Grow Mediums Wavemaker? Airstones? Waterfall filters? Best dissolved oxygen production

[davisgirl]

I’m having hit and miss luck with air stones recently. Picked up some expensive ones that sucked, picked up cheap ones that rock. No rhyme or reason. Currently flirting with no res change DWC only because I’m a week late changing the res haha — we’ll see.

 

[Boradan]

I’m having hit and miss luck with air stones recently. Picked up some expensive ones that sucked, picked up cheap ones that rock. No rhyme or reason. Currently flirting with no res change DWC only because I’m a week late changing the res haha — we’ll see.

Careful with that.
Plants do not take up every single nutrient at the same rate. so your reservoir can become unbalanced if you just keep topping up to keep the same ppm.

 

[davisgirl]

Careful with that.
Plants do not take up every single nutrient at the same rate. so your reservoir can become unbalanced if you just keep topping up to keep the same ppm.

Yeah, I’m thinking just the 2 weeks will be plenty

 

[jER]

I've switched to changing every two weeks as well, I've pushed it a bit further but the Ph gets a bit unstable after to long.

 

[Frenjamin Banklin]

I do no res changes, yeah I know broken record. But I don’t chase the PPM because you will get PH issues. I only check the PH and use that as my guide. I’ve had the healthiest plants I’ve ever had. And big. But I don’t like the idea of an auto top off system. It’s to much in the way and does not let you tailor to individual plants. In large 8 gallon buckets I check PH and water levels every couple days.

If water level drops and PH goes up, I give nutrients at dosage to level off PH.
If water level drops and PH goes down then I top off with plain water at a PH off 7.5. But don’t add nutrients.

I’m using MC1 with very small amounts of calmag and epsom and having great success with 90-100 day harvest without changing buckets. A lot off peeps run DWC and I dare you to just pick a random strain and try it. Throwaway that feed chart for one DWC grow and go lite in your nutrients. Make sure your res doesn’t rot but I’ve had no build up issues over three grows now this way.
FB

 

[jER]

I have found ppm to be somewhat unreliable as well, at least in determining what the plants actually want for nutrient concentration. I seem to get a steady climb in ppms regardless of the concentration, might be due to hard water. Ph would probably be a better indicator but I am currently running AN's ph perfect line and the Ph buffers probably obfuscate any useful interpretation. My PH pen likes to drift like 0.5 upwards a week, which is a pain, almost needs calibration twice a week. It's a decent blue lab one too.
I do a similar procedure, I check the EC and Ph daily and add either my standard nutrient mix or plain water, only instead of adding manually I have two top up tanks, one with nute mix and one with water. They both valve into a single float valve on the rez and I turn on one tank or the other and it keeps the level up. The tanks have enough capacity to keep the system full for over two weeks even in heavy flower.

 

[Rev. Green Genes]

bubble bubba. hands down best airstone. It can be cleaned and reused, I have been on my first stone for 4 years, and bought several smaller ones too. They are like glass, and form microbubbles with far more surface area than cheap stones. More surface area means more oxygenation. I soak in bleach after every run, then washit and it looks like new. The fitting is sturdy, and they have several sizes of stones or pores. Made by BubbleMac Aeration.

 

[davisgirl]

bubble bubba. hands down best airstone. It can be cleaned and reused, I have been on my first stone for 4 years, and bought several smaller ones too. They are like glass, and form microbubbles with far more surface area than cheap stones. More surface area means more oxygenation. I soak in bleach after every run, then washit and it looks like new. The fitting is sturdy, and they have several sizes of stones or pores. Made by BubbleMac Aeration.

View attachment 1075405

Thanks for the recommendation Rev, I’ve needed to up my air stone game and these might work. Ordered 2. Just a heads up, Bubblemac says to clean with muriatic acid and to specifically not use bleach.

 

[Rev. Green Genes]

Thanks for the recommendation Rev, I’ve needed to up my air stone game and these might work. Ordered 2. Just a heads up, Bubblemac says to clean with muriatic acid and to specifically not use bleach.

I saw that, but I've had great luck with it anyway. I have thought about using vinegar instead of bleach. But so far so good. And if I have to replace it someday, thats ok. I forgot all about that, good looking out.

Also, if your air pump is one of the cheaper variety, I would think about upgrading to get the most out of these bubble mac stones. They can take more pressure and will reward you with a large curtain of bubbles.

 

[Simplicio]

As I've already posted, my experience is that a top feed system aerates the water as well as air stones.
Another advantage of top feed is that it keeps the reservoir much better mixed than air stones can, because roots impede the mixing when using air stones.
The best kind of top feed is the "air lift" version that GenHydro uses in its products.
An air pump aerates water inside a tube, which makes the mixture lighter than water, and buoyant forces cause the aerated fluid to shoot up the tube.
Submerged water pump top feeds add heat to reservoirs.