Air splitter/T-joint

Description

An air splitter divides one air pump's output between several lines. The simplest form is a T connector in the tubing; the larger form is a gang valve with a lever on each outlet. Both are sold for aquarium airline, and the valve kind turns up in laboratory setups. A 2014 add-on for zebrafish housing racks, SideRack, runs its aeration this way. On each shelf the authors placed a plastic five-way air control valve, to which individual tank air lines are connected, and a standard small air stone is placed in each tank. They also give a reason for piping air in rather than putting pumps beside the tanks: central air supply is a much safer alternative to drawing electrical wiring to power air pumps in the vicinity of tanks. A 2018 plant-methods paper did the same thing with a 3.7 W air pump, where an air splitter control valve was utilised to control the pressure of the air, and six boxes were connected to each pump. The sellers describe the two forms. Pawfly's most-rated gang valve says it can split powerful air pump output into 8 ports, and that its levers can adjust the air flow volume from 0% to 100% of each port. Its T connectors, sold with straight ones, can split your air tubing to run a second air stone from the same pump, and the seller adds that you can also combine two inputs to create a stronger output for use with multi-outlet pumps. Both fit standard 3/16 inch airline tubing. No source here says how many outlets one pump can feed, so this page does not either.

Sources

• pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov — https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3992002/
• pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov — https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5998518/
• amazon.com — https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081V5JRLS
• amazon.com — https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MFX7LBP

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