Hi I am new to keeping goldfish and I was wondering if an air stone is needed? I have a 10 gallon tank with two goldfish. I bought the fish and tank before I learned the 10 gallon per fish rule.

An air stone should be used in your because your tank is over stocked. But if you have a tank that is stocked appropriately and there is enough surface disturbance created by the filter then no you don't need an air stone.

Keep in mind that if you want the airstone to help you have to have small bubbles. And hopefully soon you'll be getting a bigger tank.

Thanks a bunch! My next investment will be an airstone and hopefully the next one will be a 20 gallon tank.

I think air-stone is the most important thing to have in fish tank. Without any filteration BUT air-stone. your fish can still survive and your water will get algae work as filteration.

Filtration is a MUST for all fish but goldfish need it more than most. Algae can not provide adequate filtration for the amount of bio-waste goldfish put out.

According to some research put out lately on aerating the tank water- - according to the experts - they have found that the oxygen level during the day is littler, if at all, affected. It is more important to have it on at night - according to them - especially if you have a lot of plants - as I do. This makes sense since C3 plants respire CO2 when no light exists - undess you are growing C4 plants like maize underwater which I doubt -The other thing - The aeration of the water "grabs" the disolved proteins in the water that tend to accumulate and take them to the surface. This is especially good for people that have protein skimmers. They finalized by claiming that the aeration bubble size, at equal volumes of air - has little difference in the aerating ability. But is does look nicer with small bubbles LOL.

Eric

I have only recently done away with the airstone because I have bought a larger tank and have enough water agitation from the more powerful filter outlet. In a tank that size I would have an airstone - it can only improve things. However, ALL goldfish need filtration, especially in a tank that size with 2 goldfish - they're ridiculously messy and will be far happier in a well filtered environment. I completely disagree with the idea of relying on algae!