Lee's Discard A Stone - Air Stone Replacement?

I'm curious if anyone has tried these: Discard A Stone Amazon Link

I'm sick of stones getting clogged too quick. I'm probably going to give them a try, will report back here.

Those look cool. Watching this.

I wonder how many bubbles they put off. You'd think they could be used at least for a few grows, no? If not they are still just over a buck a piece. Better than those $1.80 blue pieces of shit that crumble after one grow(or sometimes in the box)

They're tiny, and I've heard they float. But none of that is from personal experience...Sounds cheap, try 'em an let us hydro guys know, maybe the rock?! I know they come in different pore sizes too..I was looking into them for a fish tank one time....

Ive used them in fish tanks they are very light and u will be discarding them...lol. just my 2 cents

Life with the shitty blue stones continues.

I wonder if you just perforate the air tube and get those suction cups with a ring at the end used to hold up PH meters in reservoirs to hold the tube down if that would work. Obviously plugging up the end so air doesn't take the path of least resistance.

Be pretty easy to clean and reuse

I use the 4" air disks with suction cups on the bottom. Boil them after use and their like new. Pricey but I think I should get several grows out of then

ditch the stone, it serves no purpose other than to weigh down the end of the air line

Observe & Report said:

ditch the stone, it serves no purpose other than to weigh down the end of the air line

Click to expand...

Are you saying to just use preforated tube for the air bubbles?

Just stick the tube in the water and attach it with a suction cup or rubber band a rock to it, you'll saturate the water with oxygen and circulate it just fine without a stone. Their main purpose in aquaria is to make the bubbles more attractive. The increase in bubble surface area is really only useful in foam fractionating protein skimmers.

Where did you find this info? So just weighting or auction cupping the tube to the bottom of bucket will add the same amount of dissolved oxygen and my 4" air disk would?

Yes, either way will saturate the water with oxygen quickly. Give it a shot, next time a stone clogs don't replace it. You won't be the first one to do it in DWC.

Observe & Report said:

Yes, either way will saturate the water with oxygen quickly. Give it a shot, next time a stone clogs don't replace it. You won't be the first one to do it in DWC.

Click to expand...

Well thanks for the tips. I'm going to try this. I run an undercurrent rdwc with a nice water fall and high powered pump. This already adds a lot of oxegen.

Many aquariums work well without any air stones, just a little water fall from the filter. Fish have much, much higher oxygen demands than plants do through the roots. Do they even take up oxygen in the roots? I'm pretty sure the main reason you need oxygen in the water is to prevent anaerobic bacteria from turning your roots into slime.

juldan1834 said:

Ive used them in fish tanks they are very light and u will be discarding them...lol. just my 2 cents

Click to expand...

Don't give a shit about weight, stainless steel nuts fix that problem easily. Already have them on with the blue stones anyway.

Observe & Report said:

Yes, either way will saturate the water with oxygen quickly. Give it a shot, next time a stone clogs don't replace it. You won't be the first one to do it in DWC.

Click to expand...

Maybe if you do them all, if I pull the stone off one and leave them on the rest the one bucket will be blowing water out the top, I had it happen when I was rubbing the stone to get better flow, water everywhere. Also tried putting a new one in the more clogged ones, hell no, too much air same result.

Observe & Report said:

Many aquariums work well without any air stones, just a little water fall from the filter. Fish have much, much higher oxygen demands than plants do through the roots. Do they even take up oxygen in the roots? I'm pretty sure the main reason you need oxygen in the water is to prevent anaerobic bacteria from turning your roots into slime.

Click to expand...

Roots use O2 to process sugars for energy, sugars delivered from above.

Beezcheeze said:

Well thanks for the tips. I'm going to try this. I run an undercurrent rdwc with a nice water fall and high powered pump. This already adds a lot of oxegen.

Click to expand...

That waterfall in the epicenter alone will provide all the oxygenation your water needs. The airstones in each site are recommended only because they create splash to wet roots that don't contact the water. This they do- but only poorly.

I catch flak for this idea regularly, to which I answer in the following way:

I've been running a waterfall in every tubsite in my RDWC for YEARS, and my plants are only six feet tall and produce up to a pound each, so what WTF would I know?

Airpumps and stones are garbage for RDWC, they're there only to provide profit for hydro stores.

juldan1834 said:

Ive used them in fish tanks they are very light and u will be discarding them...lol. just my 2 cents

Click to expand...

Did you get them weighted down and run them? Mostly interested in how they perform clogging wise, initial performance should be plenty good from the reviews. It's a question of will the nutes clog them up over time like the stones.

Just swapped my clogged crappy blue stones out. So far I'm more than happy with their performance, I will report back in a few weeks with an update.

One thing pissed me off at first, then was no big deal, the 6 packs only come with 4 adapters, but the hole size is also a perfect fit for the outside diameter of the air hose. A new air hose end (not flared from a stone being connected) fits right inside the stone and seems like a better fit than the adapters actually. So I have 30 of them running right now. 20 with adapter 10 without.

A single one of the stainless steel nuts I use is enough weight to sink it.

How would a stone clog up if it has air blowing out of it all time? How can anything get in a stone when everything is being blown away from the stone? My stones seem to last forever. Once in a while I buy a few new ones due to expansion and I compare the air bubbles to my old ones and don't notice any difference. I do wash them off between grows, but that's about it. Are you guys turning off the air from time to time and allowing gunk to soak into them?