Air pump size...

[wabyrd]

I have a question about air pump size. I have a 50 gallon freshwater with some bubble bars in the bottom. There are two 14" and a 7 inch (35 inches total). The water depth is about 17 inches deep. I had two air pumps laying around, so it wasn't a big deal to hook them up, but both of the pumps are too weak to aerate the whole bubble bar string. The bars are all connected together end to end. I tried a Profile 1000, and then tried the Profile 1500 to see if it would aerate the whole bubble bar, but it doesn't do the job either. How much air pump do I need to get air out of the whole thing? These are the "stone" bubble bars, so I don't want to push so much air that they explode (if that's possible).

 

[wabyrd]

Update

I got a Profile 2900 and used a t-piece to hook it in with my Profile 1500. It's a little better. I'm going to get another t-piece and add in my Profile 1000 and see if that fixes the problem.

Bill

 

[loganj]

It's going to take a lot of pump to run all that. You might want to look into one of the "deep water" pumps. The Luft pump is a good one. If noise isn't an issue, you may be able to use a piston type pump instead of the diaphram type. They are more costly, louder, and use more power, but they will blow a golf ball through a garden hose . I think Tetra (?) makes a line of deep water pumps that you might want to look at.
Logan J

 

[wabyrd]

Noise is an issue. I like to be able to sleep at night. Is Tetra the quietest around?
Since my airstones are inline, is it OK to use a T-piece to hook up both outlets together on the pumps that have dual outlets so that I only have the one air hose going into the tank? Or should I put different airstones on different pumps?

 

[loganj]

I don't know how quiet the Tetra pumps are...never used one. I just know they have a line of deep water pumps that are supposed to handle back pressure better than the other pumps.
You can hook the pumps up any way you want as long as you don't put too much on the single air line. You will only be able to push a certain amount of air through it with the diaphram type pumps...maybe not enough to run all those air stones. It's one of those things you'll just have to experiment with. It's going to be hard on the pumps so you might see if you can get new diaphrams for whatever pump you end up using.
Logan J

 

[Chrismac]

You can always put your pump on top of some type of cloth to stop the viberation against its surface.
just make sure its dry.

Chris.