Powerheads...do Ineed them?

[Hara]

Hi again all, it is me, the pesky pain in the rear, asking yet another question.

I have the two fluval 404's on the tank, combined, they are moving alot of water, 680 gph. The footprint is a pretty big one that it is making. I am seeing current all the way on the bottom of the tank. Do I still need additional powerheads?

If you say I do, please recommend a type/brand, there are so many out there that I would have no idea which ones are best.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[CaliGal]

Hara,

There ain't no thing here as a pain in the rear! Promise.

I really like my work horses, my Hagan powerheads. I guess they lack bells and whistles, but gain reliability because they are simply great, simple powerheads.

Sue

 

[fishfreek]

You should strive for atleast 1 flow rate in the tank. Given your tank is 150 gal that comes out to 1500GPH flow rate. I dont know what the flow of your two canister filters but I suspect your short a few hundred GPH. It also seems that even if you have 1 flow rate there migh be areas of the tank that get insufficent current to keep nasty canyobactor (sp?) from appearing.

For example. I have an 80 gal tank that is 6' long. I have a 1400gph overflow and a 1250-1300GPH pump on the sump. That give me roughtly 15X flow rate in the tank. But I suspect that after I get done aquascaping with my new LR I will have to put at least one if not two small powerheads in the tank to provide suplmental current to some possible 'dead' spots.

Some creative aquascaping can hide powerheads fairly good.


Maxijet are good powerheads that I have found to work relivlly good under pressure. For example I have used a maxijet 1200 to pump water up into my tanks from the floor. The head height was about 5' and to my amazment it was flowing at a decent clip for a 195GPH powerhead.

Rio's are cheap and can have problems starting up if they run for a very long time. To correct this just take the powerhead out of the tank and give it a good cleaning. Soak it in vinegar/water solution and then soak it in water and then power the unit up. It should start back up. If not then you will have to take the impeller out and clean it by hand.

 

[fishfreek]

HAHAHA

ROFLMAO

the little green men in my above post was not my intent. I was trying to say "TEN TIMES FLOW RATE" and apparently the "X" in ten times comes out as the alien.

 

[donkeykong]

FishFreak it took me a couple of seconds to figure out what they were doing there.

As far as the powerhead goes, IMO as long as there is no dead spots in the tank you should be fine. The more rock and complex aquascaping may cause you to need more to rid your self of all the dead spots. Just watch your tank if you see any spots sitting stagent then you need to redirect an output or get another powerheads.
That is just my 2 cents