JRagg
Aquarium Advice FINatic
I have a question about how to lower the flow on my HOB filter. I originally had a TopFin brand one that came with the tank, but it died after less than two months. I decided not to risk failure again and I bought a better brand. It is a penguin that takes the “rite size B” cartridge, so that tells me it is a 125 ish gph pump. I thought that it was a 100gph, but I bought this about three years ago and no longer have the box. In any case I need to lower the flowrate coming out of it. I’m going with a planted 10 gallon aquarium and by the 5x tank size flowrate thumbrule I need to drop the capacity of the pump by about ½. I know some of the larger emperor filters allow you to raise up the inlet tube some which lowers the flowrate, but this one doesn’t have that option. I would rather not spend another $20 on a new lower flow filter if I don’t have to.
So I was thinking of ideas as to how I could make this pump pump less water. I’ve come up with a few ideas so far, some of which are probably excessive:
Block off some of the suction: This could be bad since I may end up with a cavitating pump. That would break my pump (over time) and be very noisy.
Block off some of the discharge: I would have to get something to put near the exit of the impeller to do this. I’m thinking a piece of plastic and some epoxy could do the trick… or for that matter maybe just a buildup of epoxy.
Redirect some of the discharge: Have some sort of hose that takes water from the discharge of the pump and redirects it to the suction. I’m not sure how effective this would be, and it would probably be a waste of time (eg. too much time to accomplish and added cost).
These are just ideas, and I’m sure that someone has had to do this before, so any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Right now I’m leaning towards the epoxy method due to cost and ease of accomplishment.
So I was thinking of ideas as to how I could make this pump pump less water. I’ve come up with a few ideas so far, some of which are probably excessive:
Block off some of the suction: This could be bad since I may end up with a cavitating pump. That would break my pump (over time) and be very noisy.
Block off some of the discharge: I would have to get something to put near the exit of the impeller to do this. I’m thinking a piece of plastic and some epoxy could do the trick… or for that matter maybe just a buildup of epoxy.
Redirect some of the discharge: Have some sort of hose that takes water from the discharge of the pump and redirects it to the suction. I’m not sure how effective this would be, and it would probably be a waste of time (eg. too much time to accomplish and added cost).
These are just ideas, and I’m sure that someone has had to do this before, so any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Right now I’m leaning towards the epoxy method due to cost and ease of accomplishment.