It was 1am on a Saturday night when I decided to do my weekly waterchange. I decided to clean a few items in the tank including the air hose. When I tried to pull the sandstone airstone off of the air line to clean it, the airstone basically disintegrated. I didnt really feel like running to town so i devised a way to supply my tank with air with items already existing in the tank. This project is quick and cheap. All materials should already be in your tank!
Items needed:
Air hose
1 piece of aquarium gravel (or any small gravel)
Tools needed:
A sharp object needles or pins work best but you could probably use a nail or a knife in a pinch
Step 1:
Find a piece of gravel that fits tightly into the airline as shown below here. This is just to plug up the end of the tubing.
Step 2:
Pierce the piece of airline with a sharp object. Continue to pierce the hose until there are hundreds of tiny holes in the tubing. For this airstone I poked holes for about 2 inches. After using the sharp object to create all of the holes - you are done! Attach the other end of the hose to the air pump and voila! The photo below shows the method I used.
Here is the airstone in action - nothing but an airline poked full of holes. I used a zip-strap to attach a piece of gravel to hold it down, but you can easily just sit a rock or ornament on top of it to hold it down.
Copyright 2006 - Keith Pardee
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