NANO Air Diffuser (not for CO2)
These new Air Diffusers from our partner Aquapro are a completely different way to use air than a traditional airstone and can be a valuable addition to low-tech planted tanks as well as keeping delicate livestock thriving. It produces bubbles nearly as small as the CO2 diffusers it resembles and thus enables a massive surface area to volume ratio for maximum gas exchange. It works with a normal air pump to produce extremely small, gentle bubbles that remove waste gases and replenish depleted ones. It's the aquarium equivalent of breathing and our Air Diffusers are far better at it than a traditional airstone.
Some bubbles actually get stuck to plant leaves where the atmospheric CO2 can helps them a lot. The small bubbles do not excessively disturb the surface of the water and spread out around the tank, many following the currents.
An Air diffuser is extremely effective at exchanging gases so that your aquarium does not become "stale" or "stuffy". They quickly allow excess gases to leave while replenishing depleted ones so that your water is always at equilibrium with the atmosphere. This is the same function that our lungs serve and is vitally important to the well-being of livestock - especially delicate shrimp.
Surprisingly (to some perhaps) an Air Diffuser can even help the growth of plants in a "low-tech" or non-CO2 injected aquarium.
These, along with airstones and virtually anything powered by an air pump should not be used in a planted aquarium with a CO2 system. The extra CO2 provided by these systems promotes absolutely spectacular plant growth. They create CO2 concentrations more like many natural habitats rather than the atmosphere and the 20-30ppm of CO2 that we aim for should be encouraged to stay in the water as long as possible.
Again, our fantastic Aquapro Air Diffusers are for use with air, not CO2. CO2 systems (like our excellent CO2ONE) use either Bazooka, NANO, Twinstar, and High-Pressure Acrylic type Diffusers in the tank or incorporate an inline atomizer into an external filter return. They raise the CO2 concentration in your aquarium far higher than equilibrium with the atmosphere - resembling natural levels in many habitats.
If you are not injecting CO2 or running a "low-tech" tank, however, these may really help with plant growth, especially if you have a low bioload (like shrimp and other invertebrates) or are creating a plant-only tank.
Though the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere is minuscule (0.04%), it dissolves well in water, and keeping levels equilibrated with the atmosphere is far better than nothing at all. Just a few plants can use up virtually all the CO2 in an aquarium in mere minutes.
CO2 exhaled by fish or shrimp is very rarely enough to maintain the CO2 levels that many plants need to thrive as CO2 is rapidly absorbed by live plants. A well planted aquarium uses far more CO2 and produces far more O2 than fauna is able to exhale and inhale respectively.
Constantly exchanging gases with the atmosphere will, in these cases, replenish available CO2 before it is depleted.
These air diffusers are by no means a replacement for CO2 fertilization, but even the small CO2 concentration that can be obtained from the air is far better than nothing at all. Anecdotally, we've built tanks using a mixture of different plants that have thrived with just an air diffuser along with our proprietary, lab-formulated, and tested fertilizer (available soon).
These unique Air Diffusers can be used along with our tiny CO2 diffusing powerhead to further distribute air and will surely increase the number of bubbles that end up on leaves as direct contact with the atmospheric gases is a huge boon!
Give it a try for your next low-tech tank and you might be quite surprised at what you can achieve. Dedicated CO2 injection is always the gold standard but maintaining atmospheric equilibrium can provide a bit more CO2 to your plants and even a modest increase makes an enormous difference!
DID YOU KNOW?
CO2 Injection creates a more "natural" aquarium environment.
While some argue that CO2 systems are "unnatural", most of our favorite submerged aquatic plants hail from natural habitats such as lakes, ponds, streams, rivers, etc. that contain far more dissolved CO2 than physically possible in an aquarium.
Almost all aquatic habitats are substantially larger than an aquarium and play host to large-scale decomposition processes where organic material is ultimately converted to CO2. Massive amounts of terrestrial material such as leaves, wood, and the remains of terrestrial plants and animals are introduced into these aquatic systems in huge quantities, and the organic carbon they contain feeds the carbon cycle to replenish and reuse the most important element of life.
This means dissolved carbon can be plentiful in natural waterways where dissolved levels of CO2 far exceed air equilibrium or what can be produced in an aquarium absent large decomposition and constant carbon input from land.
Rather than a "high-tech", artificial or cheating way to improve plant growth, CO2 injection simply duplicates conditions found in the habitats of some of the most magnificent plants.
CO2 is more soluble in water than oxygen. A common phrase in the aquarium community is that CO2 is deficient in aquariums because it is not very soluble. This could not be further from the truth. Because of its molecular composition, CO2 is actually thousands of times more soluble than O2 in water. That is why it is used in soda, where insane amounts can be dissolved in concentrations much higher than O2 or N2.
Liquid water and many of its properties are the result of 'hydrogen bonds' between individual molecules of H2O. Oxygen is known as "electronegative" which means it attracts and holds on tighter to negatively charged electrons than other elements such as hydrogen. This is extremely important because the difference in electronegativity creates what is known as a dipole (commonly compared with a stick magnet) with slightly positive and negative charges on different parts. O2 and N2 are two atoms of the same element so they do not have a surface charge whereas CO2 contains oxygen and carbon - which is slightly less electronegative. This CO2 has a weak dipole that is much more easily dissolved by the hydrogen bonds in water.
