Spray bars are great for surface aggitation =)

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grimlock3000

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Jun 29, 2003
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For a while I have been running my tank with a powerhead pumping air bubbles into the tank. My 26g tank does not have much sufrace area compared to the depth of the tank, and I have had issues in the past with fish appearing oxygen starved. I had the power head and the bubbles set low since I already had a couple filters in the tank. This was great for oxygen increasing surface aggitation, however the bubbles were getting annoying to look at, and sometimes fish would constantly try eating the air bubbles as if they were food. Watching a fish try to eat bubbles for 45 minutes is fun at first, but at some point you get upset that you own something so mindless :) In and attempt to reduce the number of bubbles floating around in my tank, I turned off the air on my powerhead, lowered the flow rate on my AC200, and pointed my spray bar up towards the surface. I was not sure what to expect, but after playing with it, I have it angled it up at about a 40 degree angle. This creates a lot of current on the water surface, and if the water level drops below the spray bar, the water streams barely make it to the glass hood:

spray.jpg


This combination has all but elimated any bubbles in tank, now it looks like my fish are floating around in the air :)
 
When I bought my Rena XP1 I had initially setup the spray bar but it made a pretty annoying whistling noise. Maybe if I drilled the holes bigger it will go away.

What stuck me when I set it up though was thinking about how to feed the fish with all that water flow on the surface...do you just find a dead spot, turn off the filter, or just make your fish work for their food?
 
When I bought my Rena XP1 I had initially setup the spray bar but it made a pretty annoying whistling noise. Maybe if I drilled the holes bigger it will go away.

I drilled out the holes in my Eheim spray bar with good results. Now the water comes out of the bar at a much more managable velocity and the canister is a wee bit quieter. My sound was coming from the canister though, not the spray bar.

What stuck me when I set it up though was thinking about how to feed the fish with all that water flow on the surface...do you just find a dead spot, turn off the filter, or just make your fish work for their food?

I actually just drop the flakes right into the stream coming out of the spray bar. This breaks up the flakes pretty quick and gets them spread around the tank. None of my fish as pokey eaters, so it is not big deal is the flakes get blown around.
 
For my community tank, I just put my fingers in the water with the flakes and let them drop. That works well. For my bigger fish, I use sinking pellets.
 
I have a spraybar set up and i found it a problem with the food flying all over the place. I bought a feeing ring and it seem to solve the problem.
And i too tilt up the spray bar to get surface agitation.
 
My fish in the 26g get hyper at feeding time so the flakes shooting around the tank is fun to watch. The YoYo Loaches are amazing during this time, they can eat an amazing ammount of food and twist in any direction to get it. Any flake within a couple inches of each Loach is picked up almost instantly. I am not sure they would know what to do with flakes casually floating on the surface, but I might turn off the filters and try it tonight for amusement :p
 
My spraybar is to long to place so it sprays from one end to the other. Just a 12" deep tank. Dont care to cut it. So it sprays from back to front pointed up as per grimlocks idea. Only one half of the tank surface gets a heavy agitation. I feed on the other side.
 
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