Air stone issue?...

[Jandlms]

I just started setting up my fish room.  Air loop connected to a piston pump from Aquarium Coop. Airline run to a no clog air stone in a matten filter.  Stone from AC. Matten from Flips.

No bubbles come out of the Matten tube????? Check airline. No kinks.  Check airflow by connecting to a sponge filter from AC.  No problem-bubbles away happily. Try different no clog air stones from AC in matten filter.  Nothing.

Has anybody had probs with the no clog air stones?  Any advice would be appreciated.

[Schmorty]

Are you sure air is coming through the airline? I've never had an issue with the never clogs, though you may want to try loosening the screw in the stone to make sure it's not too tight.

What can be likely is that you've got a leak in the system, be it a crack in the circuit or your other taps are open wide. The air is going to take the easiest route out of the system, and if the pressure of water is too much compared to other routes, it's not going to come out. If you take the airstone off, do you get bubbles out of the tubing? Does the airstone work when the tubing isn't looped through the Matter filter?

[Jandlms]

Bubbles come out of the tubing with the air stone removed and a minimal amount of bubbles come out of the air stone when I remove it from the filter. Doesn’t seem like a great deal of air but it bubbles.  When I connect the airline to a sponge filter it bubbles just fine. Also the sponge filter is about the same depth as the matten filter so it doesn’t seem to be pressure related.

 

[DaveO]

You don't by chance have an air valve or check valve in line? The valve may be closed or the check valve may be backwards.

[Jandlms]

Good thought but nope.  I think I’m going to chalk this up to not enough air pressure to pop bubbles out with maybe a tiny bit of kink in the airline.  My air loop was constructed from pex so is definitely not air tight. I’ll try constructing a new one tomorrow from glued pvc.

[StevesFishTanks]

How tight of a fit is the airstone in the pvc tube? I up sized my pvc and changed to a skinnier airstone.

I recently changed all of my mattenfilters from never clogs to the small clear ones that come with the ziss boxes.

[Andy's Fish Den]

The no clog airstone has two pieces that screw together with felt pads between. You can control the size of bubbles by how tight you have the pieces screwed together. Do you happen to have it screwed too tight? I know I have gotten a couple that out of package were too tight for much air to come out and I just had to loosen them up some. 

[Jandlms]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I noticed that also and adjusted all the air stones I utilized.  I just completed a new loop for the air system as I think part of the problem might be not enough air pressure for the depth of the matten filter tubes.  I originally utilized pex for the loop.  Easy to work with but it doesn’t hold air really well.  Hopefully my second loop of glued pvc will take care of the problem.