air stone VS. tube

sumthin fishy said:
Echo, you forgot one ;)

Some of us still have a few UGFs

And I know I could do this other ways, but I use my airstone to circulate heat. I have a HOB on one side and the heater/airstone on the other side.
Click to expand...


Oh most certainly....UGFs.

Funny you mention the heat circulation, as I just added air to my planted tank to make sure the fish have night-time O2 now that I'm injecting CO2. I just happened to place the stone under my heater and then I realized that I probably just upped my heating efficiency with all of the circulation that now runs around it.

Good points.
 
I have found that airstones move more water. They can move up to 100 GPH. It all depends on the size of your air pump and the type of bubble stone. The smaller the bubbles, the more water that is moved which means there will be more oxygen in your tank. If you are going to use a 1 inch airstone, I would suggest for you to get a small corner filter such as the Penn Plax Clear Free Corner Cartridge filter and hide it with some decorations. The more filtration, the better. If you have this filter hidden by plants, it will look like you just have a bubble stone in the tank.
 
Are those filters any good? My grandma used them, but she got rid of her tank years ago and I can't remember if they kept the water clean. She had a 55 gallon with a Secondnature Whisper model 3, fluval internal, UGFs, and a Clear Free. She only cleaned her gravel and changed the filters every 6 months!!! I wonder how she got away with that? LOL!!!!
 
fishieperson321 said:
Are those filters any good? My grandma used them....
Click to expand...
Was that a joke? :laugh:

Any time you do gravel vacs every 6 months, you are effecting the fish negatively. UGF's deffinatly work when properly maintained and do have some high qualities, such as low overall tank current. Especially used in smaller tanks, where maintenance is easy and air pumps small, they are wonderful things for bettas, dwarf puffers, etc.

Echo, I was wondering if anyone else did this. I've heard of putting the heater near the intake, but my cutouts for the filter are to one side, and the heaters for the other. Since I added the airpump, I have gone from 2-3*F fluctuations, to <1*F.
 
Airstone is better, it's all to do with surface area vs volume. 1cc of air broken into many small bubbles has far greater surface area in contact with with the water than 1cc of air as one large bubble, more surface air creates more drag on the water and more surface for gas exchange.
 
I use a 4 inch airstone under the gravel and position it so that the bubbles rise right where the freshwater from the filter is falling. I figure the mixture of the two forces hitting each other creates more exchange of gases. Seems to work for me.
 
I am not joking. She only cleaned her tank once every 6 months. I clean mine every week. Her fish lived a really, really long time. Actually, she got them in 1990 and give them away 2 years ago. The people that she give them to cleans theirs only every 6 months. I don't see how they did it, but they are still alive. I guess they just adapted to the water parameters. Everytime she vacuumed the gravel, she cleaned her filters and changed the cartridges. If the filter stopped, it just stopped until the 6 months was up. She fed them only once a day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom