wooza

hey guys,

i have a cannister filter on my tank with spray bar. At the minute I have the holes on the spray bar pointing at a near vertical position to get the most surface agitation. What is everyones opinion on the holes? Do you have them pointing up, down, horizontal?

prairielilly

I think it's really dependent on your tank - it's size, the amount of surface agitation you want. I fiddled with this idea with my Eheim for quite a bit. I was putting it on a 20g high and the spray bar was nearly as wide as the tank (!?) so no matter what angle the spray hit, the entire tank surface was disturbed. This caused issues for feeding, so eventually I put the spray bar vertically. That works for me, but 'usually' ppl want a spray bar to be horizontal...so I'd say it depends on how deep into the tank you want the return flow to go, can your fish handle the current this generates or are they more comfortable if it's skimming across the top, etc. I'd just play with it to find a balance where the fish are happy and you are happy.

pepetj

You have a 55USgal tank.

If later on you want to keep real plants and add CO2 then you aim at minimizing water agitation, otherwise your actual set-up, placed vertically so it creates more ripples in the water is a good way to go (it will make your nitrogen cycle faster since you have better levels of dissolved oxygen there!). Once you have your fish in the tank, if they like currents then placing the holes horizontally might be a good idea for them to swim.

Off topic: I noticed in your tank info that you say have one UV tube in your lighting... what exactly do you mean? I honestly hope it is not UltraViolet (as in UV-C sterilizers) but a black light (for moon light). Just in case you do have UV-C lamp there please consider taking it out and never look at it when lit since your eye-vision could be severely hurt. Just in case.

Pepe
Santo Domingo