Air 101

[weird]

Well this has been a funny start to the year ... my theme seems to be AIR. Not sure why this happened all at once after 3 years, but I have had Discus tank to community tank gasping for air at different times over the last month (with me almost putting a fish down today, lucky I didn't !!) ... only after replacing the air pump with a decent one , that everything returns back to sweet normal.

The last episode, was when I foolishly stopped my community tank air pump last night, because it was too noisy (crap loud one) and forgot to put it back on ... this is a very very heavily planted tank, and as my local aquarium reminded me, during the night would not be the best time to forget to turn it back on .. low and behold my bala shark was upside down .... almost dead, and I had a bucket ready to freeze him ... only to quickly replace his air pump with another one I borrowed, and he was kicking along like nothing happened 20 mins later .... this guy must be a cat with nine lives ... and he has seen more land than most humans (joke Bala sharks like to jump especially this one)!

Today I went nuts at the aquarium shop, and my tanks are bubbling away like mad ...


My discus were being abit like this a few weeks ago, and I went heavily then with air pumps ... now they are lively again

What a balance tanks require !

[ellwa]

I've had a few similar experiences with my planted discus tank.
messing with the CO2 needle valve and then going to work for a few days, and getting a phonecall the day after from mum ready to fish out my discus and flush them.

luckily, on both occasions, a quick, 50%+ waterchange and the addition of more air stones, they come good within a few hours, and on both occasions, my pair have spawned again within 24hours.

additional to that, I don't add anything to my water other than ferts for the plants, lights are on about 10hours a day, and at night for about 4 hours, and in the morning for about 2.5hours, my nightlights come on, and with them, the airstone. this seems to be perfect, the PH hardly swings, and my discus are happy.

[the german]

i use no airstone at all in my grow tanks only in my breeding tanks.
my pumps are all pushing the water straight to the surface so there is a lot of surface movement and that is what brings your oxigenlevel up.
my tanks are also without gravel or plants.

[FishLover]

weird,
you may want to put the air pumps on timers. You need them at night with planted tanks, not in the day with lights on.

Or you can do like other people did, use your filter outlets to create water movements on the surface. Then you don't need the air pump.

Aslo, you may want to put your Co2 injectior on a timer too. There is no need to inject Co2 in the tank when the lights are off.

HTH