Direction Of Water Flow?

[Magoofskie]

Hi everybody.

I am new to fish keeping and have just bought a 90litre tank with a biobox 2 filter. I have planted my tank and just completed a fishless cycle, ammonia and nitrite readings are all zero (tank can remove 5ppm of added ammonia in 12hrs, nitrite spike has been and gone, done 90% water change to remove nitrates, etc etc), and I have introduced the first fish ( 20 cardinal tetras and 9 Tetra Bentosi's). My final aim is to add 6 panda corys and 2 dwarf guarmis. Does this seem a good level of stocking and fish combo?

My main question is this. The outflow on my biobox filter is a 90 degree elbow which I can point in any direction. It is situated slightly left of centre at the back of my tank (no choice in this). Which way should i point this outflow? At the moment i have it pointing to the right, at about 5 degrees below horizont; This creates quite a current at the right side of my tank, with most of my cardinals choosing to hang out at the bottom of the tank here; The left of the tank is much carmer and offers a quiet hiding place (more heavily planted here). Does this sound good? The fish have only been in two days but do tend to favour the bottom of the tank leaving a fishless gap. I noticed last night when the lights were out that they all swam higher. Is the current wrong? Should I plant denser to stop direct overhead light, Or is it just because they are all newbies?

Any other comments i would love; Thankyou ,

Magoofskie

 

[greenscooby]

You have a 90 litre tank?
And you have 20 tetras which grow to 5cm?
Thats just over 39 inches of fish.

 

[OldMan47]

Welcome to the forum Magoofskie. Your present stocking is a bit heavy for a newly established tank but should be manageable. I would hold off a few months before adding any more fish.

I always aim to get the best flow that I can through most of the tank. Sometimes I will adjust the return several times before I am happy that I have found the best flow pattern. Any tetras should not have any trouble adjusting to the high flow of a well functioning filter. Most tetras are very energetic swimmers that don't need to be babied.

 

[greenscooby]

Sorry, please excuse my bad manners.

to the forum.

Mark.

 

[Magoofskie]

Sorry, please excuse my bad manners.

to the forum.

Mark.

Its ok. I appreciate the advice. Thought i had it right with stocking but second thoughts may have added too much too quick. Took me two months getting my tank cycled and the chemistry good, and i wanted to add the twenty neons in one go to create a good friendly shoal, rather than bit by bit as these are my main show. Thanks anyway

 

[greenscooby]

If you can direct your flow upwards i would, i've been advised to always have the water surface broken by your pump as this adds oxygen.

Mark.

 

[Magoofskie]

Welcome to the forum Magoofskie. Your present stocking is a bit heavy for a newly established tank but should be manageable. I would hold off a few months before adding any more fish.

I always aim to get the best flow that I can through most of the tank. Sometimes I will adjust the return several times before I am happy that I have found the best flow pattern. Any tetras should not have any trouble adjusting to the high flow of a well functioning filter. Most tetras are very energetic swimmers that don't need to be babied.

Thankyou also OldMan. Sounds great advice. Will hold off then for my panda corys and keep my present water flow; I understand it is a trade off, more aereation for the fish, less for the plants who lurve the co2.

Will read on avidly,

Magoofskie

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I agree with OM47. Getting your overall flow right is a pretty subtle thing (ie. not something you're likely to have major problems with if its wrong part of the time) and you can comfortably just watch it, adjust it, try different things and eventually get it the way you like it.

Now if you wanted to get really detailed, and since you've discussed your plantings, I do think there might be a bit of an interesting question here from the point of view of our planted forum members who are always working on us to understand about providing enough flow all through the tank to eliminate small pockets of ammonia (we're talking amounts of ammonia too small to be measured by our test kits but enough to trigger algae)... so with that in mind, I'd think it would be interesting what their instincts would be, to aim the greatest flow -into- the most dense plantings, or not...

~~waterdrop~~