Bubble trap?

[Kay Tickle]

I am brand new to seahorses and am reading and reading and reading before I even put water in my tank. I just got my tank drilled and started plumbing the sump over the weekend. I got glass cut for the baffles and got a couple of extra pieces for a bubble trap, in case I wanted one. After reading about Gas Bubble Disease, I see a lot of mixed feelings about protein skimmers, etc. I also read that bubbles do not cause Gas Bubble Disease, so why then are people concerned about protein skimmers?

Anywhoooo, should I go ahead and build the bubble trap, or is it a waste of time? I will be using an in-sump protein skimmer (29 gal tank, 20 gal sump).

Any help is appreciated....

 

[Faerl]

There's a lot of debate on this. There are two lines of though. The first is that micro bubbles has absolutely nothing to do with gas bubble disease. I'm not sure what the evidence of this theory is but it really doesn't matter much. The other side of the camp believes that micro bubbles are the cause and base this belief on a study done some years ago. However, since that study came out a clarification was made on that report pointing out that the micro bubbles they were referring to were tiny, as in smaller than what protein skimmers etc actually produce. In other words, if you believe the study that says that micro bubbles do in fact cause it, then it still doesn't matter much because the bubbles we all see in our tanks are not the micro bubbles the study was talking about in the first place.

All that said. Micro bubbles tend to look ugly in a tank. So whether you believe they cause gas bubble disease or not, if you're going to all the effort of setting up a tank I'd highly suggest spending the extra effort to get the bubbles out. I doubt it has any effect on the seahorses, but it's a precaution perhaps and will look better in the long run.

 

[Kay Tickle]

Thanks, Faerl. That's pretty much what I figured, I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't any disadvantages to the bubble trap with seahorses. I may as well do it since I have the glass.

 

[TamiW]

The other side of the camp believes that micro bubbles are the cause and base this belief on a study done some years ago.

Can you point me to this study? I'll admit, I have been out of touch with a lot of seahorse happenings in the past couple years but I don't recall their being any conclusive studies that addressed the issue of gas bubble disease in seahorses directly. But I would love to read more about it!

 

[Faerl]

Unfortunately no. There was another forum discussion that had a link for the 2nd report (the one talking about the original study and discussing the 'correction') but I didn't bookmark it.