I have an Active Auqa 20 watt with 8 lines.
I have 3 lines running.
Do you get more output from all 8 at once, or does it just get the same but diverted to used ones??
I dont have any foam anymore in my brewing tea for some reason?
I think my res would be 80* without chiller, not even summer yet, but got 86* in garage y-day
Hey bassman!
When you say you have 8 lines, with 3 running, do you have the other 5 outlets plugged off? If I recall correctly, aren't you running ebb n grow?
If you can afford it, I would check out Reflectix double sided insulation (its like bubblewrap, but like 96% reflective). I found that my DWC (I know its not dwc) reservoirs were getting in the mid 70's (before I used the EWC brew), and then I wrapped the reservoirs in reflectix and threw a 2L bottle (filled 80% with water and marbles in the bottom of the bottle to weigh it down and not float) at 6:10am. After about two hours, the bottles were melted. I removed them, and the temps rose to about 68 (in a room that was 76*) from 62 in 18 hours.
My brew stopped foaming at about 30 hours, and the foam dried to the sides of my bucket. If your temps were right (70-75) while brewing, and you gave them 2Gph of air per gallon of brew, and all equipment was sterilized prior to brewing, and you gave the microbes enough food and brew time you should be good.
My concern with using beneficial microbes in the Ebb and Flow setup is that the roots will not be suspended in water. The fungus grows on and into the rootmass, wedging itself between cells, and I would be concerned that the bacteria that would be left on the roots, as well as the fungus, would dry out if allowed.
Since I started using the beneficial brew, my res temps are from 70-74 degrees with two airstones in the reservoirs.
I have an EcoPlus Eco Air 8 with 8 outlets, pumping out 25Lpm. I take two strips of tubing, cut at 2 inches each, and connect them to a T fitting and use two outlets for one stone. It increases the air output to each stone a bit, and creates a bit of a bottleneck. BUT, I figured that it wouldn't be as much backpressure as if I had 4 blocked off with 4 running an airstone a piece.
NOW, in your Ebb n Grow setup, if I understand correctly, the roots get oxygenated from the air in the absence of the nutrient solution, and the nutrient solution gets oxygenated in the reservoir prior to flooding the buckets.
Since you have just the one reservoir, and you are trying to use beneficial aerobic microbes, I would pick up another airstone and do the T configurations for two outlets per stone, or get 5 more stones for one line a piece. The more air in that res, the better. You could even fill a bottle full of rocks, cap it off, cut more air hose long enough to reach the bottom of the res utilizing every outlet, tie those hoses to the weighted bottle and let it sink to the bottom. Air stones just break up the air being put into the water, maximizing surface area. I have seen people put air hose into the res without stones, achieving great results. BUT, airstones are better IMO. Some people say that waterfalls and powerheads do a better job. I have never personally tried them.
I know the hype about DWC drowing in a power outage, and other root problems. If I had started my grow with the EWC tea, I would have so much more growth as I was set back over 2 weeks with algae problems. Despite this headache, my Qrazy train is kickin hard, and my Blue Dream is just chuggin along.
I'll do a little more poking around to read up as much as I can on Ebb n Flow with beneficial tea.
Happy Growin!
-dbj
