Water Flow In A Planted Tank?

[DBridges]

OK, so I pretty much have all the basics in hand for the 50 US gallon planted aquarium that I am starting: Eheim 2128 filter, 156W T-5 lighting fixture, CO2 system, bogwood, rocks, etc. Now I'm working on getting all of the smaller stuff together.

My question is about the water flowing outward from the filter into the aquarium. The Eheim kit comes with a spray bar. Now I know that you should limit water surface movement with a heavily planted tank, so I am planning on putting the spray bar below the water surface. Is my thinking correct here? Or would a different method or type of water inflow to the tank be preferable? Will I need a powerhead? I read about "dead areas" in tanks, but I don't fully understand what that means. I'm assuming it means areas where there isn't very good water flow.

For what it's worth, in addition to the plants I intend on keeping danios, corys, and maybe a few shrimp eventually, along with one or two other more solitary fish yet to be determined.

David

 

[Spanerman]

Your correct about dead spots.

I would use lily pipes persoanly.

http/www.thegreenmachineaquatics.com/mal.../Lily%2520pipes

But you can find cheaper ones!

Sam.

 

[DBridges]

Wow, those look nice but they're wicked expensive. Has anyone ever used Loc-Line type equipment? Seems like I might be able to rig up something quite versatile using that stuff.

 

[Geoff1991]

If you search ebay you can get some for £30 posted.

 

[Bobtastic]

I've always wondered how you'd go about connecting Lilly pipes to a external Fluval canister filter... Their hosing seems a too large to connect to them.

 

[shrimply]

At present I've just fitted an eheim 2217 with spray bar in my planted ( with no plants ) tank. I'm hoping that it will provide enough flow along with the fluval 4+ internal.

I don't have the option of Lily Pipes becuase of the heavy wooden hood, even the filter intake had to have the bend chopped off to get it in.

 

[baron von bubba]

from what i've picked up lily pipes are not really much used on larger tanks and when they are used its for asthetic reasons, rather than flow benifit.

the filter with media is around 500-600 hundred litres per hour, the "target" figure is 10x flow.
i believe the higher the light the more important the whole flow issue is and if you use ALL your lighting at once you will probably find you will want to add a power head and/or extra filter

i believe i've seen pictures of tom barr tanks with loc-line used to direct flow, if its good enough for him...........