Need help with my bubble wand

[Lauren B.]

I bought a flexible bubble curtain yesterday and I just tried to hook it up. My problem is that there's hardly any bubbles coming from it (about 1/3 of the bubble-production of my regular sized airstone). Does a new curtain need a breaking-in period?...does the soft material need to hydrate and "warm up"? The bubbles seem to mostly be sitting there stuck on the surface of the wand. After they're there for a little while they finally float off the wand. The end of the wand (the furthest from the air tubing) has no bubble production whatsoever. Could it be that my air pump is not strong enough? (I have a 5-gal air pump for a 6-gal tank). There's nothing else connected to the pump...only the wand.

The first 60 seconds or so when I first plugged the pump back in, there were no bubbles at all. I rushed to unplug it because I was afraid it would overheat.

Anyone have any ideas? It's been on for about 5 mins now, and there are a few more bubbles, but it's still not good.

[Chrona]

Give it a little longer, the porous material on the wand could have been plugged during shipping or something. Make sure theres no kinks in the air tubing too.

[AquaQueen]

Ok I had this same problem when I bought mine until I read the back of the package it came in and found out the wand is suposed to soak in your tank for any where from 1hr to 24hrs but mine worked very well after an hour. Just shut it off and let it sit in the tank for an hour and then try it again it should work fine. Good Luck

[Glasstapper]

When I had my 12" bubble wand, it didn't start putting out bubbles all along it until after a couple of days. After a few weeks, it started giving out less and less bubbles again. I ended up just taking it out. I don't know if I got a faulty one or not, but my experience with the flexible wands weren't very good.

However, I now have a 12" airstone, and it works like a champ!

[Lauren B.]

It's been running a few hours I checked on it and it was still putting out less bubbles than an airstone. I even ran to Petsmart and upgraded my pump to a larger size, thinking mine was too small. Then, as soon as I installed the new/larger pump, the the bubble wand goes back to square one and really sparse bubbles again! Argh!

I will let it run overnight like suggested. I did read the back of the package and it basically had only pictures and almost no text (for international users, I suppose), so there were no instructions on soaking it. I'll see how it's doing tomorrow.

[AquaQueen]

I didn't think it would be the pump was too small I have a tiny one I had to use when one of my big ones died and it worked the same..I still bought a new big one because I need the little one for my feeder tank but that's besides the point.

I know what you mean about the directions tho, I have bought a few things with those kind of directions and they are really insane...mine was on a pirate ship that you make out of some kind of cheapy brand of K'Nex(lego type thingys)...Yea let's just say the pirate ship was more like a pile of Sheet...lol

[Drumachine09]

Unplug it and let it soak for the night. Also, make sure the curtain is level, so the bubbles can be evenly distributed.

[Lauren B.]

So I returned the bubble wand today and bought another one at Petsmart.

I get it home, install it, and lo and behold.....zillions of bubbles! I get everything all set up and the ornaments and gravel and bubbler exactly how I want it all.....and I stand back.....and I look at it.....and I realize that the amount of bubbles it's putting out is way too turbulent for my tiny 6-gallon tank! The surface of the water was sloshing around violently like the Titanic just went down. Even the mid and upper leaves of the plants were being jolted all over the place. So after all this, I took it out and returned it as well! Lesson learned....no more bubble wands for me (at least not in this tank).

By the way, there was something defective about the first wand. It was nothing I was doing because the second one started right up bubbling as soon as I plugged it in. I traded everything in for a larger airstone...one of those big round ones. However, even that is putting out really big, fat, large-sized bubbles (and a lot of them) that's borderlining too distruptive. I will leave it though, since airstones have to be replaced kinda often. Maybe next time I'll try a ceramic airstone, for a kinder, gentler type of aquarium.

[cocoa_pleco]

mine was penn-plax. now i remember

[Nautilus29]

I have 3 different kinds in all of my tanks. In my 55g I have 2 bubbles wands, the kind that dont bend. I like those alot they produce alot of bubbles and they dont make much noise. And in my 29 and 10g I had 2 3 inche stones in my 29 and a circle stone on my 10g. One thing I noticed is the stones make alot more noise then the wands. My airpumps where really loud on those 2 tanks and my downstairs one you couldnt even here. So I went out and got 2 of the flexible airstones and I put them in my 29 g. That tank quieted down. And then in my 10g I put the 3 inch stone instead of the 1 inch ball. And that seemed to quiet that tank down alot. So IDK what was wrong but Im satisfied now!

[Gelo_USA]

get one valve to regulate the ammount of air tht comes out of ur airpump
I have the same problem with my airstone its sooooo much big bubbles tht it seems like I m having a "WATERquake" in my aquarium and after I got the valve I can regulate how much bubles I have comming out of the airstone

[cocoa_pleco]

isnt a way to lessen air flow to poke holes with a pin in the tube so less air gets to the airstone?

[Gelo_USA]

I think it would work but its not as safe as getting valve and anyways a valve is like 1$ u install in between the pump and the check valve thts it if u put holes in the tubing u need to do it between the check valve and the air pump otherwise if the pump fails ur gonna have water coming out of the holes

[Severus]

Yea, i would go with the valve. I just got one for my 10 gallon because the bubbles/air were wayy to strong

[Gelo_USA]

its good tooo when ur feeding
u can shut it off so there is no turbulence on the water while feeding... the food takes longer to sink so ur fish have more time to eat it and u have less waste falling into the tank bottom....
I also reduce the flow on my two filters to the minimum when feeding

[Severus]

Thats a good point. My filter still will have current, but it might be a lot easier