DWC air pump question

Hey RIU,
so I am currently setting up a dwc grow. In my veg cab which is 1.5Lx3Wx6H I have one 5 gallon bucket with a 5 inch net (mother) one small 12"x14" rubbermaid bin four 3 inch nets (clones). The lighting is three 4 foot shop lights hung vertical on the walls dude to space... each bulb is 40watts. So 40x6=240watts.. So I'm pretty sure I'm good on lighting in there... If you don't agree please tell me... Next in the flower room I have a 27 gallon rubber maid with four 5inch nets in them (room for two more nets)... I want to obviously flower four-six at a time... So I went to petco and got an up to 170 gpm air pump with gout outlets on it... I was planning on running two-three air lines to the flower then one-two air lines to the veg...

Now Will this air pump work for this set up? I've looked all over and everyone just says get an aip pump but they don't mention how big it needs to be...

The general rule of thumb for air pumps in DWC set ups is 1 watt/gallon of water you're using. That pump will probably be more than enough for either the 5 gal bucket or the cloner. You'll be needing more light in there by the time flowering is induced. You may want to pick up a couple 42 watt CFLs to really focus in on individual buds/parts of the plant if you're not using HIDs. Happy growing!

The more air the better. Look into the sunleaves dura pumps. From my experience those petshop air pumps intended for aquarium use aren't sufficient, especially when you start running 4-5 lines off it.

Fredsgrow- my flower room is 3x3x6 and I hope to use a 400whps

Banditt- thanks for the advice!! I'll be taking back all this air pump stuff back and invest in a bigger pump... Is there one out there that will support all my current buckets plus leave me room to expand? If you could point me in the right direction that would be great.. Recommend website, store, BRAND, ect also this grows on a budget I've already invested close to 1000 wood, hindges, lights, fans, nutes, ect...

Bud4you86 said:

Banditt- thanks for the advice!! I'll be taking back all this air pump stuff back and invest in a bigger pump... Is there one out there that will support all my current buckets plus leave me room to expand? If you could point me in the right direction that would be great.. Recommend website, store, BRAND, ect also this grows on a budget I've already invested close to 1000 wood, hindges, lights, fans, nutes, ect...

Click to expand...

I bought my pumps from worms way. I beleive they had the cheapest prices on the sunleaves dura pumps at the time I purchased them. I have two of them, a smaller 900ish gph one and the big boy 1740gph one. The 900gph can probably easily do 6 buckets. The larger 1740 one can probably do twice that many. The smaller one comes with an adapter to hook up 4 airlines. The larger one comes with a 6 line adapter. I recommend buying an aftermarket adapter however, as the ones you get with the pumps do not have shut off valves so you need to find a way to block the ports you aren't using on it or else all the air escapes through the open ports. I was using airline tubing clamped together with channel locks as a ghetto solution until I got myself a nice stainless adapter with shutoff valves.

http://www.wormsway.com/detail.aspx?sku=SDA570&AC=1

Also one other thing. Having good diffusers is really important in DWC. A lot of people say you can get buy with the cheap stones or the air curtain/wand type deals from the pet store. But I have had horrible luck with these things clogging up and turning to shit in a matter of weeks. Do yourself a favor and buy some good airstones. The micro pore ones you can get at worms way are top notch. A little expensive for airstones but these things literally never clog.

Trust me you don't want your airstones clogging...EVER! You'd be surprised how fast root rot will set in once your stones clog up and the water is not properly airated.

http://www.sunleaves.com/detail.asp?sku=SDA530

ok guys.... That link is to a 18watt pump however it's like 600-1100Gpm will this supply everything

Bud4you86 said:

http://www.sunleaves.com/detail.asp?sku=SDA530

ok guys.... That link is to a 18watt pump however it's like 600-1100Gpm will this supply everything

Click to expand...

Yeah that will definitely work for you. I recommend getting at least the 950gph version. It's only 12 dollars more then the 600gph and it is putting out a lot more air.

Banditt- yeah it appears I got those cheap blue ones from petco... I built my hydro equiptment based off a dwc hydro grow bucket I saw on here. I made the bucket for the mother plants then I designed something for the flower and clones out of rubber maid products..
Question- what if I op out of airstones all together and just had open ended tubing held to the bitten by some PVC or suction cup?
Question- could I over power my grow with air..
Bucket 5gallons
clone 2gallons
flower 30 gallons
total. 37 gallon
based on what I've been told I need 1 watt/ 1 gallon.. Now let's say I got a 120watt air pump which is 1200gpm...
Would that be over kill for my 37 gallon since it's 120 gallons kinda... But I do want room to grow bigger in the future...
I also don't want to make a huge mess with water splashing due to my over powered air pump...
Now

Bud4you86 said:

Banditt- yeah it appears I got those cheap blue ones from petco... I built my hydro equiptment based off a dwc hydro grow bucket I saw on here. I made the bucket for the mother plants then I designed something for the flower and clones out of rubber maid products..
Question- what if I op out of airstones all together and just had open ended tubing held to the bitten by some PVC or suction cup?
Question- could I over power my grow with air..
Bucket 5gallons
clone 2gallons
flower 30 gallons
total. 37 gallon
based on what I've been told I need 1 watt/ 1 gallon.. Now let's say I got a 120watt air pump which is 1200gpm...
Would that be over kill for my 37 gallon since it's 120 gallons kinda... But I do want room to grow bigger in the future...
I also don't want to make a huge mess with water splashing due to my over powered air pump...
Now

Click to expand...

- Never tried the open ended tubing myself but I have heard people say it works. I have my doubts as you want lots of tiny bubbles opposed to a few large bubbles to get the best aeration in your water.

- No, short of hooking up a commercial air compressor and blowing the water straight out of the reservoir or something.(joking here) The more air the better in dwc.

- It may be overkill for now, but not in a bad way. You won't be hurting anything and you'll be all set to upgrade(add more buckets) in the future.

- You won't get any splash. I would go take a pic of my buckets now but the lights are off.