# powerheads and airation



## brock029 (Oct 27, 2011)

I just have a few questions about powerheads and air in the tank. Just from what I've read so far you can use them to create more water movement in the tank and use them for undergravel jets. So here are my questions. And for air I haven't found much on it.

1. Is that what powerheads are actually used for and can they be used for anything else?
2. On my 75 gal mbuna tank pumping 400 gal an hour with my HOB filter...do I need more water movement?
3. So I just have a tetra whisper air 10 pump, which I had for my 10gallon tank, it just has 1 airstone on it that I also have my "diy" sponge filter around...do I need to put more air into the tank? If so any suggestions?

That's all I've got for now thanks in advance.


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

1) Power heads were made as what the same says add power to to heads of existing filtration systems.

Commonly used back in the day on undergravel filters and Sponge filters, they would turn a slow air powered gravel or sponge filter into a suction machine and move water around the tank a lot better.

You can use powerheads to move K1 media to make a moving bed media filter.

You can use them to just create a current in a certain place in the tank which is good for fish that love sitting in a current many marine tanks deploy this technique.

Parts of the tank like behind backgrounds or in caves they are used to stop water going bad forcing new water out and in all the time.

There purpose is to take water and move it in one direction. So really just up to what you need, if you need to move water or move water faster, then they are what you use.

2) No you probally do not need any more movement .. it depends is you have a good circulation, mainly the placement of these HOB filters is key. And if you do need more water movement airstones would be all you needed in theory.

3) If the HOB filter is creating enough airation when water enters the tank then maybe not. But I have found that using as much airation as possible only helps the fish. It will help reduce water temps .. making heaters work better as they can only increase temps .. so having airation reduces temps and the heater increasing temps makes sure you tank stays at a nice temp all year round. This will thou increase running costs because the heater will be running some times when it otherwise might not have to, but i prefere the stable temps.


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## brock029 (Oct 27, 2011)

Thanks that just about covered everything, with my HOB filters I have 2 penguin 200s one on each side of the tank. But what is a good way to get alot of air into the tank just a bigger air pump with multiple airstones or a bubble wall?


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## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

brock029 said:


> Thanks that just about covered everything, with my HOB filters I have 2 penguin 200s one on each side of the tank. But what is a good way to get alot of air into the tank just a bigger air pump with multiple airstones or a bubble wall?


The best way I have found to actually create oxygen that dissolves into the water for your fish and bacteria is to create surface disturbance.

I have a 75g with two penguin 350's spaced evenly apart on the back of the tank. I also have a maxi jet 1200 powerhead right dead square in the middle of my tank pointing slightly upward with the wide split nozzle it comes with. This creates alot of surface agitation and the placement does a fantastic job of sending floating debris/waste to the intakes of my penguin filters.


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

You really don't NEED any more airation so long as those filters break the water and don't just slide into it. As said above the surface disturbance will oxygenate the water.

But yeah for airation on a grand scale you need a air stone that creates as small a bubble as possible, but LOTs of them .. so air stones do a good job at that, this creates subsurface and surface distrubance airation and is the best form of oxygenation.

Downside is you need to keep the airstones clean enough to produce "fine bubbles" the flexy tubes produce the finest bubbles i have seen, though they do clog quicker.

One major thing people do wrong with air stones is they turn them down to look pretty, you need to have them busting up the water as most of the airation happens when they hit the surface.


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## brock029 (Oct 27, 2011)

Thanks everyone definitively is alot to think about lol. so long story short you dont need alot of air but its better to have alot of air and airstones are good but movement at the top of the water is also good and maybe better. So just one more question if your just using one airstone does it matter how big of an air pump you have like an air pump that that says 10 gallons vs an air pump that says for 75 gallons? For my just one airstone the tetra whisper quit 10 seems to work good...it pumps out alot of bubles.


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

If it looks good use it.

I find with the longer stone type air stones you need a lot of extra air pressure to get the whole stone working and nice fine bubbles.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I find air and stones to be more trouble than they are worth. We have extremely hard water here in my area and that makes airstones a real pain as they clog quickly. A clogged airstone will overwork the pump diapham and blow it. I also hate the noise from pumps. I get plenty of water movement with just the variety of filters I use on tanks. Air into the water and CO2 out is a natural process which will happen if the water is moving up to the top. Rushing water is only very slightly better than water with a visible ripple on the surface. I go for the quiet, less work, and worry side. 
I find the Maxi-jets are fine in the water circulation mode but they work better for me in powerhead mode as they are quieter that way.

It sounds like you are fine where you are now but if you wanted more movement, I would suggest the Maxi-jet 400 near the surface to move the water more.


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## rtirado (Oct 25, 2011)

I dont think this has been established thus far on this thread. It is my understanding that the air bubbles from an air stone do not infuse the water with oxygen, they only rise to the top and disturb the surface of the water. This disturbance of water at the surface is what oxygenates it, much like the powerheads, spray bars, and HOB flow. So basically, if you dont like the extra humming of an air pump, get a powerhead. Or if you like the pretty bubbles keep the pump and air stones, lol.

Only reason I brought this up is because I too was under the impression that air stones directly infused the water with air as well.


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

They do infuse yes, this is called subsurface airation and smallest bubbles possible are needed and hieght of the tank effects the amount (often used in large ponds), but surface disturbance is where most of the magic happens. But airators do a far better job of surface disturbance if done right with small bubbles and plenty of them close together.

subsurface airation is really just a good minor side effect of the great surface distrubance airators do thou.


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## rtirado (Oct 25, 2011)

Fair enough, i could see the smaller bubbles helping with that. But like it was mentioned above usually the smaller pores in the air stones get clogged quicker, and then you just have lots of big bubbles lol.


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

hehe, normally they get clogged due to not enough airflow in the first place.

They do clog eventually, but with enough air flow I have not had much of a problem .. just a wipe with my hand as I clean the rest of the tank. A bubble when popped at the surface has a much larger surface area for the oxygen trasfere, so bigger bubbles would still make for good surface airation, just not sub surface.

Its about what fits with your tank. some people don't like air bubbles, and a viable alternative is jets of water to disturb the waters surface.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

Part of the benefit of the airstones and smaller bubbles is that there is more surface area involved with many small bubbles than with a few large bubbles. Real tricky math involved there so I just take the expert word on that!. I also accept that the smaller bubbles lift more water to the surface. I feel that when I look at the surface of my tank I can see lots of space where water and air meet. When I compare that to the surface area of the rising bubbles, the surface is much bigger. So like stated above, it really gets down to what we each like. Lots of people expect to see air bubbles in a tank and it feels wrong to them if they don't. That's when we all need to decide what is right for us and certainly let the other folks do the same.


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## rtirado (Oct 25, 2011)

mine come from my sponge filter so i'm ok with them as they serve some purpose other than opening a treasure chest, lol. Although I've always liked those novelty type things in aquariums, haha.


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

The amount of air infused via the bubbles is so minimal that it will make no measurable difference in the oxygen content of the water. If you get some surface aggitation going and good tank water circulation, that's all you should need. I wouldn't get caught up in adding air stones thinking it'll better oxygenate the water.


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

While on this topic, some light reading for those interested in airation, Oxygenation saturation levels and calculating oxygen transfere rate of air stones.

http://www.bioconlabs.com/oxy.html Airation in General and easy to read.

http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/3/3/301/pdf Sub Surface Airation Document, bit more complicated.


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

The first link doesn't have any sources for the info, not even the author's name. There's so much stuff out there written by well meaning people that's off the mark that I take anything without sources with a grain of salt.

The 2nd one, well I'm not quite sure what a hobbyist would do with something like that. Why not suggest some practical application from the calculations in the doc?


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

The website IS the sorce of that first artical. You take it or leave it I guess. Assuming they know a lot more about this sorta stuff then I do anyway. (Bio-Con Labs- Aquatic Design and Consulting Service)

The Second artical I got the most benifit was the oxygenation effeciency at the varying depths of water, and a lot of other good stuff like diffuser types and what I got from it was a more rounded defuser type as opposed to a longer type would give more airation.



> At a depth of and (f/B) ratio equal to 0.4m and 0.98 respectively, the oxygen transfer capacity (OC) was 30 grO2/m3tank.hr.


This figure is very similar to the first artical also.


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## brock029 (Oct 27, 2011)

Well I'm glad I got so many replies on this thread. I don't know if it is a common misconception but my understanding was with the exception of bettas and gouramis you had to have water in the tank and the only/best way was with bubles which im not a big fan of just because its a pain to try and hide the hose going to the airstone. Thanks again thought for clearing it up and I might think about saving some cash to get a power head just to make get as much air as possible into the tank.


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

*brock029*

Glad all of it was helpful. Bottom line, you don't need to worry about adding air bubbles to an aquarium. Few do. Get good circulation and some surface aggitation and you'll have plenty of oxygen for both biofiltration and fish. A powerhead can be of great assistance to that end.


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

Good to know you sorted it out.

Good thing to remember is the best way of doing something is not always the best way to do it hahah

Bubbles may be the most effient way to airate, but you can only saturate so much oxygen in the water before extra air or disturbance will not matter much, and both methods will saturate the water with oxygen so really no difference in an aquarium situation, big pond maybe.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

The big pond situation may be different in other ways, too. When I look at ponds, I often see very little water movement. Many people seem to have them more for the water and then throw some fish in just because the water is there. There often seems to be little thought given to the fish. I'm sure a pond outside with lots of plants and little cleaning would profit a great deal more with lots more air from any source whether it is a bubble stream or surface movement.


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## JimA (Nov 7, 2009)

So if I have a couple of spray bars pointing up and a korilla#4 pointing up not really breaking the surface but boiling more or less is it working the same or does it need to actually break the surface for the oxygen exchange?


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## prov356 (Sep 20, 2006)

JimA said:


> So if I have a couple of spray bars pointing up and a korilla#4 pointing up not really breaking the surface but boiling more or less is it working the same or does it need to actually break the surface for the oxygen exchange?


Doesn't need to break the surface. Just get some surface ripple. The setup you describe is exactly what I do. Breaking the surface results in noise and what many consider unsightly bubbles.


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## Nodalizer (Nov 7, 2011)

No it doesn't need to break the surface. It will do better with more disturbance, but like I said chances are you wouldn't need that much as your prob saturating your tank anyway. Long as it has good amount of movement oxygen transfere is happening.


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## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

prov356 said:


> *brock029*
> 
> Glad all of it was helpful. Bottom line, you don't need to worry about adding air bubbles to an aquarium. Few do. Get good circulation and some surface aggitation and you'll have plenty of oxygen for both biofiltration and fish. A powerhead can be of great assistance to that end.


This is 100% accurate. Good surface disturbance/agitation will provide all the oxygen needed.


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