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Calm Water Vs Moving Water

Rod1253

New Member
Messages
1
Question, do Apisto's prefer moving water or calm water? I was under the belief they liked calm water but not sure.
Please advise.

Thanks
 

Mike Wise

Moderator
Staff member
5 Year Member
Messages
11,202
Location
Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.
I personally have never collected apistos in relatively fast flowing water, only in calm and slowly flowing quebradas. That being said, there are species that are more adapted to riverine environments, e.g. A. diplotaenia. So I guess the question that I have is how fast is 'moving water' and as CRD asks, which species?
 

yukondog

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
664
Location
N.W. Fl.
Welcome Rod, I myself, like sponge filters in my apisto tanks but I also have four tanks with HOB's and they breed just fine in those also with the current but will be changed over to sponge eventually, for the fry I just put a piece of pany hose over the intake. What size tank are you using? And type of apisto do you have.
 

Siggi

Member
Messages
86
Location
Manteigas, Guarda, Portugal
Hi, everybody.
About the issue on 'flow', I'd just add a few thoughts.
In Nature the whole surface of contact between river-bed and and water is a huge filtration surface. And the water is constantly moving over this 'filter'. Even in stagnant pools and ponds, there will be flow though the bed, in exchange between ground-water entering vs. evaporation.
If we mimick these conditions in our tank-environment our water will quickly rot and still areas get infested with algae and detritus.

We are thus forced to maintain some flow in our tanks. If measured in real rivers, be it large (or huge) rivers, be it small streams or aligned ponds, the flow will usually be much greater than in our artificial environment. We just forget the width of the stream - evem small streams are much wider than the usual length of our aquariums!
It's just that there are an almost unfathomable amount of hidey-holes, roots, pits, entangled masses of vegetation, all for small and larger fish to hide in, to rest and to feed.

Our artificial environment should have areas of a little current, but also many 'shadow-areas' with eddies or no water movement, so the fish can choose when to take run against the tide and when to rest behind a root...
And take care to always have waterflow in the flter (this is so obvious, but a clogged filter is almost worse than no filter at all). Even if there is no flow in the tank, just taking care in placing inlet and outlet strategically, forcing the water to flow between the two will usually be enough. If using a spongefilter, you ought to add an airstone to maintain some movement in the water; best: place the airstone below the heater...

Thank you for allowing me to participate with my thoughts on this subject, for reading and for taking good care of your fish.
 

Larry Rogers

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
91
Along with what Sigi said most people do not understand the mechanics of a flowing stream or river. We will start blowing your mind by tetting you that a good percentage of the water flows upstream at some point in the watercourse. Eddy currents caused by various obsacles in the watercourse actually flow upstream. Trout fishermen, as I am, become versed in this because theese eddies give the fish a place where turbulence hides him from predators, current is mild, and food circulates right into his mouth. Another basic thing that most people do not understand is that the flow is detirmined by the volume. In the middle of the watercourse a band of water on foot wide is acted upon by a one foot strip of bottom, this is overly simplistic but true to a point. The water is, say, six feet deep. That means you have all that weight to overcome the friction of that little strip if bottom. Now we go to the edges of the watercourse and we find tangled roots and vegetation in water that never gets more than a foot deep. with all that extra friction that one foot of bottom does not seem so easy to overcome any more. Then we must consider the fall of the land where the watercourse is. Flow in a river is much calmer where the fall is one percent, 1 foot per hundred feet, than it is where the fall is 17 percent, 17 feet per hundred feet. But by the time you reach those lazy falls you have also consolidated flows from many other watercourses and the increased volume adds flow rate getting out of its own way. Where you reach these shallow fall watercourses there tends to be large areas along the margins on the inside of turns where the water is shallow and has stable low flow. These become grown in and excellent habitat for small fishes.
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
I think if you have a fairly complex weedy tank there are always places where the water flow is minimal, even with a relatively over-powered canister filter. I use whatever filters I have to hand. Because I have a very large sponge block on the inlet, I don't have problems with the intake sucking in fry, sand, plants etc.

cheers Darrel
 

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