Fishroom Air Loop Set Up Quesitons

My visit to Christine's fish room on Saturday has inspired me to try and get my room in better order. First order of business is to get an air loop system set up. At the end of the day, I will probably have somewhere around 30 outlets coming off the loop. I'm currently running an EcoPlus air pump, and it works, but is really noisy. I'll be investing in a blower before too long, but I think I have a good handle on that. The Jehmco ones are almost silent and I just need to decide what size to get.

My main question comes about setting up the distribution system. I know I will come from the blower to a PVC pipe to move air around the room. A few questions:

- What size PVC to use? I'd like to keep in somewhere in the 1.5 to 2 inch range just for aesthetics and keep the price down. Is this adequate?

- Do most folks run a full loop, or just dead end. I really won't need outlets on about 25% of the perimeter of my room, but can run the whole loop if that is what works best.

I use the Jehmco linear pump
I have the biggest one with over 100 outlets on it. You can not hear the pump from more than a few feet away from it. It used to be even quieter but its been running now since 2007.
LOVE IT.

I use 2 inch pvc for my air. I do not have it in a loop but always say that if I ever redo the room I will loop it.

I know they are not cheap. I keep a couple of old blowers in the house as a back up. When I used the blower I had to bleed off some of the air and you could hear the whine of the blower from even outside my house if you listened for it. When the club has been over before, people ask me where the air is coming from because you cant hear it. I have it outside the fish room.

Its funny you put this up. I just was looking at the prices today. Wondering how long mine would last and what the price was on new ones.

The pumps aren't cheap, but less than the price of running HOB filters on 10 tanks. And they last forever.

At least that's my justification.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

Pat - did you glue your joints on the PVC or are they just hand tight?


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

A few of my own comments:

- I use 1" PVC. In the old house I used 3/4". The smaller the PVC the harder to drill holes because of the curve of the pipe. Size doesn't really matter for the air loops.

- I didn't glue in the old house and would have joint that kind of would creep apart and start seeping air. I glued in the new fishroom.

- definitely do a loop, even if one side doesn't really have any outlets. It doesn't take much distance for the outlets on the far end of a run to lose pressure. The loop will help significantly with that.

- if you go with a bigger pump than you need....or just aren't going to build it out right away, Jehmco has plastic adjustable bleed valves for under $6 which you can use with a diffuser to bleed off excess air until you're ready for it. Basically, I put the valve where I could adjust it and see my deep tanks. Then I open the valve....then close it until I see a loss of performance in the deep tank. Back it off a hair to open it back up a little and leave it there until I add more tanks.

I use an Alita 60 closed loop with 1" pvc not glued. The pump is silent and have about 35 or so drops. Works great

I used 1 inch and it's a loop and glued. My loop is vertical on the wall behind my rack feeds upper and lower tanks. I also have a Jehmco pump very quiet.
Btw this is my 3rd air system I've built . I built 1 for two of each of my friends. Also did a none glued one it works . I would glue JMO .

The diameter of the pipe does actually make a difference. The larger the diameter, the less pressure it takes to push the air through (same as with water, actually, you'll get more head loss on a 3/4" PVC than you will with a 1"). You start getting diminishing returns on this pretty quickly, though, and the cost of the PVC starts going up. 1.5 or even 1.25 seem to give the best balance between cost and performance; I went with 1", and regret it.

Definitely do a closed loop. I had a dead-end set up at the old place, and Ted Judy convinced me to try putting a loop on it, just to see what happened. I had tanks that barely bubbled that needed to be turned down after installing the loop. Now, I've got tanks that are basically on a linear run, but I just use extra elbows and a few 2-3" pieces to make narrow loops. Its a HUGE difference.

I don't glue mine, but that's because I'm constantly moving stuff around and playing with the set-ups. Gluing has the advantage that stuff won't come apart, ever, and you won't get pressure losses from "leaks." There's a disadvantage that you cannot clean the pipes, change fittings, or reconfigure easily.

I glued some and others are not. If you look at the mess I have you can tell that i did not know what I was doing 22 years ago. LOL
I used the 2 inch figuring that larger would hold more volume? That smaller pipe might run out of air at the end of a run? I don't know.
I also used 2 inch because it gave me more of a flat surface to drill. Just me.

Nothing wrong with using 2". And yes, It is much easier to drill.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

Out of curiosity, I just checked Home Depot for pricing. Here's how it checks out:

3/4" - $0.27/foot
1" - $0.42/foot
1 1/2" - $0.55
2" - $0.75/foot

Fittings are negligible for my set up. All are around $1 or so. It would probably cost me around $20 to go from 1 1/2" to 2".




Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

2" runs about $0.20 more per foot of pipe, at least by today's pricing on Home Depot's website. Food for thought.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

Sorry for the double post. I thought the first one went away, so insisted again. Then it showed up. Stupid iPhone.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

Does Jehmco sell the fittings to go from the output in the pump to PVC? I couldn't seem to find them on the website.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

When I ordered from Jehmco, I told them over the phone what I was doing...."it'll be joining my 1" PVC loop with a T" and they added in a little piece of hose and all of the parts I'd need to connect it. I don't recall if they charged me, but if they did, it wasn't much.

jonclark96 said:

Does Jehmco sell the fittings to go from the output in the pump to PVC? I couldn't seem to find them on the website.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

Click to expand...

I connected my pump using clear vinyl hose with a hose clamp, attached to a barb fitting at the start of my loop. May not be pretty, but its been going for months now without issue.

I have a 1/2" system, mostly because I bought the system from someone, so I didn't do any 'shopping.' It worked well for me because the system had fittings with threads that the taps screwed directly into, no drilling required. I'm running an AL-80 with about 40 taps, and still have to bleed some air. My loop is closed, just ran the end into a T at the beginning of the loop.

That's how I'm set up, too.

You just get an adapter to accept a 1" hose barb, and clamp a 1" vinyl tube onto the barb and onto the output of the pump. Shorter the better.