Air pump question...

[Taregreen]

How do you spec an air pump? I just took advantage of Petco's dollar per gallon sale today and bought three more tanks, a 20L and two 10s. I plan to run sponge filters in these three new tanks and in a 10 I already have, but want to run them all on a single air pump. What size air pump would I need? 

Thanks!

[Andrew Geiger]

So you just have the 3 under 20L? or 20gal? Unless you have a ton of tanks, and want to run them all on air driven sponge filters, I would just get a 2 output eco-air, or any regular 2+ air pump. You can put a 1/4in barbed T and split if you want, with smaller tanks you will not need it fully on anyways, also the screw in valves can adjust the amount of air down.

I personally have found the cheaper (example: sunsun brand) 1.5L/min or 90L/hour is more than enough for a small tank with low depth. The ecoair2s are 240L/H each output, so quite a bit stronger.

[TheDukeAnumber1]

Quote

Unfortunately the question of "how many tanks can this pump run" is tricky. If you have twenty 10 gallon tanks and I have twenty 125 gallon tanks, the pump won't put the same air into each of those setups. The type of air stone used, how deep in the water it has to go,  the layout of the air loop, along with how big of pvc you use (we recommend 1 inch) all play a part. The loose rule that I have developed for my own use of of these style of pumps is 1 airstone per liter of output

Co-op online store has a good response to this.

So about 1 liter of air per minute per sponge filter.

Edited November 3, 2020 by TheDukeAnumber1