nomoreink

My whisper filter just died so I got a powerhead in its place to help aerate the water and maybe also help out with some blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) that seems to be plaguing my plants.

However in my tank I have 3 guppies and 7 tetras and I'm worried that they look like they're having a harder time in the current, will they get used to it? I got a Penguin 1140 but I didn't realize how strong it would be (300 gallons per hour). I have a 20 gallon long tank, should I get a smaller powerhead?

Or would it be better to leave it on during the day and then turn it off at night?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Chief_waterchanger

If it looks to be stressing out the fish I would use no powerhead before using the one that seems like a detriment. Yeah the 300gph is about 2-3x what a 20g would need, but a lot of filters have where you can turn them down. (A lot of ours have a twist knob on the intake tube, the part that is exposed from the water.)

aquariumnewbie

300gph in a 20 gallon tank sounds really quite stressing for your fishes. You might want to change the power head and maybe direct the current towards other direction. So you can deflect the current and it becomes not so strong. If not I think your fishes may use too much energy to swim. Just my

Chief_waterchanger

I wonder if you pointed the powerhead directly towards bottom or into a corner if that would relax the flow a bit, as Aquariumnewbie was eluding to.

(NOTE: If you point it directly towards bottom/corner/a side DO NOT put it all the way against that surface, making it "point blank". That could cause issue, I would think. Kinda like overheating a hair blow-dryer by putting your hand over the vent, but I may be wrong.. as I often am. )