mystery "disease" solved

so for the last couple of weeks i couldnt figure out why i was losing guppies. its usually 2-3 guppies a week and there were no outward sign of damage or anything occasionally i would find a platy and always stuck to the inflow of the filter, two holes about 6 cm in diameter with a mesh over them. i think its the filter inlet is hurting or killing them, now i got to figure out how to fix it. i think its the size of the fish, my angels and my gouramis are fine but another victim was a small panda cory just after i added them. so how do i fix this? decrease the flow of the pump? put something else against the outlet or block the outlet so that the water and solid waste can get in but the fish cant get near it? the tank was originally used for larger fish so it stands to reason that the pump could be causing a current too strong for my little guppies.

 

Could you not put a sponge over the inlet?

 

maybe id have to figure out a way to stick it to the inlet from inside the tank. id have to also hope it doesnt interfere with the flow as when there is deris stuck to the mesh and the flow is impeded my filter has a nasty tendancy to almost run dry. would normal sponge work?

 

I have had this problem too windfire, with the inlet that goes to the sump. Have lost a cloud danio and a cory.
I'd be interested to know what kind of insight others might have...

 

Be careful putting sponge around the inlet. I did that to my one tank and the pump on the filter overheated and burnt out. I think that the sponge hindered the flow too much.
I now use a breeding net that I secure around the inlet. You obviously need to clean it very often. Then remove the net as soon as the fish are big enough not to be sucked in.

 

Try getting hold of some off-cut stainless steel mesh (looks like mosquito net) with about 1mm holes from a local steel merchant. This shouldn't cost much if anything at all (if the sales person is nice enough). The mesh can be cut and bent to form a cage over the inlet. Just make sure that the wall portion of the cage is large enough to reduce the flow effect so that your wee tank denizens can escape. Hope this helps

 

What you need to do is increase the surface area of the inlet pipe. Are you sure the inlets are 6cm diameter? because already thats huge. What i can suggest is that you get yourself a piece of 60mm pvc pipe ,about 100mm long, (if you get that size) and drill loads of holes all over it so that the piece of pipe looks like a piece of swiss cheese. So now what you have is a piece of pvc pipe with loads of holes , now go get yourself some gorrex( i think that is what its called its a plastic mesh) from the material shop or go get a fine stainless steel mesh.Now what you do is silicon the mesh onto the pvc pipe so that it covers all the holes then stick the pipe onto the inlet of you filter. By doing this you will increase the size of the surface area from were it can suck from so that if a fish does swim against it it will some get sucked onto it.
I hope i explained this ok and i hope it helps.
PS i forgot to mention to leave the front open aswell so you will have the front open and loads of holes on the sides.

Thanks
Antony