When you have a bowl, you need to fill it only to the widest part of the bowl, then you have the maximal surface area, unfortunately this means that you can only ever half fill the bowl so the volume of a bowl is only half that of its total volume whereas a rectangle tank can be filled full.
If you have an air pump you may be able to fill it a little fuller if you have low stocking.
Barbs will like high oxygen and flow.
For future, if you have a power head, connect it to a box of fixer media or homemade from pop bottle cut in half drilled full of holes and filled with filter wool, lay it on its back and point the flow up to agitate the surface. If the flow goes upwards it shouldn’t be too strong in the rest of the bowl/tank and by splashing the surface will add oxygen.
When setting up a new tank, if it can’t be done over time with a test kit to hand, then try to add a filter from another tank if possible. Try maybe to plan ahead and buy the filter you want to use and put in the other tank for a week before setting up the new tank and transferring it over with 50%of the water(not for bacteria but to make sure the filter doesn’t just get new water).
If you have an air pump you may be able to fill it a little fuller if you have low stocking.
Barbs will like high oxygen and flow.
For future, if you have a power head, connect it to a box of fixer media or homemade from pop bottle cut in half drilled full of holes and filled with filter wool, lay it on its back and point the flow up to agitate the surface. If the flow goes upwards it shouldn’t be too strong in the rest of the bowl/tank and by splashing the surface will add oxygen.
When setting up a new tank, if it can’t be done over time with a test kit to hand, then try to add a filter from another tank if possible. Try maybe to plan ahead and buy the filter you want to use and put in the other tank for a week before setting up the new tank and transferring it over with 50%of the water(not for bacteria but to make sure the filter doesn’t just get new water).
