Adding an airstone to tank

by werwer2016 Sat Nov 12, 2016 8:58 am

I have a round two and a half gallon tank that I was giving and it has a small motor with a hose and ( air stone I think it's called ). I was wondering if there is any advantage to using that in the 20 gallon high tank I just setup/ I have six Platy in it. Instead of throwing it out I thought it would look nice in the tank.

by GaryE Sat Nov 12, 2016 9:15 am

It does no harm, and not much good. It would move some water around, and maybe in so doing, raise the oxygen level. But it's mainly cosmetic, from my experience.

by alexmtl Sat Nov 12, 2016 9:34 am

werwer2016 wrote:Instead of throwing it out I thought it would look nice in the tank.

If you had some plants you could hide the airstone as they do look un-natural. Bubbles look nice in a tank and in the 20 gallon if you had decorations you could use the bubbles to create an effect, after all who doesn't like the soothing look of a tank ?

The only negative may be the sound of the air pump. The cheap ones tend to get louder as they age. The other potential issue is the chance that during a power failure or accidental dis-attachment of the airline, a siphon may result in draining the water from the tank. In order to prevent this, always position the air pump above the height of the water level, and ensure that the airline remains above the water line to prevent drainage.

by CarpCharacin Tue Dec 20, 2016 7:12 pm

It creates surface agetation, so it does oxygenate the water

by Fores41 Wed Dec 21, 2016 11:27 am

The one good thing about air stones is if you have a power outage it can keep your fish alive till you get home
and restart your filter. I live in the country and power outages happen regularly and filters do not always start back up when the power comes back on and an airstone is almost fool proof to keep the water agitated and airyated till the filter comes back on.