Trimac killed my geos....but not how you think

[Drstrangelove]

If the tank got very warm, if it's somewhat or heavily over stocked and if the fish were fed heavily this morning that could lead to "too many straws" once the spray bar went down. High temps reduce oxygen content in water at sea level, more fish, more bacteria leads to high O2 demands.

People with low stocking levels, lower temps or low feeding patterns might have less circulation, but far less O2 demand as well.

 

[luvinbluegills]

But I believe having a trimac with Geos was a time bomb waiting to happen, Geos are really not capable of coping with the aggression of a northern Central American with the attitude of a trimac or some of the others in its category.

What he said.

 

[Andicca]

I guarantee they died from oxygen starvation. Geos come from well oxygenated, flowing rivers, not ponds or lakes that can stagnate and get very warm. I have lost geos several times ( I almost get sick when I think of it) when a power filter or power head stopped from a power outage and failed to start up when the power came back on. Most often it was just the Geophagus that perished, the others maybe suffering but surviving. I now have an air stone with lots of air in tanks with geos (and my other tanks too for that matter). It was interesting that a few months back, a person like yourself lost some Tapajos, I believe. I responded that an air supply is a must. You wouldn't believe the number of responses that said basically I was "full of it" and didn't really know what I was talking about. Any mechanical device supplying air through water agitation and not an actual air supply is asking for trouble eventually. My question is, who would not want to put an air supply in a tank? Is it that much trouble or too costly. It could be in the form of a sponge filter or air stone.

Jim, I know thats exactly what happened. I have an air stone in there as well, however it broke (nipple on the end snapped off) and the airline was just floating on the top, not bubbles not really breaking the surface. I was going to get a new one this weekend. For now I just have the airline propped under a piece of driftwood, so now there are nice big bubbles breaking the surface. As far as the trimac with the geos, it has worked for a long time, ideal? no. Like I said, he really didnt pay them much mind except at feeding time, he doesnt want anyone else getting "his" food.

 

[neutrino]

First of all, sorry that you lost them, whatever the reason. I won't speculate on this particular incident or argue what might have happened in this particular case, but I feel compelled to comment on whether an airstone is a necessity...

I've been more or less 80% airstone free for years, including my geo tanks. Most of my my tanks rely on surface agitation from filter output, and this has been zero issue for my geos (or other fish) for all this time. My geos have survived any number of power outages over the years, quite comfortably and with no distress-- but my filters all restart reliably after an outage. If an outage lasts more than overnight I fire up the battery air pumps. For the most part my tanks are only moderately stocked, which also makes a difference.

There's absolutely nothing esoteric or avant garde about this. It's basic physics that oxygenation, whether from an airstone, or surface turbulence or current from a filter or power head, is a result of gas exchange at water/atmosphere interface. It's exactly the same thing that causes a river to carry oxygen, a turbulent or fast flowing stream to be oxygen rich, or a large body of water like a lake or sea to be oxygenated (turbulence due to wave action). None of them need an internal air pump as an 'air supply'. With the possible theoretical exception of a tank so tightly covered that fresh air over the water surface is so negligible that it would make an airstone virtually the only source of fresh air above the water surface-- you can choose virtually any means of creating surface turbulence, and as long as there's sufficient surface area and sufficient turbulence to exchange sufficient gas with the atmosphere to produce sufficient oxygen levels for a particular volume of water and number of fish, neither the water nor the fish care whether it's air bubbles from an air pump or current from a filter that creates the gas exchange.

Nothing at all against airstones, they're just another way to accomplish the same thing. Occasionally I'll supplement a tank with an airstone, if not something like a HOT Magnum or other fast little filter. But sufficient oxygen comes down to a simple relationship between factors including water volume, surface area, surface turbulence and dissolved oxygen usage (fish, plant respiration during non-photo periods, beneficial bacteria colony, etc.), not whether or not you use an airstone.

 

[neutrino]

Sample references for the above:
http://www.lakemanagement.org/water-quality/oxygen-cycle/

Oxygen is critical for the health of your lake and its fish. Oxygen is dissolved in water from two sources, either from the air or from aquatic plant photosynthesis. Oxygen dissolves into the pond water from the air as the two are mixed together through wind and wave action. Mechanical aeration using pumps, sprayers, and paddlewheels can also be used to increase dissolved oxygen levels during periods of low oxygen. This is often used in small ponds that lack the necessary fetch (length of open water) to have adequate wave action for oxygen mixing.

http://www.ecu.edu/icmr/cmn/CMN/Downloads_files/Dissolved%20Oxygen.pdf

(page 10)
WHERE DOES THE OXYGEN COME FROM?
The oxygen found in water comes from many sources, but the largest source is oxygen absorbed from the atmosphere. Wave action and splashing allows more oxygen to be absorbed into the water. A second major source of oxygen is aquatic plants, including algae; during photosynthesis plants remove carbon dioxide from the water and replace it with oxygen.
Absorption
Oxygen is continuously moving between the water and surrounding air. The direction and speed of this movement is dependent upon the amount of contact between the air and water. A tumbling mountain stream or windswept, wave-covered lake, where more of the water’s surface is exposed to the air, will absorb more oxygen from the atmosphere than a calm, smooth body of water. This is the idea behind aerators: by creating bubbles and waves the surface area is increased and more oxygen can enter the water.

There's no inherent superiority of sufficient bubbles from an airstone over sufficient surface turbulence created by a filter or power head-- or simply having nothing more than a sufficiently huge ratio of surface area per volume of water and fish. It's all the same process of gas exchange at the interface between water and atmosphere.

 

[petspoiler]

............................................
There's no inherent superiority of sufficient bubbles from an airstone over sufficient surface turbulence created by a filter or power head-- or simply having nothing more than a sufficiently huge ratio of surface area per volume of water and fish. It's all the same process of gas exchange at the interface between water and atmosphere.

I think you missed the point. when all surface agitation is from filters and the power goes out all is lost. With air bubblers requiring much less power, they will run uninterrupted by having them on a comparatively low level (& cheaper) backup power source.

 

[notho2000]

Yes, he missed the point entirely.

 

[notho2000]

Sample references for the above:
http://www.lakemanagement.org/water-quality/oxygen-cycle/



http://www.ecu.edu/icmr/cmn/CMN/Downloads_files/Dissolved%20Oxygen.pdf
There's no inherent superiority of sufficient bubbles from an airstone over sufficient surface turbulence created by a filter or power head-- or simply having nothing more than a sufficiently huge ratio of surface area per volume of water and fish. It's all the same process of gas exchange at the interface between water and atmosphere.

You seem to be under the impression that it has to be either ... or. I'm saying use a combination.Why take a chance? No one is saying that oxygenation can't occur as effectively with surface agitation from "filter output" as with air flow., especially in power heads where air is entrained into the water flow (venturi effect). But the line carrying the air will plug up in time. Also, a filter's ability to effectively agitate the surface lessens as the debris clogs the medium. Go away for a week and more often than not, the filters may not be doing much agitating. An air stone for me is a back up to a possible failure of a filter, whether it be from not restarting or simply failing mechanically. Even air driven sponge filters will cut off with time as the air line plugs with protein and fatty deposits. Hence the air stone as a best option along with filter agitation Also, if your tank is lightly stocked, loss of surface agitation will not necessarily mean the geos are dead. I've gotten lucky, as you have and caught things before tragedy struck. Air transfer at the surfaces of lakes or rivers in nature, and in aquaria are two very different things. Frankly, you come across as if you are almost boasting about not having had to use an actual air supply. Excuse me if that wasn't your intent. I'm just trying to save someone from making the same mistake I made, which was believing that aeration through filtration alone was sufficient to provide all the oxygen requirements needed. It's just not the case all the time. S**t happens.

 

[neutrino]

I think you missed the point. when all surface agitation is from filters and the power goes out all is lost. With air bubblers requiring much less power, they will run uninterrupted by having them on a comparatively low level (& cheaper) backup power source.

Perfectly good approach, but all is not lost otherwise. If the outage is lengthy enough I simply use battery air pumps and/or find a way to exchange water.

Don't know if I missed the point or not. It's possible, what with the imperfect nature of online communication. But my issue is with the apparent meaning of the statement "Any mechanical device supplying air through water agitation and not an actual air supply is asking for trouble eventually." In itself it at least appears to misunderstand or misrepresent the physics of oxygenation, which simply does not depend on an "air supply" in the form of bubbles injected into the water. I won't rehash what I've already posted in that regard, since the references should suffice.

I'm not certain what 'asking for trouble eventually' is intended to mean. It's not eventually during the lifetime of the fish, I currently have some 8 year old Kapampa fronts and a 15 year old L260 pleco and other fish in the past that met or exceeded typical expected lifespans for the species. Having a full time airstone in a tank is one option for aeration, but far from a necessity.

In any case, like I said, I've gone many years without full time airstones in most of my tanks-- I do have battery air pumps if needed during an extended outage, a perfectly functional alternative to running a plug-in air pump from a backup power source-- just a different way of doing the same thing, since for most of my tanks adding a full time airstone would be superfluous. I've been through numerous power outages, many times for several hours to overnight, a few times for a day or two and the worst was 10 days during the derecho a couple of years ago, during which it was also quite hot.

I'd never lost fish during an outage until the derecho, and then it was only a couple of the peacocks and geos I'd put in tubs, didn't lose any of the fish I kept in their tanks. Even my geo fry and kapampa fry survived. So it's not like I don't have experience keeping fish alive during an outage. It's practically routine for me where I live and I know more than a couple of tricks for doing it.

 

[neutrino]

You seem to be under the impression that it has to be either ... or. I'm saying use a combination.Why take a chance? No one is saying that oxygenation can't occur as effectively with surface agitation from "filter output" as with air flow., especially in power heads where air is entrained into the water flow (venturi effect). But the line carrying the air will plug up in time. Also, a filter's ability to effectively agitate the surface lessens as the debris clogs the medium. Go away for a week and more often than not, the filters may not be doing much agitating. An air stone for me is a back up to a possible failure of a filter, whether it be from not restarting or simply failing mechanically. Even air driven sponge filters will cut off with time as the air line plugs with protein and fatty deposits. Hence the air stone as a best option along with filter agitation Also, if your tank is lightly stocked, loss of surface agitation will not necessarily mean the geos are dead. I've gotten lucky, as you have and caught things before tragedy struck. Air transfer at the surfaces of lakes or rivers in nature, and in aquaria are two very different things. Frankly, you come across as if you are almost boasting about not having had to use an actual air supply. Excuse me if that wasn't your intent. I'm just trying to save someone from making the same mistake I made, which was believing that aeration through filtration alone was sufficient to provide all the oxygen requirements needed. It's just not the case all the time. S**t happens.

Respectfully... Ah, the problems with forum posting as a form of communication... Wish I'd seen your last post before entering my last one...

No, I don't consider it to be either/or and I'm not boasting. I'm simply stating my relevant experience, as you state yours above. If there's anything I've learned in fishkeeping it's that there's more than one way to successfully do things. There are plenty of other guys whom I respect their experience and knowledge, but with many years experience in my own right I may or may not do things as they do them. I did get the impression you were saying an airstone is a necessity, which is what I don't agree with. But I could have misunderstood that or other parts of your comments and, if so, apologize for the misunderstanding.