Loaches Online Forum

Hello everybody,

I'm sooo happy that I've found such a great source about the loaches online!

I would like to make river tank for my beaufortia's. I live in the Netherlands and it's not so easy to buy Hagen pomps here. So I prefer to use Eheim pomps.


Eheim 1250 gives 1200l/h, Eheim 1260 gives 2400l/h.
The tank would be 1.00-120 m lang.

What is better? 3 Eheim popms 1200l/h or 2 Eheim 2400l/h?
Is 24000 l/h not too much?

Tnaks so much in advance,

best regards,
Svetlana.

I would like use also this type of filter in place of sponge filter:


What are you thinking? It provides more biological filtration and the size is almost the same (but the price is higher indeed).

I am a girl with two left hands so for me is not easy to realize what is better for my tank: more powerheads with light current o just two of them with quick and strong current.

Please help!

Hi Svetlana and welcome to Loaches Online.

Hagen pumps are not the be-all and end-all of aquarium powerheads, but they are highly adaptable and reasonably compact.

The Eheim 1250 is pretty large at 7.1"x3.8"x4.7" and weighs 3.5 lbs and is rated at 28 watts.
An Aquaclear 802 is considerably smaller and uses 20 watts. The wattage will not only affect the power you're having to pay for, but can be a contributing factor in likely water heating effect.

The intake side of an Eheim 1250 is 3/4" so will probably adapt fairly easily to PVC plumping pipe available in Holland I would think.

Unless you have a very large tank hiding a pair of 1250's will be an aesthetic challenge.

"Too much" power is not normally a problem. You do not quote the size of your tank, so determining where you sit in the "too much" area is not possible. In a large aquarium you could be in the "too little" area. With hillstreams aim for a minimum turnover rate of the tank's capacity of 16 times per hour. 20 times would be even better.

You can only guage this on manufacturer's claimed pump outputs. The reality may be that they produce considerably less than quoted.
Look at this article http://www.loaches.com/articles/water-m ... h-aquarium to see the truth discovered during some "tuning" of Aquaclear 802's for instance.

As to the question of how many pumps and their power, it will depend on the width of your tank what you can fit in. Your picture link above isn't working, but is of this filter:



These would make good additional filters, but you'll still need some good coarse sponge filters on the River-Tank manifold intakes as well. I have never proposed that these intake sponges should be the sole filtration in a River-Tank. My 65 gallon tank has two cannister filters in addition to the 3 quite large (4" dia) R/T intake sponges.

Martin.

Hi,

I would go with Martin on not taking the Eheim's.
They will cost you an arm and a leg on your electric bill.

I am going to build me a rivertank as soon as I can afford to start it up and I am planning on using these pumps:
http://www.aquaristic.net/shop.php/sid/ ... ic%205001/

Maybe it is something for you as well.

Veel sucses en plezier

Hi Martin,

Thanks a lot! I greatly appreciate that you put attention on the topic of such a beginner:) Well, I'm not a beginner in the aquaristic but with the hillstream loaches.

It's a great pleasure for me to have an opportunity to say it personally: your manifold design is just a tremendous idea. My hobby is biotop-tanks and I also think what we should (try to) provide to our fishes as close-to-nature enviroment as possible.

You answer helps a lot. There is not so many powerheads to choose in the Netherlands (I mean, comparable with quality of Eheim and Hagen). I can anyway buy Hagen in Germany:)

Another word for Aquaclear: I really LOVE them. I have a lot of expercience with Aquaclear hang-ons, it's really great filter, simpel, cheap, quiet, provides enough filtration... Well, a bit less bio-filtration that could big canister provide, but look at the size at the price!!!

So, I'll take Aqua-clear powerheads and sponge filter.

Talking about the size of a tank. I'm thinking about something like 120x60x40. At the moment I have two options: 140x43x56 (which is quite high and narrow for loaches) and 120x60x25, which is much better but maybe a bit too low... I'm looking for another options for a moment!


Hoi Alkmaar, groetjes van Den Bosch! Hartstikke bedankt voor jouw reactie, heel lief en aardig - en ook heel nuttig. Mijn eindjaa electriciteitrnota is al verschrikkelik genoeg!:)

Francois, I've take a look on the pumps you've mentioned... Looks great! Wave simulation, extra-low voltage... Could you tell me a bit more about it? May be I also can use it in my river tank.

Well I don't own the Tunze pumps at the moment, but I am going to order some in a few months.

Looking at the pictures and reverences they are easy to adapt to 'manifold-design'.
Just remove the wave-simulator on the outflow, and the intake perforated tube.
Then ram some hoses on the intake end, add tubing under gravel and yuor ready to go

(check PVC-fittings on the right of the website for tubes galore, tubes is another thing hard to come by in Den Bosch probably)

The only problem I can see coming up with the pumps is finding out wether they are better at pulling or pushing water.
In other words will the outflow be directly from the powerhead, or will it go thrue tubing to the other side ('reverse manifold')

I would go for the low 25cm tank personally.
Would be a very nice shallow river, if you don't take dither-fish, who needs the high tank?

Veel plezier

hi svetlana,
all i can tell about the tunze pumps...use a power head and not a for example "nano stream"
the powerhead gives pressure into the water (current)
the nano stream only gives you movement...but not a strong current...the Wattage is really low but the energy in the waterflow will be better with a pump like francois mentioned...

i will soon start a project with a stream-tank...12000L/h red dragon pump...105W and a lot of power....but the tank will be 250x50x50cm large...and will only have 25cm of waterlevel...more soon

farid

Hallo Farid en Francois

Thank you guys, it's great to listen to you! I'm so bad with such a technical things but I'm not bad in aquadesign, so, if you need me to help just let me know (it will cost you nothing!:)))

Well, I still thinking that to start I'll begin with the good old classical Martin;s design: Aquaclear pumps+Aquaclear sponges.

At the moment I'm looking for a good and not too expensive tank.
If it suceed, maybe I'll do a bigger one.

Anyway, Farid, let's keep in touch and tell me more about your project, it sounds really really great.

Warm wishes from very hot Netherland (it's over 40 gradee Celcium today!)

Francois, oranjes zijn gewonnen! Hup Holland hup!!!