airstone problems

rob240866 · 11-06-2006, 12:43 PM

hello there. ive had quite a large corner tank for a while now, keeping cold water fish mainly goldfish. to start with i bought a medium size pump and attached a 4" air stone which produced quite a large bubble array. but just recently there doesnt seem to be any bubbles coming out of it apart from the end where the air pipe attaches to the air stone. ive tried new piping. cleaning the air stone etc. to no avail. do you think i need a more powerfull pump????

canadian fishguy · 11-06-2006, 01:09 PM

i had something similar happen my pump makes noise but no air is coming out

fishuz · 11-06-2006, 02:20 PM

How big is the tank and how old is the air stone ?...sounds like it just needs replacing oh yeah how big of a tank is the pump rated for... the pump may be worn out too you can buy replacement kits for most popular pumps at your LFS I know Big Al's carry's them...also check the pump make sure the filter isn't clogged

Tommy Gun · 11-08-2006, 08:13 PM

Just to add a couple ideas, if your airstone is not somewhat level on the bottom of the tank, the bubbles will come mostly from the part of the airstone which is higher than the rest. For example, if your airstone is sitting in the tank with the end that the air tube connects to it, the air will most likely escape only from that end of the stone because air naturally wants to find the fastest route to the top of the tank. Make sense?

Loman · 11-08-2006, 10:42 PM

Rob,
Welcome to the forum

I would suggest looking at a couple things. First I would disconnect the hose at the pump and see if you have a reasonable flow of air from the pump. Simply hold your finger near the outlet and feel if there is air movement. If there is no air then I suspect you have a pump issue. I would also try to blow through the hose and airstone and see that the air comes ou. If it does not I would work my way toward the airstone and make sure all obstructions are cleared etc. It is possible that the stone is a problem nbut I doubt it. If it looks like the stone does not distribute air then I would suggest cleaning it first and then rechecking it. Make sure you can blow through just the pipe too . The otehr thought is that the stone could be too deep in the substrate and producing big but infrequent bubbles.