Airline tubing

What is it?
Often in the aquarium hobby it is necessary or desirable to aerate the water in the aquarium.

This is done by purchasing an air pump, check valve, airline valves, an airstone and tubing to connect all these items together.

The aquarist can buy airline accessories to extend pieces of tubing, to split or turn acute angles.

The standard type of tubing comes in several materials but normally in one diameter (the outside diameter) - 6mm.


 * Watch out for gardening tubing in DIY stores which may be too narrow at 4mm diameter.

Plastic
This is the cheaper type of material, it is generally clear plastic and quite difficult to bend and easily kinks. This type is difficult to set up in a tank as it tends to curve and it affected by CO2 in planted tanks as the plastic reacts with the CO2 to make the plastic discolour and become brittle over time.

Silicon
The better material is made of silicon. This tubing is very flexible and can remain straight if and is not affected by CO2 in the water. It can come in various colours, with blue, green and black being the most common.