What gallon per hour is good?

[Minit]

I have a 30 galllon bowfront moderately to heavily planted.
What gph is good?

[TexasCichlid]

Minimum 5x volume. Keep in mind filter ratings across the board are generously estimated.

[BBradbury]

Originally Posted by Minit

I have a 30 galllon bowfront moderately to heavily planted.
What gph is good?

Hello Minit...

If your fish load isn't too much, then a filter with a gph (gallon per hour) rating of roughly 6 times the volume of your tank in gallons is sufficient. For your 30 G tank a filter with a gph of 180 would work.

I'd suggest large, frequent water changes too. Change a lot of tank water and change it weekly and your water chemistry should be fine.

Just a suggestion, though.

B

[funkman262]

Depending on your definition of "heavily" planted, you may not even need a filter unless you simply want to use it for mechanical filtration (opposed to biological) because the plants should be consuming the ammonia quicker than the bacteria. Having said that, it's still important to have some sort of flow in the tank so even if you didn't use a filter, you'd still need to add a powerhead.

[mrkookm]

Not sure if the question was geared towards a filter or just flow within the tank, but I'll add my 2 cents for both all together.

Regarding the filter performance bigger (within reason) is always better, but not necessity. IMO the important thing is for you to ensure the bio capacity can handle the livestock load. Once this is matched up, then you can supplement flow with additional powerheads.

How I gauge flow in my tank is not based on a set number, but how overall plant movement is within the tank. Everything should have a nice gentle sway or better yet if you were to disturb the substrate dust should not fall back to the same spot if that makes sense. It should want to move in the direction of the intake of you filter inflow. It might not make it in one go, but this is the general concept I use for my tanks with regards to flow.

[talontsiawd]

I am with people on the higher flow. 5x turnover per hour is a good starting point. Some will go up to 10x or more. However, that doesn't mean I haven't been very sucessful with much lower flow, more flow has more than a few positives.


High flow can be a pain on small tanks or tanks where you want the stems to grow to the top though. Outside of being creative about how to "distribute" the flow, sometimes it's just better to lower the flow in general.