Help Needed With Water Circulation.....

[fuzzyferret]

Hi - I have an odd tank. It is 2 foot wide, 2 foot in length, and 3 foot deep. An elongated cube.
It has a glass shelf which is diagonally across one of the rear corners, triangular (if that makes sense).

I know that this tank is really impractical in many ways, but the fish love it. They live almost on two levels.

I keep African cichlids in it, therefore there are a lot of rocks under the shelf and covering at least two thirds of the floor area.

My problem is this...... There are some dead spots in the tank and this allows old food etc to collect under the rocks (especially when the fish dig so much).

I have an external Eheim pump, which is excellent, but I need ideas on how to stimulate more water movement in the bottom of the tank to allow the dirt to circulate more and be sucked up by the filter. The shelf blocks a bit of the water movement from the outlet pipe at the top of the tank.

I know that I can put extra powerheads in the tank, but I didn't really want to put more than one in if possible.

I wondered about those that rotate gently?

Does anyone else have these problems, and what can be done?

At the moment, I have stripped the tank down (fish otherwise housed) and am hoping to decide shortly a plan of action! Ideas please!!!!

 

[Ob1]

can you post a picture?

I was going to suggest putting a pump in but it seems you have already look at this. what about an air pipe and air pump hide (the pipe) under the gravel and turn it on at night?

 

[Rafael Dilone]

Hi - I have an odd tank. It is 2 foot wide, 2 foot in length, and 3 foot deep. An elongated cube.
It has a glass shelf which is diagonally across one of the rear corners, triangular (if that makes sense).

I know that this tank is really impractical in many ways, but the fish love it. They live almost on two levels.

I keep African cichlids in it, therefore there are a lot of rocks under the shelf and covering at least two thirds of the floor area.

My problem is this...... There are some dead spots in the tank and this allows old food etc to collect under the rocks (especially when the fish dig so much).

I have an external Eheim pump, which is excellent, but I need ideas on how to stimulate more water movement in the bottom of the tank to allow the dirt to circulate more and be sucked up by the filter. The shelf blocks a bit of the water movement from the outlet pipe at the top of the tank.

I know that I can put extra powerheads in the tank, but I didn't really want to put more than one in if possible.

I wondered about those that rotate gently?

Does anyone else have these problems, and what can be done?

At the moment, I have stripped the tank down (fish otherwise housed) and am hoping to decide shortly a plan of action! Ideas please!!!!

Well if you dont want to add a extra powehead and you want the job to get done you should have a powerhead that is strong enough for the amount of gallons that you have. Well good look with keeping your aquarium clean. Hope you the best of luck.

 

[McMurray]

If you cut a short tube and place it on the powerhead then attach a Y piece in the tube then two more tubes from that.

With this you have two jet heads

 

[dylema]

Here is a link to something that might help. I found this in a DIY section thread from a while back. It is about jets that stop food etc settling on the substrate which I guess is pretty much what you are looking for. Hope it helps.

 

[fuzzyferret]

Thanks for your replies.

I have already thought about undergravel (or sand!) jets, and I might decide to do this.
Otherwise, I was thinking of a rotating powerhead that would gently sweep the tank.
Problem with this is, the powerhead would probably need to be at least on a level with the shelf (which is approx half way down the depth of the tank). Can you (fully) submerge powerheads on a permanent basis?
And, can you run them upside down? Reason being, if I had a rotating powerhead, I could put this sweeping towards the bottom of the tank, with a round filter on the bottom of the powerhead. This would make it easy to remove the filter for cleaning with it pointing upwards instead of towards the bottom of the tank - if that makes sense!

Sorry about the ignorance, but I have the ideas without the technical know-how!!

 

[dylema]

The couple of powerheads I have are supposed to be fully submerged so you should be fine with that. Just check on the model you get first. I am pretty sure that a powerhead will work anyway up I can't see why it wouldn't. I think you can get attachments for powerhead that make the sweeping motion you are talking about, is that what you were thinking of?

 

[andywg]

If you want one powerhead that is strong enough, try Tunze. They are desinged for marine flows, but the smaller ones should work ok.

 

[fuzzyferret]

Thanks for these replies.
There are attachments you can fit to a 'normal' powerhead to cause some rotation, and I was also looking at some powerheads (similar to Tunze - how expensive are they!!!) that do rotate.

Still, I only plan on doing this the once, so it may be worth while getting a good one.

Thanks for all the advice - I'll let you know how I get on and post a pic shortly!

 

[andywg]

Tunze are expensive, but you get much more flow for your pound. Especially when you realise that for 45W you can get 12,000 lph.

Once you factor in the running costs of a couple of years, and the fact that Tunze are super reliable, they are actually not that bad a price.

You can go for the lower cost Seio if you want a budget version of the Tunze, though they are made by Rio who have had a major issue with poiwerheads dieing catastrophically and wiping out entire tanks (so, save £40 now, or save all your livestock later...suddenly the Tunze doesn't sound so bad...)