Chronicknowledge42o
Active Member
YESSSSSSSS. I feel you on that! under current + water farm = wow.
forsure man

YESSSSSSSS. I feel you on that! under current + water farm = wow.
I did not reach hydro success until I blasted the nutes with massive air pump/stones.
His roots look fantastic, especially for being in nutes 24/7. If you compare his to other DWC growers, their roots look like soggy spaghetti- a perfect environment for slime.
I first noted this after not having good success using a small single tube air pump in a cloner. I bought one twice the size + 2 lines and results improved dramatically.
I am doing an R & D tent, growing one plant using half the lines from a 4 line air pump that produces 15 l/min + DIY leds. If I may, here's a photo of that plant (>3ft) + Root Porn from my HPA system, so I know a thing or two about what healthy roots look like. The more elaborate the root mass, the healthier and more efficient. Huge dividends at bud time
Yeah... I'm jelly right now. I want the 110L 12 outlet commercial pump with all the trimmings. Just gotta coin up one of these days. I think everyone that works with hydroponics would agree, aeration is key!
Those where probably my 2 best purchases while building these systemslol, each res still needs 2 more air stones, We just ran out of line & air stones. But even more aeration is available to this system than what they are receiving now
Yes people, major aeration of the water in UC is definitely a key factor! I have rather large containers/bins, but each of them have 4 12" air stones in each of them!
I will say this once and once only.. THe 110liter ecoplus "commercial" pumps... you all know the ones.. are COMPLETE GARBAGE!! They are NOISY as FUCK, HOT as FUCK..you can literally burn your hand on them, and if you run them 24/7 like I do, you can expect them to last a little over a year. You would throw up in your mouth if you took one apart and saw how cheaply they are made. the rubber and metal diaphram is a fucking joke.
Sooo... If your going to buy a pump, save some money and drop twice as much on a pondmaster, or if your really loaded, an alita. you can find them on e-bay. You will be AMAZED at the difference. My grow room no longer sounds like a swarm of bees in a muffled tin can. The pondmaster pump is compltely silent...I thought it wasn't running at first. I'm telling you, they are worth the money!
IF anyone wants a 110l eco plus airpump I'll sell them for $30 shipped. I have 4 of them.
Yup. After trying everything from the super cheap to the god damn expensive (micro diffuser. My ass. Micro clogger) I use the 2" oxystones. Two per bucket
Right on. After each run I rinse the stones out and let them dry. Once they are dry I boil them, then let them dry again. Seems to really clean them out nicely. They can be boiled about 3-4 times before the nipples break off. The 2" ones throw a lot more bubbles than the 4". Why? Don't know, don't care.
Just as an FYI, I did a test with an expensive DO meter to see how much air I needed in my rez.... even a small cheap air pump with a stupid blue air stone kept it at max DO. So one stone in the rez will keep things just fine. You probably don't even need a stone in there really (not sure what system your running) but I have ebb grow buckets so when the buckets empty in the rez and vice versa, there is plenty of mixing to keep things oxygenated.
YOu can overdo the air in them. I don't know why it would be a problem but my UC crashed and when I spoke to them on the phone they said I had WAY too much air. I can't remeber what their recomendation is but I was 3X more than that. Doesn't really make sense to me, but he was saying something about messing with the nutrients? Dunno.