Loaches Online Forum

Do hillstreams jump?

One of the other recent threads got me thinking about tank design... since I've had so much free time lately. (winter break)

So I'm wondering... why not have a little stream in your house? Why stick with a glass tank?

Some day I'll be able to have a house, I hope, and I think it would be cool to have some sort of "water feature" in the place.

It would be interesting to put together some kind of small indoor pool/fountain with a "stream" running into it.

Of course you wouldn't be able to look at the fish from the side, but if you had some big smooth rocks in your "stream" and the water was clear, I dunno why it would be hard to see the fish.

But of course, if they jump, the whole idea is moot.

They jump.....occasionally. Well....they get out of tanks put it that way. I've found one on the floor and one on the cover glass....crispy-crittered under the lights.

Martin.

Ouch...

I guess it wouldn't work then.

You'd also have to be really careful about airborne contaminants e.g. air freshners, paint fumes, cleaning fluids (general household stuff etc etc) getting into the water of such an open body of water.

Emma

How are plans for the indoor pond comming, Emma?

I've not seen mine jump, but they do stick their little faces out of the water along the glass to catch floating bloodworms or anything else they think is interesting above the surface. I've taken to leaving about an inch margin in the water level just in case.

I was acclimating some gastromyzons in a 2 gallon tank using the drip method. The tank was plastic and didn't have a lip on it. As soon as I took the lid off the first time several of the gastros swam at high speed up the tank side (still suctioned to the side) and went flying up in the air and landed on the carpet. I must say I was shocked. All survived the escape attempt.

Confuzona's certainly can jump when in a food frenzy. A very nervous Vannie can too.

But I don't think they can jump very high. Not filling the last 2"-3" of water should be sufficient.

palaeodave wrote:How are plans for the indoor pond comming, Emma?

Oh, they're way off yet. Got to have an extension built on the house with a conservatory first!

Emma Turner wrote:

palaeodave wrote:How are plans for the indoor pond comming, Emma?

Oh, they're way off yet. Got to have an extension built on the house with a conservatory first!

Thats dedication! What sort of dimentions is it going to be? And will it be sunken into the ground or raised up with glass sides? (Sorry if I'm hijacking this thread!)

Hijack all you want. Once in a while you see the odd story about someone with an indoors goldfish or koi pond, but to have some kind of loach stream or pond would be truly interesting and unique.

If Emma is building a pond in her house then I want to hear about it. lol

You could have a cross section or river/ creek with two distinct ends and a glass side. You would go broke trying to pump the amount of flow required to keep the level consistant. Figure that for every one inch of depth at 24 inches of width=71.9gpm. This is based on the Francis formula.

Q=3.33 (L-0.2H) H1.5
Q=cubic ft of water flowing per second
L= lenght of opening or weir in feet
H= head of weir in feet

Now figure that you would need about 700 gpm for a ten inch deep river. The pump would need to be around 15 hp based on a 12x1.5 inch impeller. 24/7/365 the cost to run the pump would be in the thousands. I have thought this over and run the numbers. Its a novel idea though.

chris1932 wrote: Figure that for every one inch of depth at 24 inches of width=71.9gpm. This is based on the Francis formula.

I learned this the hard way, by trial and error on my rivertank project. I am up to about 2.5 inches in dept of flow but I had to shorten the width of the flow area from 15" to 4.5" to about 3.5". I also added a pump and plan to add another for a total of 3. Tell you one thing, loaches love a high flow current.