Loaches Online Forum

Hi All,

I plan on upgrading to an 8ft or 10ft tank for my 30+ clown loaches.

I was wondering how a river tank manifold would work on a tank this long, would the powerheads be able to pull the water the entire distance and be able to still push a good current or will i need to put 2 seperate manifolds, one for each side of the tank?

Over 3m you should suffer a little loss in moving volume. Why not use a bigger pipe or several pipes in parallel?
That or have the intakes at the top/surface to generate a vertically circular (rather then linear) flow, mounting the power-heads upside-down.

I'd imagine you're also going to be hard-pressed to keep the flow-rate/current strength up for that distance. Might have to set booster heads at the 5' mark, or set a rotation with power-heads and bubbler.
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I would design it with large pipe sizes, and extra powerheads at the mid point. Perhaps you could arrange the filter outlet to aim in the correct direction, but enter at this midpoint. There are also ways to release water from PVC pipes that are hidden under the substrate, and just barely show (perhaps put a rock in front of it)

Another option would be to set up carefully arranged plumbing using a significantly larger pump and a sump. Then add a couple of powerheads once you see any slower moving spots that you think need more water movement. Do not take away all the slow moving areas, though. The fish will seek out these to rest.

You might want to try circular flow like the kind I have in my river tank. You don't need a manifold, you just let water use it own momentum to create a uniform flow around the perimeter of the tank.

The trick to get the maximum amount of flow is to have a partition in the center of the tank so that the current doesn't collide with each other. For my tank, I built a island cave out of concrete/pvc pipe to partition the water, but there are probably more aesthetic ways to get the same result.

If I were to do it again, which I'm seriously thinking about, I'd probably try to build an organic island. The base would be a mountain of PVC pipes. The pipes would be stacked from large to small, kind of like how Mickthefish has his loach pipes, but on a much larger scale. I'd cover the pipes with a combination of rocks, driftwood, and perhaps java moss. Then I have some bog plants on top of the structure growing out of the water. I'd build a huge acrylic hood for it with a plant watering system, like the one I have on my paludarium.

I was thinking of using some external pumps instead of powerheads since those have significantly more oomph.

Ive tried using the circular method but I always have issues with conflicting current within the tank.

chefkeith wrote: If I were to do it again, which I'm seriously thinking about.

you make me laugh!

always busy building and creating.

an inspiration to us all.

newshound wrote:

chefkeith wrote: If I were to do it again, which I'm seriously thinking about.

you make me laugh!

always busy building and creating.

an inspiration to us all.

Funny you say that, I made some major lighting and plumbing changes to my paludarium over the last few weeks. I'll have to do another picture update of what I did.