too much filtration/areation/current?

[aprilp]

Greetings! I was given a 40 gallon tank which I have just recently cycled. I have two 20-40 filters that I am using. One is a Whisper and I cant remember the other one but its the other common brand sold at walmart. I had these from before and they still work great, so I thought better to have too much filtration than too little, right? I also have an airwand which makes a nice curtain of bubbles in the back. However, I just added two black mollies and I turned the airwand off temporarily because they seemed stressed at having to deal with the currents from the two filters along with the airwand. They were also having difficulty getting thru certain areas without quite a struggle and I didnt want to stress them further. I plan on turning it on again once they get used to the tank but here is my question. There are bubbles everywhere. Even teeny tiny little ones floating all around in the water even at the bottom. Is this too many bubbles for these fish? I am going to try to lessen the currents somewhat by using some of the methods I read about in this forum but I didnt find anything right offhand about the actual bubbles. I just want to make sure its not bothering them to have too many bubbles in their water. Hope this makes sense!

P.S. The neon tetras and the other tetras that I cycled the aquarium with did seem to have some trouble at first too but now they seem ok with it. I just am worried about too many bubbles.

 

[fishguy1]

Is the water level all the way up?

I don't think you have too much filtration, in that I think there may be other factors involved with the current.

 

[BigJim]

Welcome to AA!

I doubt you have too much water flow. I have an AquaClear 110 (70g-110g) on my 40B and I have a very happy betta in there.

When you say you cycled the tank, what did you do? I'll second fishguy's question about the water level. I keep my water levels at the ledge on the tank frame to keep the current down in the tank.

 

[aprilp]

BigJim: I cycled the tank the way the books tell you to, meaning I got a couple of tetras, they created ammonia...I had a bacterial bloom for a day or so (cloudy water)...then my ammonia went to zero....then had some nitrites...now (a couple weeks later) both are back to zero and so I started adding more fish (but just two for now so as not to mess anything up).

I keep my water about two inches from the top of the tank but will definitely start keeping it up to the top. (My one filter I can adjust the flow to make it less, but the other, the Whisper, is strong and the water flow is not adjustable.)

As for the bubbles, from what I remember my tank being like before (of course it was a smaller tank and I was not using two filters) there just were not this many bubbles and they weren't floating all around the tank to the point of where if I was a fish I would confuse them with the fish food as the current pulls it down for them to eat, that's how many teeny tiny ones are in the water this time around. I guess as long as they can't get too much oxygen I'm good; I just didnt want to make them uncomfortable.

Thanks!

 

[fishguy1]

The bubbles will disappear when when you raise the water level.

 

[BigJim]

Glad to see you cycled correctly. Many new people here set their tanks up for a few days and call it cycled.

The two inch drop from the filter to the tank water will cause a lot of bubbles. Try filling the tank up the rest of the way and see if the bubbles and the current decrease.