lilsoccakid

after riding around going to 3 pet stores today, i brought home a whisper 20 air pump for my 20gal, and attached it to a 23' bubble curtain, which is 2 chambers u connect. only one side bubbles i dont know how to make both sides bubble, and cant get a bigger pump. any tips or suggestions?

COBettaCouple

well, you could check to be sure it's level.. sometimes that will cause a long bubbler to just do one side.. maybe use a turkey baster to see if the one side is clogged or something? that pump should have no problem with the curtain. we don't have any curtains yet so i'm not sure what other problems they might have to cause that effect.

capekate

HI..
I have a bubble curtain.. and I'm wondering if its possible that your air pump is not strong enough for that large a wand. It could be that is why its only giving off bubbles on one side. Also, is your air pump have a gang valve attached to another tube, for say a filter? I know that when I used the air pump for a bubblier and the small whisper filter, the pump was not strong enough to push the amount of air needed to both items.

Jim

I have my pump hooked to 2 aircurtains and mine did the same thing. Only one would work. I needed to get a gang valve for it. It regulates the air flow to each stone so you can balance them out.

chickadee

Have you made sure that the end cap is on tight on the end farthest from the point where the air pump is attached? If you used a connector between two sections you may want to take it apart and make sure there is not a blockage of some sort in the connector. That is the same pump that I use on my 12 gallon tanks and it would run two of those. There is a problem with the set up or the airwand itself. Are you using a Check Valve in your airline?

Here is the way you should have it set:

air pump.........check valve.........gang valve............airwand (........ = airline tubing)

You can do without a check valve if you are going to keep the airpump at a place higher than the level of the water in your tank. Otherwise it is a safety measure in case of power failure. It keeps the water from backing up into your air pump.

Some of this was a little off topic, but a safety sidebar. Sorry.

Rose

lilsoccakid

all i have hooked up is the pump to the wall by the air tube thing. also, is there a way to stop the bubbles from going up into my filter, making a constant bubbling noise?

COBettaCouple

how strong is the pump? we actually put our air stones and all under the filters to allow for a quiet corner in each tank. good for feeding and a spot for the fish to go when they want.

lilsoccakid

heres some pictures of my setup. my filter is for a tank up to 20 gallons.

FLBettaCouple, how can u put your air stones under the filter? when the air bubbles go in my filter, they make wierd noises and its very annoying!

susitna-flower

It looks like one end of the wand is higher than the other, is this what you are talking about? That the air only comes out the higher end? You may need to weight the wand down, keeping it level to have the air come out all along it. I put mine under the gravel which keeps the wands level, the air only comes out in big bubbles, but that's ok with me since they are out of sight, all the tubes etc under the gravel.

Fish in the Frozen North

lilsoccakid

no ive put it in even before, usually it has another part connected to it for the second half, which doesnt work properly. i cant find the second half thoughh i thnk its lost

COBettaCouple

well, we always used stones and put them under the outflow of the filter so the bubbles weren't really going into the intake.

i tried something with the wand that we put out in the 30g tall and got the same effect - the further from the air connection, the less bubbles until none. i used a single outlet pump that was underpowered to force air all the way down the wand.. the walmart here has a 2-outlet pump that easily handles 8 airstones, but we're waiting for the pathetic store to get some in stock. since the tank is cycling we're not in a hurry. But it does make me wonder if that pump is strong enough to run the whole wand?

lilsoccakid

for some reason, its magically starting to pump air throughout the whole thing! lol i dont know why, maybe after being in water for a while it softened the wand so air could get threw it easier or sumthin.

now my tanks finally ready for fish, except after 2 weeks of getting nitrite readings they wont go down! my nitrite and nitrate readings are stuck!

COBettaCouple

hmm.. very interesting.. it must work similiar to typical air stones then, sometimes they need to soak a bit before working fully.

have you been feeding the tank flakes or ammonia drops every 12 hours? what are they at?

lilsoccakid

ummm i just ran out of test kits, but ive been feeding my tank daily, only 2 drops of ammonia a day now that ive seen nitrites

COBettaCouple

when you get a new kit, get the API master FW kit.. it's like $20 at petsmart usually and less at the DFS website. One of those does so many tests, it works out to a lot cheaper per test and you get the accuracy of liquid testing. (dry reagents are good too, but those kits are a fortune!)

i've not done the cycling with ammonia drops, but don't you use 3 per day after nitrites come up?

lilsoccakid

i will be getting the api master test kit soon. i went to buy it at one of my LPS, but it was for 27 dollars and i knew that i could get it cheaper at my local petsmart.

i havent been adding enough ammonia lately, i think the lack of ammonia is slowing down the process its been almost 7 weeks cycling

COBettaCouple

sometimes it can get stuck it seems.. cycling can drive a person buggy.. lol.. but it will cycle. can you increase the ammonia dosage?

lilsoccakid

yep i just increased it to 4-5 drops a day