Air pump help needed

bballsosh

Hi i just set up my first 10 gallon fish tank and have no idea how to go about putting in an air pump.Any help would be greatly apreciated. Here is my set up:

Tommy Gun

Since I dont know exactly what you mean, please dont think I am saying any thing in a way that I think your dumb, ok?

The air pump you are going to want to put in (but do not absolutely have to put in) is going to be outside of your tank, either below in your stand with a check valve on it, or somehow above the tank (which is harder to do without making things look weird). You will want to go to a store and check out the different types of air stones available. There are hundreds of types which will fit into different size tanks and in different parts of your tank. I really like the 'bubble curtain' look that goes on either the side of your tank or in the back.

Once you have an airstone picked out, you will need to get enough tubing to connect the pump to the stone. If you are going to keep your pump below the tank, you will need to get a check valve to prevent the pump from becoming a siphon and draining your tank (this usually happens if the electricity goes out or the pump fails mechanically). They are really cheap (less than a dollar most of the time) and some air stones will come with one. You can also buy tubing that looks like a plant (which is what I use) so that there are no apparent hoses in the tank. This adds to the 'natural' look.

Keep in mind that an air pump is not going to put air into your water, per say. It will create aggitation at the surface though where the water will pick up the dissolved oxygen that you are looking for. In many cases, people who have smaller tanks and use the type of hood that you are, find that an air stone is not a real neccessity since their filter creates enough water aggitation to promote gas exchange (O2 in, CO2 out).

Just some of my observations and opinions...the tank looks great but I would fill the tank up the rest of the way (you can go to just below the black frame part on top). From the picture, I see that you have a thermometer in the tank, but I do not see a heater...do you have one? I ask because it looks like you have mixed goldfish with tropical fish, which isnt a complete sin, but not always advisable since goldfish are cold water fish and tropicals need water in the range of 72 to 80 degrees. If this was my tank and I had those fish, I would keep the water at the lowest possible temp for my tropicals, just to help out the goldfish. Believe it or not, that goldfish can live for 20 years or so and get really big. That is, if it is in fact a goldfish and I am not seeing things wrong.

One last question, did you cycle your tank? Also, do you have a test kit to keep an eye on the water's chemistry?

Hope this helps a little bit. Like I said, I dont mean to talk to you like you are dumb, but I dont want to assume you know something and leave it out.

Hepcat021

That is a nice looking 10 gallon you got there. Everything he sadi is very good info all I can add from recent experience is to get a valve that lets you control the amount of air that gets to whatever device you get to make the bubbles. That was my mistake, but the guppies I have just are not hard swimmers. Though not a necessary device it certainly adds personality and I think now that I have the settings right that the fish enjoy it. Make sure and get a subersable heater when you get one the other kind just plain SUCK.

Good Luck,
Bill

bballsosh

Thanks for the help guys

And no i havent put the tank through the cycle. What is that? and i dont have a water tester kit. Sorry but i really dont know anything about fish tanks and wanted to start a one.

Jay

Hi bballsosh, Welcome to the forum.

From Tommy..

You got great advice here but...

I think you need to head over to the freshwater sub forum and read the sticky article on aquarium cycling. This is a crucial step in learning how to keep and aquarium and what goes on in that water

Not doing so is setting yourself up for frustration and fish fatalities, and all the good information you got goes down the drain (pun intended)



Regards,
Jay

bballsosh

well, since i already put the fish in what should i do?

Tommy Gun

Jay is definately the man to listen to bball! :-)

Right now you are in the same position as many of us (yes, I am very much included) when we bought our first tanks thinking it would be a great thing to watch fish and have a great peice of furniture or decoration in our house. You may be shocked to find out how much more there is to successfully 'operating' a fish tank, but do not panic, a little reading and asking questions on a forum like this will get you to where you need to be.

I appologize for my last question being "have you cycled your tank?" when it should have been my first question. In my defense, I did not know your exact situation and did not want to offend you.

bballsosh

So since i didnt cycle out the tank what do you suggest on doing from here? THanks for the great help.

Tommy Gun

Well, I suppose that is a matter of opinion really...I will give you mine and you can see what others say and/or decide what you want to do....

If this were my tank, I would cut my monetary losses now and return the fish to a LFS. You may earn some store credit, but usually they will just let you 'donate' them. I wouldnt kill them though, of course.

Next, I would purchase a water test kit. There are two general types of tests used; test 'strips' or liquid test kits (with test tubes). I highly recommend using the liquid test kits since they are more accurate. They are more expensive initially, but you will actually be able to test your water more times on average than test strips. Test strips are also easily foiled by humidity and poor storage conditions. In fact, you may not ever realize that your test strips are bad and leading you to believe that your water chemistry is something other than it is in reality.

Then I would read, read again, and read some more. Jay's suggestion about reading the 'sticky' on cycling a tank is a great place to start. Basically you will be wanting to grow a colony of good bacteria that will process your fish's wastes into something that will not be lethal. Keeping fish in the water you have right now (most likely) would be equivalent of keeping you in an air tight room, eventually you would die from lack of oxygen. The bacteria in your fish tank would be like keeping you in that air tight room with plants which will turn your exhailed carbon dioxide back into breathable oxygen.

For the next few weeks, you will want to test your water for three major chemicals: ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. If you buy the liquid test kits, they will let you know exactly what you will want to see before adding fish. More or less you will want no traces of ammonia or nitrites and just very slight amounts of nitrates. This will be your indicator that your water's good bacteria levels can handle supporting life in the form of fish.

You will want to 'feed' your tank fish food even though you do not have fish in the tank. This will be the food that you bacteria will grow on until you have fish (as the food decays, it becomes viable for the bacteria to feed on).

The other option would be to keep the fish, but the highest likelyhood would be that they die or get very sick. This can create a sitiation of your tank beoming diseased and adding more fish will just result in the same things. However, some people, for whatever reason, do make it with minimal losses. This hope is very small though and many would consider it inhumane.

If you have more questions, this is absolutely the place to ask them. Nothing is a dumb question and that goes doubly for this hobby! Stay positive though. Like I said, many people go through this same thing, even myself, and I cannot imagine my life today if I had given up.

bballsosh

The fish have been living for 4 days now in the tank and seem fine. So if they continue to live should i just forget about cycling the tank and buying a tester kit? Lmk thanks. (I didnt realize how much work was involved in a fish tank)