shimanocono
07-06-2003, 4:58 PM
I was just in looking through my old aquarium stuff and decided to see if my old little bubble maker things still worked. There little stone thing hooked up to a pump that gives off bubbles! Are these usefull in tanks? What do they do for the tank? Do they go ontop or under the gravel?
pinballqueen
07-06-2003, 5:08 PM
Bubbles are mainly an aesthetic thing to put in a tank. They do cause oxygenation of the water at the surface by agitation, but they also cause carbon dioxide to diffuse back into the air, so they are not a good idea for planted tanks.
On the aesthetic side, though, they are great. My fish used to love them before i went planted... would swim in the current, let the bubbles carry them to the surface and then swim down, etc.
From a practical standpoint, they don't do much, other than use electricity, but they are really cool to look at, especially if you have those little l.e.d. lights that they sell to put in your tank now.... Place the stone either under the gravel, or into an ornament, such as an empty terra cotta pot, because, quite frankly, the little blue or green bubble stone by itself is ugly :D... I had a friend that had the tubing run into the holes in the bottoms of a pot, a stone attached on the inside to hold the tube in, and fake plants, so that it looked like the bubbles were coming from the plant. it was pretty cool looking.
Sorry... rambling....
wetmanNY
07-06-2003, 5:28 PM
Ramble on, O pinball Queen!
125gJoe
07-07-2003, 1:40 AM
In the past I had as airstone buried under driftwood. A small vavle controlled the air flow so that just a few bubbles at a time would come up from the front and behind the driftwood. It looked real nice... Now, with CO2 injection, I don't use it anymore, but I still have the airline down in case I get too much CO2 from the defective regulator(s) I keep getting! :mad: