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Flow visualisation

simonm74

Member
Joined
3 Oct 2010
Messages
38
Hi folks,

I've just set up my new planted Juwel Vision 260. I have an Eheim 2178 thermofilter feeding a spraybar the length of the tank, which points at the front of the tank as mentioned in a few threads on here.

This is augmented by two Hydor Koralia 1600s which come on when the lights come on (4pm-10pm).

As we all know, flow and turnover are very important but difficult to visualise. I was wondering whether anyone has ever used any neutral buoyancy microspheres or beads to analyse the flow in a tank?

http://www.cospheric.com/UVPMSBG_fluorescent_green_spheres_density100.htm

Simon.

13718816_10154147004026154_6258547614062042136_n.jpg
 
I've used a little stick with a small thread tied to it.

This looks really cool but very expensive!!? $99.
 
You can get them from fishing tackle shops, used for Bass fishing i think... i bought some a long time ago and werent amazingly helpful.
You can get a better idea using crumbed up flake food.

The vision 260 was actually my first tank and the curved glass makes things a bit more tricky, i had many a testing time with mine, but got there in the end. I actually ended up removing all hardscape and learnt to grow plants in a bow front then added it back later. With the set up your running you'll find the middle tends to struggle as you have opposing flow patterns.... front to back from the spray bar and random through the middle with the power heads. this tends to counter act each other. Id suggest having all the flow running front to back and see where you go from there.

Best of luck, its a great start :thumbup:
 
Thanks Iain. Yes after reading a lot of posts on here I've been thinking of moving the powerheads to point towards the front too. The problem is I have an internal background which, although a "slimline", is up to an inch thick so the magnets used to fix the powerheads are useless. I could drill little holes in the background into which I could stick the little red knob on the back of the powerhead but I'm pretty reluctant to do something so drastic.

At the moment I'm trying to come up with some sort of metal bracket which I can clip/hang onto the spraybar...
 
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