look at carib sea ivory coast, it will bring PH up a lil bit, but i have no issues with it so far... looks really nice too..

 

and no, hillstreams are not good for snail removal

 

10X is not too much water movement for Turface. I have SMS in my 20 long and in a 4' long tank with the power heads in each tank pretty close to the floor of the tank. Right where the water flow hits is a slight hollow spot, but the rest of the tank is fine. In both the 20 long (30" long) and the bigger tank (48" long) there are rounded cobbles to represent the stream bed. In the larger tank they are up to 6" in diameter, in the smaller tank about 4" max. There are smaller stones, too, but not a total cover over the soil.

 

What is a reasonable amount of flow for a river tank? I've actually seen quite a bit of variation in the recommendations, some up to 20x.

Doing a quick conversion, 600gph on the area of a 55g (12x20, assuming a little for gravel) tank gives a velocity of 9.6inches per minute, which would mean it would take 5 seconds for the water to move from one side of the tank to the other. Which really isn't very fast for a stream or river.

 

Lets add up what I have on my larger river tank:
The larger tank is not a strict river tank by the design at www.Loaches.com . It holds 45+ gallons of water, and is 48" long, 15" x 15". At the north end are 2 powerheads. At the south end is the intake for the Aquaclear 70. The other is a Koralia 4, and I have not set up the more complex intake for that one. On the back of the tank are 2 HOB filters. The Aquaclear 110 is at the north end of the back, and has a modified intake. There is a PVC 90 and this leads to the south end of the tank. The other is a Penquin 150, with no modifications.

Total water movement when everything is running at maximum rate per manufacturer is:
Koralia: 1250
AC PH: 400*
AC 110 500*
Penguin 150
...........2300
divide by 45 = 51 times the tank volume.
*indicates the intake is offset to create some horizontal flow from north to south.
Do I really believe the manufacturer's numbers? No. I would believe perhaps 75%, perhaps less.

The other tank is a 20 gallon long (30" x 12" x 12") river tank set up with intakes on the west and outlets on the east.
Eheim 2234 and Aquaclear 50.
Water flow per manufacturer:
AC PH 270
Eheim 145
...........415
divide by 20 = 20.75
Same question: no, I do not think the flow rate is really this high, but I did modify the AC for better flow. Also, these outlets are both located at the end of the tank, not the back, so there is less cross current, better straight line water flow.

 

Yeah, after reading a bit more I figured I should up the flow to the 20x+ range.

I had picked up a maxi-jet 900 for the planted 55g when I realized it didn't have very good flow with just the Rena XP3. I just installed that an hour ago and it seems to be moving a lot of water, but it is of course moving a large single stream and not a very uniform movement. Might be enough to give them some fast water movement. But I was thinking I would use more and put some spray bars on them for more uniform flow.

I was also looking at the Koralia powerheads, they seemed like the best flow for the cost. I was just wondering if it would be possible to adapt that to piping to suck from the far end of the tank, to get uniform flow rather then circling. I have been reading some of the articles on loaches.com and haven't yet found anything for using that filter with a pipe intake. Do you happen to have a link to something like that? Problem with searches on any of these fish sites is all the key words end up in 400 posts that don't have to do with what I'm looking for.


What types of plants will be ok with a 20-30x turnover rate?

 

What types of plants will be ok with a 20-30x turnover rate?

When I lived in FL, I sometimes collected plants and critters from the Wekiva River. It was very clear mineral water, and ran along at a pretty fast clip in the broad, knee-high sections. The sandy bottom was thickly rooted with Jungle Val (Vallisneria americana gigantea), which laid somewhat horizontal with the current. You may not want horizontal growth, but with most purely aquatic plants you won't get much supportive structure, so they'll generally "go with the flow" unless sheltered by a current break, such as a rock or driftwood. Or you could reduce the flow for a more diagonal reaction.

 

The Koralia cannot be modified for a pipe intake. Use Poret or other sponge filter and you can direct the water. Have a look at the lower picture in this thumbnail. There would be a sponge across the south end and hidden behind the sponge are the intake ends of the pipes. This could also be the smaller sponge-over-the-pipe as in the drawing at Loaches.
At the north end are the Koralia power heads (green circles) partially surrounded by a coarse sponge, but with the back free to intake water from the pipes shown in brown.
Note: For this to work well the intake end of the pipes needs to be covered with only a very coarse sponge, and the flow is not impeded much at all. Otherwise the Koralias will take water from through the sponge around themselves.

There are also ways to make a different sort of shape with the sponge that surrounds the Koralia. Let me see if I can find a link; it has been a while since I have seen that one.

 

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=17433&highlight=koralia

Here you go! If you feed the pipe up into the tube created by the filter media, and cover the inlet end of the pipe with very coarse media, so the flow is not impeded, I think you will get a pretty good approximation of a river flow using the Koralias.

Plant choices: Nothing that stands up into the flow of the water. Tall stuff out of the main flow, at the back of the tank, and around the power head and intake. (Do not block the intake) Low, tough stuff tucked into the crannies between the rocks. Wendelov Java Fern, Anubias, other dwarf things.

Alternate idea: Use the XP3 in its standard set up, and use a power head at the north, front corner, intake at the south, back corner. The flow from the PH is aimed south, but mostly along the front of the tank, along the glass. The rest of the tank is pretty much normal, and gives the fish a place to get out of the high flow area.

 

this was my original plan
ended up like this

thinking about getting another SunSun canister and doing an inline reactor with it for CO2

 

Well I have some koralia filters ordered. I'll just have to wait until they get here and mess around with them and see what I can come up with. I have a couple ideas, I just won't know how any of them actually work until I have the pump to experiement with.

 

Well I have finally got the tank started. I got the fixture for the power head finished and tested, then I added the substrate.

I took the Koralia pump and built a box around it with plexiglass from Home Depot and then attached it to some PVC to run across the tank. It works pretty good, there is some circulation in the tank itself but most of the water is going through the piping. I can tell it cuts the base flow of the pump quite a bit (I actually purchased two, hooked them up side by side to tell how much of a difference the piping made) but its still moving a decent amount of water. I'll get some picture of it later.
I've also got a Eheim Ecco 2236 for general filtration, but I plan on changing that to an XP3 in the future. My other XP3 ended up on my planted tank because I needed the extra flow there, so I'll purchase another one and move the Ecco when I get a small tank for my room.

I'm going to have two pieces of driftwood to use as a sort of water break, and a number of medium/small sized rocks that I'll spread around with plants between them.

I'm still planning on the Madagascar Rainbows (though the LFS only has 4 left now), and I'm going to get some Zebra loaches, probably 8-12, at least if I can find them. Probably have to go to Salt Lake to find them, though another type of loach of similar size would work too. It kind of feels like I should have more then 2 types of fish, but I'm not really sure what else, or even if I have the bioload left.


The lighting on the tank is a coralife T5NO dual bulb, so low to medium light. I hadn't planned on adding CO2 (though I could easily enough, just have to get another needle valve and a manifold) because I think it would probably be hard to keep a decent level in a tank like this. Though I do have flourish excel and fertz.
The substrate is a mix of turface and flourite dark.

Still not sure what I need for plants. I figure a few grasses, but I'm not sure exactly what types would work well. I was thinking some Vals would look cool waving in the water over the wood, but I don't know how well they would take that. I have some anubias (congensis maybe) that I can move with good long roots, and maybe some wendetii crypts though they don't have much for root yet.

 

Well here are some pictures of the tank as I have it set up now. I'm going to remove the HOB once the water is clear from mixing up the substrate.

I don't yet have any fish in it, and right now I don't have the circulation pump running because I'm going to give the plants a bit of time to establish.

Not sure how the Vals will adapt, and all of the plants really since they are moving from high light and CO2 to medium/low light and no CO2 (but some flourish excel).

The other thing I didn't really think about until just now is that loaches like softer sandy substrate, but this flourite dark is really kind of rough and sharp.
So the question is, is there a type of loach that would be better suited to it, should I find some places to put a few sand beds in (like in coves behind the driftwood where it would have settled from the flow), or I could really mix up the substrate so more of the turface is on top since it is rounder and lighter, but it is currently all on the bottom.
Since I don't have much in there right now it wouldn't be hard to make changes at this point.