I decided to make this thread since I see a lot of people over think hydro. A lot of times "adding more" or "going bigger" is a solution to hopes of achieving those big tree dreams. In reality , could everything they are doing be setting them further back?
Halfway thru my last run I was doing some cleaning and/or general maintenance around my air pumps (still same size that came with my UC Double barrel 16) when I accidentally knocked off the hose that connected to the air stones. Now , I've felt this air before and knew it was hot. That was why Last year I replaced my metal air Manifolds that came from
current culture with white plastic ones from the grow store. The plastic didn't heat up like the metal ones. I also replaced all the airline with blue aquatic airline to keep heat away.
This time I really thought about this super hot air. What good could air that is hot enough to be uncomfortable on my skin be for my roots . Skin is a protective layer that has been weathered by dirt, oxygen, sunlight, etc. If this air could do that to my thick skin l, what would it do to gentle sensitive sterile roots that have lived in water their entire lives which are more like our veins or organs rather than our skin.
I unplugged the air pump and left it off the rest of the entire run. Plants still thrived and produced the most fire flowers I've ever been able to accomplish. I feel the quality increase is mostly due to my switching to 600s from 1000s however not having any air stones roaring didn't hinder my success.
After every harvest I always toss my baskets, grow rocks, and airstones and replace them with new ones. Since I switched to 600s and lost yield I decided to cut costs and reuse my baskets and grow rocks and simply wash them. As for the air stones, i tossed them and decided to not replace them. I went ahead and removed all the airlines, air manifolds, and put the pump away into storage.
I made an educated hypothesis that the hot air blowing into my root mass was not only physically damaging from the force of the bubbles but also from the temperature. I also guessed that the hot air that comes up thru the water on its way to the surface is also exchanging heat with the water its directly in contact with this heating the system and being counter productive to a water chiller.
We know air bubbles don't oxygenate water unlike what most of us believed when we first got into hydro . Water takes in air from its surface area. The bubbles simply break up the waters surface exposing more of it to the air allowing more oxygen to be absorbed. So a standing calm glass of water will still take in oxygen just fine, and if you stir the water up it'll increase the surface area and take in more. You don't need roaring bubbles.
I figured with the AL15 still going in the Epi center and the waterfall effect in the epicenter from recirculating, id have plenty of DO.
So I took a batch of clones from my ez cloner and threw them into the system with no airstones.
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I did water thru the top for first 3 days which also had me thinking that I plan to turn the rerun pvc into a feed and recirculate each bucket individually the way the epi center does. I'll just put the pump into the epi center and suck from the epi center and push thru the small pvc feed line and create a waterfall effect in each site.
Here they are 5 days into veg
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Lights went out and here's a size comparison for you. 15 inches tall after only 5 days in the UC with no air stones.
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And here are the roots after 5 days. Healthy and white. Lots of those little finger side growth where the bubbles would normally damage or rip those off. However, as you'll be able to notice there is a film starting to form at the top of the water from lack of agitation .
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I only use RO and A+B so the water doesn't smell and it's not hurting my roots. I plan to change the system out every week until I can modify it for next run to waterfall in every bucket.
Hopefully this can help people cut costs and grow bigger , healthier plants.