I've moved mostly over to the dark side (marine/reef tanks) over the last couple years. I still have two planted FW tanks setup, and some pond plants.
My clownfish have been laying eggs, and I've purchased equipment to grow out phytoplankton and rotifers, and setup a couple breeding tubs to raise the clownfish larvae. I bought the linear piston air pump the co-op sells, as I got tired of the nano USB pumps failing after a year or less of use., and this way I have a long-term, quiet, reliable air supply.
I'm on a reef keeping discord, and one of the members is a very experienced aquarist at a large public aquarium (he has some specific experience with designing equipment to transport fish collected at depth under pressure). He has expressed concern about what happens to PVC if it fails with a pressurized air system, and has suggested using ABS designed for pressurized air instead (he's also said that with the low pressure the linear piston pumps run at, it's not likely to ever be an issue). I think he's mostly thinking of commercial scale air installations.
After researching alternatives, it really seems to me like PVC is the easiest and most affordable option, and I think any failure that would result in PVC creating shrapnel seems incredibly unlikely with how we setup systems.
That being said, has anyone ever heard of a PVC air loop system catastrophically failing in some manner where the PVC did crack or create shrapnel? I am setting this up in a high school classroom, so I want to make doubly sure that it's quite safe.