How Much Air

[200sx]

hi right been trying to do some research on air pumps and how long to have them on for done some searches and some say all the time and some say few hours a day, iv got a friend who seems like he knows everything bout fish and hes got his air pump set on a timer that it comes on for 15min every 2 hours an he says thats most he needs, iv got a 350 litre tropical corner tank and my air pump is a interpet av3 i think its got 2 outputs so got 2 round air disks under the gravel so should i have this running 24 hours a day or like my friend 15 mins eery 2 hours it so confussing any help would be great

 

[england]

Do you have a good filteration system on the tank? If yes theres no need for air pumps, ive not used them in 15yrs etc for my breeding tank when i was running a sponge filter which connected to a air filter, as long as your filter causes suface algitation your fine, just ensure tank is stocked correctly and feeding is done correctly, water stats are checked regular,

Could you give us a run down on tank / size / filteration and what fish you have?

 

[SchottayB]

Agree with Nelly. Not needed just keep an eye on the water, feeding etc

 

[200sx]

cheers guys the tanks is a corner tank 350 litres the filter im running is a ehiem pro 3 600 think it the same as a ehiem 2071 iv got 3 angles, 3 mollys and 3 discus, i dont feed much im same as most people feed little but few times a day all stats on tank are good im using a api master test and iv just brought a hagen master test kit as well cause i didnt really trust the api one at first plus i kept smashing the test tubes doh lol.

anyway my spray bar is under the water level and my water moves abit but there isnt alot of surface movement hard to explain what i mean like water surface is moving but not brake in the water surface.

i do 20% water changes using ro water from my local supplier and im abit ott on checks feels like im testing my water every other day

 

[fishguy2727]

I recommend and use a strong air pump on any freshwater tank. Are they NEEDED? Better not be. You should get good aeration from filtration and flow. But more is always better. And enough from filtration isn't enough if the filter ever stops running. I have seen entire tanks saved by air pumps when the filter stopped for some (or no known) reason. Many fish like playing in them.

If you run one run it all the time. I have heard of some planted people running them only at night as a precaution against a problem with CO2 not turning off at night.