are air stones necessary...?
- Thread starter steve1337
- Start date
Your set up looks great and as long as your filter provides surface movement you do not need airstones, all the airstones do is cause surface movement any way, very little gas exchange actually happens in the bubbles. I would lose the charcoal and replace it whith either media sponges or bags of lava rock fragments, IMO charcoal should only be used as a temporary thing to remove meds or polish water. The space it takes up can be better used for more bacterial media.
By the way, if I haven't said this before, welcome to MFK.
By the way, if I haven't said this before, welcome to MFK.
Charcoal is not that bad except for some fish like oscars and a few others, it just is not very useful except for special circumstances, when you do use it you need to replace it at least once a month. If you just leave it in the canister it will just act as an inefficient base for bacterial growth so no problem, just replace it with a better biomedia next time you service the filter.
steve1337 said:
well we can put this right straight away.
first of all welcome to MFK.
i never had airstones in my piranha tanks as i always had loads of surface movement as i used internal canister filters.
as advised bu guppy all they do is create water movement and for some people it looks good.
i always make sure i have some decent water movement and if you run your temp quite high like a lot of piranha keepers do this will allow for extra aeration as warmer water holds less oxygen
Could use a Powerhead. Place it near surface of water level and add the air intake tube that extends out of water. It simply sucks air threw intake tube and then out of the powerhead into the water. I got 2 in my tank and I think it helps with adding oxygen in the tank.