Lily pipe and circulation help

[Wildwhimsy]

I’m in the process of setting up this 36 gallon bow front. I’m using an oase bio master thermo 250 for my cannister filter and I have inline co2. I’m seeing an issue with circulation, especially in the bottom of the tank. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks! (I’m not sure the brand of Lily pipes but they’re the biggest ones I have and were gifted to me.)

 

[JayP]

Unfortunately, the 250 is a bit under-powered for that tank, especially since I think it's over 22" tall (Topfin perhaps?) and you're using a straight "jet" style pipe. All my suggestions would cost you more money. It appears you already have a skimmer style inflow pipe, but an Oase CrystalSkim 350 with it's design of outflow flowing down, might help. A wavemaker would be another option.

 

[Wildwhimsy]

Unfortunately, the 250 is a bit under-powered for that tank, especially since I think it's over 22" tall (Topfin perhaps?) and you're using a straight "jet" style pipe. All my suggestions would cost you more money. It appears you already have a skimmer style inflow pipe, but an Oase CrystalSkim 350 with it's design of outflow flowing down, might help. A wavemaker would be another option.

I’m totally willing to spend money so I’d welcome suggestions!

 

[Scaper26]

Is it a little underpowered? Yes. Is it the end of the world, flow-wise? Totally not. You seem to have ample surface agitation and as long as your skimmer is skimming you should be ok. No matter what you do, there will be dead spots in a box of water due to vortices, don’t stress too much about it.

 

[Dennis Wong]

You can use a less conventional rear placement, so that water is pushed down front glass from the back. This gives stronger flow for the foreground, and less water movement for the plants at the back.
The larger plants at the back usually don't require a ton of flow to do well, while flow hits the more sensitive smaller species such as carpets.

 

[Wildwhimsy]

So I think I’m going to grab a fluval 407 today. I was curious about it thoughts on spray bar vs Lily pipes. Is their more co2 circulation with spray bars?

 

[JayP]

My earlier suggestion that a "jet" style outflow pipe may not be as well suited for a deep tank may have been an incorrect assumption. I've read contradicting info indicating it may be-in fact, the best design for deeper tanks. having said that, the most common knock against Fluval filters is the stock pipes and tubing they come with , but that can be said for many filters. I used a Fluval 07 for awhile and hated the look of the pipes. Some on here can probably tell you what adapters to get to use regular 16/22 tubing and any pipes you want, including the ones you already have. As to placement, I agree with @Dennis Wong on that. I forgot that's how I have my farm tank pipes arranged and it works just as he described.

 

[Count Krunk]

You could hook up a small jebao return pump to pull water through the oase and pump it back into the tank.

In this scenario you would not plug in the power on your canister filter.

The jebaos are DC, controllable, basically silent, and much stronger than the oase pump.