hi , can someone please tell me what size air pump -[ diaphram ] not piston type will i need to run my seven [ 4ft x 18 x 18 ] tanks - each has 2 large corner filters & a 12 inch air stone ..will 1200 liters per hour be big enough .. want to get the right one .. thankyou 4 advise if any.. each tank holds aprox 235 liters of water .
Depends if your going to spend the money and buy quality like a HiBlow or go for one of the asian copies. Its always a bit of a guess with most of the asian copies but go for more, you can always bleed excessive air (or buy more tanks). I have a 150 L/min pump running 8 5x1.5x2 tanks with most having 3 sponge filters going with heaps of air. Hope this helps
thanks 4 reply -- the pump i am looking at puts out 2100 liters per hour - not 1200 as i stated & is a aqua one [ atman ] 4000 .. im thinking it will do job ,.
2100lt per hr is only 35lt per min i think this will not be enough as you are going to run two filters in each tank. now that is 16 outlets. i would be looking at something like at least 60 lt per minute if not a 90lt per min . i would hate to see you disapointed and having to buy another pump.
hope this sheds some light :)
I am running a total of 32 airstones into my 12 tanks which are all 18 inch deep off a 60lpm Atman pump. I would say that the pump is at its limit with this many airstones.
Josh
IMO, running with multiple tanks, I threw out all the airstones years ago. Too much cleaning and monitoring for equal flow rates etc. Most of the aeration comes from water circulation not the air bubbles themselves. You wont need as much pressure with out airstones but the bubbling sound will be louder. I bought all my airpumps back when there were no cheap China knockoffs so I was paying about $1000 per pump and I economised by lengthening the filter stems and running the airline only half way down the water depth. There is a huge difference between pumping to 18 inches depth and 10 inches depth so I was able to run more tanks with only a slight drop in filter performance (I measured water turnover)
I have since had good results with the multi color plastic airstones. You can take them apart to clean and alter air bubble size.
Winston
thanks people 4 your help / i have now got one pump running all my tanks with great sucsess / big gold pump pumpin like crazy & could still run my future tanks as they get set up . :D