# Air Stones Duration?



## TurnerD (Oct 27, 2011)

Okay so i am just wondering if there is a recommended duration to keep the air stone and air pumps running in the tank. I know i keep my lights on for 10 hours a day and filter/heater constantly what about the air pump. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


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## SeaHorse (Dec 27, 2010)

That is a very good question~! I dont' know the answer but mine always die out and stop working cause I leave them on all the time... so I'm going to watch with thread to see the answer to this question!! I wonder too why do we use them? do they have a specific purpose? Increase the oxygen in the water? But how much of that does a tank need? Maybe it depends on the type of fish and where they are native living... i.e. fast moving stream vs a murky lake. plants vs rocks. hope someone can fill us in. good question!!


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## La Reina (Oct 25, 2009)

As long as your filter agitates the water, it really isn't needed, per se. I have an aquaclear filter in my 30G as well as an airstone purely for aesthetic purposes, though it does help with circulating the water in the tank for even heating. I run my air pump 24/7, but if my tank was in a bedroom or something I would unplug it. (Just watch that the airline doesn't become a siphon and drain your tank!


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## Stoke88 (Nov 14, 2011)

They now have a filter/valve for your airline hose so it doesn't siphon your tank if there is ever a power failure. It only allows the air to travel in and not let the water out past the valve. There only a few bucks and worth it if your running any air.


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## Trofishlore (Dec 4, 2011)

TurnerD said:


> Okay so i am just wondering if there is a recommended duration to keep the air stone and air pumps running in the tank. I know i keep my lights on for 10 hours a day and filter/heater constantly what about the air pump. Any help would be greatly appreciated.



Well, I didn't check you picture but if you have plants and lots of fish i recommend using the air stones and air pumps. If you just have a filter then that won't help much for aeration. Your fish will be using a lor of Oxygen and air stones will help.


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## TurnerD (Oct 27, 2011)

So I have a Aqua Culture 5-15 Filter came with the tank and works great so far. It only slightly agitates the water surface. I noticed my fish spending time at the top of the water and i figured they wanted more oxygen. I do have some live plants which help keep my perimeters at 0 across the board which is great. 2 Danio's, 2 Platies, 1 Skirt Tetra, and 2 Nerite snails is what is in the tank. I put the airstone in today and the tetra whisper 20 is fairly quiet. It defiantly has a slight hum to it but nothing what I was expecting. The tank is in my bedroom although it will be put into the living room once I build my homemade stand. I do notice so far that the fish are not at the top of the water so that is great. I'll post an updated picture of my tank tomorrow so you can see what I did. The stone is right in the middle of the tank hidden under the gravel.


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## trombonedemon (Sep 9, 2011)

TurnerD said:


> Okay so i am just wondering if there is a recommended duration to keep the air stone and air pumps running in the tank. I know i keep my lights on for 10 hours a day and filter/heater constantly what about the air pump. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Had an outbreak of Ick and turned the temp up to 85 degrees F, so the hotter the aqua the more agitation of water you probaly need, or else your fish will sufacate.


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## TurnerD (Oct 27, 2011)

I don't have any type of illnesses within my tank as far as I can tell. My temp stays between 77.5 and 78.2 those where the max and min's that i checked with my Aqueon 50 watt heater. I have a digital thermometer which makes it easy to check. I do a water change weekly and the tank is very clean no algae, no ammonia, no nitrites, no nitrates even.


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## Mikaila31 (Dec 18, 2008)

Air pumps actually add very little oxygen to the water. Their main function is water movement. Other then that I see no point to them. I guess they can provide aesthetics if you like the look of those bubbles, I personally don't though. I have 2 air pumps but they rarely get used. The bubbles produced by an air stone are simply way to big to add much of any oxygen to the water. They quickly float to the surface. If you actually wanted to add oxygen with bubbles you would need to diffuse it like you do with CO2. I use ceramic bubble diffusers for CO2 and can easily raise it 6 times higher then normal levels. The only difference is the size of the bubbles. They are extremely small and it takes them a long time to reach the surface for a bubble. The smallest ones may never make it to the surface before diffusing into the water. This size is due to the diffuser and its pore size. You can't even see the pores on a ceramic CO2 diffuser and it takes a lot of pressure to push the CO2 through it. Thats why we call it pressurized CO2. DIY yeast CO2 normally doesn't work with the larger diffusers I have because its hard to build up enough pressure to produce those small bubbles. In the end it doesn't matter how much CO2 or O2 you pump into the tank, what matters is how well you diffuse it. Smaller bubbles=more surface area=better diffusion. 

Very few tanks ever have oxygen problems. Oxygen is introduced by diffusion and surface movement and agitation can help increase this. I like little to no surface movement in all my tanks, definitely no agitation as its a waste of CO2. Rarely do I have fish hanging at the surface. Even my youngest soil tank that has pretty anaerobic substrate and high fish load can sit stagnant for over a day before the fish start sticking to the surface. 

A tank with a lot of productive(growing) plants and minimal surface movement can get supersaturated with O2 for part of the day. Plants produce O2 and a lot of it diffuses into the water. Sometimes you get what is called pearling, where oxygen bubbles on the plants then floats to the surface. One reason this happens is the plants are producing oxygen so fast that it has caused the water to become supersaturated. When supersaturated the diffusion rate into water drops and the result is build up of oxygen on leaves until the bubbles are large enough to break free and float to the surface. When production rates drop so does the oxygen level, also considering that plants consume oxygen at night.


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