Enough Oxygen?

[AllenLeicester]

How do you know when your tank/Fish are getting enough oxygen? Its early days with my tank so i guess there wouldnt be any major signs, My filter its pumping and causing ripples but no oxygen bubbles? Am i ok?

 

[Matty P]

Signs of lack of oxygen is if your fish are gasping at the surface. If there are ripples on the surface you should be fine. There isn't really any need for air bubbles.

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

There are several factors that will determine how much oxygen is in your tank:

1 ) Gas exchange. Surface agitation creates more surface area, which allows more oxygen to pass into the water. Make sure there is at least a 1/2 inch between the cover and the surface of the water to allow proper gas exchange, especially if the cover is tight fitting.

2 ) Water temperature. Warmer water can hold less oxygen than cooler water. I'm not sure however if the metabolism increase in fish due to warmer temps effects respiration rate as well.

3 ) Stocking. The more fish there are in the tank, the greater the oxygen demands. This is one of the reasons that longer tanks can hold a few more fish than tall tanks...there is more surface area for gas exchange on a long tank.

4 ) Plants. Plants release oxygen into the water during the day, and take in oxygen at night. This is why some people prefer to either turn off CO2 systems at night, or run air pumps at night to help gas it off.

 

[Benihana]

Sorry to bring an old topic back to the front but i've been doing a search on Bubbles and this is one of the threads that came up.
We have quite a large amount of bubbles on the surface of our tank (definately not foam, just bubbles) which I was thought were worth investigating. Reading the above comment it seems some people only have their air pump on at night. We leave ours running 24/7. Is this incorrect?
We have a lightly planted 96l tank. Thanks

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah you can leave it on all the time.

Some people with heavy planted tanks that use CO2 use an airstone overnight to drive off some of the CO2 (as the plants stop using it when it gets dark and start putting out CO2). They dont use an airstone during the day because then the plants use the CO2 so they want to keep as much CO2 in the water as they can.

If you arent using CO2 then you can use an airstone all the time if you want.

 

[Benihana]

Yeah you can leave it on all the time.

Some people with heavy planted tanks that use CO2 use an airstone overnight to drive off some of the CO2 (as the plants stop using it when it gets dark and start putting out CO2). They dont use an airstone during the day because then the plants use the CO2 so they want to keep as much CO2 in the water as they can.

If you arent using CO2 then you can use an airstone all the time if you want.

Top job. Cheers for that.