could take a look at Nature Aquarium World Vol 1 - 3, by Takeshi Amano. I also really like Aquarium Displays Inspired By Nature by Peter Hiscock, but I suppose that's a bit dated now. The Tropica and Dennerle websites are good sources of info.

PFK have had some quite good plant related articles in pretty much every issue for the past year. I'll probably clear out all the issues I have one of these days for an LFS to give out free or if there's a show this year.
Last edit: 22 Jan 2011 01:39 by wolfsburg (wolfsburg).

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22 Jan 2011 01:35 #12 by SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
Brilliant cheers for that Wolfsburg I'll have a look for those :)

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