bubble bars cause microbubbles to occur in your saltwater tank.. that means your fishes will get bubble eye or cloudy eye disease...
I remember when you last mentioned this, a couple of us asked where you got this information from?
Anyway, after a little searching I found this from Eric H. Borneman, author of Aquarium Corals...
"Many aquarists go to some considerable lengths to baffle sumps and pump flows to prevent small bubbles from being returned into the display tank. It has been suggested that such bubbles represent an irritation to fish, corals and other invertebrates and that they should be avoided. To be honest, I am unsure from where the origin of this perception came. However, it is untrue. Even the name is inaccurate… the prefix "micro" would refer to bubbles too small to see.
Small bubbles are very common in tumultuous reef environments, and areas where waves break are often dense with both reef life and small bubbles. In addition, in tanks and on reefs, many bubbles of various sizes, including true "microbubbles" are produced by photosynthesis, and this is especially the case in highly illuminated environments. In my own aquaria, a constant rise of bubbles, especially in the afternoon, are produced by various corals and algae in even some of my less-illuminated systems. Larger bubbles frequently get sucked into pump intakes, and are chopped up to even smaller sizes and distributed throughout the tank. I won't even begin to discuss the massive numbers of bubbles produced by various surge devices. These water motion devices have great benefits in aquaria, and even as anecdotal aquarium observations, I have never seen anything disturbed, irritated, or harmed by the rush of bubbles."
Apparently people think these microbubbles cause Exophthalmia (pop eye) and Emphysematosis (gas bubble disease).
I found this on Exophthalmia (involving seahorses):
"...or by gas super-saturation of the water in which the seahorses reside. Gas super-saturation causes problems similar to the bends, which affects SCUBA divers. The situation, in which gas levels in the water are much higher than normally possible (caused by limited areas for gas escape), causes gas bubbles to form where possible. Because the pressure inside of a seahorse is lower than the pressure of gas super-saturated water, the gas bubbles emerge directly under the skin of the affected seahorse."
And I found this on Emphysematosis- "What
is happening here is
emphysematosis, gas bubble disease. This is an adverse condition brought on by too sudden a change in the pressure of dissolved gases inside the fish and the water they're in."
I found nothing (besides other message board forum members saying it) on aquarium microbubbles affecting fish and causing eye problems. I did find that a lot of people do believe this though, although it is not known where this mystery origin came from.
If you have any information otherwise I would love to read it. I find this truly interesting.
