Do I need a air pump?

[BoomerSooner]

Hi ,
I have a Eclipse 3-gallon tank that has two African Dwarf Frogs and 2 Sunset Dwarf Platys. I also have a couple of live plants in there. My question is, do I need a air pump or will my plants produce enough O2 for the fish to survive? The reason I ask is, one of my Dwarf Platys has been swimming near the top of the water and I read online that this may be caused by lack of oxygen in the tank.

Thanks

 

[IslandHopper]

It's a small tank... daily water changes of 1 gallon or so would also weep the water well.oxygenated (unless you have really stale well-waer or something like that.)

But otherwise... some sort of surface agitation is desirable to promote O2 exchange across the surface of the water. (Very little O2 is put into the water by the bubbles themselves... its the way the agitate the surface that oxygenates the water.)

 

[Mark Hewitt]

Hi ,
I have a Eclipse 3-gallon tank that has two African Dwarf Frogs and 2 Sunset Dwarf Platys. I also have a couple of live plants in there. My question is, do I need a air pump or will my plants produce enough O2 for the fish to survive? The reason I ask is, one of my Dwarf Platys has been swimming near the top of the water and I read online that this may be caused by lack of oxygen in the tank.

Thanks

For a tank that size, just breaking the surface will be sufficient. The best way to that is to angle your filter output so that it is very near the surface.

 

[BoomerSooner]

Thank you both for the advice.

 

[HN1]

Get a bigger tank. There is no possibility of maintaining the proper water conditions and O2 levels with that stock in that tank size. The only thing you can do to help is to do water changes, frequent and large.

I started with a 3G Eclipse myself.... with koi.