water movement, bubbles, and oxygenating

Magnum Man

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so, most of my tanks are for river fish, and I use a combination of hang on tank filters, and bubbles to induce / simulate water flow, but how does one oxygenate a still water tank??? plants seem to give and take, depending on light... maybe the bulk of the fish that inhabit these waters are air breathers ( labyrinth fish ) ??? in the wild there is sufficient surface area, wind and waves, that take care of that, but they aren't practical in a glass box... I'm wondering if a small fan blowing across an open tank, or at the surface, would raise oxygen levels??? or perhaps an emergent plant blowing in the wind from a fan, slowly stirring the surface???

it's funny bubbles are even used... I suspect the original thought was bubbles themselves added oxygen, in the dark ages of fish keeping, though now the enlightened suggest, it's just the breaking of the surface that adds oxygen, and the bubbles themselves do very little to add oxygen to the water... bubbles are an integral part of my aquariums... they do effectively move water up a tube, in the case of sponge filters, or the old undergravel filter lift tubes...

fish like my Hillstream's spend lots of time in the bubble waterfalls, but most other fish avoid them, but reap the benefits of the flow, and oxygen, created by breaking the surface
 
Do not underestimate the ability of bubbles to oxygenate a tank (by breaking the surface not by actually adding air fron the bubbles).

I ran all of my pleco breeding and grow tanks using And assortnment of filters over the years, n the end the majority of them ran on air powered Poret foan cucbefitlers and/or matten filters. In some of the tanks I also included an airstone for extra water movements and surface agitation.

My high tech co2 added tank used only a canister filter. The output used a spray bar that was ultimately placed in the back right corner vertically. I did start it in the traditional horizontal placement near the surface. It was easier to have it hidden when I noved it the the back corner vertically, The intake was always in the back corner at the opposite end close to the bottom of the tank. Fish and plants both thrived in the tank just fine.

edited to fix typos
 
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I assume a still tank will be lower in oxygen, just as a swamp is. You need current and water moving up and down the water column.

I run a "just enough" HOB filter on the narrow end of a 4 foot tank, and I always know when it's clogging because I see no fish except (surface breathing) Corys in the farthest 12 inches of the tank. Even with plants there, it becomes a ghost town.
 

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