canister filter verses biowheel filter?

If you have no plants or are not injecting CO2, the bio-wheel is IMO great, but if you already own a canister there are plenty of ways to enhance the gas exchange at your surface. And from what I have read so far you will be hard pressed to find a canister owner who would say anything bad about them. As a gas excnage is pretty easy, IME oxygen defeciencies usually relate more to circulation or current. A lot more info would make answering much easier i.e. tank size filter size, plants fish load, which fish at top, which are swimming normal, do you have any surface ripples etc. You may just have two fish who like to look around at the top.

Yes, more information will be handy. If you have the water return low in your tank you may just need to move it higher to encourage surface movement.

Typically speaking an air pump just makes noise and bubbles without adding all that much oxygen in a tank. I'm still wondering what sort of cannister filter you had in the first place. Also how long has the tank been set up. It is possible that you were having a spike in either ammonia or nitrites.

I exchanged the filter got the emperor 400 i believe and now the fish seem to be more aggressive again and not at the top. the only problem with that is i have the filter in the front and the tank ig going to be way to heavy to move.

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I am guessing by this that you didn't leave 6" between your wall and your tank for a massive HOB filter (one of the downsides of these filters) I agree that an airpump is noisy troublesome and somewhat less efective than you want. I would go with some method of rippling your water, either put your canister output close to the surface, or add a powerhead or just a small bio-wheel unit at the output of the canister. Try to get your intake as low as you can and away from the output, this will help with circulation.Ripples or surface movement are all that is needed for gas exchange, so it can be done quietly. then circulation becomes the issue.

A pump does more than make noise and bubbles. It doesn't add more oxygen to the water through the bubbles but if you use a larger air stone the bubbles rising up improve water circulation and surface agitation which is very beneficial. Canister filters are much better than HOB style filters. IMO.

A pump does more than make noise and bubbles. It doesn't add more oxygen to the water through the bubbles but if you use a larger air stone the bubbles rising up improve water circulation and surface agitation which is very beneficial.

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I agree with this statement, I would only say that there are many ways to do the same thing without the noise and bubbles, I personally don't like the aesthetics of air bubbles, and can't stand the noise and hassle of air pumps. The air pump is not needed if circulation, and surface agitation can be achieved with the canisters, I don't think it would be difficult to do with a cannister filter (I just haven't tried them out yet). HOWEVER, I would in no way discourage someone from buying an air pump if they like the bubble look, and there are several ways to decrease the noise, but it will never be silent.

Just to say it again, if you already have a cannister filter properly set up and circulating water a air pump really won't help any. The amount of current an air pump can make won't change the current of the cannister filters outgoing flow.

My main question about the situation at hand is if the tank has properly cycled yet and where did blkcamss96 have the output of the cannister filter. If the output of the filter was near the middle or bottom of the tank you would have much in the way of surface agitation and little gas exchange because of that. If he did have surface agitation my guess would be the tank hasn't cycled and has high levels of ammonia or nitrites.

As far as the air pump is concerned, I do use one on my 10g quarantine tank in a sponge type filter. I just don't see any need to add one to my 50g tank that is being filtered with a cannister filter and has healthy fish swimming about.