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I'm having dreams of a new hillstream loach tank. I think the tank I have in mind is a 30g breeder. I believe I used a 20 long last time. I've got buckets of river rocks. I sorted out enough marble size or under to put a layer in the 40g breeder. I'd like to use bigger pieces in the river tank but the gravel vac won't really get in there then. Since I'm not heavily planting I'm debating how deep I can go before I have detritus issues?

Also do some of the small, longer finned rainbows like threadfins and Pseudomugil gertrudae (not sure the best common name to look that up) swim well enough for a high gph tank with some planted areas? If not then small rainbowfish questions get to move on to tank setup 3 (or is that 4) in my head and I'm back to debating what to put in the main water column. I don't really want white clouds or danios this time. It seems a bit boring. For tetras I'm interested in cochu's blue, green neons, black neons, or emperors. I'm looking at what I can order off azgardens for now but there is a big aquarium store near me. They often have the flatter hillstreams as "butterfly fish". If I go often enough I might find some uncommon schooling fish that is interesting and would work.

Hi,
There are several sites on the Internet that show how to set up a "long" tank as a river tank. Generally speaking, the pull water from one end of the tank, through a pump, and the spray it out from the other end. You can adjust the height of the return water spray bar so that it shoots across the tops of the rocks and substrate, producing eddies as the water flows between and over the rocks scouring the areas behind and between the rocks. As you hinted, you do not want dead areas between the rocks. They will act as sumps and collect the detritus in those areas, the foods and solid waste will collect in those areas, decay, and seriously affect your tank water. Keep the rocks at one layer thick, perhaps a quarter of an inch to one half inch thick sand layer with the rock layer embedded in the sand leaving the top half of the rocks exposed.

Many of the tanks that are featured in those articles show the return water plumbing buried (hidden) in the substrate. Personally, I think that leaves the substrate too thick and that it will easily become contaminated and a source of toxins as the anaerobic bacteria will thrive in that kind of an environment. A tube from a bar up and over the side of the tank, along the outside back of the tank and then up and over the opposite side of the tank to another bar, allows the substrate to be considerably thinner and less of a problem.

You can detour the water as it runs across the outside back of the tank into a filtration system to collect floating particles, or you can use sponge material across the outside of the intake openings, and perhaps a screen across the output to keep the curious fish from swimming against the current and into the filter.

As to the fish, I have no recommendations, I'll leave that to your fancy.

PS, please don't forget to publish some pictures with your final write-up!
Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

It's gonna be awhile to setup this tank. My husband lost his job a few weeks back. I'm setting up a sunfish tank now only because I have all the materials needed to do it for free.

I'm going to do a canister filter like I did last time but I haven't decided if I want to just get a well oversized filter for the full gph or run a powerhead. Last time I left the powerhead intake as is so I did not have full unilateral flow. The fish were not unhappy but I might want to try to achieve it this time.