Airation question

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L

Lord Barium

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 30, 2007
210
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Monday
Hi,

I know that the more surface area you have, the better off your fish are. But has anyone ever noticed really significan't problems with low airation? Just out of curiosity...:D


Cheers,
LB
 
I have seen fish gasping at the surface when I came home and the power was out.... I couldn't see the bacteria dying off, but it happened, and the water got cloudy with a bacterial bloom over the next few days.

Tropical fish can generally survive fairly low oxygen levels, but as a fish keeper, our goal is to help our charges thrive. Watching a favorite fish rapidly pumping it's gills trying to breath is not a relaxing, enjoyable experience for me. Around here we tend to over-aerate.
 
airstones in my tanks are on full blast at all times...
 
Low O2 levels also contribute to low BB (benificial bacteria) numbers in the aquarium. We use air powered Hydro5 sponge filters in all of our tanks to help combat this problem.
 
Excluding power failures, I have never noticed my fish gasping near the surface or exhibit any behavior I would attribute to low oxygen content of the water. Only fish that I saw breathing rapidly had bloat.

Like the ongoing debate regarding the optimum number of filters/bio-media; I suspect there is a nominal requirement for water circulation/surface area per unit of bio-load; and increasing the flow rate beyond that will have diminishing returns.

Hopefully we can hear from someone who has an oxygen meter and can perform a few experiments with air-stones and power-heads.
 
Cheers, my gold serv is gasping! I fixed the airation problem, so I hope he come good. The texas in the same tank had no symtoms, I moved him to the big tank just in case.
 
I had a spot of trouble with my bubbler in my 120. It was spraying water all over my wall, so I took the bubbler out and went to the store to get supplies. I returned and my cichlids were all dead. I attribute it to the drastic change in the oxygenation of the tank.
 
I use wet/drys and cannot say I have had, or will have any prob. related to low O2 levels.... It just makes sence to not have a problem like that in the first place.
 
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