Overflow sucks my fish!

[isa.alhadad]

I diy-ed a canister filter recently and placed guppies to cycle my tank. The problem is my fishes keep on getting sucked into the overflow pipe. I tied a net to prevent my fishes from getting sucked in and now they get stuck on the net instead. Have had many casualties. I need to move my aro, gar and rtc to that tank soon and I'm afraid the same thing will happen to them. They're currently in a 2'. The aro and gar are about 5" and the rtc is at 4".

Another problem would be that the water level in the tank remains above the overflow level and the canister would only fill up by about a quarter. Any more than that in the canister, the level in my tank would increase.

Any ideas what I can do?

 

[Tommydeal]

What kind of pump are you using on this canister? Sounds like it's too strong. You could get a pump more suited to your tank size, restrict the flow on the current pump with a ball valve or something or you could pack more media into the filter to slow down the flow a little. How big are the fish that are currently getting stuck on the filter intake? I didn't understand the second question, can you post some pics?

 

[zennzzo]

Pics please...

 

[Mattyou]

I need pics. hard to tell from the desription what we are dealing with.

 

[isa.alhadad]

It's an atman doing about 1100l/hr in a 100g tank. Will try to post pics soon.

The guppies are about 1.5" each.

 

[isa.alhadad]

Just to add on, to some guys out there...what I had previously thought to be a 5' tank was apparently a 4'. So my friends and i are weaklings - I admit.

 

[Tommydeal]

I would say the guppies that are getting stuck on the intake were already dead or dying. What are your water parameters, how far are you into cycling this tank?

 

[isa.alhadad]

The tank has been cycling for more than a month I think. Have not added any "proper" fishes yet cos I had my diy canister up only recently. I'm positive the water is fine. The suction seems too strong.

Could it be that the PVC pipes I'm using are too big? I'm using 20mm pipes.

 

[tall.jay]

Increase the surface area of the intake pipe. For instance if it's a 1" pipe now you could either add a piece that increases it to 2"-3" or using a "T" would also work. The same amount of water will flow (limited by the pump and size of smallest pipe used), but the force will be spread out letting the smaller fish escape. Alternatively you could also just add an extension (like an extra foot of PVC) and notch or drill holes again spreading out of the force.

Also the fish you named are much stronger (assuming they're decent sized) than guppies so I wouldn't worry as much about them getting sucked into the filter.

Good luck!

 

[Arthur]

Increase the surface area of the intake pipe. For instance if it's a 1" pipe now you could either add a piece that increases it to 2"-3" or using a "T" would also work. The same amount of water will flow (limited by the pump and size of smallest pipe used), but the force will be spread out letting the smaller fish escape. Alternatively you could also just add an extension (like an extra foot of PVC) and notch or drill holes again spreading out of the force.

Also the fish you named are much stronger (assuming they're decent sized) than guppies so I wouldn't worry as much about them getting sucked into the filter.

Good luck!

This is pretty much what I was going to say. You could also put an extension on your drain and cut slits or drill holes in it so that the suction isn't concentrated into one spot as an open pipe would be.