hi all are my lfs trying to sell me something i dont need???

[dom2106]

do i have to run a spray bar and an air pump on my tank my lfs has told me that i must have both ???

[BigDaddyAdo]

It depends.

They each have a purpose but are not always needed.

Personally i run a spray bar along almost the entire length of my tank. I have it angled up to break the surface tension. Because i do it this way i have no need to run an airstone. If i was running CO2 i would not have my spray bar angled upwards and would run an airstone at night.

[dom2106]

cheers i think im gonna go with the spray bar

[Bill Tune]

I run two eheim canisters with spray bars angled to break the water surface, plus a hydor ETH, & a uv. Provided I keep up with water changes, all is well & I'm sure I have too many fish for my tank size......Not at all CO2 savvy......

[bartek]

Like Ado has said they are used for 2 different purposes.

If you give us some more details we would be able to help more.

For example, my canister filters have spray bars on the outlets but I use a twin air pump on a timer to airate the water in the evenings.

[ILLUSN]

On a non co2 discus tank use a spray bar AND an air stone.

reason:

discus like warm water, warm water hold less oxygen, by having a spray bar that ripples the surface you can add some oxygen, by having and air pump that breaks the surface tension you can add HEAPS of oxygen.

[dom2106]

i have a aquaone ar 620t it has a built in trickle filter in the hood im also running a tetratech ex700 canister filter




http://www.aquaone.co.uk/images/19_Page_1_Image_0003.jpg

[ILLUSN]

are you keeping a planted tank? or just a discus display tank?

what temp are you running?

[dom2106]

planted 29-30 degres

[bartek]

Ok so I presume you going to run the spray bar on the canister filter outlet. If so then its really upto you. Im not familiar with the canister so if it comes with a spray bar use it if it doesn't then dont. You just nee to make sure that whatever outlet you use it doesn;t creat too much current in the tank as discus don't like strong current. You can usually do this by facing the outlet onto the glass.

Then as ILLUSN has suggested you can point to outlet up so the water breaks the suface slightly or run an air stone to airate the water.

If you running Co2 ... well thats another thing.

[ILLUSN]

29-30 is warm, if its well planted then the plants should keep the water saturated with oxygen, run a spray bar just under the surface so as the surface ripples but does NOT BREAK THE SURFACE. dont add an air pump unless you see fish gasping, if you do, then add one and run a stone at night, or lift your spray bar so it breaks the surface.

hope this helps.