owain

I have a fluval 205 canister filter . Its been running for about a week but there's not many bubbles coming from the output nozzle does anyone have any experience with this model? do i need a additional air stone please help new to aquariums thanks!

mathas

While I'm not familiar with Fluval filters, the output nozzle should be returning filtered water, not air. I would probably be more worried if I started to see a lot of bubbles coming out than if I didn't.

As far as whether or not you need an airstone, there's a lot of contradictory information floating around, both here and elsewhere. In your particular case, I would say "not yet". Airstones don't actually add oxygen to the water, they agitate the surface of the water which facilitates oxygen/CO2 exchange. Since you don't have any fish yet, there's no way to know if you need it or not.

Once you add fish to your tank, watch how they behave. If they hang out near the surface and look like they're gasping for breath, adjust the output nozzle on the filter so that you get more movement on the surface of the water.

Your aquarium information says you have live plants; are you running a CO2 system?

owain

I,m sorry I never heard of those. Do i need one?

mathas

A CO2 system?

It depends on what plants you have and how much lighting you have, but most people don't need them. You can have a very nice planted tank without using CO2.

The only reason I asked is that if you were running a CO2 system, the increased oxygen/CO2 gas exchange facilitated by additional surface agitation would probably not be good, as it would cause you to lose some of the CO2 you were injecting.

But since you're not running CO2, in my opinion, increased surface agitation (whether through adjusting your output nozzle or adding an airstone) can either give you no benefit or it can help, but it can't hurt.

owain

Thankyou Mathas i have aqua-glo and power-glow are these ok?

mathas

Those are lights, I assume?

I think the wattage would be more important than the brand, if so. And how many wants you want will depend on what type of plants you want.

Or more appropriately, the plants you should get depend on how many watts you have available.

owain

30 watts two bulbs

mathas

So you have 60W over approximately 53 US gallons?

With lighting in the 1.1-1.2WPG range, you'll probably have best results sticking to low light plants, such as the ones found here.

owain

Thank you you have been a great help.I have so much to learn and its great fun