The Quietest Air Pump (shhhhhhhh...)

[OnTheReef]

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Ahhhh, can't sleep! Brrrrrrrrrr! Dreaming of sliding off a cheap motel massage bed. Brrrrrrrrrr! Wake in the middle of the night thinking something is coming apart at its seams...

Alright, you get the idea. Most of my fish tanks reside in my bedroom and the air pumps are seriously driving me insane. I recently switched to the TetraTec Deepwater pumps and while they are a dramatic improvement over any others I have ever used, I need something *slient* I have heard that the quietest air pump ever was a stainless steel German piston pump which is no longer made and many old hands in the hobby have kept them running all these years.

Is there any modern air pump which can compete in terms of quietness?

 

[Sati]

That's my dream too! My tanks are not in the bedroom but they still drive me crazy and I'd like to have some in every room of my house someday :]

 

[scat]

THE SILENT GIANT!!!

These were big, but low capacity airpumps, probably from the 60s and 70s. I bought a bunch of them at a garage sale, and they were dead silent. When one failed, I opened it up. It was nothing more than a typical airpump in a tunafish looking can, surrounded by washed (no dust) rounded quartz sand. The sand dampens the vibrations of the pump. The current cheapskates version of it would consist of dropping your airpump into a 10-20 packing sand. Packing sand is available from your local waterwell drilling supply outfit. The 10-20 refers to the particle size, where the sand passes through a No. 10 sieve (10 openings per inch with a opening dimension of 2.0mm) and is retained on a No. 20 sieve (0.85mm). Packing sand is pretty clean (not dusty) right out of the back.

 

[scat]

I meant....

...right out of the bag.

 

[Sati]

Scat, your name scares me, lol... but thank you! :]

 

[mattseattle]

i thought that at first but then thought maybe it means something else besides what i think it means

Possible meanings:
Jazz singing in which improvised, meaningless syllables are sung to a melody

Excrement, especially of an animal; dung.

To go away hastily; leave at once.

 

[scat]

Definition of SCAT

Go search ebaymotors.com, and you will find many other uses of the word "scat". It means whatever you think it means.....I never took Latin.

 

[Desolas]

If it makes you feel better when I see Scat I think Volkswagen, not fecal freaks.

 

[Macbeth417]

If you are not using the airpumps for esthetic value and just want something to agitate the surface for gas exchange, why not take it out and put in a powerhead?
Just a suggestion.

-Erik

 

[OnTheReef]

The contenders

Over the past few days I have done some research and found an excellent DIY article on reef central for building an air pump muffler. I also plan to try out a few air pump models to see if they are any quieter than the ones I have now. Here are the contenders:

LMI small linear air pump
http://www.lmimg.com/OrderPage.asp?PN=DB8A

The Modern Air Quiet Rotary Series Air Pump
http://www.petsforum.com/SpringShow/Showcase2.htm

Plenn-Plax Silent Air X-1
http://www.thatpetplace.com/cgi-bin/sgdynamo.exe?UID=2003111511573837&HTNAME=FRAMEM_FL.html

Rena Air 100 Air Pump
http://www.thatpetplace.com/cgi-bin/sgdynamo.exe?UID=2003111511573837&HTNAME=FRAMEM_FL.html

Anyone used any of the above and can comment on them?

 

[Doug1]

Silent Giants rocked, but then for about $20 (70's money) you would expect it to out perform those loud $3 airpumps.
Power heads might be a better option.
FWIW a friend of mine decided to breed oscars back in the 70s, we took a smog pump off his truck, pumped it thru a pvc canister of carbon and ran a bunch of airstones on the 20 55g tanks he had setup in the fishroom

 

[aquariumdebacle]

I have a deep water Tetratec as well. Not as noisy as my RIO 2500's but that's not saying much. I love the output as I'm trying to draw water about six inches above the tank. I wrap mine in a towell but I like the sand Idea. I thought Scat's were fish. Or musicians.