Pump Issues

Hi
I have a Aqua nano 30 , 22 litres tank . I've had it for 6 weeks now but my main concern is the pump . It produces ripples and not bubbles. Last week it became very noisy and started to make bubbles . The Venturi pipe amplified the noise sucking air through. I took the pump apart and cleaned it with cotton buds and put it back in and it was quiet again. But now producing ripples again but not bubbles. Is this ok to just have ripples ? Is it getting air in to the fish ? I have a betta , and two pigmy Corey's , and two snails . The flow is still quite strong even though it's on the lowest setting . I would like it less for the betta if possible. The design of the tank doesn't allow me to move the pump as it has to align with the hole for the tube to feed through into the tank. All the equipment is in a consealed compartment at the back . Everything else seems to be ok . I did a fish less cycle before I added any fish, and had the water nitrate levels tested . The bettas been in there 2 weeks now.
Ally

Hello Ally2, and welcome to the forum.

I have an Aquanano cube 40 so I know the set-up you have. It's very difficult to reduce the flow of those pumps as even the minimum setting is quite strong - and the maximum setting is like Waikiki beach with the surf up! The best method I've found was to get some filter sponge and cut a small piece out, squash it down and put it in the pump outlet tube. A fair bit of trial and error is needed to get a piece that's small enough to let water out but big enough not to get spat across the tank.

Plan B would be to rig up a spray bar type thing that you can either push in to the pump or attach to the nozzle thing.

Keep a close eye on your water parameters after making any pump changes just to make sure the filter's doing its job properly.

Your Betta doesn't need a huge amount of filtration, so as long as there's some flow through the filter then he'll be fine. Could I suggest upping the number of pygmy cories, they are a shoaling species and would apprciate being in a group of 6 or more.

Sorry I meant what testing method did you use during the fishless cycle so that you knew it was cycled properly?

If you give us the dimensions of your tank we can offer advice on what fish could go in the tank with the corys and Betta. However you should expect to be very restricted due to the fact it's a Betta that is vulnerable to any sort of nippy fish and also due to being quite a wee tank... But there is always something you can do with it 

The Aqua nano 30 is a 30 cm cube. And the volume is 22 litres but I don't know if that volume includes the space taken by the filter.

The tank is too small for any fish except the so called micro-fish, which would be eaten by a betta; or at least he would attempt to eat them which would stress the tiny fish so much they'd probably die.
It is also too small for a shoal of pygmy cories. As they do need to be in a shoal, I'd see if the shop will take them back. They are also not good tank mates for bettas as the cories need a temperature range of 22 to 26 deg C while bettas need 26 to 27.
If you don't have problems with the thoughts of snails, nerite snails are good betta tank mates, just one of the larger species or maybe two of the smaller ones in this sized tank. The advantage with just one is that you wouldn't get eggs laid everywhere.

I have a 26 litre tank with one male betta and a nerite snail 



Paddy is asking how you cycled the tank. A lot of people believe that letting the tank run empty for a couple is weeks is cycling - it isn't. Fishless cycling is adding ammonia to the tank before getting fish, and it takes at least four weeks. When I cycled a tank earlier this year it took 7 weeks.

You need to test for ammonia and nitrite as well as nitrate; they are more important. Any reading for ammonia and nitrite above zero is bad while nitrate can go to 40ppm plus without harming the fish.

Earlier this year I asked an aquatics vendor how many *goldfish* I could put in a 70 litre 60cm tank. He said I could get away with four...

Then I discovered this forum.

I don't ask LFS anymore :p (Unless they are private specialists.)

Hi
In terms of the 8 fish I thought that picking the Pygmy Corey's and tetras were small enough for my tank, and were also not going to grow bigger . I will do more research on all aspects including the water temperature .
Thanks everyone for your comments .
I will look for the sponge as I'd like to reduce flow a bit for the betta .
Ally

Hi Ally and welcome to the forum ,

I know it can all seem a bit conflicting with shops / marketing pictures on tanks seemingly saying one thing and then a whole range of info on the internet of varying quality saying different things. However, Fishbase and Seriously Fish (cited by Sue) are good quality international resources, so much so that in some countries (eg Germany, Switzerland), there is legislation in place based on that and which makes it illegal for shopkeepers to sell or market tanks under a certain size for fishkeeping at all or to sell tanks under a certain size for certain fish or to sell fish unsuitable for the tank size. I've also heard anecdotally that fish aren't sold in these countries until a full fishless cycle has been done. In the UK, legislatively, the onus is on the pet-owner to do the research and make responsible choices. Hope that's helpful context.