75 Gal Tank, what size POWERHEADS?

[PitterPatti]

Hi, in a few hours I am getting lights from someone, and will have the opportunity to buy Maxijet 1200 and 900 and even a couple of 600's.

I am setting up a 75 gallon tank for loaches and a few middle layer fish and would love to give my new loaches what will make them happiest, nice current.

Can anyone tell me how much current is good for them, how many at what gph, where located etc? up? down?

I have 3 aqua clears that came with a previous tank......300 gph I think.... no instructions to be found anywhere.

Price is pretty good on these $10, but maybe I should just buy one or two good new ones?

dazed and confused over here! LOL!
(does that give away my age??? LOL!)

thanks!
Patti

[newshound]

not sure of the water movement of any of those powerheads
BUT
if they are in good shape and only $10 each I'd snap them all up.
Can all your fish handle water movement?
Alot of water movement is great for the loaches and moves the crap on the bottom of the tank towards the sponge on the other side if your using Martin's river tank design (do it it rocks....errr "flows" )
Just make sure that the tank has "dead areas" for the fish to rest out of the flow. But of course that should be no problem with lotsa spots for the loaches to hide.

[Martin Thoene]

Dazed and confused?

Let's bring out the Led then Your Aquaclears should be AC300's. It should say 300 on the lid. They are now designated 70 so the lid might have 70 on it. Anyhow, they are just under 8.5" wide if they're that model.

I would use two of them on a 75 for Loaches.

As regards the Maxijets:

1200 = 295 GPH

900 = 230 GPH

600 = 160 GPH

I'm with newshound on snapping them all up if you can afford them. They're a steal at $10 each IF they're all there and not damaged/worn in any way.

I would probably look at adding two of the 1200's to the tank. You're doing math and working out that we're up to close on 1200 GPH turnover which probably sounds insane right?. Consider this.....my 125 turns over 3000 GPH (approx) through all its pumps and filters.

You could add Quickfilters to the intakes to give some additional filtration if you wanted. I would mount one powerhead low and one higher....about 2/3rds the way up the tank. Stagger them to give a spread of flow.

Martin.