Getting rid of bubble wand

[Tacoeater]

Hello, I want to get rid of my bubble wand in my 60 gallon tank and was wondering if the output of my Fluval 406 actually had to break the water to aerate it, right now the output sits about 2" below the water line and it creates a good ripple across the top of the water. I'm also going with a Koralia Evo 750 to stir up the dead spots a bit, but not sure if that will help with the aeration.

Another question I have is my buddies filter went out and wants to quit the hobby. He got rid of the filter and all the media in it. I installed a new Fluval 406 in it with new pre filters in the bottom tray, biomax in the next two trays and carbon and ammonia remover in the top tray since the water had a funny smell to it. I left the old dirty water in it along with the sand that he was running hoping it will help with the new media. I'm planning on doing a 50% water change this weekend and a couple days later another one. He has about a dozen assorted african cichlids in it. If I do an almost complete water change and add Prime and Start Up or similar will it be a better option since I won't be able to go over and do daily water changes till the tank gets going again? I'm bringing the tank over to my place once he gets back into town in about two weeks. Still new to this, so please offer better suggestion on the steps to getting his tank going again.
Thanks.

 

[fort384]

You should have no trouble removing the bubble wand with the filtration you described. Many folks run tanks with almost no surface disturbance because they are injecting CO2 for plants, and surface disturbance off gases the CO2 they are trying to inject.

As far as the other tank, I would say you want to do as many water changes as necessary, 50-60% at a time, to get the ammonia and nitrite levels down below 0.25ppm.