Could Air Stones Be Doing More Harm Than Good?

[palm eezy]

looking good! pearly white roots.

im starting to think air pumps/stones cause root rot. would be nice to run a side by side to test this theory

Pyth is airborn so i'm 100% certain that they introduce it. I've had random rot cases pop up in the spring time before the grass starts growing and the smell of decay is in the air.

Re: UC roots/pool shock, you may or may not need it. Municipal water that has already been treated is often good to go. Well water high in iron will have iron bacteria and its a real nuisance in water culture. Low iron, high calcium well water can be great to use right how it comes.

 

[mandalaman]

Pyth is airborn so i'm 100% certain that they introduce it. I've had random rot cases pop up in the spring time before the grass starts growing and the smell of decay is in the air.

Re: UC roots/pool shock, you may or may not need it. Municipal water that has already been treated is often good to go. Well water high in iron will have iron bacteria and its a real nuisance in water culture. Low iron, high calcium well water can be great to use right how it comes.

What if using RO?

 

[FooDoo]

I'm running a slightly modified version of your 4-3-3-9 and find that slightly higher micro(for the N/Ca mostly) makes them a bit happier overall, especially at the stage you are at. I'll make my initial mix at 20-50% strength (depending on uptake) close to the 4-3-3-9 profile but on addbacks won't give quite as much P&K until late in flower.

Changing the solution closer to 10 days vs. 14 when running well under 1.0 EC also seems to keep the plants happier IME. I also find that it takes 2-3 days on a new mix to get the pH stable and rising, so it makes it tempting to stretch the mixes.

I got some FloraDuo to play with so it will be an interesting side by side at some point. Tough to just make the switch.

FooDoo, would you say you noticed an improvement in taste with the FloraDuo over the 3 part? Or same thing, easier to mix/tougher to screw up.

i've been changing every 7 days but i might stretch it 10 days.

havent tasted anything from floraduo yet but i think itll be the same or maybe better? 10000% easier to mix and they look A LOT cleaner. and a perfect nutrient profile with their recommended feed. hate to support miracle grow but the product is a knock out.

 

[palm eezy]

What if using RO?

IME iron bacteria still makes it thru an RO, although it doesn't cause as many problems. Try running recommended GH 3-2-1 with untreated high iron stinky water and it will grow things quick! just not plants/roots.

I run my RO into holding tanks and treat it with a homemade ozone setup that gets the ORP over 400 on a timer. It goes down quick in between. Before using pool shock I was still having issues. I consider it a miracle thing, really. BUT there were other elements in play that may well have contributed to overall poor root health like not running straight mineral nutes, & using the wrong profiles.
I've got someone using pool shock in 5 gallon buckets, no light proofing, water temps hitting 80, tiny aquarium air pumps and growing some big rootbound monsters. High iron (but doesn't stink, so limited bacteria) well water. The stuff helps you cheat and doesn't seem to hurt (unless paying UC roots prices!)

To me the biggest benefit of the RO is it gives you a clean slate to start with. You might have a decent balance in your water, you might not. You might be able to read the plants and make it work great, or your water may cause you to struggle. Getting an analysis isn't that much money and would go a long ways in determining whether or not you need an RO, and how best to work with you water. It would seem to me that in a super low EC game, RO is the best bet. But I understand the efficiency aspect.

Eventually I want to make my RO from a holding tank of pre-treated water along with a dedicated pump etc. But i'll need more space for that. Currently using basic '7 stage' RO/DIs that produce ~60gpd. Just added a second one as a bandaid to up production.

 

[palm eezy]

i've been changing every 7 days but i might stretch it 10 days.

havent tasted anything from floraduo yet but i think itll be the same or maybe better? 10000% easier to mix and they look A LOT cleaner. and a perfect nutrient profile with their recommended feed. hate to support miracle grow but the product is a knock out.

I'll start at 7 days now too. Over time I noticed more and more that as the mixes got older, I'd notice less difference in the plants from day to day. Then the day after a change I'd see a difference. Subtle, but it got me to thinking. So I reduced the intervals and got rid of the 'blip'.

This thread got me to thinking back when I was using individual 5 gallon buckets and I would just run open air lines into the bottoms of the buckets and let them rumble. All the prevailing wisdom was that you needed lots of small bubbles for it to be effective. It was noisy as hell but air stones never produced the same growth for me back then. They would churn the buckets up so much, that's where the DO was coming from. Also the roots would act like a diffuser. When I finally got to recirculating systems, air stones seemed like an obvious upgrade.

 

[PhatNuggz]

my water pressure is perfect. i have an ~$800 evo1000 ro with pre evo filter setup. this fills a 105 gallon stand up food grade water rez, and a flow master to monitor how much filtered water im making.

since my starting ppm for tap is .3ec i have the 1:1 waste ratio. Ive already made 6,000 gallons of RO so that means there was 6,000 gallons of waste produced and sent down the drain. ive used and paid for 12,000 gallons of water since buying the flowmeter to track production.

sorry phat, but your tiny homemade system is apples to oranges.

EDIT: dont take offense to the last comment. let me give some math.

to do a nutrient change on my system, theres 105 gallon rez and 120 gallons in the system

so i need to make 120 gallons to fill the system, 120 gallons waste. 105 to fill the rez, 105 waste. thats 450 gallons for a tank change. x2 weeks for veg, and then x10 for bloom.

450 x 12 = 5,400 gallons used and paid for during one run. x4 for 4 runs a year and thats 21,600 gallons a year on a little 16 site.

As you are using that much water, you should be capturing the run off and repurposing it. You might also check into DI tanks. Companies rent them to Kidney Dialysis facilities/hospitals...

 

[JMcG]

I'll start at 7 days now too. Over time I noticed more and more that as the mixes got older, I'd notice less difference in the plants from day to day. Then the day after a change I'd see a difference. Subtle, but it got me to thinking. So I reduced the intervals and got rid of the 'blip'.

This thread got me to thinking back when I was using individual 5 gallon buckets and I would just run open air lines into the bottoms of the buckets and let them rumble. All the prevailing wisdom was that you needed lots of small bubbles for it to be effective. It was noisy as hell but air stones never produced the same growth for me back then. They would churn the buckets up so much, that's where the DO was coming from. Also the roots would act like a diffuser. When I finally got to recirculating systems, air stones seemed like an obvious upgrade.

I'm with you on both points. I too found that things slowed if I went for a 10-14 day interval between Rez changes, but now I stay more like 7-10 days and everything is going smoother. Do you only do a partial change, draining it to the height of the 2" pvc lines or drain it all the way? I have plugs at the bottom of the containers that I can pull out and get it all!
Prior to participating in this little experiment I had all but ditched all forms of stones in favor of the open air hose method. It made sense when the fluming effect was explained that the rolling boil created by the bigger bubbles would get me the same end result. My old DWC system ran for years without a stone. When I built my UC system I still just used open hoses but placed them in the corner of the units so they would create a nice rolling flume. It worked well, but the whole no air pump program has me pretty interested!

 

[mandalaman]

 

[PhatNuggz]

Here's a pic inside my rez. The Y sends some water over the net pot which is filled with platonic solids where the majority of the circulating nutes splashes

 

[FooDoo]

replacing my heavy gigantic RO system right now with just a tiny lightweight small boy filter. lots of useless tubing removed

 

[FooDoo]

week 5

 

[mandalaman]

Pyth is airborn so i'm 100% certain that they introduce it. I've had random rot cases pop up in the spring time before the grass starts growing and the smell of decay is in the air.

Re: UC roots/pool shock, you may or may not need it. Municipal water that has already been treated is often good to go. Well water high in iron will have iron bacteria and its a real nuisance in water culture. Low iron, high calcium well water can be great to use right how it comes.

I think it's well water high in iron as have to chlorine blasts or smells like rotten eggs...

 

[JMcG]

Here's a pic inside my rez. The Y sends some water over the net pot which is filled with platonic solids where the majority of the circulating nutes splashes

Platonic solids...? Sorry man, you lost me.

 

[mandalaman]

Platonic solids...? Sorry man, you lost me.

Just a regular convex polyhedron or dice in this instance.

 

[PhatNuggz]

Platonic solids...? Sorry man, you lost me.

Figured I would. Best to goggle it

 

[mandalaman]

Figured I would. Best to goggle it

Giggle

Also isn't the point of communication to have the other person understand what you mean lol!!

 

[FooDoo]

Giggle

Also isn't the point of communication to have the other person understand what you mean lol!!

amen. If anyone ever needed me to clarify something i stated i would personally google and list sources instead of making someone else do it.

Here's what much smarter people then I instilled into me...

"when you've truly mastered something, you've made it as simple as it possibly can be, with the least amount of moving parts, and you could teach a primate to operate it."

If you find yourself buying double the air pumps, or bigger air pumps, or more air stones, more supplements, more additives, more nutrients, etc, then the more you really have no idea what you're doing. "do less" "k.i.s.s."

 

[FooDoo]

im replacing all my HPS with CMH after this run.

went from 4,000watts/19amps to 2,400watts/19amps when i switched to 600s but now after i put 8 solistek cmh in there i will be at 2,520watts/11.6amps.

itll save a good amount of power, less heat, wider spectrum, additional uv, bulbs last two years and they are super low profile and lightweight.

 

[JinkysOars]

Any views on switching from air stones to recirculating pump in a single unit? Basically My plant sits in the the reservoir so a 1 pot if you like! I'm in the process of putting together a slightly larger 64litre Really Useful container so ideal time to make the switch to recirculating pump though i'm wondering do you guys think enough air would get in under the lid for this to work for me? An option may be to add a venturi tube to draw some air from outside the reservoir but then are we negating benefits of ditching stones and opening door to pathogens?

 

[JMcG]

I think I just got called a primate! :speechless: