Use a water pump as a stir pump to recirculate. You will get sufficient aeration with cavitation. Air stones make the pH drift up more quickly.

Even for DWC? I thought the roots need substantial air bubbles/pockets so they don’t rot?

this was my planned setup for DWC with 8” air discs, one under each plant.

there are also pumps on each end pushing water to the opposite end of the reservoir/trough.

Bubbles for me too. Goes away after a few minutes

Thegreywizard said:

So I’ve been trying to use Grow Genius Mono-silicic acid and seem to keep having a continuing problem.

It doesn’t matter if I add it first or last, once added it begins to bubble up like I’ve added Dawn to my water.

I should mention I am using air stones to oxygenate the water as I’m making it and that’s the cause of the bubbles.

But I plan on doing DWC, so utilizing air stones is required for my system.

I’ve only tested this in 1-2 gallons so far, only using a couple of drops and still getting the same effects.

The more that gets added, the worse the bubbles become

So am I doing something wrong?

could this possibly be a bad batch?

Has anyone experienced this before?

I was really hoping to use this product and hope I can get this figured out.

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Anytime you use a mono-silicic silica, it will bubble up with a strong pump. I've used fasilitor from aptus, power-si, and other brands. This is very common with mono-silicic acid. i would not be worried.

It’s acting as a surfactant, changes in surface tension make it either easier or harder for bubble to form, try shaking ever clear, it will never form bubbles, shake water in a bottle it will, add a little soap or other surfactant and it will bubble more because now the surface tension of the water is broken to a point where it will stretch and trap more air than before it can escape. More stuff binding together (with surfactant vs normal water surface tension) in the water makes a stronger connection it needs to burst through to join the rest of the air

Ahh ok great, thanks for the info everyone!

I left it out these last couple of weeks because I wasn't sure if it was going to be a problem or not.

I'll try it out again and just kind of let it do it's thing.

Thanks!

Thegreywizard said:

So I’ve been trying to use Grow Genius Mono-silicic acid and seem to keep having a continuing problem.

It doesn’t matter if I add it first or last, once added it begins to bubble up like I’ve added Dawn to my water.

I should mention I am using air stones to oxygenate the water as I’m making it and that’s the cause of the bubbles.

But I plan on doing DWC, so utilizing air stones is required for my system.

I’ve only tested this in 1-2 gallons so far, only using a couple of drops and still getting the same effects.

The more that gets added, the worse the bubbles become

So am I doing something wrong?

could this possibly be a bad batch?

Has anyone experienced this before?

I was really hoping to use this product and hope I can get this figured oilGroe genius contains a wetting ag

Click to expand...

Thegreywizard said:

So I’ve been trying to use Grow Genius Mono-silicic acid and seem to keep having a continuing problem.

It doesn’t matter if I add it first or last, once added it begins to bubble up like I’ve added Dawn to my water.

I should mention I am using air stones to oxygenate the water as I’m making it and that’s the cause of the bubbles.

But I plan on doing DWC, so utilizing air stones is required for my system.

I’ve only tested this in 1-2 gallons so far, only using a couple of drops and still getting the same effects.

The more that gets added, the worse the bubbles become

So am I doing something wrong?

could this possibly be a bad batch?

Has anyone experienced this before?

I was really hoping to use this product and hope I can get this figured out.

Click to expand...

Grow Gebius contains a wetting agent. It is designed to foam up. Add it after any cal mag so the wader is less soft and you will have less bubbling.

Hmm. Well that's become a big pain in the ass in a DWC setup.

Because of this I always add it last and just cover all the maintenance holes and just let it bubble up and keep as much trapped in as possible. It works well this way since it doesn't affect PH at all.

But is it becoming less effective this way because it's frothing up so much?

I've literally had it bubble over insane and it was even worse when I added my dry kelp to the mix.

Is there any other monosilicic acid that's just as concentrated as GG, but doesn't use the wetting agent and therefore would be better suited for DWC?

I really like using this product either way, I've seen great results from it.

I would just like to use a different product that's works works better for DWC.

@BillFarthing do you have any insight or suggestions?

Here's some pics after I added my dry kelp and mono-silicic acid lol

PEG-400 is typically used as an emulsifier. It looks like they used some kind of saponin, perhaps? Sea Green used to do the same thing.

You can safely throw a Gas-X in your res as the main ingredient is an industrial anti-foaming agent.

you either didn't use the right measurements or you have to much air pressure to the air stones.

This place is a wealth of knowledge! @BillFarthing you've got one hell of a brain on you sir!

I assume this is the Gas-X you're referring to:


I was trying to find a liquid version, but there doesn't seem to be any. So I guess I would just get the extra strength 125mg tablets.

how many 125mg tablets would you suggest for 50-60 gallons?

Could I just buy a liquid version of the industrial ant-foaming agent?

Or is that agent the active ingredient of Simethicone? Which doesn't seem to be available in liquid form that I could find on google.

There isn't another mono-silicic acid option that's as concentrated as Grow Genius that wouldn't have this side effect?

Is my GG less effective because it's foaming up like this?

Just for the record, the pictures I posted were after I added my dry kelp AND Grow Genius - it like doubled or tripled the amount of bubbles I normally get when I started using my dry kelp lol

Usually the bubbles from the GG are tolerable I suppose. But I would like to remedy the problem as much as possible.


@PK1

I'm probably going a little heavy on the Grow Genius, I'm usually adding 8-10ml per my 50-60 gallons lol

I just fill up the little chamber on the bottle and dump it in lol

I'd like to keep the heavy dose and just utilize something like Gas-X if possible. Or use a different product.

As far as too much pressure in the air stones, I'm currently using eight 8 inch air discs with a single EcoAir 7 commercial air pump feeding them all through a custom manifold I built.

I also have an EcoPlus 633 fixed flow up on each end for additional circulation.

I then use one of those 633 pumps and a couple of ball valves to easily drain my reservoir once a week.

I have the milk crate in the middle for additional support for the lid. It obviously isn't designed for this purpose, and I didn't want to have it collapse on my later in flower since everything is locked in place once it's fully setup and I wanted to avoid a disaster.

It seems to work extremely well honestly.

So based on my overall DWC design, there isn't an alternative option.

I forgot to take a full picture with the lid off because I had to thread all of the air lines through a hole in the lid

i would remove the air stones. when the pressure of water hits the rez water, it will agitate it and allow air to get mixed.

Since I’m doing DWC, they’re kind of required?

i don’t want to do the kratky method.
I’d rather stick with DWC with air discs.

there isn’t an alternative product that’s as concentrated as GG?

if not I’ll just add the Gas-X and get it to settle as best as possible and deal with it regardless.

I think that’s the best marriage of all of the variables, expectations and hopeful outcome.

Thegreywizard said:

Since I’m doing DWC, they’re kind of required?

i don’t want to do the kratky method.
I’d rather stick with DWC with air discs.

there isn’t an alternative product that’s as concentrated as GG?

if not I’ll just add the Gas-X and get it to settle as best as possible and deal with it regardless.

I think that’s the best marriage of all of the variables, expectations and hopeful outcome.

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Hey mate, I’m also having the same problem with GG! It’s annoying and my thought was is is even still effective as it’s really expensive. I just kinda cope with it because I’m not adding dry kelp making bubbles worse lol but it’s rather annoying I must say.

Deforced said:

Hey mate, I’m also having the same problem with GG! It’s annoying and my thought was is is even still effective as it’s really expensive. I just kinda cope with it because I’m not adding dry kelp making bubbles worse lol but it’s rather annoying I must say.

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Iy will foam at high concentration. Once it is at strength called out it stops foaming for me.

Anthem said:

Iy will foam at high concentration. Once it is at strength called out it stops foaming for me.

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I’m just following what strength they say on the bottle which is 0.3ml/litre

Deforced said:

I’m just following what strength they say on the bottle which is 0.3ml/litre

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Ummm that might be your problem… It does not say 0.3 ml/L it is 0.3 ml / 10L it’s 0.03ml/L which I’d recommend running .12ml/gallon. It’s super concentrated. Also you could just do a weekly foliar if having issues in the res…
To be clear it would be 1ml/ 8.33 gallons of water. So if you’re giving .3ml/L you’re using 10x the recommended dose.

Gooseman23 said:

Ummm that might be your problem… It does not say 0.3 ml/L it is 0.3 ml / 10L it’s 0.03ml/L which I’d recommend running .12ml/gallon. It’s super concentrated. Also you could just do a weekly foliar if having issues in the res…
To be clear it would be 1ml/ 8.33 gallons of water. So if you’re giving .3ml/L you’re using 10x the recommended dose.

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Sorry yeah it was 0.3ml 10litre that’s the dose I was adding it at