What are your thoughts on heavy aeration in R/DWC?

[airedog]

In both my DIY and UC RDWC systems i've been a fan of heavy aeration, usually running an EcoAir 200 air pump to drive large Boss Hog air diffusers. At the end of the grows i'd have to cut the diffusers out of the center of the root mass as the plants picked them up. In my current start-up Tote A has air stones that while supposedly getting an equal amount of air, don't have the bubbling of Tote B; nor do the plants in Tote A have the size of those in Tote B. Each tote is getting 50 lpm through 2 * 8" diameter stones.

I can only find a few of my old Boss Hogs and they need to be cleaned and sanitized before i'll use them again. I'm thinking 1 10" Aquascape EPDM cylinder in each bucket and the epicenter as well as the top-up res, driven by 250 lpm from a couple of Hiblow pumps. That will allow an almost aeroponic zone below the netpots. Time will tell if the roots will lift those suckers off the bottom of the buckets. I'll use an Alita 40 to feed those airstones in my 2 * 44 gallon Brute R/O res.

Anyone have similar experiences or opinions on heavy aeration. I know that conventional wisdom holds that beyond a point more aeration should not matter; i just haven't seen that happen in my totes or buckets yet.

Kandy Kush in a 17 gallon tote;

DIY res;

Tote B;

 

[PK1]

IMO in rdwc aeration is not as important as circulation. You can alway have a bit of gap between the outlet and the rez water so that the water can break the surface and because of the drops there will be air mixed with the water. ex: in nature you see waterfalls and such. You don't see any air bubbles in rivers neither. however, your setup looks good

 

[Onelow1]

Yes you can over aerate. Seedling don't like too much action. And as PK1 said water falls work really well. A little of both is cool. Keeping distance between pump and water helps a lot with temps, feel how hot your manifold gets. big pump, big heat.

 

[airedog]

Here are some Cherry Noir at 35 days; there's a Hiblow 100 lpm air pump feeding 2 * 8" sintered air diffuser discs in each tote. Much less heat than when i used similar EcoPlus pumps, usually running 68 - 72F and the totes have about 10 - 20L of water each.

 

[Onelow1]

If it's working, don't mess with it. It looks great. White roots, speak volumes! Will have to throw away my pumps and air stones some day and just use waterfalls. Surface area.

 

[Bean_Boy]

I agree with @Onelow1 with the seedlings, ive had roots get tangled and messy looking. But after that, it seems like the roots love lots of air. In my limited experience

 

[Onelow1]

.75 - 1.5 LPM is what CC recommends, no more. Personal, I like to start off small, increase around week 4 if your have explosive grow. Increase again later depends on how big and how long they'll be around. Look into water falls. What's the rule about air pumps...... They don't put air in the water, air bubble increase surface area.

I agree with @Onelow1 with the seedlings, ive had roots get tangled and messy looking. But after that, it seems like the roots love lots of air. In my limited experience

 

[brotherfrombelgium]

If it's working, don't mess with it. It looks great. White roots, speak volumes! Will have to throw away my pumps and air stones some day and just use waterfalls. Surface area.

Yep that's all you need, air stones I've never used and will NEVER use them, hell i once grew without a waterfall effect, just the rainfall effect from the top feed drip ring was enough to grow it.

Think Koi ponds, never seen air stones to keep those fish alive, air stones are loud, noisy horrible things, seriously you don't need them, ditch them all ba ha ha! (evilgrin)

 

[WhatsHeDoingToday]

I tried making my own diffuser in 27 gallon HDX totes with 1/2" tubling with small holes every 3/4". I thought I was being clever, lol....but the tubes would try and float so i put some river rock over them to try and hold them down. When I turned on the pump the bubbles came out but the pipe also began to rise in some areas and the disbursement of air became uneven... When I compared it to using 2 large 4" airstones, the airstones won out although they ended up being more expensive than the duffusion system I attempted to incorporate. From what I have learned, using one air stone per 5 gallon bucket vs using 2 airstones per 5 gallon bucket, the 2 airstones made a huge difference in growth for me. So now i start with one airstone per bucket and a drip pulse rings that pushes nutrient up a feed line and distributes a drip down on the inside of the ring that has holes in it. I bought it that way, I did not fabricate it. Then after the roots have grown out of the hydroton net basket and into the reservoir and have established themselves below the bottom of the net, I swap that air feed from the drip ring to an additional air stone and stop using the drip ring. Works out very well for me and the finer bubbles from the airstones vs the fewer big bubbles from the failed diffusion project seem to be very effective at aerating the water.. The roots in my 5 gallon reservoir buckets using 2 airstones really filled out the bucket nicely. But I got to say, the pumps do generate heat and a couple of them can get noisy when ran at max setting... That was my experience just wanted to share it with you. I like what you are running and would switch to something like that in the future. Maybe someday...Thinks for sharing...

 

[brotherfrombelgium]

Funny after seeing my reply i am now using air stones, but i must stress my first time using them i was on a 3rd level apartment with tissue thin walls and everyone would have heard it, so that greatly tuned me off them, but using them within a tent i don't hear the air pump so all good there.

My waterfall set up failed for water pump not being powerful, so air stones it had to be.