TABLE OF CONTENTS I couldn t help but notice that the blue fish was permanently dead. Most sadly, it was floating on its side. The cause of death was clear. The water circulation through the aquarium filter had slowed to a thin trickle. Both the red and silvery striped fish also appeared ill. I cleaned the filter, but the water flow failed to increase.
As you can see from Fig. 1.1, the filter is elevated above the water level in the fish tank. Water is lifted up, out of the tank, and into the elevated filter. Water flowing up through the riser tube, is filtered, and then the clean water flows back into the aquarium.
I tried increasing the air flow just a bit to the riser tube. The water began to gurgle and gush happily through the filter. Encouraged, I increased the air flow a little more, and the gush diminished back to a sad trickle.
It was too bad about the blue fish. It was too bad that I didn t understand about the air, or the filter, or the water flow. It was really bad because I have a master s degree in chemical engineering. It was bad because I was the technical manager of the process division of the Good Hope Refinery in Louisiana. Mostly, it was bad because I had been designing process equipment for 16 years, and didn t understand how water circulated through my son s aquarium.
Maybe they had taught about...
