Air bubbler

[kiwis]

Hey
Does anyone use an air bubbler in their sump to help with the oxygen exchange?

 

[Dpate]

Not if there is a skimmer involved. Otherwise, probably couldn’t hurt.

 

[ZoWhat]

Yeapers.

I have an airpump with an airstone and the airstone is ziptied to one of the powerhead in the DT

I run the airpump to create micro bubbles from 12am to 9am to keep my pH up during the night and to gas exchange the CO2.

I've had two massive deaths of all fish suffocating TWICE......and both times in the middle of the night when O2 was at its lowest while I was dosing reef safe chemicals that depleted O2. If I had an airstone running back then I wouldnt have had any massive suffocating deaths.

It's terrible to find all your fish lying on the bottom if your tank dead at 7am. It fooled me once, then twice, then i got urinated-off and said "heck with people who say dont use airstone". so I hooked up a DIY micro bubbling thru a PH on my own 3 years ago

Some will say micro bubbles cause some kind of gill disease.... I say bonk

After running micro bubbles for 3yrs now....I haven't seen this "claim" come true in the slightest.

My fish are all fat and healthy. I have a huge blue hippo with super bright blue snd not a scratch on him. Got him at 2in and now a massive 7in. A perfect fish



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[brandon429]

its ok to bubble no disease, although pages of threads exist to debate that for sure already. look how long we've been testing coral reef bubbling:
https://www.reefs.org/forums/topic27584.html
salt creep is the setback, so most square tankers don't like it.

otherwise, from an aquaculturist and lake management perspective, look how air bubbling beats the best powerhead and even multiple powerheads:

upward laminar flow beats random mixing for gas exchange.


it only happens at the air/water interface, so random currents although handy for food distribution and detritus control, upwelling, are not the best choice for raw co2 out/o2 in gas exchange.

laminar rolling currents are.

and surface boil, although a powerhead at the surface aimed up sideways competes there.

but efficiency, with saltcreep as the main setback, bubbling is cheap and I literally bathe every coral I own in constant bubbles for like eighteen years its gtg.

when limnologists get tasked with fixing up a cruddy lake taking up acres of space, and getting fish kills they dont use giant water pumps


they use: aggressive oxidation and biotic digestion products + giant airstones the size of cinder blocks. recall ranting courtesy of aquatic-eco.com tech points. a giant huge awesome business that got me through the late ninties until about 08

does any reader here recall the awesome website aquatic-eco.com?

You could buy a 25 foot tall skimmer there, for orca displays. How could you not shop there./

 

[ZoWhat]

Yes. My powerhead with an airstone ziptied to it....is blowing micro bubbles DOWNWARD.

Meaning I have the PH pointing downward at a 45 degree angle

The other PHs help swirl the micro bubbles around the tank.

When the bubbles finally reach the surface and POP.... I'm not seeing the massive amts of salt creep that are claimed your gonna have. Bc they're micro pops in size.

Yeah if bubbles the size of marbles were popping, then I can see the salt creep claim but yet another bonk claim if you setup your DIY micro bubbler thru a PH

 

[ca1ore]

Using a supplemental airstone is completely unnecessary IF your tank is properly aerated/circulated. I've never had one in the sump, nor in the main display. Since most of the air exchange happens at the water's surface, there are things that can be problematic - tight fitting glass lids, inadequate movement of oxygen poor lower waters up to the surface, narrow/tall tank, etc. Even if you have these issues, a skimmer can act to supplement O2.

Micro 'scrubbing' bubbles is claimed to solve more than just o2 problems; but it's not what the OP asked.

 

[ZoWhat]

I've never had one in the sump, nor in the main display.

So if you have never tried it....how can you be so certain its unnecessary? Bc you read it somewhere?

I'm not trying to be a jerkface nor challenging you but asking why you have drawn a line on smthg you've never tried


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[Dom274]

I am in the middle of setting one up. I was gonna throw the airstone in the filtersock part of the sump to deal with any salt creep. I want to use an airstone because I only run my skimmer 12 or so hours a day. The thing is, I'm planning on putting it in a box and hooking it up to an outside air line so the bubbler and skimmer will both be pulling fresh air.

 

[sghera64]

Hey
Does anyone use an air bubbler in their sump to help with the oxygen exchange?

I do.

I have a DIY skimmer that pulls outside air in to mix with the water. From the same “trunk” line into the house, I pull air through an air pump and push that air through a wooden air stone which bubbles in my chaeto fuge of the sump. When the chaeto ball is not too big, the bubble actually keep the chaeto ball spinning.

With both the skimmer, air stone and nightly-only kalk additions, I’m able to keep my pH pretty steady around 8.1 to 8.2.

I also have the chaeto lit from 20:30hrs to 0230 hrs.

 

[brandon429]

Calore is right, they're optional. My take is only to show they're harmless. My claims aren't that they should be used, its what cheapo pico reefers used and then in hindsight no coral died. I don't think they do much special, but they beat every degas method when indicated. and cheaper.

 

[ca1ore]

So if you have never tried it....how can you be so certain its unnecessary? Bc you read it somewhere?

I’m struggling a bit with your logic ...... since my tanks have never suffered from chronically low oxygen levels, adding supplementation in any form has never been necessary. I further maintain that for a tank that is properly circulated supplementation is unnecessary. That I have not ever tried an air stone is irrelevant. That I may have, or have not, read anything on the subject is irrelevant. Now, if a system is poorly designed or run, an air stone may well provide benefits; but since I’ve not done it, I’ll leave any benefit claims to those that have.

 

[brandon429]

Co2 off gassing is a common request/pH support given decent ambient


If I owned a large Reef it wouldn't need CO2 off-gassing I would control my bio loading and current but I still read it pretty commonly every now and then on the forums. Being on all-electric and not a lot of heavy breathers in home also matters I guess

 

[ca1ore]

The other thing I would add is that the way in which an air stone affects oxygenation is often misunderstood. It does not directly diffuse oxygen into the water, rather it encourages mild water circulation. The expectation that this mild circulation, added to the much more significant movement of water the through the sump, is a material contributor to added oxygen levels just seems absurd to me. Just my opinion .....

 

[brandon429]

search it out lemme know.


Vs being minor, it's significant difference
I'm not saying a bubbler on lowest setting matters, and you may not be referring to my post on the oxygenation part as I never thought the action increased solubility, my key terms were surface boil, increased surface area due to that phenomena the exchange site, surface gas exchange where co2 benefits outweigh o2 needs, and efficiency vs cost of reaching equilibrium with a surrounding. All those claims will stand scrutiny imo.
limnology, Lake fish kill reversal science and lake/river eutrophication management environmental science in my opinion are the search terms to confirm or deny.

I didn't study to find any of that.

All that comes from an old website called aquatic-eco.com it was massive massive place.

They had these highly technical science Snippets in their huge Flyers they would send out quarterly written by people like Randy that gave physicality and science of bubbling and it was astonishing and it turned my mind around. It's an important distinction to make they never mentioned it for Reef keeping it's all freshwater work where they literally turn over lakes and rivers and reverse non-compliance in giant giant water ways using the techniques, airstone mats the size of closets and agriculture air pumps and long hoses. Exactly like an aquarium, but upscaled for a lake.

The discussions become relevant here because they contrast what large water pumps would be able to do in the same situation using very complex charts and graphs of pH alkalinity CO2 and oxygen

It's not like the 200 Page back and forth Thread about micro bubbling I know what you're referring/ some are overstatements there/this part is the real science and I like that about it

I don't recommend it a lot for reef use because the salt creep is usually so bad it outweighs any possible benefits. All my years of testing have shown that however if someone gets lucky in control of salt creep it makes a handy form of current really cheap with no harm

 

[ZoWhat]

@ca1ore

Plz put Chemiclean in your tank for 2 days and dont use an airstone and let me know if your fish survive

.....bc according to you an airstone provides little to nothing as far as O2 levels in the tank.

I respectfully disagree with anyone who bases their opinions on what they've logically figured out in their head......and not bc they actually tried it and found a result.

I will continue to do what I do with my airstone.



.

 

[Ron Reefman]

To Kiwis, you can add an airstone if you want, it shouldn't hurt. But I bet if you did a poll and asked how many reefers use an airstone in their system, it would be less than 25% and probably even lower. And the reason is because it isn't necessary.

However, having water movement at the surface of your DT and/or the sump will do far move for gas exchange than adding an air stone. This is exactly what calor was talking about. The airstone creates surface water movement which is more important than the bubbles in the water. In fact, look at the bubbles in a good skimmer. There are billions of them, and yet movement of the water surface does far more gas exchange (C02 out and oxygen in) than any skimmer. Aim a powerhead so it creates waves at the surface and you'll be fine. I too the anti-siphon holes in my return line and made them into controllable flow that makes water movement. You can see how I did it in my build thread (a link is in my signature at the bottom of this post).

 

[fish farmer]

Some will say micro bubbles cause some kind of gill disease.... I say bonk


.

I'll venture to say that fish problems related to gas is more due to pressurized gas or supersaturated water. A crack in a return line, sucks in air under pressure, gas bubbles up in fish flesh.

Breaking up the water however you wish is a good thing.

 

[Dom274]

I’m struggling a bit with your logic ...... since my tanks have never suffered from chronically low oxygen levels, adding supplementation in any form has never been necessary. I further maintain that for a tank that is properly circulated supplementation is unnecessary. That I have not ever tried an air stone is irrelevant. That I may have, or have not, read anything on the subject is irrelevant. Now, if a system is poorly designed or run, an air stone may well provide benefits; but since I’ve not done it, I’ll leave any benefit claims to those that have.

That I have not ever tried an air stone is irrelevant. That I may have, or have not, read anything on the subject is irrelevant.

It is very relevant. If you have no experience, why are you even replying?

I further maintain that for a tank that is properly circulated supplementation is unnecessary.

Prove it.


You are wrong. The design of the "system" has nothing to do with the environment the tank is placed into.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Dom, easy big fella.

IMHO calor is pretty much right on target here. What percentage of reefers do you think run an airstone in their saltwater system? I have a dozen friends who all have nice systems and none of them run an airstone. Just because I haven't done it, doesn't mean I can't know it not needed.

And the design of your system, where you place powerheads, if they create surface water waves, do you have a skimmer, how much does your system turn over water and much more will all play a role in the environment you have in the tank and how well the water does gas exchange. It's just as important to get C02 out of the water as it is to get oxygen into the water.

 

[Dom274]

Dom, easy big fella.

IMHO calor is pretty much right on target here. What percentage of reefers do you think run an airstone in their saltwater system? I have a dozen friends who all have nice systems and none of them run an airstone. Just because I haven't done it, doesn't mean I can't know it not needed.

And the design of your system, where you place powerheads, if they create surface water waves, do you have a skimmer, how much does your system turn over water and much more will all play a role in the environment you have in the tank and how well the water does gas exchange. It's just as important to get C02 out of the water as it is to get oxygen into the water.

I over-reacted, fair enough. Yes, an airstone does the same thing the skimmer does, that's the point. I only want to run the skimmer 1/2 of the day to keep more nutrients in the tank (hopefully). To compensate for the lost gas exchange, an airstone is being used.