I like venturi return nozzles. They increase the flow speed and spit out a lot of air.
Best method of aeration?
- Thread starter eon aquatics
- Start date
Though I agree with much - most of your post - I still think airstones are redundant. They definitely help with circulation. But none of the tropical rivers and streams that I regularly wade through, have a train of bubbles rising. What you get in all waterways is a rippling surface, whether due to water movement or wind.
So the best method of aeration should be to replicate this.
I agreed that airstones help with water circulation but must reiterate that circulation wasn't the focus of the thread.
The streams and ponds that I wade, snorkel in and paddle on are decidedly not tropical either...far from it, in fact. Many of them are home to fish like trout, which require high oxygen levels...and those streams almost always are interspersed with stretches and sections that are boiling, roiling, tumbling, rumbling, waterfalling torrents of water chock full of bubbles! And, again I reiterate...the fish aren't usually in those sections, but rather in the calm quiet areas between them. But it is those violent whitewater stretches that aerate and oxygenate those streams.
A calm pond, usually home to other species that are not as dependent upon high oxygen levels, gets enough aeration despite the lack of bubbles, despite the lack of water movement. So, no bubbles...but also frequently no current at all.
I doubt that many of us would be happy with either extreme. A stagnant tank, while not the Kiss of Death that many portray it to be, will be very limited in the amount of fish biomass it can support. A whitewater tank won't starve the fish for oxygenation, but may beat the crap out of them in other ways.
We are striving to create...in tiny little containers...water conditions that mimic the microenvironments in which the fish actually spend their time. Not a trout stream...but rather the highly-oxygenated yet relatively calm water of a back eddy or pool or stretch of bottom. Not a stagnant anoxic pond choked with dead vegetation...but rather a section of clear water in such a pond with just enough water movement to provide enough oxygenation for the fish that live there. Attempting to cram all the varied elements of an entire stream or lake or pond into 8 or 10 cubic feet of water in a box is ludicrous.
By the way, I too have never come upon a stream of bubbles rising continuously from the bottom in any of these natural environments...but I have also failed to find any canister filters, sumps, heaters, chillers, powerheads, wavemakers or circulation pumps. How do those fish live out there in nature?
We maintain water artificially. As long as the correct conditions are established...that's all that matters. A futile attempt to do it exactly as it is done in nature isn't best. Getting it done in the most efficient and cost-effective manner, IMHO, is best.
The streams and ponds that I wade, snorkel in and paddle on are decidedly not tropical either...far from it, in fact. Many of them are home to fish like trout, which require high oxygen levels...and those streams almost always are interspersed with stretches and sections that are boiling, roiling, tumbling, rumbling, waterfalling torrents of water chock full of bubbles! And, again I reiterate...the fish aren't usually in those sections, but rather in the calm quiet areas between them. But it is those violent whitewater stretches that aerate and oxygenate those streams.
A calm pond, usually home to other species that are not as dependent upon high oxygen levels, gets enough aeration despite the lack of bubbles, despite the lack of water movement. So, no bubbles...but also frequently no current at all.
I doubt that many of us would be happy with either extreme. A stagnant tank, while not the Kiss of Death that many portray it to be, will be very limited in the amount of fish biomass it can support. A whitewater tank won't starve the fish for oxygenation, but may beat the crap out of them in other ways.
We are striving to create...in tiny little containers...water conditions that mimic the microenvironments in which the fish actually spend their time. Not a trout stream...but rather the highly-oxygenated yet relatively calm water of a back eddy or pool or stretch of bottom. Not a stagnant anoxic pond choked with dead vegetation...but rather a section of clear water in such a pond with just enough water movement to provide enough oxygenation for the fish that live there. Attempting to cram all the varied elements of an entire stream or lake or pond into 8 or 10 cubic feet of water in a box is ludicrous.
By the way, I too have never come upon a stream of bubbles rising continuously from the bottom in any of these natural environments...but I have also failed to find any canister filters, sumps, heaters, chillers, powerheads, wavemakers or circulation pumps. How do those fish live out there in nature?
We maintain water artificially. As long as the correct conditions are established...that's all that matters. A futile attempt to do it exactly as it is done in nature isn't best. Getting it done in the most efficient and cost-effective manner, IMHO, is best.
Sounds like a recipe for microbubbles, which EVERYONE hated back when I had a marine tank.
