Water Flow

[monkE]

What do africans like as far as water movement is concerned...

I currently have a Marine Land 220 canister filter which puts a small current in the water. Should i add a powerhead of some sort or is there no need

[Stoogie]

Is the marineland going to be your only filter? I've been told to overfilter african tanks. Sometimes the amounts seem to border on excessive (One guy was trying to convince me to get an Fx5 in addition to my 305 for my 55 gallon!)

Personally, I have some bubble bars, just to help with some dead spots. My fish don't seem to like too strong a current, though it could be that they were just freaked out by the extra filter I stuck in.

[Gul]

For Cichlid tanks the overfiltering is to support the over stocking that many do as a means to control agression

[monkE]

I also have a AC70 HOB

there is quite a lot of movement on the surface, i just wansn't sure about submerged currents... i've got a powerhead in my planted tank and thought it would be a good idea.

[Vman]

I've got a 75 gallon with about 50 fish all together. I've got a Rena Xp1 and a Rena Xp2. That is for the filtration.I also I have 2 power heads running,plus an air stone.I like to feed my fish more than others and find that the 2 filters work great. As for the curent, I feel that it helps to move all the fecies around and help the filters pick them up. The power heads and filter out takes are all pointing up towards the surface,there fore breaking the water and airating the tank at the same time. The air bar that I have running also ads some curent. As far as cichlids go you have different needs for different set ups. Some use salts and some don't. Some mix all the lakes some don't.You will figure out what you need.As long as your water is clean and you have the right mix you should do well.

[-DC-]

flow is good, fish will be much less aggressive and much more active. I added 2 internal fluval 4's on top of my canister filters , pumping 260gph each, one on either side of a 160g tank.

Other then holding females my fish are normally out swimming in the current. Before adding the extra flow they were much less active, spent much more time hiding, and aggression was 100 times worse.

As for excess filtration i agree, they aren’t worse than any other fish, but tend to do best when overcrowded or heavily stocked tanks. Thus filters have too match. But no worse than any other heavy bio load tank. I run my canisters with strictly bio media, almost never clean it, the 2 internals added for flow are cleaned weekly as they do all the polishing.

[monkE]

Very helpful fellas, thank you.