tony

I have a tall hexagon tank that doesn't have much surface area, i put a aerator in there that says it can aerate tanks up to 30g. I want to fill the tank up with 25-30 inches of fish, is this enough aeration?

COBettaCouple

I'm not sure, but here's an idea on what you could do:

Put 2 or 3 air stones in different spots on the sides (using the suction cups they sell for air hose) Maybe like one near the top (1/3rd of the way down), one half way down, one near the gravel level on every other side. Run them all through a gang valve to a good air pump, and then you can use the flow control to get the aeration to the way you'd like it and spread out.

Luniyn

You have to watch out with tall tanks. Some of the air pumps can only power multiple air stones at a shallower depth. Depending on how deep your tank is, if you try to put a stone at the bottom and another somewhere else in the tank, you may not see many bubbles because it would be too much work with all the pressure at lower depths. Try the stone out near the surface to see how many bubbles "should" be coming out, and then try it at the bottom of the tank. If it looks like it is a lot less, then you might need a pump upgrade. You might not, but I thought I would just mention it just in case you run into any trouble.

COBettaCouple

True. I use an air pump that is stronger than i need and it easily powers stones in 4 tanks, including the hex tank that's on the other side of the room.. and need the gang valve to keep the bubbles from overwhelming the bettas in 3 of those tanks. It's just a pump from wally world, but those Tetra pumps seem to do pretty good.

hamstermann

How does everyone stop their air pumps from vibrating/crawling off whatever flat surface it's on? do you bolt it down?

Luniyn

I use a whisper pump and it has rubber feet on it that are about a half an inch long. These long "legs" allow the pump part to shake all it wants and they absorb all the vibrations so by the time to get to the bottom of the feet that sit on the table, there isn't any movement. On other pumps you could simulate this effect with some suction cups. Just get some of the suction cups used for holding things on the glass of your tank and remove any hard plastic piece they have so only the rubber leg and cup are left. Then glue 3 or 4 (depending on the size of your pump) to the bottom of the pump so the suction part is facing down. Then just place the pump on whatever surface you want, you don't even have to actually push the suction cups down to make they stick. The idea is that the large surface area of the suction cup will allow the pump to hold on to the table or shelf you put it on. And the "leg" of the suction cup will act as the shock absorber. Just be sure to use a rubber cement glue or a silicon as the harder drying glues will probably crack under the vibrations where these rubber like glues won't.

COBettaCouple

The air pumps that we have seem to stay stable just sitting on the furniture. They have rubber pads on the bottom of them and are pretty quiet. actually, they're whisper pumps but a different model than luniyn's.

hamstermann

yeah, Mine has rubber feet too, but's quite the dancer. Maybe I'll try the suction cup thing. Thanks for the idea!