Air curtains

[tangastank]

We bought an air curtain , the length of the tank, it said to put small pin pricks all along it to stop it clogging (This we did). However, it only ever blew bubbles from one end (the one opposite where the air hose was attached. My other half took it out and proceeded to stab pin holes all the way through the material, thinking that would work, however, now all we have is some bigger bubbles, again at the opposite end to where the hose is attached.

Any ideas on why this is happening and what we can do to have bubbles all the way along, when you blow through it, it seems fine.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[WILDER]

Are you running it off a pump, and is the pump strong enough.

 

[webcat5]

How exactly do you have it set up in the tank? you can try adjusting the position of the curtain until you get the desired affect. It may take some playing around but you will get it eventually.

 

[tangastank]

How exactly do you have it set up in the tank? you can try adjusting the position of the curtain until you get the desired affect. It may take some playing around but you will get it eventually.

Its running along the bottom back wall, (same as a long airstone we used to have), not sure what size pump is, but is housed in separate compartment and has coped well with two long airstones in the past!

 

[WILDER]

You can buy them fluval plastic pipes with holes in, i've used them, but took them out always getting blocked.

 

[tangastank]

Thanks for your help - will review bubbles (actually, getting kinda used to it only up one end.

 

[BettaMomma]

that's happened to me before, even with little tiny bubble bars only 3" long.
I guess it's just something inside the bar that clogs up. I've never been able to figure it out, so we just sort of covered up the bar with gravel toward the back of the tank and forgot about it - nobody really knew the diff. It now just shoots out bubbles from the one side, but it's still coolio.

 

[webcat5]

Try adjusting the angle of the bar slightly to make the air come out the other end.
Then slowly drop that end until the air is coming out the way you want it.

 

[pendragon]

There is always the possibility your pump isn't powerful enough to supply sufficient air, but I don't think that's the problem.

Air in an airstone will always escape the stone through the path of least resistance, no matter how many "paths of escape" are available. This is why if you take a long airstone that works properly and poke one small pin-sized hole in it that the vast majority of the air will escape through the one new hole. If you poke ten holes in it the air will escape only through two or three of them (the biggest ones) and ignore the rest. It's the same reason you can't typically take two airstones - even identical ones - and use a simple T-splitter to send air to both; the air will inevitably only go to the one that's easiest to escape through, and the other will do nothing. (Putting each airstone on its own line and using gang valves solves this problem)

I'd bet that your pin pricks caused the problem. When I was setting up my first aquarium, I unknowingly caused this same problem myself. Getting a new airstone is the only real remedy I've found that truly solves the problem. Regardless of what the directions say, you don't ever want to poke holes in the airstone or else it won't work quite the same. If it does get so clogged that you need to poke holes in it, you probably need to replace it anyhow.

Hope that helps.

pendragon!