Can tons of tiny bubbles iritate fish?

Question

My hose that redirects my canister filter output to the bottom of the tank fell off yesterday & it ended up creating a circular current of air bubbles in the water, mashing them up & diffusing them in the water. The water has got millions of tiny air bubbles in it sorta like what you get when you pour hydrogen peroxide in the water. Could prolonged exposure to all of these tiny air bubbles harm the fish or irritate their gills? There's no way for them to breathe without getting some in their lungs. They're big fish (oscar & xingu pike) if that makes any difference.

The bubbles will go away if I hook the hose back up. I'm just asking if they're harmful.

I have never had one fish death in that tank. Dunno where you got the idea that my fish were dying.

Answer 1

WOW that was a long answer up there...

Anyway, yes the bubbles can hurt the fish, but it is highly unlikely that you have that many bubbles. Problems come when there are an inordinant ammount of bubbles (like when you pour a glass of water and it appears white) for a prolonged period of time. I have a similar issue in my tank because of one filter creating bubbles off the flow of another. But as I have never had any issues with it, I would suggest you not worry about it. Especially with fish that big, illness from gas bubbles is not likely.

Ha, if you want the bubbles to stop for asthetics though I dont blame ya, but I cant help ya there, sorry. Good luck.

Answer 2

I don't think so. I thought at first that maybe it could cause gas-bubble disease, but then I found this piece of information, which was quite relieving, so I hope it will be for you, too. :)

"But just what is gas bubble disease?

Gas bubble disease is caused by, yes, you guessed it, gas bubbles that form in the bodies of our fish. Generally these bubble are tiny and what they do is they end up blocking very fine capillaries- such as those found that feed the fins of a fish. These blockages tend to build up and subsequently cause a lack of blood flow to these areas. This in turn causes the afflicted area to die off, and the result is fin or other area damage. This makes a prime opportunity spot for secondary infection by bacteria and this in turn causes all manner of nasties for your babies.

It is not gas bubble disease then that is the primary killer although it can be (as it is in humans) if a gas bubble is large enough to block an artery feeding the heart or other vital organ and here I exclude the brain since it is a well known fact the Koi think only with their stomachs...

So the question that is now posed is how do these gas bubbles get inside our fish.

You may have heard of the term super saturation. If not, think of it like this. When we were kids we grew crystals of sugar, and potassium permanganate, and pretty much everything else we could think of. What we did was we boiled water and dissolved as much of the substance we wanted to create a crystal of in this hot water as possible.

It is possible to dissolve more of a substance in hot water than in regular room temperature water and it is this ability of water that we exploited when making our crystals. For instance, at room temperature a cup of water might be able to completely dissolve four teaspoons of sugar before becoming saturated and therefore unable to dissolve any more sugar. But if we heat the same cup of water to 90 Celsius we find that we may be able to dissolve even more sugar perhaps another 2 teaspoons or so.

Now, as the water starts to cool down to room temperature the solution of sugar and water becomes super saturated and the water is no longer able to keep all the sugar dissolved in solution. So, what happens is that the solid sugar starts to crystallize out of the water and if you get it right you end up with two teaspoons of sugar now neatly formed as neat funky looking crystals. And you have a cup of very sweet water left over.

Super saturation also occurs with gases in water. We all know of the bends in divers, when diving under water ones blood absorbs more nitrogen because of the much greater pressure that water exerts on ones body at depth. The pressure under water is such that the excess nitrogen is kept dissolved in the blood stream.

But if this pressure is suddenly relieved (i.e. the diver surfaces quickly), the nitrogen is no longer kept dissolved by the pressure and it pops up in the blood stream as small bubbles and cause all sorts of pain and complications for our poor diver.

Almost exactly the same thing happens in Koi ponds. Although our fish are aquatic by design, gas bubble disease is entirely a man made problem.

Typically gas can be super saturated into Koi pond water by being forced into the water under pressure. So you need a combination of water, gas and pressure to create gas super saturated water and guess where this happens?

You are 100% correct if you guessed your pump! If your pump has a slight air leak, or the inlet line has a slight air leak you may or may not notice a fine trail of bubbles entering the pump and then being forced into the water by the pressure generated by the pumps impeller.

And if this water is breathed in by your Koi, say near a deep water return, the gas which is no longer under pressure pops up in your Koi's blood stream

So if there is something that is plaguing your Koi and you cant figure it out, check for an air leak somewhere near your pumps inlet. It'll likely be small, and tricky to spot but it'll be there.

Please note that I am not worrying about small amounts of air that creep into your pump when you've cleaned the basket, or some air that gets in when you pump something dry. I am more concerned about very small air leaks that run on a continuous basis!

And note that it is impossible for an air pump to cause super saturated gas conditions, at any depth. This is because the pressure of the air at depth when coming up from an air stone is exactly the same as that of the water pressure. Hence it would be an interesting violation of physics for an air pump to cause super saturated water and hence gas bubble disease! It simply is not possible to cause any problem whatsoever by chucking an airstone, or an aerated bottom dome drain cover into your Koi pond and pumping air through it via an air pump."

Answer 3

Sounds odd,but it shouldn't be harmful,especially to the Pike,the Xingu is one long series of rapids,which should expose the species to just this sort of thing.

Answer 4

i think you should turn everything off except the light in your aquarium for 30 mins and the bubbles might go

Answer 5

no they dont do a differance to the fish

Answer 6

maybe you should use you tap and clean or get a new fish tank if u dont you may be the couse of the fish dieing!!!

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