airstones

[Whisper Odinsky]

yesterday, yardsale-o-rama - i totally scored on a 25 gallon tank, fully equipped, but i need a heater and a light.. 21 bucks...anywho, inside this gem was a airpump 3X bigger then the one i have in my 30 gallon... with 3 extension thingy's, so my hubby stuck that 3 tubed setup in my 30g with all those fishes. now there is 3 streams of bubbles.
before this happened, when we were at the LFS, there are those cool long stones for the airpump, a couple inches long and wanted to get it. would it be best to stick with the 3 way thingy with 3 air streams, or get a nice long stone? any difference, or is this only preferance?

 

[Inchworm]

Wow! You are my kind of shopper!!!

About the airstone---the long ones are beautiful. I've always heard that it's not the amount of bubbles that's important for oxygenation, but the amount of movement on the surface of the water. If that's true, then it really wouldn't matter how they were distributed around the tank, would it?

Of course you wouldn't want the fish to think they were in the middle of a tidal wave so if the pump is too big and makes too much agitation you can just bleed some of the excess air off. It'll be lovely.

 

[Kossy]

Your quite right. Each bubble does not contain oxygen but rather moves the water around allowing oxygen to enter from the surface. Hence its about the current. Therefore I think the three airstones would be better. Also you fish will now have three different playgrounds and they will love you for it.

 

[saltydog]

AIR STONES, YES the more movement of water is BEST, an the LONG air stones or WANDS, come in all sizes,do a wounderful job of this. it also gives you a GREAT aquascape to create with. depending on the WIDTH, if you run it on the WIDTH of the tank, it will help the water circulate much better an fish love to swim threw the bubbles. if you run it on the
BACK wall it will circulate the flow in that direction, NOT as GOOD, an small stone
only help in causing small movement,
( acordance w/ the size of you tank) this works great for me cause all my tanks have OUTSIDE filtreation, that is the water is pumped OUTSIDE the tank to the FILTER then BACK in the TANK. seems to work GREAT for all my tanks. B)
GOOD LUCK GOOD FISHIN"

 

[Moe]

I attached a bubble wand do my pump. It creates a wall of bubbles along the entire back of the tank. It looks great. Wand was a about $6.00us.

 

[Inchworm]

I attached a bubble wand do my pump. It creates a wall of bubbles along the entire back of the tank. It looks great. Wand was a about $6.00us.

Moe-

How do you get those wands to work? I have one that lets the bubbles out on one end and just a few come out near the other end, but nothing comes out in the middle?

A friend of mine had one that came with a pin to sitck it with to make holes, but mine didn't say anything about doing that.

They do look great, though!!!

 

[Kissifish]

One thing with bubble wands/bubble curtains is that they tend to get stopped up with stuff? after a while. But, they are prettier to me and its worth it to clean them off occasionally (as I like to change the scenery in my tank).

As for the long bubble stones, they make larger bubbles and the effect is not as nice.

All a matter of preference. But I returned my stone and changed back to the wand.

 

[Whisper Odinsky]

aahhh thankyou thankyou kind folks, this helps much.
Its along the width of the tank, spread out equally. so far the new baby pleco's seem to really enjoy the ride.
thanks again!!!