Hill stream set up

[MikeBlackett]

a perforated pipe of some discription?? im lost...

[MikeBlackett]

Ah ha now i understand.

Well i love the look of them and wish i had thought of such a contraption.

I do have the built in jewel compact filter, but extra filtration would probably be good as i think the tank will be quite heavily stocked after all have entered. Plus i think the manifold would eliminate any possible dead spots.

The only thing is: How the hell to install such a thing in a fully set up tank!? Plus i would hate to stir up that clay planting substrate.

Oh but i want one! i can imagine the current now....

thanks

Mike

[LES..]

Martin Thoene has written an excellent article on his experiments on creating a suitable environment for keeping hillstream loaches. The basic idea is to reduce the turbulence that most powerheads generate and try to get as much of the water in the tank flowing in the same direction much as would occur in a river.

The most common manifold simply follows Martin's pattern as this has been well proven and is very effective. There would be issues with disturbing your substrate when fitting it, this does not have to be a dramatic as it would first seem. Build the manifold to be a little narrower than your tank width and it will be possible to gently wiggle the pipework under the substrate (note that i have only done this with gravel and sand). Alternatively don't bury it at all, remove the larger pieces of decoration place the manifold on the bottom of the tank then replace the stones on top to hold it in place.

One downside of having many powerheads in the tank is the amount of heat they give off. Using an external pump and having the pipework run outside the tank solves this problem. This can be unsightly though and leaks could cause real problems.

I have not covered how i created the manifold in my tank as it is really not something you can retrofit. If you are interested though please see my post titled Plumbing a river in theory the pumps i have installed can push 13000 litres per hour although i believe it is closer to 10000 litres per hour in reality after losses. It sounds a lot but is nothing close the natural torrents these fish come from.

A manifold is not required to keep hillstream loaches, but they do seem to do better when they have one.

Hope this helps,
LES..

[Martin Thoene]

I've only once tried to fit a River-Tank manifold into a set up tank and it was a complete disaster. I found it virtually impossible to seat the thing right on the bottom and always had trouble with it lifting and getting exposed.

Martin.

[MikeBlackett]

Hmmmmm

Im in a good mind to try and fit one....

I have a good 6cm of substrate covering the 1cm plant substrate so i think i could possibly manage to get the tubing under. Its would just be the stabilisation as you all have mentioned.

I was thinking of triangulating the base to give some stability like a tripod...
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sorry for poor paint skills!

What you guys think?

[MikeBlackett]

I know its not ideal but the main reason is that if i had two pipes and could orientate them in such a fashion relative to each other i could easily fit them down two particularly sparsely planted and decorated parallel 'lanes' down the tank. Im being slightly lazy but also dont want to disturb to much of the extensive root systems the vallis has put down, there are many new runners.

Thanks so much for all the input people

Mike

[MikeBlackett]

Well i did amazingly well today:

In a LFS i found some hillstream loaches...and i managed to contain my excitement and NOT purchase them, it was like torture but im sure they'll appreciate the tank the more mature it is. Plus it shall give me time to monitor their health before purchase.

It was hard very hard...