Water circulation

[noor]

Hi all,

I m using a 3-footer tank and using 2 powerheads for water circulation making a total of 5800 ltr/hr. Total wattage is 66 watts. Just for record, the second powerhead was newly introduced after a replacement of a spoilt one. Wattage wise, < than 10 compared to the new one.

What I have been observing, my mushrooms and green button polyps looked like a little bit annoyed with the new introduction of the powerhead. Can it be bcos of the new powerhead which gives an xtra 700 ltr/hr boost to the tank or it is bcos of the xtra wattage for the new powerhead. :?

BTW, is there any other method create water circulation without using powerhead in the tank?

Thank you.

 

[jackdp]

Mushrooms aren't known for the tolerance of high flows. I recently replaced a crappy powerhead in my tank with a better one and the increase in flow has some of my shrooms reaching for calmer water.

 

[cmor1701d]

Can you place them in an area of the tank with less flow?

Cmor

 

[Sam]

Alternatively, can you position the PHs so that you are not passing a high water current where the shrooms are? 8)

 

[loganj]

Agree with what has already been stated concerning the mushrooms. You can, as an alternative to powerheads, set up a closed loop. This is an external pump that sits inside the stand and has an intake and return line plumbed up to the tank. They do a great job and there is very little danger of a leak. You can put several outlets on the return to break up the flow some. Also, if you use a true external pump (air cooled motor), you'll add less heat to the water. Another possible solution is to add a wavemaker to the powerheads. What you want is turbulence rather than straight laminar flow. The wavemaker will turn the powerheads on and off alternately which will create surging currents in the tank. For your tank, I'd probably go with a Natural Wave powerstrip. It's not very expensive and does an adequate job of controlling the powerheads.