Tostada
Aquarium Advice Freak
I've got a little 5.5 gal that just has a snail and a betta in it. I'm going to put a lot of dwarf sag in it and probably a few shrimp.
It has an AquaClear 20 filter and a heater. That's it (well, except for the gravel). I jump-started the filter for a week on another tank, and my parameters are great. What concerns me is how stagnant the water looks. The water level is up to the bottom of the outlet on the filter, and the filter is almost perfectly silent -- which I thought was a good thing, but there's no surface agitation going on. Adjusting the flow of the filter changes the amount of current a little bit, but still no splashing so no agitation. It just doesn't look right to me. The surface of the water looks kind of dusty, and I can see how fast the current is in the little dust specs. It looks ominous and it's making me uncomfortable.
I took out an inch of water from the tank, so now the water has to fall some coming out of the filter. Now I can actually see a couple tiny specs of dust lower in the water, so I can tell that the water is swirling all around more instead of just at the surface. There are a few bubbles by where the water is splashing, and everything just looks more normal.
Am I insane? I don't like the way the tank looks with a full inch between the black and the waterline. Is it safe to have no surface agitation? Doesn't all the O2 leave the water without agitation? If you need agitation, doesn't that mean quiet filters are a pretty bad idea? Does everybody with an AquaClear use an airstone?
I was thinking of refilling the water up to the black and just getting an airstone. I don't want to create a whole bunch of current and freak out the betta, though.
It has an AquaClear 20 filter and a heater. That's it (well, except for the gravel). I jump-started the filter for a week on another tank, and my parameters are great. What concerns me is how stagnant the water looks. The water level is up to the bottom of the outlet on the filter, and the filter is almost perfectly silent -- which I thought was a good thing, but there's no surface agitation going on. Adjusting the flow of the filter changes the amount of current a little bit, but still no splashing so no agitation. It just doesn't look right to me. The surface of the water looks kind of dusty, and I can see how fast the current is in the little dust specs. It looks ominous and it's making me uncomfortable.
I took out an inch of water from the tank, so now the water has to fall some coming out of the filter. Now I can actually see a couple tiny specs of dust lower in the water, so I can tell that the water is swirling all around more instead of just at the surface. There are a few bubbles by where the water is splashing, and everything just looks more normal.
Am I insane? I don't like the way the tank looks with a full inch between the black and the waterline. Is it safe to have no surface agitation? Doesn't all the O2 leave the water without agitation? If you need agitation, doesn't that mean quiet filters are a pretty bad idea? Does everybody with an AquaClear use an airstone?
I was thinking of refilling the water up to the black and just getting an airstone. I don't want to create a whole bunch of current and freak out the betta, though.
