enough oxygen?

[oscar83]

Hey guys 'n' gals,
I have a 75 gal fw tank with a 6" JD (who is my baby, hes absolutely gorgeous), a 5" leporinus fasciatus (sp?), and a 8" common plec. I have about 7 or 8 medium to large amazon swords in there and was wondering if they might produce enough oxygen for my fish to survive. I'd really like to get rid of the bubbles in my tank cuz it makes it look too fake IMO. What do u think?

[Jericho]

You do not need bubbles to have gas exchange. You need surface agitation, and most all aquariums now adays with canister or hob filters create enough surface agitation to provide more than adequate gas exchange.

[oscar83]

ok im running 2 fluval 404's on that tank. one output is pointed downwards so no surface adgitation there but the other one is pointed along the surface and there is some decent adgitation from that. so i guess its safe to take away the bubbles then? i just wanna be safew and not have to come home from work to a tank full of floaters.

[mtiller]

well you can never have too much oxygen (i don't mean like goin overboard with it) but if you have doubts about it, i'd just leave it be. if nothing's wrong with the setup now i wouldn't try to change anything if it seems as though things wouldnt' be enough without the bubbles

[oscar83]

well my other reason for this was b/c my plants are starting to look kinda crappy. and i remember hearing that oxygen bubbles in the tank displace the co2 that the plants need to photosynthesize. is there any truth in this or am i crazy?

[plah831]

If you have a HEAVY plant load, then they can produce enough oxygen to sustain your fish. but ONLY DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS. When the lights are off, they will respire, too, and consume oxygen and produce co2 as a waste.

For me, I have a fairly light plant load, so I leave aeration on all the time. Plants are doing fine, growing and green, so there's no problem. I also use a liquid carbon supplement (Flourish Excel) so I don't need to bother with co2 injection.

Yes, 7-8 plants for 75 gal tank is a light plant load. So you probably want to go with aeration, or add a lot more plants.

[oscar83]

i'd like to add more plants but at the same time i dont. i really like the way my tank looks right now. plus i'd want stronger lighting. right now i have 4x40 watt t-12's and 1 32 watt t-8. sometime in the future i want to upgrade to either 5x110 watt vho's or 6x54 watt ho t-5's. I also have a co2 tank and diy diffuser that i used to use when i had about 15 anacharis in there. but i got sick of the anacharis cuz it got way out of control and i didnt like it anymore so i gave it all to a friend. then i moved my tank to my new house and decided not to hook up the co2 again. once i get my new lights tho i'll probably hook up the co2 and get some more plants.

[CatLover]

I used to be OBSESSED with aeration. I mean like 80 gallons worth of pump pressure running into a 29 gallon tank. It looked ridiculous, but I had it like that for so long that I thought it was the thing to do. One day while reading an article, I realized how ridiculous my tank looked. I no longer have any air pumps running. It is moderately planted, but has a power filter with 200gph and another with 300gph. So, I have plenty of surface agitation without a bunch of hideous bubbles. Could you just reduce your air pressure some and see how that goes? I think that my plants grow much better since I no longer use all those air pumps/stones. Plants are: Amazon Sword, Anacharis, Java Ferns, Red Tiger Lotus, Green Mondo Grass, Green and White Vals, crypt of some kind, and ruffled leaf sword (don't remember exact name of that one) I do a lot of pruning. Of course your tank is much larger than mine, I just thought I would throw in how I quit aerating so much.

I also no longer run my 20 gallon air pumps on my 10 either. I just have a moderate amount of plants and a power filter

Could you place your bubble stones/wands/whatever in an incosnpicuous place? Some people stick em behind big rocks and it looks kinda natural.

Just a thought . . .

[Needeles]

Another idea you could go with is just to turn the air pump on at night. The reason is if you don't have enough surface agitation then the CO2 might shoot up at night. In the morning simply turn off the air pump. Just watch the fish. If they are acting like they are trying to get air or are hanging out at the top more then normal then that is usally a sign that there is not enough oxygen. If you see not problems then your good to go.

Just thought I would let you know what I would try.

[oscar83]

yeah i'll probably set my air pump on a timer to go only at nite and see how that works out. thanks a lot guys