Keeping Fish Fit & Strong In A Larger Tank

[Ste_1]

Does anyone here have a power-head setup to give their tank a flow? Giving your fish a place to swim against a strong current. Kind of forcing them not be lazy? My tank is 6ft and although the filters pump the water around in a nice flow its not really that powerful and I was just thinking to make their life a little more interesting they could do with a small part of the tank to swim against a 'current'.

 

[walkers101]

depends what fish you have in there some fish hate fast current

 

[Mikaila31]

yeah lots of tetras and especially rainbows live for currents. Same with my panda garras, their tank is like a washing machine with two powerheads in a 15 gal. They are current junkies and will often try hang on to the outlet of the powerheads. However other fish, like gouramis and a lot of the long fined fancy tank strains of fish would rather stay out of the current. Some fish are not good with constant strong swimming. It can lead to stress. When you run a high current tank though, you need to allow for some area that is out of the current so fish can take a break if they need to. Also what I do in my garra tank is one powerhead shares the timer with the light and a bubbler, so it only flips on during the day. That way the water is calmer when the fish are resting and the tank is quieter so I can sleep to.

 

[OldMan47]

I have set up a filter flow that is rather high compared to what most people would use for a Betta splendens. I have found, in my limited experience, that Betta splendens will adapt to much higher flows than typical betta people would advocate. One of my Bettas lives in a tank full of endlers livebearers. Endlers are commonly acknowledged to be about like guppies on speed and the betta has been asked to live in their conditions. Instead of becoming stressed by the conditions, he has done just fine with those endlers for over 2 years now. I believe, with no real proof, that he is stronger than many of his fellow bettas because he gets a daily workout. Either way, he is doing great in the endler tank except that he is failing at his primary chore. He was placed in the endler tank to help me control populations and can not seem to eat enough endler fry to make any difference. If he keeps under-performing like that, he is likely to be fired from the job.