The video I posted was just to show how much water can be moved by air. The system was designed for a pond, not an indoor aquarium. On a large scale, a properly made air lift system actually uses less energy to move water than any electrical pump. As to the noise, is there anything such as a quiet bubble? LOL!
How much water does an air pump move
- Thread starter Botiadancer
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I remember those types of "HOB" filters! I'd love to see one in operation today. I thought I was pretty high tech back in the late 1970s, with my Dyna-Flo HOB and under gravel filter. You really had something if you had a lighted fluorescent hood back then too.
I use matten filters on all my tanks, from 220 to 265 gallons. I use an air pump, 1750 gph to run 6 corner mattens and 6 lines for the airstones. It moves a ton of water, lots of surface agitation. I have no idea thou the gallons per hour each tank has. Where the filter is, its the strongest flow, the tank three tanks down has the lowest flow but still great flow. The new setup has been awesome so far.
Several companies made breeder boxes that operate with the same principle as air lift HOBs in the old days. Fill up the box with floss and you turn it into an HOB. I own one to raise fry, which is great because it maintains tank temperature and low flow not to disrupt the fry. But I will never use it as an HOB because it doesn’t move enough water. Here is one in the market.
http://www.amazon.com/Finnex-Breede...F8&qid=1455216601&sr=1-7&keywords=breeder+box
That is so cool I just bought a "Marina" brand air driven breeder box from eBay for just over $10 shipped.. Have to try it at some point on my 29g.. Thanks for the tip!
I seriously doubt you can save energy to move water using air lift than by mechanical pump regardless of the scale. To do so, you have to convert mechanical energy to air energy, and then air energy to water energy. There is a loss of energy in each conversion. But the advantages of air lift are that it can be easily set up and deliver air efficiently to multiple tanks, there are no mechanical parts in touch of the water so there are no parts to corrode or wear out, and it provides rigorous aeration in addition to water movement.
I remember setting up a new air lift to pump fish out of the seine and into a fish hold about twenty five years ago (it was a new thing back then) and didn't last. long. we started with the air supply at fifteen feet on a foot and a half pipe and it worked butnnot even as close to the braille net so someone mentioned putting the pipe and air ring down to twenty five and keeping the compressor wide open. we tried it and the first pump was so powerful it not only blew an insulated plastic ice box (about five hundred pounds) off the side of the work scow but the guy shoveling ice as well. We all got a good laugh, except for the lad we had to fish back out in a minus fifteen Celsius day. He laughed after a few days though.
Just updating my above post on the Marina breeder box I mail-ordered. I set it up on my 55g goldfish tank today. It's a neat little thing. Very well made and well packed. Nice clear plastic. It fits the rim of my Tetra/Marinlenad 55g, but barely. It can't quite seat down all the way. It basically moves a trickle of water, which is perfect for it's intended purpose as a breeder box. Not so much for a HOB filter. My plans are to put some java fern in there and some straggler red cherry shrimp I find in the HOBs from two of my other tanks.
The amount (volume) of water displaced would be equal to the volume of air moving through the water column, no so? Not sure how that relates to flow though
