Construction:
First you should cut proper pieces of glass to create the spacers. For an example the 4 mm glass is suitable for this use. The holes should be drilled at your local glass store. The width of the glass should be about 0,5 mm narrover than the inside width of your tank. This leaves enough space to make proper silicone seams. You can choose the height of the spacers on your own, but at least 2 cm difference should be found between the spacers as this produces the natural riverlike flow to your tank. The picture below doesn't show all the necessary holes. The spacer closest to the pumps should have 5 holes as the pipes from all the five pumps run through it. The next spacer has 4 holes and the last one 2 holes.
Steps of construction:
First you need to attach the spacers to your tank using the silicone. If you use PVC-pipe to lead the water you may want to insert the pipes to the holes before attaching the spacers. In case of soft hose you can insert the hose afterwards. There is also another benefit when using the hose. The hose allows you to bend the end of the hose to direct the flow as you wish. Hard PVC-pipe will always direct the flow right towars your next spacer. Finally you attach the circulation pumps to the pipes or hose. Then all you need to do is filling the tank and turning the pumps on.
Filtration:
Althought the tank has plenty of flow at this point there is no filtration at all. You may use familiar internal or external filters. They can also work as part of your flow system as you may attch the pipes to your filter. You may also use the Hamburger mattenfilter as a filtration for this particular system. The flow is quite strong but the basic principal of the filter can be met. Quite simple way to introduce mattenfilter to this system would be a filter that covers the end of the tank. The filter foam would be inserted between the circulation pumps and the main water space. The water would flow through the filter and then be carried back to the tank by the pumps.
The filter would be easy to maintain as you could very easily take it out of the tank. As the flow is very strong you need to support the filter foam. Otherwise the flow would force the foam towards the glass. The support can be organized quite simply by attaching the foam to a piece of acrylic. Just cut a suitable piece of acrylic and make large holes to it. With minor changes to the above plan, you could locate the mattenfilter to the back corner of the tank. This way you could hide all the circulation pumps behind the mattenfilter. This plan can be altered to suite your own tank.
Finishing touch:
The measures presented above will produce a strong current and a proper filtration. You propably want to decorate you aquarium as well. You can fill the room between the spacers with sand. Rockwork and driftwood can be piled on top of the sand. If you plan to use this tank as a habitat for loricariidae
you propably want to build some cavities as well. Make sure that the openings of the cavities are faces on several directions as the loricariidae
will appreciate a wide range of different kind of flow. This increases the possibilty that the fish will find a suitable place to spawn.
