how necesary are air stones in the res exactly?

[kushtrees]

So I have been using HG nutes for a while now and I usually have 0 issues with them in terms of ph stability and other things, untill now...

I have always used airstones in my resses whether drip flooding dtw or recirculating until about a week ago. I switched all my stuff to coco/perlite DTW and started mixing nutes as I needed them, and last time i mixed enough nutes for 2 waterings. When I left them the ph was at 5.8 and one res was at 1.9 ec and the other was at 2.0 ec, usually leaving nutes aroud for a couple of days has been fine, same ec ph never above 6.1 (i ph for 5.8), but this time, after 3 days, the phs were 6.2 and 6.3 and the ec had gone up .1 in each res to 2.0/2.1ec...

So it would seem not using airstones has caused some issues for me as thats the only thing I can think of that would do this is the lack of mixing but im just guess here...

So how important are airstones in the res? i cant stand them personaly and would rather use a venturi or a water breaking pump, but i was worried about heating up the res too much so i tried to skip it all. any know how to size a venturi or pump for a res to just keep things mixed? id love to find a good alternative to airstones

 

[motherlode]

was it warm in your room - did you maybe lose some water volume to evaporation?

you can use a water breaking pump - just put it one of those timers with all the 15 minute tabs - 15 minutes every 2 hours should be fine to keep your res mixed - make sure one of the cycles is right before you water

 

[kushtrees]

thats a great idea! i have one laying around actually haha thanks ML!

i thought that was a possibility on the ec change the res was a lil warmer my control room is usually about 73 degrees but the water was at the same mark so it wouldnt have been much that evaporated