Need DWC air stone recommendation

I want to do 5 gallon buckets using my Whisper AP 300 pump. I have used cheap ones for my cloner but they don't stay at the bottom and tend to drift around unless I RTV them. Since I am going from bucket to bucket on nute changes, I don't want to use RTV. I saw a video from MMAdvisor and I liked that stone, if anyone knows the brand. It sank and gave a good amount of bubbles.Thanks.

Would also love a good recommendation for 5 gallon buckets. Don't mind ordering good ones if they are reasonably priced.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Round-Aquarium-Pond-Tank-Pump-Airstone-Air-Stone-/220815065033?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item33699a7fc9
Ive used these before and it stayed on the bottom of my res just fine. as for buckets get some black ones from your local hydro shop or some homer buckets from home depot and just put mylar around them (which I feel works better because it reflects the light back)

Just buy the 6 inch blue ones, they stay on the bottom because of the weight, you can get them anywhere. If you want to get fancy put an O ring on each end to keep the whole stone off the bottom of the bucket. Toss them after every grow, the ceramic stones are better than the blue ones. Don't go to big or your pump will only power 1/2 the stone. Get the best pump you can, you can't have to many bubbles.

i use regular old home depot buckets theyre cheap and easy to get about 5 or 6 bux a bucket. or you can get a couple 10 gallon totes from wal mart or dollar store and just cut holes for two or three plants to go into each one. as far as air stones i dont use the blue ones personally cause they deteriorate after a while and end up with holes. i lucked up and found some at my local hydro store 2.00 for 2 inchers an 2.50 for four inchers and theyre boss!

Would a T bracket and 2 smaller airstones be better than a single larger one? I have more than enough pump power.

this is the airstone i use there nice and heavy they stay at the bottom check them out there pretty good.
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2752196

my experience has been if the airstone is blue, then its crap. Don't buy it, spen 5 bucks on one of those (or two) greay colored ones about the size of those little baby food jars I had a link to one I have hmmm.. here ya go! http://stores.intuitwebsites.com/FifthSeasonGardening/-strse-1651/Air-Stone--dsh--Round/Detail.bok I was in there a few months ago and got one of these (large size) it works great! I have some pics somewhere on this forum of it working. and it's grey not blueish like in the photo.

i use a hot glue gun to glue the stones on the bottom of my buckets. rtv seems to never harden up after u ad water

ULMResearch said:

Would a T bracket and 2 smaller airstones be better than a single larger one? I have more than enough pump power.

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No the larger one has more surface area.

Thanks for the info guys. Here are the buckets I ordered before posting. They are some of the best. I bought 6" net pot lids from HTG to cover them.

My pump can drive air to multiple stones below 8ft of water and is guarenteed for life, so no worries there. I bought a few cheap pumps from Walmart (Aqua Culture) and they are not bad, but for my flowering room I wanted one pump to rule them all and the Whisper fits the bill.

I've used the "blue stones" and they do work, but I was looking for the heavy grey stones of better quality.

I use All-Glass aquarium silicone for water fastening. Much better than RTV.

Just wanted to mention, It's not the air bubbles that give oxidation to the water..... it's the turbulence that is caused from the water surfaces disturbance of the braking of the bubbles. Just wanted to clear that up as many people think the little bubbles "are" the oxidation.

you may see some people use power heads to keep the water oxidation moving. By no means am I a dwc guy! I just raised fish
for a while.........

You have to use power heads in saltwater aquariums because bubbles cause too much salt creep, and who wants that? Otherwise, bubbles provide the most efficient means of dissolved O2 for a root system. Why plug in another device or allow roots to find their way in the pump? Hassle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUr670ShjsI

Air bubbles don't infuse air? That is so incorrect, why would you even think that?

Btw, the smaller the bubbles the greater the infusion rate.

legallyflying said:

Air bubbles don't infuse air? That is so incorrect, why would you even think that?

Btw, the smaller the bubbles the greater the infusion rate.

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It's NOT the bubbles, its the turbulence. So when you say "infuse" maybe this could be true? but I think it misconstrues what is happening, it is the disruption of the water from the bubbles that brings the oxidation mixture to the root, NOT the bubbles them self. =)

calikush420 said:

this is the airstone i use there nice and heavy they stay at the bottom check them out there pretty good.
http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2752196

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Exact one that I use. It's good but after a few months it doesn't seem to work as well.

2layz2p said:

It's NOT the bubbles, its the turbulence. So when you say "infuse" maybe this could be true? but I think it misconstrues what is happening, it is the disruption of the water from the bubbles that brings the oxidation mixture to the root, NOT the bubbles them self. =)

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I don't know why I feel compelled to explain it as the end result is that bubbles put air in the water. I know what all the aquarium websites say but it is an over simplification. Yes, the turbulence does oxygenate the water but so does the bubbles passing through the water column. Just think about what your saying. Your saying the movement of water on the surface in the precense of oxygen (bubble breaking) mixes air into solution. But air moving water doesn't cause aeration? It's virtually the same thing.

When fluids or gasses of different concentrations are exposed to each other, the concentrations will equalize. It's plain physics. Think of how air infuses into your blood. The high concentration of air in your aveloi passes through a permeable membrane into the oxygen deprived blood. Fish actually pass air, heat and gasses through blood vessels that are adjacent to each other. There are no bubbles popping in your blood stream.

For what it's worth, I have a powerhead with an airline that bubbles and agitates the surface.

I use 2 four inch air disks.

What I did to keep them from moving is cut and measure a piece of PVC pipe. I have the arilines coming into the bucket lid (that has the net pot attached) through the PVS pipe. The pipe is long enough to keep the airstone on the bottom of the bucket.

threeandahook said:

I use 2 four inch air disks.

What I did to keep them from moving is cut and measure a piece of PVC pipe. I have the arilines coming into the bucket lid (that has the net pot attached) through the PVS pipe. The pipe is long enough to keep the airstone on the bottom of the bucket.

Click to expand...

This is the same idea I came up with the other day. If you put the tube through the top you can just silicone a 8-10" piece of 1/2" PVC pipe to the lid and run the tube through it. If you want to tube tthrough the side then you could do the same thing but just an elbow to it.

I'm hoping these big heavy stones I just got don't need it, but we will see.

I went with the post #8 stone suggestion and they are exactly what I've wanted. Heavy with one-way hose barbs, too. Same as the video.

Thanks!

Now I am wondering about using pea gravel in my net pots instead of Hydroton, but all I can find locally is pretty jagged and not roundish and smooth. Any worries there about crushing and slicing roots when moving pots from bucket to bucket?

Pet store aquarium gravel is about as pricy, if not more costly than my hydro shop's Hydroton, so I would keep using that, but this pea gravel is really cheap. I bought 50# for $5.