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| Weighted
Tubing, Air Hose & Tubing Diffuser tubing, air hose, weighted aeration airline, bubbler line and air-supply line for ponds and lakes The tubing, or airline, that runs between your air pump, compressor or blower can be of many types and sizes. Tubing can be buried, trenched or set directly on the surface. Airline comes in both weighted and non-weighted. Often the weighted airline will be used only in the pond and any distance between the compressor and the edge of the lake or pond will be covered by the cheap airhose. Always use an airhose that can handle the rated pressure output of your compressors. We've seen people using piston pumps delivering 50 PSI that has melted and split cheap airline because the temp ratings and pressure rating were not high enough. All of our tubing can meet or exceed the general tubing, pressure and heating needs of any aeration compressor.
The barbed outlet may be made of PVC or metal, brass or stainless-steel and this is what will connect to your airline tubing. Adapters are readily available from local hardware or plumbing supply stores if ever you need an adapter to adjust from the compressor outlet to the diffuser inlet. Is Weighted Tubing Worth The Money? Using a weighted-airline, without any metals, is great because it cuts the work load by about 95%. Weighted airline is not cheap but the alternative is using regular polu-pipe and attaching bricks or weights and than can take a full crew a day or more of messy knuckle-busting work. Using the weighted hose makes the installation go much faster and for any contractor getting paid by the job this means the distance betwwen quote and paycheck is shorter! All the tubing, weighted or regular 100, 150, 200 or 300 PSI poly, is safe and metal free. Unless you are using the weighted diffuser bubbler tubing for de-icing or aeration which contains a metal bead of lead in the keel. All other tubing is extremely supple and long lsting usually with UV carbon mixed in the PVC or rubber mix to ensure protection from the sun. Another mysterious yet magical consideration to keep in mind is that the lengths of tubing involved will impact the overall operating pressure of the system which needs to be taken in to account when sizing your compressor pump or blower. In larger ID (Inner Diameter) piping and tubing the pressure or friction loss will be negligable but when lengths of 800 to 2500 feet are involed the pressure required to push 5 CFM to the end may be significant. Generally with larger I.D. tubing there is less pressure loss and friction loss. In smaller ponds this is not really an issue especially if a linear air pump is used to push air in a 3 foot deep pond. In this case some 3/8" weighted airline will be fine...my point is to be very aware of the distances that are required of your tubing and the pressure cababilities of our pump. For example, a standard 100 foot length of weighted airline can add as much as 0.1 PSI to the overall needs of your system and this is before any consuideration is given to the diffusers! Again, in most smaller systems this doesn't enter in to the equation but one interesting experiment that my grand-son got me involved in was to take a 10 foot length of air hose that had an inner diameter of 3/8 of an inch and a 10 foot length of 3/4" of an inch air hose and I literally couldn't believe the difference in the amount of force it took...the smaller bore tubing airline was really tought to push air through and the larger diameter tube was so easy...ok...so none of the compressors I have ever used have red puffed-out cheeks like I did but it sure set me straight!. Non-Weighted Tubing & Cheap Airhose Buy Cheap Poly Pipe at Amazon  
Weighted airline can cost an arm and a leg...let's face it...it makes the job much easier but it also costs three times as much as regular airhose. But before you start duct taping jumbo straws together to make an inexpensive DIY airhose think about the job of attaching weights, metal re-bar rods or bricks every 8 feet to a 300 foot length of floating PVC plastic pipe and you might soon change your tune! I really only use the heavy-duty poly air pipe for tubing runs on shore and then switch to the weigfted tubing in the water. There are some cheap tubing available at the home building supply stores but it tends to be too weak for burial and may kink. We recommend using something that is suitable for burial so it should be a kink-resistant and high-density. This tubing CAN be used to run between the compressor and the diffusers in the water but it floats so you'll have to weight it down somehow by attaching bricks or tieing some sort of weight to make it stay at the bottom. It's better to use this inexpensive tubing to run on ground. We usually bury our lines 6 inches deep. You can run it in a conduit if you'd like and you can bury it below the frost line if you insist on over engineering everything! All the tubing, weighted or regular 100, 150, 200 or 300 PSI poly, is safe and metal free. Unless you are using the weighted diffuser bubbler tubing for de-icing or aeration which contains a metal bead of lead in the keel. All other tubing is extremely supple and long lsting usually with UV carbon mixed in the PVC or rubber mix to ensure protection from the sun. In larger systems a single compressor, blower or pump will have a single outlet or multiple valve control units that lead to a single diffuser or multiple diffusers. When calculating the required lengths of weighted airline for aeration systems ensure you acknowledge the depth and slope and any obstacles that may be encountered between the final positioning of the compressor unit and the diffusers.
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