Hello there, I am currently in the process of setting up an amazon oxbow lake biotope aquarium for our highschool science room. I am relatively inexperienced in regards to filtration, so I was wondering what the best type of filter would be for this type of aquarium. It needs to be have minimal water flow to mimic the sluggish conditions naturally found in these oxbow lakes. Thank you!
How many gallons? What dimensions are you planning? What's your budget look like for the filtration?
Oh jeez, I forgot to mention the gallons. It's a 21'' tall, 36 gallon bowfront, price isn't a concern.
Ok, no matter what filtration you use, you'll want around 6 times the total volume per hour flow...so 36 gallons would be 216 gph. Go with a 330 gph pump to account for head loss and any other resistance the pump will have to overcome. As far as what type, I'm a firm believer in sump filtration and fluidized media for the biological filtration...probably not practical on a small tank like a 36 gallon. Might as well go with a canister filter. I have a jebao 330gph canister that worked great when I ran it. You can pick them up cheap on ebay.
Do you understand the basics of biological filtration, nitrogen cycle, nitrifying bacteria, and all that stuff? Just checking so you won't have any problems
As long as you know the basic I would go for a corner hmf filter, with these you can reduce the flow to 3 times per hour and still get really good biological and mechanical filtration.
I am only finding filters that run 320, I am going to assume that will be fine? EDIT: Also, the description for the item says its only appropriate for aquariums 60-100 gallons in size, do I have the wrong item, or is the seller wrong? It is listed as "Jebao 4-Stage External Aquarium Fish Tank Canister Filter 320gph Self Priming".
That one will be fine. You can put foam under your out put to "reduce" flow without reducing flow. It'll just slow down the water movement a bit, don't block it just let the water spill out on the foam to disperse into the tank. I had axolotl and they need good filtration with little flow, I used a similarly sized fluval filter on a similarly sized tank foam under output worked great.