Stream Wobble (But Don't Fall Down)?

[bastion666]

Hi,

My Stream 6000 is happily pushing water through the tank. Coral's loving it except for a toadstool that pushed over. I think he's just getting a new "footing" to push against though.

Anyway, is it normal for the Stream to have a slight side-to-side wobble? It's mounted to an overflow and the screws are in tight. The vertical riser is solidly in place. I assume the wobble is caused by the attachment of the Stream to the post on the mounting bracket.

My concern is that the slight wobble might, over time, stress the overflow and cause it to crack. Something to worry about?

Also, every once in a while the Stream will blow a stream (cough) of bubbles. I had this happen with my MJ's also. Where do the bubbles come from? Cavitation? A massing of microbubbles? Just curious as it's infrequent.

So far the Stream is the best investment I've made for my tank yet!

 

[rvitko]

They do wobble as they speed up and slow down. As for the bubbles, there are two possibilities- first make sure the solid part of the intake faces the top and it is at least 3" below the surface- the pump has enough strength to pull a vortex from the surface. The other posssibility is cavitation and this will happen in brightly lit aquariums and progress over the day as the amount of dissolved oxygen from photosynthetic activity increase it can also occur when the KH is excessive.

 

[rvitko]

As for stress to the overflow- I cannot say definitively but I don't think it is much of an issue.