Tip of the Day – 4/29/2013

Have a water pump on your aquarium that’s just putting out way too much flow? Well, you can do several things to slow the flow down. For one, valves are your friend. Gate and ball valves installed on the output side of a water pump can do wonders at reducing the flow rate. But before you valve down the flow of your pump, think of what other uses all that flow can be used for. By using a few fittings, the excess flow can be used to feed media reactors or any other items that requires water to be fed to them. If you don’t have other gear, you can use that extra flow to provide more water movement through specific chambers of your sump. For example, if you have a lot of detritus accumulating in the skimmer section of your sump, send some of that water from the return pump into that chamber to keep the detritus suspended in the water column. The possibilities are endless, but the main focus here is that you don’t always have to turn down the flow with valves, as it can be used in other ways.