Plank tube length question

[Saith]

When the mixing pump turns on all the Reef Jerky is flushed out immediately. I have the sicce pump at the lowest setting and I'm soaking the food for 15 minutes. That has helped a lot, but there is still enough floating jerky to make me feel wasteful.

My tank has euro bracing and the tube is right around 3.5" into the water. That's only 0.5" less than what's recommended, but maybe that makes all the difference. If I order a new tube, should I go longer like 5" or 6" into the water? Is there any benefit or detriment to going more than 4" into the water?

 

[Zainav]

Longer tube takes up more space and becomes an eyesore. Depends on you whether which you prefer aesthetics or preventing the waste of fish food.
Ony my end, I just have the regular and of course at the beginning I was having food float up to the surface. Soaking the food doesn't help at all.
Best way is just to turn on both dispenser and pump at the same time so that you get micro drops for fish to fight for and less chance of leftovers to float. Or what I did is dispense 30 seconds and then turn the pump on while it continues to dispense another 30 seconds. Adjust the dispense time if too much food is floating or not enough food coming down for other less fish not being able to eat. (advisable to keep pump on another 30 seconds after the dispenser to avoid clogging)
Also if you just started using it, fish don't recognize well enough yet to know comes down from it. Give them time and soon all of you fish will flock to it. Mine gathers around it when the dispenser is on. They can feel the vibrations and signals them food is coming soon.

While the Reef Jerky they sell are great, they are pricey for how there is in a bag. You can make your own dried food and customize your own with food that doesn't easily float or not float at all.
Old pic.

 

[ctenophore]

There's no real detriment to having it a little longer. 4" has generally been the depth I've used for a long time. Zainav is right that the fish will definitely learn to snag every bit coming out before it has a chance to get very far, whether up or down. You can also try putting the tube near a circulation pump, which will blow food all over the tank. This helps shy fish get some as well.

Try pushing the tube down below the top level of the mounting platform, that should give you an extra 1/4". Might make enough difference, before you go through the trouble of replacing the tube.

Let me know how it goes!

 

[Saith]

Thank you for your insights Zainav and your answer Justin!

Zainav, you've got quite the collection of foods there. I'm trying use up all the pellets I have by mixing them in with the Reef Jerky. I like that they don't float and considered just using pellets in the Plank.

Oh ya, aesthetics are definitely important. That aspect somehow slipped my mind with the tube length.

The tube is by a circulation pump, which is working out great. The food is all flushed out at once and whatever doesn't float gets spread around by the pump. The aggressive eaters rush to the tube/pump, the slow fish kind of head toward that way and the shy fish get a chance to eat whatever floats their way. Now that I think about it, if the food was slowly coming out, the tang and foxface would probably hog it all.

The tube is about 3/16" down from the top of the holder, so I could go a little deeper. I considered pushing the pump fixture down to get a little more depth, but decided against that. I think I'll get a 1" longer tube. That should let me adjust the depth from 3.5" to 4.5", roughly.

Or what I did is dispense 30 seconds and then turn the pump on while it continues to dispense another 30 seconds.

That is a great idea. I'm going to try this out. I'll still let the food soak for a bit, then put in fresh food once the mixing pump turns on.

 

[Zainav]

Had to try every freeze dried food out there to train and get my Lyretail and Fathead sunburst anthias to eat since I had to go on vacation leaving it unattended. They only ate frozen food and was hesistant to leave them. Pretty sure the dried mysis and plankton and the scent of the calanus was the one that made them eat, but after that since it was mixed they just eat mostly anything that's in it.
Best part is that it lowered my nitrates a lot, even feeding 3-5 times a day. Just use less on the pellets since it has more nutrients in it.

 

[Saith]

I bought the 8" pipe, which is 2" longer than what it comes with. (Thank you Avast for including a the new Mixing Chamber Divider!) My plan was to raise the pipe up so it was just under the keg. That would be roughly 0.75" higher than before since my pipe was barely in the platform. That would have put the pipe at about 4.75" submerged. However there were a couple miscalculations and a likely user error.

I'll start off with the possible user error. Originally I tuned the flow by reaching underwater and rotating the valve with a fingertip. I felt it stop and figured that was the lowest setting. Turns out there is a stop at the midpoint, but it can rotate past that to set the flow lower. So I think I actually I had the flow set to the mid point and not the minimum. The original pipe may have worked out fine if I actually had the flow set to the minimum instead of halfway, but I realized this after I had the new pipe all setup and ready to go.

When I removed the original pipe and measured how much was submerged based on the algae line, it was 4" underwater, not 3.5" like I thought. So it was right where it should be. (Guess I should have considered light refraction.) Now there will be 5.25" submerged pipe in the tank, a little more than I planned, but that's okay.

Next I installed the pipe in the platform and found that the Sicce pump cord routing through the platform prevents the pipe from going higher than top of the platform. I thought maybe I could bend the cable, but decided it would be too sharp of a bend. I removed the cable from the platform, but it was kind of in the way of the food falling or my tubing for refrigerated foods and I didn't have a good way of fastening it anywhere. That means I can't raise the pipe up to the keg. So now I have 5.75" of submerged pipe. That is kind of a lot.

As it is now, a very little bit of Reef Jerky floats to the top, much less than before and I am happy with it. I'll leave it for now and see if the extra pipe in the tank bugs me after a few weeks. If so then I may try going back to the original 6" pipe with the real minimum flow rate or I'll cut 1" off the new pipe.

It would be awesome to put the plank in the sump return chamber and pump the food up to the tank. Then the food would be split between the two returns, would spread out more and there wouldn't be a pipe in the display tank. However my return goes through a vertically mounted UV sterilizer and I noticed some detritus collects at the bottom. I am concerned pumping the food through there would lead to even more accumulation at the bottom.

 

[ctenophore]

It would be awesome to put the plank in the sump return chamber and pump the food up to the tank. Then the food would be split between the two returns, would spread out more and there wouldn't be a pipe in the display tank. However my return goes through a vertically mounted UV sterilizer and I noticed some detritus collects at the bottom. I am concerned pumping the food through there would lead to even more accumulation at the bottom.

You could probably test the travel through the UV unit pretty easily by setting up the Plank for a few days in the sump. Depending on how turbulent the return chamber is, you may not even need the mixing tube. Or just find a length of 2" white pipe for the test. I just wouldn't go any longer than about 12-14" tube length to reduce the chance of food getting stuck and building up in the long pipe.