Flow in your tank

KittenBoo · Apr 13, 2016

Not new but wasn't sure where else to post this. Been at this for quite awhile but I've never had this issue. We are fish only right now. Nano tank 30 gal. . Not sure what the size of the pump in our sump is. Husband bought it used. We just got 3 new fish: 6 line wrass, very small (maybe 1 inch) clown, & a 1.5 inch blue hippo. We have kids can you tell? lol. Anyway.... The flow seems to be too strong. All the fish were hiding in corners of the tank. Now that we moved the return to hit the rocks there's hardly any flow but the fish are out and SUPER happy! There's hardly any turning going in the tank and the surface of the water is not being broken. Have you ever had this issue??? Thoughts? I know they are small but we've had small fish before and never experienced this. Yet all of them reacted the same way.
FYI started the fish all over because we had a lovely shrimp who ate everyone. [emoji37] Any thoughts would be appreciated.

mfinn · Apr 14, 2016

Besides the return pump, what other pump or pumps do you have in the tank?

rbtwo4 · Apr 14, 2016

yep probably way too much flow

Anirban · Apr 14, 2016

Flow is relative to what you keep in your tank. Generally people go upto 50X the tank water volume so a tank with 30G water capacity will go upto 1500GPH flow. But it is preferred that that the flow is better be random instead of just high unidirectional flow. My tank has very high flow even more than what is recommended (ie 50X) but my acros and fishes are fine although my LPS don't like it a lot. But I never saw my fishes hiding because of the flow. New fishes generally need time to get adapted to your tank flow and other parameters so possibly its not the flow.