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I was wondering wether to put an air stone in my tank to help oxygenate the water along side the 2 (802 aquaclear) power heads as i know they like high oxygen levels but havent read about people using them in there set up should i or shouldnt i use one or is it just personel preferance

I use an airstone but i place it under one of the tetra-tec filters so that the air bubbles through the filter and is forced through the impeller. It works quite well as you get really small bubbles that stay in the water for long periods of time. Otherwise I would use a venturi of a power head. As long as you have good surface agitation allowing for exchange of gasses you should be fine.

At 80F+ the oxygen levels can drop very quickly so any means of aeration is a must. I use a powerhead that drags air though from the surface giving me great surface aggitation at the same time as a nice current, but an airstone will give the same effect, just not the current.

Airstones (via air pumps) will not give much (if any) aeration to the tank...they do however move the surface, where the CO2 and O2 "exhange" (for lack of a better word) takes place.

Hope this helps.

Hi Dan

I would definately recommend a venturi system for your filter, if not, another option is to have the outflow just breaking the surface of the water. Unfortunately this is quite noisy, and rom personal experience, when guest enter my living room they need to go to the toilet after 10 mins due to the running water noise!!!

Be very careful if you intend on using an airstone in a tank that is filtered by external canister filters. If the airstone gets any where near to the water uptake you'll end up with an air lock. It happened to me in a tank of large tinfoil barbs, they must have knocked the airstone loose. Luckily there were two canister filters on the tank, the affected filter over heated and blew the pump.

If you must have an airstone go for the ones that produce "micro" bubbles as the smaller the bubbles are the longer the contact time with the water which in turn will increase the amount of disolved O2 in your water.

Using a couple of sucker cups with the clips will help you keep the air line and defuser in place too. A little like this....

Hi,
I too use the Venturi aerating feature on the Aquaclear 301. I find this more than sufficient to provide water movement and aeration in a 20 gall tank housing my Zebras, L134(Leopard frog plecs) and Sturisomas kept at 84F.
If your powerhead does not have a venturi feature , I know that Eheim do a Venturi device that can be fitted to the outflow pipe of any powerhead.
Regards,
Des