Flow too strong for fish?

[ggNoRe]

I have a Peninsula style tank with the overflow, return, and both powerheads all on the same side of the tank. I got my first fish yesterday and with all the pumps running he kind of seems to get stuck in a corner and even almost sucked up by the powerhead. When I turn one of the powerheads off he seems to swim around the tank a lot more.

The display is 160G. I have a MP60 on reefcrest which I was running at max speed of 65% but turned down to 40%, I've also tuned down my return and turned off my Reefbreeder RPM entirely for now. The fish is a Copperband Butterfly. I've never heard of too much flow being an issue for fish before. Any opinions?

 

[o2manyfish]

Depends on the fish - Achilles, Powder Blue, Naso, Hippos can handle about anything. But other fish are not built as active swimmers and have issues with too much current. Butterfly is designed to sit and pick small things off corals and not catch prey. So overwhelming them with flow is easy. Just make sure there is ample rock work for him to have lots of places to get out of the flow.

Dave B

 

[ggNoRe]

Depends on the fish - Achilles, Powder Blue, Naso, Hippos can handle about anything. But other fish are not built as active swimmers and have issues with too much current. Butterfly is designed to sit and pick small things off corals and not catch prey. So overwhelming them with flow is easy. Just make sure there is ample rock work for him to have lots of places to get out of the flow.

Dave B

Thanks for the insight. I'll just leave the second powerhead off for a while. He seems much more comfortable without it.

 

[JumboShrimp]

I couldn’t play the video; can we see a full tank shot (still photo)? :)

 

[ggNoRe]

I couldn’t play the video; can we see a full tank shot (still photo)? :)

Here you go!

 

[JumboShrimp]

I see. So if that’s 160 gallons, is it 6-feet? It looks like with the positioning of the rocks, your fish can find a place to get out of the flow if they want to. That was your main worry, no? ;)

 

[ggNoRe]

It's 5 feet long. When the pump in the picture is on he gets dangerously close to being sucked up into the propeller for some reason.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Then I had it backwards. I thought you were having fish blown around... What type of fish is getting sucked up? Usually only a sick/weakened fish gets sucked up.

 

[Jeepguy242]

Create some caves instead of the rock pile. That will give him some places to get out of the flow without compromising flow.

this was created with reef cement from BRS.
this way you can have strong flow and a place for your not so strong swimmers to get out of the current.

 

[Crabby48]

He might be stressed if just added and only fish in tank.

 

[ggNoRe]

He found himself a little spot behind the rocks to chill at. It's hard to see in the pic but if you look closely you can see him poking his little nose out.

 

[ggNoRe]

I got 4 banggai cardinals today and was curious to see how they handled the flow. Even with the MP60 running at 1% the flow is way too strong for them and they can't go on that side of the tank. So it isn't just my Copperband. I'm really baffled by this as I have seen so many others with tanks similar size that don't seem to have this issue. To add insult to injury I hooked it up to the battery backup so there is no way to turn off the pump other than disconnecting it from the outlet AND the battery backup as the Mobius app doesn't have a feature to turn it completely off. Considering selling the MP60.. very dissapointing.

 

[Uncle99]

Real skiddish fish the CB until he gets settled.
As long as he’s not swimming at the power head, that may indicate something else.

 

[ggNoRe]

Update: You seem to be absolutely right Uncle99. Now that he's settled in and more comfortable with the tank it doesn't seem to be an issue.

Probably at the LFS they barely have any flow so it takes new fish a few days to acclimate to it.

 

[SteveG_inDC]

I had fish blowing around a lot but after a few weeks they get used to the flow and chill out. My quarantine tank had very little flow. Each fish spent a few days to a week hovering in corners of the display tank when first introduced. They all came out eventually.