Silent Air Pumps

[Megansdad]

Hi, I'm a noobie to all of this and I've just set up my small tank so be gentle. At best it's a 35litre tank, I know, I should have bought something bigger but I thought I was getting a 55litre tank, but the partitioned back filter takes up 20litres of the tank volume away from the fish to swim in.

Anyroad, I've not got any fish yet as I'm going through a fishless cycle with the gravel and six plants in situ.

The reason for the tank is that my daughter of 22months loves fish and we've always wanted to keep some too.

I've bought a Luma Aztec Rainbow Aquawave Air streamer & LED lighting kit: (see below)

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Luma-Range-Aztec-R-b...1742.m153.l1262

I don't want to connect it to my built-in pump rated at 5.5W 600lph as it may not be appropriate or powerful enough to generate the bubble effect. (Correct me if I'm wrong and if you think this pump is more than adequate).

So I'm thinking about buying an air pump and wanted to find from you experienced owners exactly what the best and quietest pump is. The tank resides in our living room and although there's a gentle hum from the tank, I don't want anything too noisy.

Considering this, which pump should I go for? A premium Eheim with adjustable flow, basic Tetratec or A.N.Other?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

all pumps make some noise, you can usually dampen it a bit though. if the pump is sat on an uneven surface it will vibrate and get v noisy, so make sure it's on something flat and even. If you can then put it in a cupboard or something like that. What I've heard people do is get a v long length of airline then have the pump rigged up somewhere it doesn't matter (like if you have a cellar under your living room or something like that) and run the airline up to the tank. Probably require a little bit of DIY skills running the line depending on where you hide it and the layout of the house but done properly it's not obtrusive.

 

[sharkbaitwoohaha]

tetra pumps are real good cos of their rubber feet and legs
http/www.aquatics-warehouse.co.uk/acatal...S_WISPER_9.html

 

[OldMan47]

If you already have an air pump of some sort, it would be best to try using it. The decoration looks like it is a light with a built-in air stone in a rock looking piece of plastic. Almost any air pump will run a single air stone so it should work. You will probably need to get a piece of tubing. If it doesn't work for some reason, try the Rena air pump. I have found that the smallest of them has lots of capacity and I really like that they are adjustable, quiet and have been long lasting for me. I have one about 3 years old that has required absolutely no attention and is as quiet as the day I got it. Needless to say its not my most recent one.

 

[Megansdad]

I'm pretty handy with the DIY but I don't want to rig up anything that my wife can manage in my absence if it goes wrong.

Oldman47, you're right in terms of how the volcano is operated with a single air stone, but having not seen one of these in action and checked the spec of the pump, I don't know how effective the bubbles will be.

If you think the standard 600lph pump is sufficient I'll give it a try as it'll save some initial expense apart from getting the right sized tubing and a reducer to suit a 2mm tube for the Luma device.

It doesn't feel powerful enough. There is one single tube that come out from the pump which branches out into three differently sized tubes.
1) The largest points upwards and gently ripples the surface
2) The next largest points towards the camera i.e. along the side of the tank
3) The smallest runs in parallel the the large one and is about 13mm long with a 5 - 6mm opening.

See the pic of my tank below and note the pump outlets to the top right corner.

The wide angle lens dwarfs the plants out of proportion, they are a little taller than the pic make out.

So the question is, if I want to see lovely bubbles lit by the Luma rainbow LED volcano thingy, will I need a dedicated pump? Has anyone tried one of these types of blingy toys?

 

[Megansdad]

I spoke to Maidenhead Aquatics and they have recommended a dedicated air pump.

My daughter wants a frog ornament whose mouth opens releasing the bubbles (something else she loves too) so I've gone for the Ehein 200. It's a bit more powerful than I need but I can run it on a a very low power, minimum stress, duty cycle so it won't ever be overworked and if I ever get a larger tank or want more bubbles, it'll do the job.

 

[waterdrop]

Will be interested to hear how it turns out for you - my son's tank is in his room and the pump hum and airstone noises both were too loud for him to sleep at night, causing us to get maybe less than optimal O2 for bacterial growth during the night when it got turned off. During fishless cycling, I think one of the downsides to the really high temperatures is the lower O2 level it causes - hard to tell how much the various levels of surface agitation can help.

[oldman47, do I remember you once recommending somewhat cooler temperatures for fishless cycling??]

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

I'm not sure what lower temperatures would be for a fishless cycle. You don't want the water hot enough to start killing off bacteria but as high as 30 or even 32C should be no problem. That would be as much as 90F if you use that measure. The higher temperatures will speed up the bacterial growth until it becaomes so hot that they are being negatively affected. If someone had posted a tank temp of over 35C, I might well have suggested that lower would be better.

 

[Megansdad]

Just an update.

After running this Eheim pump for a month on a frog ornament and a mini volcano I can honestly say I cannot hear it above the noise from the tank.

I was right to have bought the slightly larger more noise-dampened Eheim 200.

It only needs to be run on the lowest 20% of air output and it's more than adequate.

It's only a few quid more than the basic model too.

 

[waterdrop]

Thanks for the update Megansdad, I'll bet either that eheim or the little rena would be quieter than the dual-output whisper thing that I have that is too noisy.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[gaz gun man]

if you're having trouble with noisy air pumps, you could try what I did;

I got an old box (this one was a camera box)

I covered the inside completely with egg-box foam, top, bottom, sides.

I then placed the pump inside, and used a biro to make a hole for the rubber hosing and cut a notch out of the other side to run the power cable out of.

once the box is closed it is much quieter, not deadly silent, but with the tv on you dont even notice the hum it generates.

I've had my pump in there for about a month now, and the last week it has been on 24/7 and it hasnt over heated or anything

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I've got mine hidden inside a huge roll of material you can make filter media from and it cuts the noise a lot, but in my case I just shouldn't have had such a big pump in the first place.. better to go as little as you can I think.

~~waterdrop~~