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Installed the Linear Piston Air Pump in my "fish room" today couple questions


Razberry910
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I have a handful of tanks setup in our guest bath room and plan on adding more in the future. Working up to 16 tanks or so. To expand the fish room I installed a halo of 1 inch pvc with air drops (little Nickle ones from coop), and it's powered by the air pump from coop. 

Everything went smooth there's a ton of airflow with only 10 airlines being fed. To slow the airflow I adjusted the individual valves. Which works great except they hiss. At first I though it was leaks but I believe it's just the air pressure being force through a small opening. Has anyone experienced this?  I believe the hissing will lessen as I place more tanks/airlines on the system. 

Secondly I noticed the room smells extra fishy now. I'm guessing the extra airflow is doing some crazy gas exchanges in the tanks now. Tomorrow I'm going to do water changes and clean all the sponge filters. Has anyone noticed increase smells when airflow is improved? I assume this is actually a good thing and once the bacteria's balance out it will lessen. 

On a side note I didn't bother gluing any of the connections they wont come loose with the pipe straps and there isn't any air leaking from the elbows.

Thank you.

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Happy for you! I had a bunch of credit with my LFS, so I got a PondMaster air pump to run everything. I think that if you make an extra line to release pressure you _might_ get less hiss. Not sure though. I have heard some Linear Piston Air Pump users describe setting up an unused line going nowhere just allowing extra air pressure to release. Not sure about the smell. Where is the pump located? If it is sitting somewhere smelly, that smell will spread through the fishroom. Could be the bio though as you describe. 

 

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On 11/8/2022 at 5:38 PM, Fish Folk said:

Happy for you! I had a bunch of credit with my LFS, so I got a PondMaster air pump to run everything. I think that if you make an extra line to release pressure you _might_ get less hiss. Not sure though. I have heard some Linear Piston Air Pump users describe setting up an unused line going nowhere just allowing extra air pressure to release. Not sure about the smell. Where is the pump located? If it is sitting somewhere smelly, that smell will spread through the fishroom. Could be the bio though as you describe. 

 

I can open up other valves (I drilled 30ish) of course with no airline they blast out air very loud. I could expement with a muffler system but this will get me building the additional racks faster.

the pump is located on a shelf near the ceiling I can't say that would be a smelly location.

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On 11/8/2022 at 1:42 PM, Razberry910 said:

I'm guessing the extra airflow is doing some crazy gas exchanges in the tanks now. Tomorrow I'm going to do water changes and clean all the sponge filters. Has anyone noticed increase smells when airflow is improved?

Yeah, this is something I've experienced.  I run air pretty strong. I notice it mostly after feeding, or when walking into the room.  For me, it usually means it's time to air out the room, make sure things are ventilated properly (stagnant air) as well as checking to clean things if need be.  I imagine the analogy would be a boiling pot of soup vs. a pot that just on warm. Yeah they both "smell" but one fills the room a lot more.

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On 11/8/2022 at 8:15 PM, Cory said:

You can bleed off extra air by attaching an airline and an airstone. Can put that into a towel if you still feel it's too loud.

I'll have to try that. What I also noticed today was some of my adjustable airstones were opened to far. I tighten them up and that restricted the airflow letting me keep the valves full or nearly full open eliminating the hissing sounds. 

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On 11/8/2022 at 8:15 PM, Cory said:

You can bleed off extra air by attaching an airline and an airstone. Can put that into a towel if you still feel it's too loud.

Was going to make the same suggestion. When my linear pump was new and only ran sponges on like 10 tanks I added a bleed valve to relieve excess back-pressure from the system. To reduce the hissing sound, I used an extra long piece of tubing, and wrapped the end in a fluffy towel. It doesn't stifle the air flow, as much as it acts like a muffler to reduce sound. 

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Cory's suggestion is the correct one. Just run a valve full open with an airline attached, then stuff the end of that airline down somewhere that it can't be heard. The towel and air stone will further muffle the sound. 

As for the fishy smell . . . . where is the air pump located?  If the smell is concentrated in a certain part of the room and that's where the pump is, perhaps it's pulling that in and spreading it throughout the room in a way that you now notice it, whereas before the smell was just in that specific spot so you didn't notice it as much?  Just a thought.

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