kri$han

Firstly; Hi everyone! I'm new here, (i'm a member of way too many forums as it is) and tried searching before posting this, but didn't come up with anything useful, so here I am.

Background: I got a small goldfish (named Bob) as a gag gift, that is slowly turning into a mini-hobby. Poor guy was stuck in a 2 gal. tank until I realized that that was WAY too small for him, and behavioural patterns showed me that his old tank was full of ammonia (hadn't finished its nitrogen cycle yet), and wastes.

Anyway, I've sucessfully re-located Bob to a new 20 gal. tank, with a much better filtration system and a snail to clean up after him. Due to his old tank being too small, we moved him over as soon as we could, and will have to cycle the tank with him in there (which hopefully goes smoothly).

My question involves my aeration setup, and although its simple, there is very little information online. I have a Tetra Whisper 20, and the plan was to have one 4" air stone and a simple ornament; a castle-shaped structure that I customized. The castle is hollow (for the fish to swim-through) and so to provide aeration, I drilled a 1/4" hole at the bottom to feed in an air line, and several small holes at the top to allow air bubbles to flow through.

I ran a single air line from the pump --> to a check-valve --> into the tank --> then into a 'T' connector. From there to an open hose-end into the castle, and the other hose into the air stone. The problem I'm having is that the castle gets a lot of airfow, but the air stone gets none. I figure that there is little to no resistance for the air to flow out of the castle (since its just an open tube), but there is more resistance required to push air out of the air stone, so my question is; If I add a small air stone to the end of the tube within the castle, would it disperse the air correctly, and allow bubbles to flow out of each unit?

I realise that the 'T' connector is probably worthless, so tonight I plan on giving Big Al's a visit for a 2-way Gang valve <snicker> and some suction cups to hold the lines in-place (I hate messy installs!).

Sorry for the long post, but hopefully I can get some help so I can hammer this out tonight... Oh and I also wanna eventually put a plant in-front of that air-stone for Bob to snack on

Thanks!

AlyeskaGirl

Welcome to FishLore!

So you have a hose with a check valve, that's good it keeps the water from running out if the air pump looses power. OK, then you have an T-valve with an airstone one way and ornament the other, so do you have connectors on each single hose to each ornament so you can control the airflow to each besides the t-valve? T-valve is so you can split but then need another airflow-valve to control the air flow to each one.

kri$han

Ahhh, no I don't have any other air flow valves... actually, the 'T' fitting and all the hoses are buried under the gravel right now

Would the 2-way gang valve be sufficient then, since it has the cabability to independently adjust airflow to each component?

something like this?

AlyeskaGirl

Yes, that will work. That way you can adjust the air going to the airstone and the air to the ornament independetly!

You do know that it's not the bubbles that give air it's the bubbles giving more surface agitation that provides more air.

kri$han

^ Yeah, google pretty much summed up why aeration is key

Not to mention Bob having to keep going to the surface for air in his old tank... poor guy is suffering the consequences of someone else's learning curve! :yikes:

AlyeskaGirl

What is the temp? Goldfish like cooler water, about 65-68.

Make sure you do daily 25-50% water changes until the tank is cycled. What are you using for a water conditioner?

kri$han

Temperature is currently sitting at 70-72 w/o a heater in the tank.

I'm using Big Al's Water multi-purpose conditioner, as well as Big Al's bio-support, since all I did was take a few handfulls of gravel from the old tank.

agabr123

welcome to fishlore

i'd probably stop using the bio-support and see if you can find tetra safe start instead. it sounds like one of those products that you have to add every single week for the life of the tank, and if you miss a week your cycle will crash. tetra safe start is the only product i know of that has bacteria that is actually self-sustaining, so you just add it all at once and wait.

kri$han

^ oh snap!

good call, man... they do say to add 1st day, 7th day and 14th day. THen it says they "recommend" adding @ weekly water changes, but I wasn't planning on it, unless my water readings were way off.

balls.

thanks for the recommendation, does anyone wanna buy a bottle of bio-support?!...lol.

I managed to get a quick pic last night of the starting setup... Bob's in the top corner doing god-knows-what...lol. I caught him sleeping in the castle this morning...lmao.



also, should I leave the aeration on all day? I like to un-plug it at night time cuz that pump can be a little on the loud side (and really, the tank won't run out of oxygen in the 5-6 hours I sleep every night)... not to mention that less turbulent water might be better for Bob to sleep in.

Lights wise, I leave them off all day and I turn them on when I get home (around 5) until I go to sleep, around 11-12.

Thoughts?

agabr123

i try to keep my fish on a 12 hour on 12 hour off schedule, IMO it's more natural for them. so if the tank is getting a lot of natural light from lets say 7 AM on, i wouldn't leave the lights on until midnight necessarily. i'd probably close the blinds and turn the tank lights on around noon and off again at midnight. but that's just my personal preference

as far as the air stone, you don't need to leave it on at night, just make sure that your check valve is working! i like to place the air pump as well as my surge protectors for my tanks above the water line of the tank just to be cautious.