Could Air Stones Be Doing More Harm Than Good?

[PhatNuggz]

Yesterday morning I noticed all the leafs had drooped. Alas, it took me the better part of the day to figure out why. 2 days ago the extra cooler lidI place on top of the Igloo lid to add more insulation, slipped off and landed on the feed/drain tubes. Examining them they were intact OUTSIDE but it took me 2 days to figure out that the vertical riser tube from the pump had pulled away so that it popped off the pump= no nuttirients going to the plants. I reset it and increased floods to every 45 minutes, but this morning they have not recovered.

I would like to give them another ~ 5 dayd as the buds are getting very frosty, but may wind up harvesting by late Saturday

 

[PhatNuggz]

Alas, I had to harvest as they failed to respond after 2 days

 

[PhatNuggz]

Cinnamon for Root Starting and to prevent damping off. Who knew?

 

[QuarterbackMo]

I see this is an old thread and I haven’t seen all 17 pages yet so don’t bite my head off if this has been mentioned already but I switched to troughs and ditched all the plumbing and cleaning afterwards (huge win for the trough) by swapping sheets of 6mm painters plastic out instead of scrubbing buckets and I use a 400 - 600 gph pump depending what trough we are talking about and a diy Venturi aerator to pull air in.

When I first did the trough it started out as an aeroponic / shallow water culture hybrid and I wasn’t feeling it because I’ve got other ones too I was testing at the same time that were dwc troughs and running air stones and those looked just as good if not better so I ditched the sprayers.

I went that route for the same reason you made this thread because I thought the air stones were fucking up my water from the heat and by possibly forcing unwanted shit into the root zone that wouldn’t pull into the water by itself with gravity because you’re using a compressor and pushing into the water vs a Venturi that pulls via a vacuum from the water which is all complete pseudo theory on my end it’s not backed by science to my knowledge so don’t take that to the bank that’s just an idea I had.

I tried the Venturi out and it looked like it was pulling in plenty of air so I started rocking with that instead and my plants look happy af.

So here is the part my friend brought up though that blew my whole argument out of the water on the air stones though. He pointed out the best part of the roots are always the part around the air stones and he’s right so that debunks everything i thought previously but it does say the roots must like the oxygen then however they also more importantly like circulation because there’s something else I noticed as well the roots at the top don’t get the water circulation that the roots in the bottom do because of the roots smothering the air stone and hogging all the air. All your motion in the top of the water is strictly from water movement on its own when ideally you want turbulence at the top of the water because that’s what actually pulls the d.o. into the water not the air in the air stones themselves.

The water motion and turbulence at the top is what’s the most important to keep roots aerated and happy imo and that’s where the trough shines without the plumbing and individual buckets the water pump just fires freely at the end the same way it would if you dropped a pump directly into a bucket and with the Venturi you get the turbulence to draw in d.o. and you get the circulation along with it.

Idk which part of the trough is doing it but it pushed my dwc career to a new level and those are some pretty big shoes to fill I feel like it’s superior to buckets in every aspect and I’ll never go back to buckets again.

 

[PhatNuggz]

I see this is an old thread and I haven’t seen all 17 pages yet so don’t bite my head off if this has been mentioned already but I switched to troughs and ditched all the plumbing and cleaning afterwards (huge win for the trough) by swapping sheets of 6mm painters plastic out instead of scrubbing buckets and I use a 400 - 600 gph pump depending what trough we are talking about and a diy Venturi aerator to pull air in.

When I first did the trough it started out as an aeroponic / shallow water culture hybrid and I wasn’t feeling it because I’ve got other ones too I was testing at the same time that were dwc troughs and running air stones and those looked just as good if not better so I ditched the sprayers.

I went that route for the same reason you made this thread because I thought the air stones were fucking up my water from the heat and by possibly forcing unwanted shit into the root zone that wouldn’t pull into the water by itself with gravity because you’re using a compressor and pushing into the water vs a Venturi that pulls via a vacuum from the water which is all complete pseudo theory on my end it’s not backed by science to my knowledge so don’t take that to the bank that’s just an idea I had.

I tried the Venturi out and it looked like it was pulling in plenty of air so I started rocking with that instead and my plants look happy af.

So here is the part my friend brought up though that blew my whole argument out of the water on the air stones though. He pointed out the best part of the roots are always the part around the air stones and he’s right so that debunks everything i thought previously but it does say the roots must like the oxygen then however they also more importantly like circulation because there’s something else I noticed as well the roots at the top don’t get the water circulation that the roots in the bottom do because of the roots smothering the air stone and hogging all the air. All your motion in the top of the water is strictly from water movement on its own when ideally you want turbulence at the top of the water because that’s what actually pulls the d.o. into the water not the air in the air stones themselves.

The water motion and turbulence at the top is what’s the most important to keep roots aerated and happy imo and that’s where the trough shines without the plumbing and individual buckets the water pump just fires freely at the end the same way it would if you dropped a pump directly into a bucket and with the Venturi you get the turbulence to draw in d.o. and you get the circulation along with it.

Idk which part of the trough is doing it but it pushed my dwc career to a new level and those are some pretty big shoes to fill I feel like it’s superior to buckets in every aspect and I’ll never go back to buckets again.

what do you mean by troughs? Do you mean totes?

Scroll through without reading and look at the pictures of various options for stimulating the water and creating aeration

 

[PhatNuggz]

Sad news here, self inflicted as usual. The 3 babies cotyledons were not opening and algae was building since the tote was not covered. I probably added too much chlorine, so I removed them from that water and put them outside where the heat and humidity cooked them, and the leafs on the one burned up totally dried out 🌚

So I dropped 3 more seeds yesterday

 

[QuarterbackMo]

what do you mean by troughs? Do you mean totes?

Scroll through without reading and look at the pictures of various options for stimulating the water and creating aeration

No like I built a giant rectangle bucket that takes the place of all the totes I previously used.

I line the trough with pond liner for a security layer incase something leaks then I put a piece of painters plastic I cut out to line the trough over the pond liner. When the grow is over I rip the top layer of plastic off and put a new one down so I don’t have to clean a single bucket ever again you just replace the plastic.

Because it’s custom built buckets pretty much that run the whole length of the room there’s no need for any drain lines or any of that shit.

To recirculate the water I put a regular sub pump at the start with a Venturi aerator I built that blasts at the end and I have a chiller coil right next to the pump to chill the water.

There’s a main drum in the beginning of the room that attaches to float valves in the troughs when the plants eat the top off feeds the systems automatically.

A vortex sump pump at Home Depot does all the draining and if you really wanna be anal about getting it all out a slight pitch by propping a 2 x 4 block at the end gets 99% of the water out on the flush.

Ive grown in all kinds of bucket systems I’ll never go back.

 

[QuarterbackMo]

what do you mean by troughs? Do you mean totes?

Scroll through without reading and look at the pictures of various options for stimulating the water and creating aeration

Imagine an undercurrent 12xxl but instead of each row being buckets plumbed into each other I just made buckets a bucket and got rid of the plumbing and all of the cleaning which was the biggest motivator.

I use 6mm painters plastic to line them with that costs $66 for a 100’ x 20’ roll.

Bad grow ugly roots? Root rot somehow? Cleaning? Anything really?

Not a problem just replace the 4’ wide x 15’ long piece of plastic, $35 water pump, and $12 coil for my chiller and I’m back to brand new again.

 

[QuarterbackMo]

what do you mean by troughs? Do you mean totes?

Scroll through without reading and look at the pictures of various options for stimulating the water and creating aeration

A while back I caught a bad bounce on some compromised clones and had to scrap an undercurrent, chiller, seals the whole 9 lol.

Now that I look back on it I don’t know why I wasn’t doing it this way I do it now the whole time but hey it took me 12 years and a lot of hard thumps to the forehead to figure it out but I’m here now. One thing about growing I’ve learned over the years is you really don’t know what you don’t know 🤷🏻‍♂️.

 

[PhatNuggz]

Looks like I finally turned the corner. All 3 seedlings are above the sure2grow (S2G) cubes. 2/3 have leafs, the third is a little behind, as 2 days ago I discovered that the tap root wasn't digging into the S2G, so I repositioned it

Thinking to start a new thread to put all the failures behind me. It will be titled something like Starting Over for the 6th Time

 

[PhatNuggz]

I may well try this as nursing the 3 babies is a RPITA

Ancient hydro combined with modern technique

 

[PhatNuggz]

Pics or it never happened, right?

I don't usually try to start a grow during the summer for the very reasons I am dealing with, but am running really low

The heat here, even with the AC running 24/7 is <40% which is not helping the young seedlings

2/3 are barely surviving, the third died due to the shell never coming off which prevented the cotyledons from opening. I did try to get it off but the cotyledons were stuck together. I tired to separate them, but it was too late

In an attempt to create a humid environment I put a clear lid over them and sprayed the inside of it almost hourly but they were not responding. Last night I got a brain fart...

The lid I was using is from a whole cooked chicken, but I could not find the bottom which would likely work better than what I did today (see pictures). Instead I am using a larger lid and a bigger base with water and an air stone, but will look for a cooked chicken just for the container 🤓

Fingers crossed

 

[PhatNuggz]

Looks positive. The plant in the lower right is taller and 2nd node leafs beginning to establish

 

[smokedareefer]

Is it just me or has this thread got so far off track it should have been closed long ago.

Unsubscrbed.

 

[PhatNuggz]

Is it just me or has this thread got so far off track it should have been closed long ago.

Unsubscrbed.

Im so hurt. Think Ill go commit suicide

 

[blit98]

which company made that system looks nice!

 

[smokedareefer]

Sir, imo, you have hijacked a perfectly good thread that i have been subscribed to since the day FooDoo started this thread.

 

[PhatNuggz]

Sir, imo, you have hijacked a perfectly good thread that i have been subscribed to since the day FooDoo started this thread.

You are absolutely right. I have a thread with a near identical Subject title, and was confused

 

[UC Quest]

Has anyone experimented with nano bubble generators to oxygenate their RDWC circulating water, instead of using air stones ?

 

[Aqua Man]

Has anyone experimented with nano bubble generators to oxygenate their RDWC circulating water, instead of using air stones ?

I would not recommend doing this. Risk of toxic metals as the plates break down, gives falsely inflated o2 levels with a DO meter. These are a gimmick.