Too much air for fish from long bubbler?

[Xirxes]

Hello,

I just recently replaced an air pump for my 14" bubbler, and now there are a TON of bubbles coming out. The pump that was recommended was the Elite 803. The two clowns i have in the tank seem to love it! (swimming up to the top of tank and "braving the current" all the way to bottom before repeating.

It just seems to be a ton of air coming out now.

My question is if there is such a thing as too many bubbles for Loaches? Being river dwelling fish, i have read that they like a current here and there, and there ARE sections of my 30g tank that have little to no current, but the section above the long bubbler are quite turbid.

[Mark in Vancouver]

You can't have "too much" air in a fish tank, but you will eventually need a larger tank if you mean to keep clown loaches. I would say at least 75 gallons.

[shari]

I agree with Mark on both counts. 30g is too small for clowns for long, and lots of air bubbles will only make the clowns happy...

[mikev]

Only for the sake of being contrarian and what else can I do with all the snow outside?

Yes, too many bubbles may be bad for your fish.

Specifically, if these are very small bubbles and you got a lot of them, some may "stick" to the fish and provide an additional lift, this may disorient and hurt small "ordinary" fish. Not clowns, and probably not any loaches, but small danios/barbs/tetras/rasboras -- yeah.

[shari]

You just love that 'contrarian' stuff, don't ya mikev?

Nah, must be the snow....

[cybermeez]

Lots of air bubbles can raise pH in a closed system. But with pH the biggest concern is primarily instablity.