Woozledad - I probably have as many customized spraybars as stock items. My LFS is careful to stock or special-order Eheim componenets, so blank tubing in the proper sizes is available to me easily.
Stock spraybars may also be customized - made shorter (increases presure and current in front of the bar), or doubled with a tee-coupling at the end of the return line such that the two bars stretch most of the length of the tank along the back (cuts the current more than in half, and spreads it over a wider area - the same total flow, gentler and more wide-spread). The return line itself may be Y-coupled, with two shorter vertical spraybar returns in opposire corners of the tank. The variants are open-ended, limited by imagination.
Stock spraybars may also be customized by redrilling their holes - either uniformly larger (same total flow, reduced current) or by adding more holes (drill in-between the existing) or full custom by starting with a blank tube and have small holes near the input end, graduating sizes along the length to even out the flow over the whole length. Because these are dynamic systems, pressure is highest at the input end, drops along the length, and the output per hole does the same. There are endless variants available here as well - lots of excuses to play with the power tools and in the water without setting new tanks.
Because I multifilter all my tanks, I am usually aiming for a circular current around the periphery of the tank (as viewed from above), supplemented so that there are no dead spots for debris build-up and that the plants have some current to deliver nutrients but are not in a rip-tide to beat them to death. All of that wants doing with minimal surface disturbance.
Stock spraybars may also be customized - made shorter (increases presure and current in front of the bar), or doubled with a tee-coupling at the end of the return line such that the two bars stretch most of the length of the tank along the back (cuts the current more than in half, and spreads it over a wider area - the same total flow, gentler and more wide-spread). The return line itself may be Y-coupled, with two shorter vertical spraybar returns in opposire corners of the tank. The variants are open-ended, limited by imagination.
Stock spraybars may also be customized by redrilling their holes - either uniformly larger (same total flow, reduced current) or by adding more holes (drill in-between the existing) or full custom by starting with a blank tube and have small holes near the input end, graduating sizes along the length to even out the flow over the whole length. Because these are dynamic systems, pressure is highest at the input end, drops along the length, and the output per hole does the same. There are endless variants available here as well - lots of excuses to play with the power tools and in the water without setting new tanks.
Because I multifilter all my tanks, I am usually aiming for a circular current around the periphery of the tank (as viewed from above), supplemented so that there are no dead spots for debris build-up and that the plants have some current to deliver nutrients but are not in a rip-tide to beat them to death. All of that wants doing with minimal surface disturbance.
