new to planted tanks

[Jason Stanford]

Miranda as you can see in the picture I moved the wavemakers quite low in the aquarium and the flow was okish, but the surface agitation was next to none

 

[Michael W]

piranha are found in anything from a puddle to white water rapids, they are adaptable and do well in near enough anything, same with salinity as well. thanks for all the advice, today the co2 is on and the shoals fine, only difference is the wavemakers back at the surface.

Perhaps in the wild Piranhas could handle a lot of things thrown at them in the wild but you must remember an aquarium is anything but wild. Its like In the wild there are no filters because there is a constant current going through the river washing the waste to different areas etc You must remember the aquarium is a closed off space, having such a high flow in a contained area does no good, in the wild the fish can choose to go from area to area to escape from things like this. You say you have areas in the tank for the fish to go to in order to avoid your strong current and plants to lessen the current's impact on the fish which I don't think makes too much of a difference. Instead of worrying too much about your fish getting fat why not pay more attention to their diet, feeding the appropriate amount fasting the fish for a day etc. Having a good distribution of flow is good for plant growth as it delivers nutrients and CO2 but too much will cause mechanical damage to the plants which means they will have to invest in repairing themselves.

 

[MirandaB]

I still feel there is more to this problem than just the position of the wavemakers but that's just my opinion.
I'm newish to planted tanks myself and I don't know what you are wanting from your tank but I feel you may struggle to get what you want planting wise with that kind of flow

 

[Jason Stanford]

np will see how it goes I guess, ill get what I can from my setup.
just glad the fish are all ok now