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Floater recommendation.

Wendal_spanswick

Wendal_spanswick

Member
Joined
16 Mar 2014
Messages
87
Location
Edenbridge
I have tried lots of different floaters in my main tank but they all eventually give up. I'm thinking it's because of the movement caused by my air stone at night. Can anyone recommend anything that survives surface movement. I have glass covers so the massive pistia is out.
 
To stop floaters getting a surface battering I cut barriers from craft foam sheets.

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2913/13962064178_36963992aa_z.jpg

https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2898/14168762413_b3bc189554_z.jpg

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5573/13962083170_f20e054ff8_z.jpg

I am using a smaller version than the one I created above which gets pushed around by the surface flow and to keep it where I want it I have used nylon fishing line tied at its three corners and blue tacked the lines to the tank sides.
 
I just stick my spray bar about 2 inches below the surface and stop worry about surface movement. I don't gas my tank as much as most. It works for me but I spent the whole weekend making sure the fish were fine with the change.

If its the air stone get a small valve to reduce the air flow.
 
Doesn't the spray bar being lower affect the circulation? I just read in someone's journal and Clive was saying the spray bar should be higher.
 
I thought I should mention that I also run an air stone 24/7 under my crook outlet (no spraybar), the air stone causes excess surface movement but crucially it also produces bubbles that when they pop will send tiny droplets onto the tops of floating plants that acts like a miniature lens which is not good as it can cause burns by magnifying the above lighting. To minimise this I have a placed a piece of coarse reticulated foam above the area where my air stone is so that it catches the majority of rising bubbles and allows the air to diffuse through it, this massively reduces the surface disturbance caused by the bubbles. You can see the foam around my crook on the right.
 
Wendal_spanswick said:
Doesn't the spray bar being lower affect the circulation? I just read in someone's journal and Clive was saying the spray bar should be higher.
Click to expand...

Yes and no, 1000 LPH of flow is still 1000 LPH. The idea of the spray bar higher up is to both agitate the surface so causing a larger surface area for gas exchange mainly O2 and then to bring that fresh O2 down to the bottom via the circular motion of the flow.

Having ths spray bar lower down still ciculates the water just not as effcient, I probably have two smaller volumes of ciculation one above the spray bar and one below. I'm still sucking the 'low' O2 water from the bottom of the tank upwards due to the position fo the filter outlet. One other thing I have is a small circulation pump at the bottom of the tank to get flow across the bottom of the tank this means I still get movement in my lower level plants.

I've played around a lot with this as like you my surface plants were causing me a lot of trouble. This method works for me even though it's not the most efficent way. I have lowish light and probably have a touch less CO2 then most. My pH drops about 0.8 rather than the recommend 1. If I bump up the CO2 any more then my rainbows start gasping at the surface so I am at a fine balance and it's taken lots of trial an adjustments to get it to this point.


I would still try the plastic air line taps you can get and see if a slight adjustment of the air flow helps.
 
tim said:
Maybe your glass covers are causing humidity issues for your floating plants ??
Click to expand...
[DOUBLEPOST=1409055654][/DOUBLEPOST]I'd not thought of that but as I keep rainbows removing them is out the question.[DOUBLEPOST=1409055780][/DOUBLEPOST]
EnderUK said:
Yes and no, 1000 LPH of flow is still 1000 LPH. The idea of the spray bar higher up is to both agitate the surface so causing a larger surface area for gas exchange mainly O2 and then to bring that fresh O2 down to the bottom via the circular motion of the flow.

Having ths spray bar lower down still ciculates the water just not as effcient, I probably have two smaller volumes of ciculation one above the spray bar and one below. I'm still sucking the 'low' O2 water from the bottom of the tank upwards due to the position fo the filter outlet. One other thing I have is a small circulation pump at the bottom of the tank to get flow across the bottom of the tank this means I still get movement in my lower level plants.

I've played around a lot with this as like you my surface plants were causing me a lot of trouble. This method works for me even though it's not the most efficent way. I have lowish light and probably have a touch less CO2 then most. My pH drops about 0.8 rather than the recommend 1. If I bump up the CO2 any more then my rainbows start gasping at the surface so I am at a fine balance and it's taken lots of trial an adjustments to get it to this point.


I would still try the plastic air line taps you can get and see if a slight adjustment of the air flow helps.
Click to expand...
[DOUBLEPOST=1409055908][/DOUBLEPOST]Thanks Ender, I'll try a plastic tap and knock the airflow down a bit. Good to see another fellow Rainbow keeper on here.
 
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