Could Air Stones Be Doing More Harm Than Good?

[PhatNuggz]

You can get away with 78* IF the humidity is < 60%.

Otherwise you risk root rot

 

[guymandude]

i filter the air being pulled in by my air pump. I made a box - intake air tube goes in one side of the box, one wall of the box is a hepa filter. funk can and will be introduced into your reservoir through the air pump pulling in room air. This helped me immensely - since i have found slime growing out of my airstones.

 

[FooDoo]

i filter the air being pulled in by my air pump. I made a box - intake air tube goes in one side of the box, one wall of the box is a hepa filter. funk can and will be introduced into your reservoir through the air pump pulling in room air. This helped me immensely - since i have found slime growing out of my airstones.

You're missing the big picture. You did all that for nothing. You don't need airstones

 

[DR.GT]

Im all in for pulling up a chair for this thread..love running test and all but before u start telling people they don't need air stones definitively let's get through a whole run without them. When the buckets get full and circulation diminishes oxygen levels get depleted faster you "might" have more issues. I am hoping it is a successful run because I myself hate air stones and air pumps 2. I do like the idea of water fall in each site to add circulation and better aeration.

 

[FooDoo]

you do realize that the most delicate time of a plant is right out of the cloner and during veg. If something were to go wrong, it would go wrong early on in the plants life. There wouldn't be a bunch of healthy vegged plants and then week 5 of bloom they just die over night for no appearant reason.

You guys may lose harvests or crops but I have never lost a single one in over a decade and I can assure you, my fear was getting thru veg, and now that it was a beeeze and actually healthier than if I were to have used air stones , im 100% confident this run will finish without any hiccups

 

[DR.GT]

I too have not experienced a loss, and that is not what I said. I never said lost crop over night with out stones.

What I am saying let's hope the health don't decline over time. I support you in trying no stones cause I would like to know. Don't be so combative when people are chiming in. The whole purpose of this site is to share and comment.. We all apreciate you sharing this.

The UC is actually tit to run. I know u can run it without loss but using it for its full potential is the game changer for those of us who have put the time in to learn. (Like yourself foo) I do hope you get your best yield to date without stones. Always looking to learn something new to move forward.

 

[MirrorZen]

You don't use an air stone in your rez, With a chiller, keeping it at 65? Wouldn't this combat the heat and not matter? Don't get me wrong, I would love to see what you can do with out air stones. 9,999,999 ways to grow :-)

 

[Zombie seed]

I have never done hudro but from my research there is a big increase in growth/yield so I'm leaning more towards trying it out.

I have had some experience with aquariums and not all air stones are created equal. Usually the big bubbles are caused from to high of pressure with to big of holes in your air stone. Hot air is usually caused by to small of a pump being over worked.

These may sound a bit odd but we would get an over sized air pump ran at half to 3/4 capacity to the air stone that has been wrapped in cheese cloth. This produces very fine bubbles with cool air.

I'm not sure a hydro system is so different. Never hurts to try it out.

 

[PhatNuggz]

Running the small flooming pump24/7 gets the nutes too warm

Maybe I need to run it on a timer as well

 

[guymandude]

You're missing the big picture. You did all that for nothing. You don't need airstones

perhaps you're missing my point that pathogens can and will be introduced to your reservoir through the air pump

 

[justiceman]

I'll update the thread Before harvest but other than that there's nothing else I can add to this discussion. You do not need air stones period.

I snapped some quick pics before lights came on (I veg 18/6).

View attachment 658394

You can see how massive the growth is because this is the same girl from my post two days ago.

Here are the roots of a girl closer to my reach

View attachment 658395

They are pearly white and massive. I never had a root mass this thick this early when running air stones.

Also, I run my water at 72 degrees. My chiller kicks on and takes it down to 70 then it climbs back to 72.

View attachment 658396

That's another good debate. My hypothesis is all the guys running 65 degree water are doing more harm than good to their roots. The fact that colder water holds more oxygen has everyone focused on that one fact and they forget to ask how cold is too cold for root health. In my hours of googling I came across a post stating they read a scientific study that said 78 degrees was the best root temp but didn't site a reference. we still have to take root rot into consideration since I can only presume that study was soil temperature so I decided to see how close I can get to that optimal 78 degrees without causing root rot in my system. My chiller is running less and my roots are staying white and the growth above and below water is explosive.

Thanks for contributing this. I've been running my rez with a fountain pump turned on occasionally to circulate it for the past week to try the method out. So far so good.

That girl really took off. Looks like smooth sailing from here on out for her.

 

[jcom]

I have no use for air stones in my RDWC, plenty of circulation from main pump as you'll see in vid below. They just add unnecessary heat and a spaghetti mess of hose lines. (However, stones are great for independent mother totes, etc.)...and I agree with poster above, I've never felt the need to keep my water temps below 72F...ususally 74 - 74F is fine, have never had problems in over 10 years at these temps. Keeping water cooler/colder than this is just wasting money on chiller power. Know what the biggest power user is in any given house?? Yep, the refrigerator (i.e. same operation as chiller).

 

[FooDoo]

I plan to modify the undercurrent to resemble your system except for two changes

1. What you use as an overflow and return system I plan to use smaller pvc and reverse that to be pressured and to feed each bucket. The 2" pvc already in place by undercurrent connecting each bucket will be used as my return with a pump sitting in the epicenter sucking water from the epi and pressurizing the feed line. It'll look similar to yours but the flow and concept are just reversed.

2. My epi center will be level with the entire system. No need to elevate anything off the ground with my simple modifications. The waterfall will be in each bucket and I get to keep the water level pretty low this way. I think the under current double barrel 16 holds 120 gallons when full and operational, I'm hoping to cut that in half.

 

[jcom]

I like your thoughts on mods. I may seriously going this route with my next setup, DIY style. Only problem with DIY is that each site would need two bulkheads. Not only are they pricey (not a big deal), but than means two holes in your plant sites = 2x more possibility of leakage. Bulkreefsupply has excellent bulkheads and I've only seen a few drips here and there after using over 100 in reef and grow sites. But also means the laborious work of cutting 2x as many holes in bins (non-factor for CC users). Good thinking to take the elevation factor out....but this prevents waterfall effect in main reservoir (bummer, but that's were a few airstones would be beneficial. I'm probably going to use a Reeflo Hammerhead or bigger on my upcoming 12 light system for extreme circulation). Better yet, a small, simple fish tank pump could be mounted above the water line in the main rez to cause waterfall effect in main rez....by mounting above water line, you prevent a heat (from a submersible pump) and can really help oxygenate water. The one thing I do like about having a couple of airstones in main rez, is that you can actually be introducing "new" air into your waterflow. Depending on media, setup, etc., one might be lacking on new O2 (especially late veg/entire flower with plants producing oxygent) being introduced into the water/nutrient flow.

 

[PhatNuggz]

Maybe it's just a coincidence as I have increased nutrients for transition to flower, but damn, the big girl has taken off since replacing the stones with a lp pump (on a timer). The other is likely a male

As I currently have the P 3 affixed (no yo-yos), so I lowered the table height but added lenses to get the penetration (3rd pic)

 

[jcom]

^^^ Have you seen pre-flower pistils on the right plant? If I had to guess, I'd say the left plant is female and the right one is male. The left plant does appear a bit droopy though...I would initially say it's from lack of oxygen, but your system is essentially an ebb and flood, so that should be ruled out. Cool little setup, but what are your contingency plans if there's a power outage, since it appears your plant totes fully drain after each pump session? (Actually, I'm guessing the roots are big enough now that they'll at least be sitting in and inch or so of water, below the drain holes...this will, at least, keep them alive if the pump cycle is stopped by a power outage, it will just stall growth during that period). Case in point, on one of my old 12 plant systems, I accidentally forgot to -re-open the valve on one of my plant sites after doing a water change. I wondered why that one plant was stunted and not keeping up with her sisters...sure enough, I found the error....the plant was still alive, healthy, but not growing as the roots were just sitting there in stagnant water for upwards of a week (yes, rookie mistake)...I opened the ball valve and she caught up to her sisters quickly.

 

[PhatNuggz]

I'm a stay at home grower, rarely away for more than 4 hours. If needed, I could flood by hand

You just can't tell a book (or plant) by their looks. The plant on the left has coconuts (will be pulling it soon), the one on the right now showing pistils. She is sat dom. Will be defoling this morning

Note the diverter valve on the right feeder tube. It was adjusted to balance out the floods, but since it is a male, I turned it back to full

 

[We Solidarity]

Airstones are dumb...if you use them and have white scale in your rezzies, that's all your calcium falling out. Nice.

 

[All4freedumb]

Im all in for pulling up a chair for this thread..love running test and all but before u start telling people they don't need air stones definitively let's get through a whole run without them. When the buckets get full and circulation diminishes oxygen levels get depleted faster you "might" have more issues. I am hoping it is a successful run because I myself hate air stones and air pumps 2. I do like the idea of water fall in each site to add circulation and better aeration.

I've had several successful runs without them.. No need, esspecially with the waterfall effect in each module...

 

[All4freedumb]

I have ran my water 70-72 with success, I hit 75 and started to see issues with bigger plants. When issues hit they ran fast with higher Temps but can be done IMHO. How often are you changing your water? When you do your mod's think about reversing the flow of the UC as well, pulling from the back and dumping into each bucket including the epicenter works well for me... Nice work