Not Sure If I'm Damaging My Filter

[angelcraze]

A little background
I have a 120 gallon that's 26" deep. It's always been primarily an angelfish tank so I don't have a lot of strong flow, but it reaches pretty much all of the tank thanks to the Eheim 2075 spraybar that is sectioned in 3 adjustable output angles.



Anyway I've been slightly concerned with lack of oxygen since it's such a deep tank for a while now. I was thinking about an an airstone or something and for now I was leaving the water level a bit lower so that the filter output was creating a lot of surface agitation.

But when my mom gave me a large air pump, I went ahead and set it up right away. I had a bubble stream sort of in the middle right hand side, but it started slowly moving more toward the back and filter intake.

Introduction
The bubble stream is now right under the filter intake. The intake draws in the air stream.


It goes through my filter and out the ouput. I can have the spraybar completely submerged and still have little bubbles bouncing everywhere in the tank. This is the output


It's difficult to photograph, but these bubbles are everywhere in the 5ft long tank. Even on the opposite right side.

So to get to the question....
I don't hear the filter motor lugging, but I can hear air going through it pretty much continuously. If I turn up the air, the filter motor would bog up intermittently like it was priming, but with a softer bubble stream, it just kinda flows thru and creates a bunch of microbubbles.

Am I causing damage to my filter?
Should I just add a small powerhead above the bubble stream and move it?
Good idea or bad?

I'd love to hear anything anyone has!

Tx!!

 

[NavyChief20]

A little background
I have a 120 gallon that's 26" deep. It's always been primarily an angelfish tank so I don't have a lot of strong flow, but it reaches pretty much all of the tank thanks to the Eheim 2075 spraybar that is sectioned in 3 adjustable output angles.



Anyway I've been slightly concerned with lack of oxygen since it's such a deep tank for a while now. I was thinking about an an airstone or something and for now I was leaving the water level a bit lower so that the filter output was creating a lot of surface agitation.

But when my mom gave me a large air pump, I went ahead and set it up right away. I had a bubble stream sort of in the middle right hand side, but it started slowly moving more toward the back and filter intake.

Introduction
The bubble stream is now right under the filter intake. The intake draws in the air stream.


It goes through my filter and out the ouput. I can have the spraybar completely submerged and still have little bubbles bouncing everywhere in the tank. This is the output


It's difficult to photograph, but these bubbles are everywhere in the 5ft long tank. Even on the opposite right side.

So to get to the question....
I don't hear the filter motor lugging, but I can hear air going through it pretty much continuously. If I turn up the air, the filter motor would bog up intermittently like it was priming, but with a softer bubble stream, it just kinda flows thru and creates a bunch of microbubbles.

Am I causing damage to my filter?
Should I just add a small powerhead above the bubble stream and move it?
Good idea or bad?

I'd love to hear anything anyone has!

Tx!!

Sounds like you are pumping air bubbles with a water pump. That doesn't work so well and will cause problems for your impeller. Its cavitation and you will eventually erode the impeller and then no pumpy pumpy. Move the air away from the intake and this should help. Eventually you will hear lagging noise from the pump then it will grind then high RPM.

 

[angelcraze]

Tx, will do I liked the way out broke it all down to tiny microbubbles, but glad I checked here before I ran it too long like this. Thanks for the info!

 

[Skavatar]

the intake works on suction. adding in air bubbles you're messing with the suction.

 

[angelcraze]

the intake works on suction. adding in air bubbles you're messing with the suction.

Yeah I couldn't get it to prime after cleaning it until I shut off the air pump.

I moved it toward the left, away from the intake. I did it messily for now because I had sunscreen on and didn't want to stick my arms to far in!

 

[angelcraze]

I have a new question....

I did like how running the air through the filter kept the microbubbles underwater for much longer. Plus I always thought an air pump did little to actually add oxygen....

Anyway, what if I ran a small powerhead above the bubble stream? Would I be doing the same damage to an internal powerhead?

Or I move the air under the spraybar to help disperse 'air' and hold it under longer.

So does using an air pump help to add oxygen or is there greater o2 added with filter output water surface disruption? I can see the air streaming up and out the tank with the airstone, while the spraybar blows air into the tank.

Then something else I'm curious about....
I'm pumping in atmospheric air. So 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide plus a smaller amount of other gasses, but it's not pure o2. So am I doing anything for nitrates or does it have an effect on BB overall using an airstone?