Air Stone for Sand Substrate

Hello everyone,

I recently re-aquascaped my 36 gallon tank and changed my white sand substrate to natural colored sand substrate. Before the white substrate I ran a very noise, very powerful whisper air pump. Ended up not including this in the white sand set up. Since I re-did the tank yet again, I am thinking a small air stone would be nice on one side.

My question is, how do you bury an air stone in sand? I am assuming that you can't, as the displacement caused by the air would disturb the sand and the stone would float to the surface. So, any recommendations as to small air stones or other air devices that work well with sand? I am looking for a small air stone or like device, and an extremely quiet air pump. I don't want too powerful of a pump that the surface is practically boiling, but would like the benefits of water oxygenation.

 

As far as the pump I like , quiet pretty powerful and seem to have some longevity to them.

For stone you could try an , a attached just above the substrate or burying a traditional stone under a small mount of stones.

Imo you are correct, if you bury the stone in sand it will blow sand all over and unearth itself.

 

I'll have to look around to find the right air diffuser. Looking for something not too big, not too small.

I've never heard of that brand of air pumps before. Are they pretty quiet?

 

Those tubular ones you can suction cup can be cut if you like and think they may have different sizes of anchor stones.

Yes, I have had a lot of different brand and I consider these pretty quiet, I also set all air pumps on a small piece of foam media to help quiet them, additionally I make sure the tubing isn't vibrating against anything, that can make a racket that rivals pump noise for sure. If you are concerned about bubble noise use of a gang valve can help by allowing you to bleed off excess air, calming down the output of stones, preventing backpressure on the pump and providing some backflow protection in most cases.

 

Looking into the Danner air pumps- very good reviews. Any recommendations on which one to buy?

 

If you want to be on the low end of output and your tank isn't really deep I would probably get . You could also use a gang valve like to bleed off the extra air if your stone is too powerful.

 

Well I resurrected my old Whisper air pump, so I'll see how loud and powerful it is before I buy a new pump. Definitely will get one of the Danner's though.

Bought a new fine bubble air stone and suction cups at Petsmart today. Going to place the stone very close to the bottom of the tank and suction cup the tubing. Hopefully it will hold it and produce the desired affect.