Changing air stone solved a problem

[Patrick_G]

For a week or two my patio pond goldfish were congregating in a corner at the surface. I had one airstone, but it looked like they needed more air so I added another one to the pond. It didn’t work, they were still staying at the surface and sipping air. I decided to change out the first airstone for a slightly larger one. That did the trick, now my lovely goldfish are swimming, eating and putting in weight after a long cold winter. Lesson learned!

[lefty o]

odd that adding an extra didnt work, but then changing out the original did. whatever keeps the fish happy i guess.

[nabokovfan87]

On 4/17/2022 at 1:06 PM, Patrick_G said:

I decided to change out the first airstone for a slightly larger one. That did the trick,

what was there before and after?  I'm curious.  And this is coming from someone who saw a tank with a gigantic pond air stone for a 5g tank. (long story)

[Patrick_G]

On 4/17/2022 at 1:19 PM, lefty o said:

odd that adding an extra didnt work, but then changing out the original did. whatever keeps the fish happy i guess.

That was the strange thing. The new one is bigger, but the pump is the same capacity. I think the old one might be partially clogged.
I’m happy it worked. These fish have names are family wet pets, I was feeling pretty bad when I couldn’t figure out the problem. 

On 4/17/2022 at 3:12 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

what was there before and after?  I'm curious.  And this is coming from someone who saw a tank with a gigantic pond air stone for a 5g tank. (long story)

It’s a 100 gal pond. First was just a generic airstone, then I added a Ziss adjustable stone in a sponge filter and then finally I added a 10”x2” penn-plax aqua mist. The pump has enough pressure to make about 1/3 of the penn-plax emit air. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 4/17/2022 at 6:41 PM, Patrick_G said:

First was just a generic airstone, then I added a Ziss adjustable stone in a sponge filter and then finally I added a 10”x2” penn-plax aqua mist. The pump has enough pressure to make about 1/3 of the penn-plax emit air

I have one of the older "never clog" airstones and some of new ziss ones. I definitely had a few head scratching moments where I had to go and clean off the ziss ones to restore flow.

It sounds like you might just have had a defect in the tube on the generic one, like a little piece of plastic that was narrowing flow perhaps or simply a narrowing of the tube from the molding process that showed itself over time. Weird.....