I have to admit the pump I bought is too big for a 1/2 barrel

Until you restrict it down for a good flow out of the hand pump so
that the surface water is not all stirred up it puts the pump into a
load, and it makes a droning sound. Adjust the restrictor clamp until
noise goes away and its too much water flow. So I added a T to the
inlet tube between the pump and the hand pump and ran it up and around
the bottom of the board the hand pump is mounted on. Its out of sight
and you can't tell its even there. I then punched some holes in it
and inserted some low pressure drip irrigation connector fittings. Now
I can take some of the load off the pump and adjust the flow down out
of the hand pump and take the load off the pump. While playing around
with hole punching, I inserted some T fittings (1/4" ) and was able to
make the water in the tub circulate around the surface's outer edge..
Further playing with these T's gave me an idea, when I started to
think about the air jets on the hot tub. I used some hot water and
heated a T fitting and bent it into a sort of Y shaped fitting, and
it worked like a venturi and started to suck air into the discharged
water. I added a piece of tube to the end of the Y fitting and placed
it so it would be at the tubs bottom under the plant support rack. So
now I have aereation which is ivery fine bubbles which is bound to be
good for the fish. The fish also seem to enjoy the flow of water
around the outside edge of the tub as well as the fine stream of
bubbles this aereator makes.Really looks pretty neat at night, just
like a bunch of silver dust coming up out of the water against the
plants silouettes.

Is there a commercially made venturi that you can buy to add to a
regular pump available? I have never seen one, but I have not really
looked all that hard either.

Do you think there is any real advantage to providing this aereation?
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