Under Current 16 plant 2400w Canadian medical grow Journal

Chronicknowledge42o

Active Member
I did not reach hydro success until I blasted the nutes with massive air pump/stones.

His roots look fantastic, especially for being in nutes 24/7. If you compare his to other DWC growers, their roots look like soggy spaghetti- a perfect environment for slime.

I first noted this after not having good success using a small single tube air pump in a cloner. I bought one twice the size + 2 lines and results improved dramatically.

I am doing an R & D tent, growing one plant using half the lines from a 4 line air pump that produces 15 l/min + DIY leds. If I may, here's a photo of that plant (>3ft) + Root Porn from my HPA system, so I know a thing or two about what healthy roots look like. The more elaborate the root mass, the healthier and more efficient
. Huge dividends at bud time
Beautiful roots man. Agree 100% about needing tons of aeration I think this defiantly keeps everything fresh & can allow you a bit of play when it comes to res temps. Defiantly don't want things getting to warm but I think the amount of air you have in your water gives you a bit of breathing room. All white & fresh looking here with no chillers, So id have to attribute it to my massive amount of air in each system.
 

Krondizzel

New Member
Yeah... I'm jelly right now. I want the 110L 12 outlet commercial pump with all the trimmings. Just gotta coin up one of these days. I think everyone that works with hydroponics would agree, aeration is key!
 

Chronicknowledge42o

Active Member
Yeah... I'm jelly right now. I want the 110L 12 outlet commercial pump with all the trimmings. Just gotta coin up one of these days. I think everyone that works with hydroponics would agree, aeration is key!
Those where probably my 2 best purchases while building these systems :) lol, each res still needs 2 more air stones, We just ran out of line & air stones. But even more aeration is available to this system than what they are receiving now
 

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
Those where probably my 2 best purchases while building these systems :) lol, each res still needs 2 more air stones, We just ran out of line & air stones. But even more aeration is available to this system than what they are receiving now
I will say this once and once only.. THe 110liter ecoplus "commercial" pumps... you all know the ones.. are COMPLETE GARBAGE!! They are NOISY as FUCK, HOT as FUCK..you can literally burn your hand on them, and if you run them 24/7 like I do, you can expect them to last a little over a year. You would throw up in your mouth if you took one apart and saw how cheaply they are made. the rubber and metal diaphram is a fucking joke.

Sooo... If your going to buy a pump, save some money and drop twice as much on a pondmaster, or if your really loaded, an alita. you can find them on e-bay. You will be AMAZED at the difference. My grow room no longer sounds like a swarm of bees in a muffled tin can. The pondmaster pump is compltely silent...I thought it wasn't running at first. I'm telling you, they are worth the money!

IF anyone wants a 110l eco plus airpump I'll sell them for $30 shipped. I have 4 of them.
 

^Slanty

Active Member
Yes people, major aeration of the water in UC is definitely a key factor! I have rather large containers/bins, but each of them have 4 12" air stones in each of them!
 

Chronicknowledge42o

Active Member
I will say this once and once only.. THe 110liter ecoplus "commercial" pumps... you all know the ones.. are COMPLETE GARBAGE!! They are NOISY as FUCK, HOT as FUCK..you can literally burn your hand on them, and if you run them 24/7 like I do, you can expect them to last a little over a year. You would throw up in your mouth if you took one apart and saw how cheaply they are made. the rubber and metal diaphram is a fucking joke.

Sooo... If your going to buy a pump, save some money and drop twice as much on a pondmaster, or if your really loaded, an alita. you can find them on e-bay. You will be AMAZED at the difference. My grow room no longer sounds like a swarm of bees in a muffled tin can. The pondmaster pump is compltely silent...I thought it wasn't running at first. I'm telling you, they are worth the money!

IF anyone wants a 110l eco plus airpump I'll sell them for $30 shipped. I have 4 of them.
Lmao @ the description of the noise haha, Couldnt have described it better myself & yeah my pumps do get hot. Damn sounds like I will be upgrading thease pumps as soon as they fail. For now they put out a ton of air & the price was right, But thanks for the heads up now I wont be shocked if they poop the bed after this crop is down :)
 

PetFlora

Well-Known Member
The best stones I have found are Oxystones. They are well made and throw tons of champagne= tiny bubbles
 

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
Yup. After trying everything from the super cheap to the god damn expensive (micro diffuser. My ass. Micro clogger) I use the 2" oxystones. Two per bucket
 

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
Right on. After each run I rinse the stones out and let them dry. Once they are dry I boil them, then let them dry again. Seems to really clean them out nicely. They can be boiled about 3-4 times before the nipples break off. The 2" ones throw a lot more bubbles than the 4". Why? Don't know, don't care.
 

Chronicknowledge42o

Active Member
Right on. After each run I rinse the stones out and let them dry. Once they are dry I boil them, then let them dry again. Seems to really clean them out nicely. They can be boiled about 3-4 times before the nipples break off. The 2" ones throw a lot more bubbles than the 4". Why? Don't know, don't care.
Yeah that's how I clean mine as well, Awesome info man if it wasn't for you I woulda bought 4'' ones lol. After this harvest is done gonna get more airline & run all 4 stones to each res & each bucket gets 1 stone. Right now each res only has 2, So double the oxygen in each res next grow potentially even more since these air stones will be utilizing the pump better probably & releasing more bubbles.
 

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
Just as an FYI, I did a test with an expensive DO meter to see how much air I needed in my rez.... even a small cheap air pump with a stupid blue air stone kept it at max DO. So one stone in the rez will keep things just fine. You probably don't even need a stone in there really (not sure what system your running) but I have ebb grow buckets so when the buckets empty in the rez and vice versa, there is plenty of mixing to keep things oxygenated.
 

Chronicknowledge42o

Active Member
Just as an FYI, I did a test with an expensive DO meter to see how much air I needed in my rez.... even a small cheap air pump with a stupid blue air stone kept it at max DO. So one stone in the rez will keep things just fine. You probably don't even need a stone in there really (not sure what system your running) but I have ebb grow buckets so when the buckets empty in the rez and vice versa, there is plenty of mixing to keep things oxygenated.
Mine is a DIY under current, More oxygen the better imo so we throw all the extra lines from the pump into the res :)
 

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
YOu can overdo the air in them. I don't know why it would be a problem but my UC crashed and when I spoke to them on the phone they said I had WAY too much air. I can't remeber what their recomendation is but I was 3X more than that. Doesn't really make sense to me, but he was saying something about messing with the nutrients? Dunno.
 

Chronicknowledge42o

Active Member
YOu can overdo the air in them. I don't know why it would be a problem but my UC crashed and when I spoke to them on the phone they said I had WAY too much air. I can't remeber what their recomendation is but I was 3X more than that. Doesn't really make sense to me, but he was saying something about messing with the nutrients? Dunno.
that defiantly sounds weird, What do you mean your system crashed ? if you dont mind me asking, Also Best of luck to you in the future if you retry UC again :)
 

^Slanty

Active Member
His crashed as in his root system got the dreaded slime which leads to root rot. :wall:

As for the too much air thing LF, I am not sold on what they have said about the "too much air" thing. I have read that several times now. I know for a fact that I doubled my air this round in my UC setup and have seen nothing but great results root wise. I have so much air going into each tote that it "volcano's" in the center of the tote practically. Four 12" stones in each one put out quite a bit of bubbles to say the least!

View attachment 2412061
 

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
Yeah. I got the slime and then I got a little agro and basically shocked my plants with physian and bleach they just sat there for two weeks doing nothing so I pulled it. Prior to that though I was having deficiency problems. I'm not sure what the hell the deal is with the air. I like the UC in theory, I mean, it's fucking cool with all the water moving around. I just hated emptying it and it's finicky as hell.

Might give it another go in the summer I have two harvests before then that I HAVE to kill it to find expansion plans. 31,000 watts of gear and 9 tons of AC does NOT come cheap. Shit, the fucking bulbs alone are going to cost me $2,300.
 
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