Ok what exactly is an airstone. I saw these ones that looked like little tablets....do you need to attach them to hoses? DUH I know absolutely nothing about them, so please enlighten me. I would like to purchase one, but dont' want to go into a petstore with sucker written on my head

Thanks
Jessica

an airstone is a stone that has many holes in it and you need an airpump and hosing to work it. Attaching the air pump to the airline and then the airline to the airstone.

genreally speaking, going with the lowest cost pieces, you can get an air pump, air stone, and tubing for less than ten dollars.

the bubbles make more surface area in the water, thereby increasing the amount of oxygen the water contains. the more oxygen, the healthier the fish get to be.

bubbles are also quite pretty in a tank, and goldies like to play in the bubble stream.

When choosing an air stone, there are few things to consider. First, what do you want it to look like? There are tons of bubblers out there... walls, disks, stones, even fake plants. Its up to you how you want to decorate. Stones are generally cheaper, you can get a bunch for less than $5. Stones look like cylinders with a rough textured appearance. Walls are a tube with holes in it. Disks, are well, plastic disks .

Second, an airline hose to connect the stone to the air pump. This is inexpensive and you can get as much length as you need for cheap.

Third, you need the actual pump. There are several cheap pumps for less than $10 (some even less than $5) but one thing to consider is NOISE. The cheaper pumps are much more noisy than pumps above $10. For instance, I can hear my cheap pump in my living room in my bedroom, whereas the other two moderately priced pumps are barely noticeable. So thats one thing to consider. Also, make sure your pump can handle your tank size... bigger tank needs bigger pump.

And last but not least... buy a check valve. If your pump is lower than your tank water line, and the power shuts off, the loss of power may start a siphon in your tank. That is, the water may be sucked back through the stone, through the tube, into your pump. This will destroy the pump and cause a mess. A check valve is less than $3 and will save you headaches in the future.

Goodluck!

Thank you for that imformation everyone. Very helpful!

Jessica

like i said on one of the forums, i got everything, nice and quite pump.. and the rest for about $40 (but it was a bubble wall, these are bigger of course

yea i have a penguin mini filter for my 10 gallon tank, and i have a spare air stone and pump from my last tank set up, do you think i should ad it to my tank? my filter seems to ripple the watter plenty, and I am trying to get some plants to grow and i don't know if more oxygen is what i want... do you think it would be good for my fish, would be great if you all could help me in this matter thanks...

DPG

So let me get this straight, if I put the air pump up high (higher than the water) it will not syphon water back out onto the pump. Right?

So if I set the pump on the tank hood, I am safe? I will get one of those valves sooner or later!

How do they rate pumps. I have a really old one here, that I just started using, it was really noisy, but I got it out for the loaches. It says it is good for tanks up to 20 gals...well it was fine on the 10 gal, but after my loaches passed away, I took the pump, and put on a new tube and airstone, and put it in my 44 gal tank.

So is it going to blow up because it said it was only good for tanks to 20 gals, and it is probably at least 10 years old

I am going to buy a new one for the 44, I just haven't been into the city, where they have a big selection yet.

It is doing a wonderful job in the 44, I don't see any reason why it would only be good for tanks up to 20 gals?! My tank is a deep tank too, a pentagon one, I think it is 24" deep....if that matters.

Thanks
Jessica

Here's a link to do some comparision shopping with.

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...p?article_id=84

I wouldn't put the pump on the hood, it might vibrate into the tank. You should
be fine putting it on the floor until you get a new one.

Thank you for the link PM. It can't vibrate into my tank unless the hood breaks and it falls in I have a pentagon tank, and the hood is crazy, there is absolutely no place the pump could get in.

Thank you for your help! I am off to read the link.

Jessica

Jessica:

The check valves for air pumps only cost about $2.00 or less, they are in the section with airline tubing and stuff. The only time the water would reverse-siphon out of your tank is if the pump stopped working (power outage). Even then, it doesn't always happen. As far as your filter blowing up, it won't do that, just probably not putting out as much air as it used to because it's old.

Laura