Deep Water Culture and air temperature

[karolanne]

Hello Folks,

I saw a post recently stating that the air coming from the air pump in deep water culture is hot because the pump works constantly. Is it a problem fixable with a high quality air pump? Or running the air pump 15 min ON/15 min OFF?

Thanks.

 

[BoostNBuds]

I dont have experience with dwc, but if the air coming from the pump is too hot you should just make the air line longer no? Give the air more time to cool off before it hits your bucket. Maybe have the air line coil around inside a regular water bucket before it goes into the setup. Like a heat exchanger or a radiator works.
-Ben

 

[Justlovetogrow]

The air from the stone will be the same as the ambient room temp the airline is running from doesn’t have much to do with pump imo

 

[Habosabin]

There is something to the pumps heating water. I couldn't find anything else.

 

[FourPlants]

If the pump is physically in your grow space it will raise the ambient temperature. I run mine outside my tent and got a longer hose to run to my manifold inside my tent.

 

[Bongholio]

Check your water. Temps. I think 65° is optimum. The air should be 71°. I live where it's HOT. I put an a//c window unit in to keep the air temps at 71° and the water ended up being 65°. Temps are critical in dwc. I'm thinking like 27° either way is death at a prolong time. If water temps stay higher an Room temp is ok put some slats under your buckets and a fan blowing on the buckets. That should bring the temps down where needed. High water temps lead to root rot and other diseases.

 

[tobh]

High water temps lead to root rot and other diseases.

CAN lead to root rot and other diseases. Several members here have proven that the myth of running water temps at 68F - 72F are just that, myths. Depending on the chosen IPM methods used, temps as high as 78F are fine, but your IPM has to be on point. DO doesn't play as significant of a role at the scale most home growers operate at, so the argument of less DO being available is frankly BS.

Air pumps raising water temps is also negligible. I would be more concerned about the havoc they wreak on pH rather than the one or two degree increase they introduce to water temp. Granted in DWC your options for keeping the solution moving are limited, and again, this would be one of the last things I would concern myself with.

TL;DR: if you're running live, make sure you have adequate colonies of good bacteria. If you're running sterile, make sure you're consistently on top of it. Use enzymes in either case if you're not using pool shock. Forget about "ideal" temps of the solution, plants grow faster and healthier when their roots aren't cold (within reason). If res temps are over 80F, then you need to insulate better.