Bubbler pumps

John Bachman wrote:

On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 09:29:47 -0600, John Hines
wrote:

John Bachman wrote:

On Fri, 03 Dec 2004 13:25:53 -0600, John Hines
wrote:

(Mosfunland) wrote:

I went to the store and looked at all of the little bubbler pumps for
aquariums....I had one years ago, that worked well, but I can't remember how
"strong" it was... I have a small D shaped pond, 5 X 12 at the longest points
about 30" deep. Any suggestions?

Tetra makes a "deep water" line of pumps, of which the smallest one
should work fine. By deep water, they mean a bit higher pressure for
tall tanks.

Use straight plastic tubing, running straight down so no water collects
(and freezes) in it. A straight pipe, straight down is the only thing
that has worked for me.

If you are in a cold zone, like me, you may have trouble with any of
the aquarium pumps. The problem is that they are all diaphragm pumps
and when the diaphragm gets cold it stiffens and can not push the air
as deep as before.

You don't need depth to keep the surface open.

I have had ice 18" thick and want my bubbler below that. Even with
the bubbler there has been a thin sheet of ice form in the hole during
really cold nights. I break that out by hand.

I would take a watering can with hot tap water out to the pond, and use
that to un-freeze the opening. If there is open water, it will
evaporate, or be splashed out, so there is a need to fill up the pond.

I solved my problem by making my own PVC bubbler and connecting it to
my air compressor. The compressor is in the garage (detached) so the
noise is not an issue. Some think that running the compressor is more
costly than an aquarium pumps but I cranked the numbers and found it
to be cheaper to operate.

Yeah I tried that one as well, but the air line freezes up along the
way.

Have not had that problem yet. Do you have a moisture collector on
the output of your compressor?

No, they are not cheap.