What pump to aerate my reservoir

[grooving]

Help please! Anyone with aquarium submersible pump advice. 

 

I use gravity-fed Blumat drippers in Ecothrive living soil and use a 1000l/hr pump attached to a Bubblegen flume in my 65l reservoir to aerate and keep the dreaded pythium away. 
 

My current pump failed (got a few years out of it) and I’m now onto my second new one and neither of them seemed to put out the amount of power to drive air through the Bubblegen flume and the second one pictured below was making a hideous grinding noise when I was doing my daily check this morning. 
 

So I’m wondering if I’ve bought the wrong type   I thought I simply needed a submersible aquatic pump which is what I got but the output is pathetic!  Maybe I’m doing something wrong but I thought they were plug in and off we go. Also checked the Bubblgen and it doesn’t appear to be blocked.

 

 

Bubbling away nicely with the old pump.

 

Zero bubble output with a new pump.  I’ve stuck some air stones in for the interim. 

 

[JonDaMon]

Personally I don’t like injecting air into my reservoir. 
 

I opt for a small hailea 500LPH and direct it towards the surface. 
 

A simple agitation of the surface water imo works best as injecting air can also mess about with pH stability in your reservoir. 
 

if you pump is a water pump just direct the flow of water towards the surface of your res so that you can see a current forming and the surface is agitated. 

[Slippy One]

Is the impeller slightly out? Take it apart and re-seat it. I use blumats too, but just water. 

[grooving]

@JonDaMonI’ve heard that about the air stones changing the pH which was the reason I went for the Bubblegen flume instead.  I remember Oldtimer1 advising bubbling water to anvoid nasties so thought it best practice with watering cans and reservoirs.

 Either ways the pH isn’t an issue since I’m growing in living soil.  Will look at the Hailea though cheers. 

 

@Slippy One I thought you made a good concise post on Blumats a couple of days ago, nice one.  Last time I used Blumats was in coco and I ignored the instructions and put Organix nutes in the tank, only lasted about 5 days before it became obvious my grow had gone tits up and I was spending lots of my spare time hand-watering again!  The salts had clogged the pipes. Obvs.  Will check the impeller and maybe that’ll increase the flow rate as well as the noise disappearing but the odd thing is that the first pump I tried didn’t work that well either.  Streak of bad pump luck maybe?!  Maybe I should try a 3rd.

 

[catweazle1]

The surface of the water is what needs breaking up continually to to allow gas exchange. Air bubbles work the same way, but as JonDaMon says, air pumps negatively affects pH. Water circulation with the surface breaking will do the same job.

Edited November 17, 2023 by catweazle1

[stu914]

Having a 'fluming' pump on all the time in the bottom of your res will not only oxygenate

but also warm the nutes a few degrees...handy this time of year...