Air pump confusion

Not sure why your using an air pump pretty much no one does. All you need is surface agitation.
 
lol interesting question, no they'll be fine. Though as SFish said, no one really uses an air pump, at least on their main tank. What are you using it for?
 
Some fish will actually swim in the air bubbles . I had a Tang that loved to do that...

I Would say as long as the air bubbles are limited to a area of the tank you will be fine just be sure the whole tank is not full of them.. I am assuming you have a canister or HOB Filter and its a Fish only tank..the air can benefit the fish .

For me i would not want air bubbles in my reef tank but i do have them in my display fuge ...
 
I don't THINK there's harm in the air. I know for some chemical treatments it's suggested to run additional air into the water because of the treatments.

There is also a long running debate on if "air injection treatment" of nano bubbles into a tank is a good thing or not. There are several threads on here about it. Essentially turns your display into one giant skimmer temporarily.

Fish, corals, algae, inverts, and everything else need air to survive.

I think it MAY affect some fish that have swim bladders, but I am in no way certain. I would do more research.
 
So not what most airstones would really produce. And not nearly in the quantity that would bother fish.
 
Jscwerve said:
I don't THINK there's harm in the air. I know for some chemical treatments it's suggested to run additional air into the water because of the treatments.

There is also a long running debate on if "air injection treatment" of nano bubbles into a tank is a good thing or not. There are several threads on here about it. Essentially turns your display into one giant skimmer temporarily.

Fish, corals, algae, inverts, and everything else need air to survive.

I think it MAY affect some fish that have swim bladders, but I am in no way certain. I would do more research.
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Interesting but there is no need to use bubbles to get air into your tank. I was told the bubbles from an air stone agitate the surface of the water and create gas exchange but the surface of the water can be agitated with out bubbles. I guess it would be like injecting CO2 or Ozone.
 
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Thank you sooooo much, I had to get rid of the nagging concern that I would kill the clowns with an airpump!

I am dosing Melafix and Pimafix for two clowns, and despite having dosed it slowly in the first days, the other day I dosed all of it early in the morning (forgetting that medicines can burn out the air in the water).

It resulted in two clowns gasping for air and after a fuss about testing water and the panic of it all - I managed to dump in an airline and deduct that this made them feel better again quickly. As I understand the effect of the bubbles, it adds to the surface of water and air, making more exchange happen. If needed in individual tanks, it would stir the surface and circulate the deep water upwards in the water column to avoid dead-zones?

I left the air tube with them, thank you so much, they are very happy now and have returned to playing and being safe from plastic in the ocean. I really did not want them to die from me making noob-mistakes with the airpump :D
 
SFish said:








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I'm not entirely sure what the point you were trying to make. The OP asked about an air pump, not a skimmer. And correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most of us leave skimmers running nearly 24/7?

My point remains the same. Literally millions of people have been running air pumps connected to air stones in aquariums since...what? the 70's? I imagine the variable here would be the size of the bubbles. Micro-bubbles in particular may be an issue. But the OP didn't say he wanted to run a diffuser which produces micro-bubbles all day. He asked if he could run an air pump all day. The clear anecdotal evidence supported by 50+ years times millions of experiments, is yes.
 
Elricsfate nailed it. A couple of guys' random anecdotes (which draw unfounded conclusions as far as I can tell) do not outweigh millions of people that have used them without harm.

Here's another anecdote - I run a 10 inch diffuser 24/7 in my pond. It results in a column of bubbles that takes up about 10% of the pond. The fish love it, they play in it. They wouldn't play in it if it was hurting them.
 
Just note that airstones are going to create massive salt creep/ spray in the local area where the bubbles break at the surface. It will either be messy or possibly hazardous if you have electrics nearby.
 
THey're ok. Added oxygen during meds is not a bad thing, moderately done.

Normally tanks are oxygenated by cheato, gas exchange at surface, and by the skimmer and downflow. But in a treatment tank, such are not in operation on the usual level.
 
Elricsfate said:
I'm not entirely sure what the point you were trying to make. The OP asked about an air pump, not a skimmer. And correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most of us leave skimmers running nearly 24/7?

My point remains the same. Literally millions of people have been running air pumps connected to air stones in aquariums since...what? the 70's? I imagine the variable here would be the size of the bubbles. Micro-bubbles in particular may be an issue. But the OP didn't say he wanted to run a diffuser which produces micro-bubbles all day. He asked if he could run an air pump all day. The clear anecdotal evidence supported by 50+ years times millions of experiments, is yes.
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Well first off sumps have bubble traps or things like cheato which get rid of the bubbles. The post just happens to be about bubbles from a skimmer but I've seen posts saying bubbles are bad. A good air stone can produce fine bubbles in fact they use to use them in skimmers. Like I said the bubbles must be too big from an air stone which I've only seen used in fresh water as far as in the DT. Just because something has been used for years doesn't mean it's the best way to care for fish. Kids have been putting fish in bowls for how many years with out doing anything other then changing the water does that mean we should just change the water in our saltwater tanks and not worry about agitating the surface? In any case as stated bubbles will cause salt spray and they look ugly. I've only seen statements about micro bubbles but maybe that was proven wrong. If bubbles are no big deal though then why are we using bubble traps?
 
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