Recommend air pump

[flanque]

Hi all,

I'm a little worried about my current air pump. I have concerns it might malfunction and potentially cause a fire. Basically it happened to a friend who had a 4yr old air pump and mine is up around this age.

It's probably undue paranoia, I'm sure.

In any event I am considering replacing it because the one I have now is actually pretty noisy and so replacing it for a quieter one is a good justification.

Any recommendations? I'm considering the AquarWorld brand, but haven't heard much about this brand in the past. Does anyone have experience with this brand?

Also, how do you translate these ratings on the air pumps to something practical?

e.g.: 2.3 Watts 1.4 lpm

Thanks in advance.

[neilanh]

I've never used that brand, but of the several I've used the Whisper's are my favorite for the lower noise levels.

The numbers you stated are:
2.3 Watts is the amount of power the unit consumes (this is what effects your electric bill)

1.4 lpm is liters per minute, this annotates how much air the unit pushes for reference.

Once you attach 10 feet of airline, etc, the lpm is reduced, but these numbers are just to give you a point of reference between different units.

What size is your tank?

[flanque]

It's a three footer, but really all I want to achieve is breaking the surface of the water. Presently I have my air pump just attached to an airline and it's secured almost down the bottom of the tank. I find I get better surface disturbance when the airline is deeper.

Are there really any fire concerns? I do have a smoke detector in the room and it goes off when I mildly burn my toast, so I know it works just fine.

[ccCapt]

So you are just using the air pump to put bubbles in the tank? If so, that is not doing anything to oxygenate the water. Basically all your doing is spraying salt creep all over.

Not sure if your tank is fw or sw, so if it's fw, disregard the above.

[flanque]

My research online and in books states that using air pumps with air stones in tanks doesn't really do much for oxygenation despite common thought that it does and that the key to oxygenation is the total surface area and breaking that surface area, hence this is why I want to break the water surface using large air bubbles.

My objectives really are:

1. Assist oxygenation.
2. Break surface to help mix up any oils, dust, etc on the surface to mix into the water for collection by filtration.
3. Break surface to help produce the ripple effect from the lights.

What would your recommendations be?

[FishEggs]

well if you have a hang on back power filter like the aquaclear it should be plenty. i use just an aquaclear 50 on my 40gal tank which is 3ft wide and have no problems with dust or oils floating on top. it's also a lot quieter than big bubbles breaking the surface.

[neilanh]

The bubbles breaking the water do aid in gas exchange. I think the only point that ccCapt was trying to make is that there's a maximum benefit point, and if you have a filter or some other means, the addition of the airpump may be overkill.

[shawnryan1977]

I would recommend Penn-Plax air pumps or even the Whispers.
I’ve had my penn-plax for six years with no problems and the whisper for 3 years. Both are quiet and since I just use 1 stone or bulb wand I just bought the smallest version, which saved me money. I use air pumps just because I like the sound.