# Water Circulation



## smackpixi (Oct 15, 2008)

Setting up a 55 gal low tech tank.

Will have a cannister filter turning over the water I'm guessing about 4x per hour when you consider addition of media to the cannister (Rena Filstar XP2). This at first seemed to me as a lot of water movement. However, since my fish and plants mostly originate in rivers, I thought of it a little differently. If I was sitting on top of my fish tank and floating down a river, and an hour later was only 4 fish tank lengths away, I would consider myself to be in a very stagnant part of the river.

Now i realize, the outlet spray bar from the cannister swirls the water around considerably thus disguising the fact that the water isn't going anywhere, but it got me thinking about powerheads which i see a lot of mention in parts of this forum.

Do i really need one to further enhance circulation? I'm assuming the people running them and double the filtration circulation I will have are on peak performance tanks that aspire to things greater than keeping the plants alive and somewhat growing.


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## rich815 (Jun 27, 2007)

In my opinion you do not have nearly enough filtration going. I have an eheim 2026 and 2028 on my 72 gal and a Koralia 2 to help get the CO2 dispersed around. Before I added the Koralia I had patches of BBA here and there and I'm 95% sure it was due to inadequate CO2 circulation. Only an XP2 on your 55, I'm guessing you may have similar issues. I'd consider at least one more filter. It cannot hurt and sure will keep things cleaner.

Someone just gave me a used but working XP3 and I'm thinking to add that too.


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## smackpixi (Oct 15, 2008)

Quick and thanks.

I've also seen that opinion here before, about filtering much more than "suitable for tanks up to..." seems to suggest you need. In my case, this filter says 75 gallons and I'd be running it on a 55.

I'm not questioning the necessity for more filtration to have an optimal tank (and i'm talking here to make one better than average obviously) but I'm wondering why then, are all filter manufacturers trying to sell people less filter than they should have?

There's a subsection of this forum dedicated to a planted tank philosophy that uses NO filtration. So obviously people come at this from a variety of angles. As someone trying to, I guess, perfect the middle ground, It's confusing sometimes.

(this really is a whole new subject than my topic i guess)

Thanks for your input though.


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## Bert H (Mar 2, 2004)

The footprint of a 55 is long and narrow. While, imo, you have enough filtration capability in the XP2 for the size tank, circulation could be an issue. Spray bar placement will make a difference (side to side vs front to back), and a power head added to it will certainly help.


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## chagovatoloco (Nov 17, 2007)

The filter less tanks are part of the el natural setup where there is also natural sun light. This is a completley different aspect of aquarium keeping. Circluation is a large area of debate, I tend to go with over circulation. Most fitler manufacutres sell their filters with rought estimats of what tank they will work on. We are people that are deep in to our hobby so we take this more seriously than most.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

I'm running a XP1 on my 55G tank, which is plenty filtration. However, I do have a small Rio pump in the left corner for more circulation. So your XP2 will give you enough filtration, but you will most likely needed added circulation due to the length of the tank.


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## rich815 (Jun 27, 2007)

Not knowing how much he plans to stock in fish and plants and thus not knowing the total bioload from such a lot of us are making assumptions that he has "enough" filtration that may not be all that well-founded. While I'm sure it's all advice given with good intentions and based on personal experience have any of you saying his filtration will be enough tried themselves using one additional filter? Or do you just feel what's worked for you should work fine for others? Personally I ran a 2028 eheim on my 72 gal for almost a year and thought "it was fine, and enough". On a whim I added another filter, an eheim 2026, when I installed my PVC CO2 reactor inline on this filter. Within 2 days my tank was so unbelievably crystal clear and clean I was sincerely BLOWN AWAY. I had no idea how good it _could _be. All of a sudden my fish looked like they were flying in mid-air and people were commenting with almost all starting their sentences with "Wow! That's beautiful!......". I had comments before this but nothing at that magnitude until I added that second filter.

Believe me, one more filter will not hurt, and could be _*MUCH *_better.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

I agree with you to a certain point. Hopefully he is not planning on overstocking his tank. The plants act as filtration in themselves. Some people do not even run filtration on their planted tanks, so filters are not always needed. As long as regular water changes are done, being under filter should be no problem. But if he chooses to add more filtration, that will not be a problem either.


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## smackpixi (Oct 15, 2008)

Thanks for the replies. I do not plan on overstocking the tank with fish. I'm figuring on about 40" of fish, perhaps more as they grow. There's two clown loaches among that, about 2.5" each at the moment...i guess they can become gigantic, but, well, that worry is a few years down the road.

I guess I will be starting with this, and then seeing how it goes.


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