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Powerheads & curious fish: Darwinism in action??

niru

Member
Joined
13 Sep 2010
Messages
323
Location
Basel, Switzerland
Hi All

this has happened to me a few months back...

To improve/increase the flow, I added a small water-pump (this one from Sera with protective mesh). All was well until I went for a 1 week vacation. 1 Betta, and 1 Cory decided to poke around inside through this mesh, got caught & the tank was full of their internal organs when I came back from vacation :( . I duely cleaned everything, and added an extra pump-cap on top of the existing one.

Later, one evening while I was watching the tank, 1 Apple snail decided it is his time to knock the doors of heaven. It put its antenae through this double-mesh & got sucked in :woot: :sick: as I was watching!!

So I decided to replace this Sera pump and got a Tunze powerhead with variable flow knob. All was well for some months, and 1 day a curious Platty decided to ride the sucking flow & was shredded to piece. I realised that this power head has too wide a cage & powerful enough to suck my poor fish...

Hence now I have a Koralia nano. But I also have amano shrimps who are equally dumb-witted to check its flow dynamics.. I dont want any further sacrifices, and I am off for 3 week vacation later this week. So I have as a solution, covered the Koralia intake-side cage with a thin sponge using rubber bands. What I am now worried is if this will reduce my flow significantly?? I also saw that some dead leaves get stuck to the center of the Koralia output-side. With a small string held close, I realised that the powerhead throws water out from the periphery and sucks a little in from the center as well?!? Is this always true, or intake reduction due to the sponge has altered this?? Anyone having any ideas, or faced similar situations??

-niru
 
You could try this (apologies for the missing pics, don't know what imageshack rule I've violated):

http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3012&start=10

Works very well. Have subsequently replaced the net on my filter inlet with the mesh suggested on that thread but it worked. Not a single fish or shrimplet in the filter and no casualties from the koralia.
 
Thanks hotweldfire!!

I will check this out.

-niru
 
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