air pump size?

moonbeam

moonbeam

Well-Known Member
how big of an airpump do you need to run bubbleponics? I have 2 setups right now...one with about 1.5 gallons and one with about .75 gallons and i'm currenly running them both off on 5-10 gallon airpump(smallest one). is taht good ro should I look for like a 30 gallon pump?
 
ThunderLips

ThunderLips

Well-Known Member
I agree... You also wanna think about how large your system is and how many airstones you wanna use... I would only split 1 output 1 time. So if your pump has 4 outputs you got 8 airstones.
 
T

techhead420

Well-Known Member
Take the rating of the pump in gallons and divide by 10. This will get you in the ballpark of how much air that you want to push per gallon of grow chamber (I use divide by 20 personally). Be sure to use an airstone(s), you want to break that air up into smaller bubbles which will greatly increase the surface area in the bubbles and making more dissolved oxygen available to the roots.
 
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moonbeam

moonbeam

Well-Known Member
ok thats like exactly what i wanted to know tech.

right now each has 1 airstone in it...like 1 8" in the 1.5 gal and 1 6" in the .75 gallon, I htink I am going to split that and make it 2 airstones each and get a bigger pump....whatever the largest one is at walmart....30 gal I think

or just lave the 5-15 gal pump on the .75 and get like a pump for like 20 gal on the 1.5 gal setup.

does it work better having 2 airstones as opposed to 1? like since there is more surface area for teh air to enter the water, it disolves in the water better
 
T

techhead420

Well-Known Member
My advice would be to have one airstone under each plant. You want to hit the roots directly with the air bubbles. It's hard to say if one stone is better than two; I'd go with one larger stone over two smaller ones. You should be fine with the stones that you have.
 
Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Redundancy is an important consideration in DWC. If you have a pump fail (and cheap diaphragm pumps don't last much more than a year or so, less if your air pump is sucking in O3 from an ioniser/ozone generator- O3 degrades rubber parts viciously, causes premature dry-rot & cracking), it's necessary to have a spare handy, if not a hot spare running a second stone for each plant. In case of a power failure lasting more than a couple of hours, DWC growers are in big trouble. If I was still running a DWC op, I'd use a small UPS for a PC on the air pumps.
 
T

techhead420

Well-Known Member
Al B. Fuct said:
Redundancy is an important consideration in DWC. If you have a pump fail (and cheap diaphragm pumps don't last much more than a year or so, less if your air pump is sucking in O3 from an ioniser/ozone generator- O3 degrades rubber parts viciously, causes premature dry-rot & cracking), it's necessary to have a spare handy, if not a hot spare running a second stone for each plant. In case of a power failure lasting more than a couple of hours, DWC growers are in big trouble. If I was still running a DWC op, I'd use a small UPS for a PC on the air pumps.
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It's interesting that you brought up ozone, I've destroyed air pumps with ozone and now keep the pump out of the ozone stream.
 
Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
yeah... I discovered the effect of O3 on rubber parts the hard way. Many moons ago, I had an op in a shed where I stored my motorcycles. You don't wanna know how pissed off I was when I discovered a brand new $400-something set of Metzeler ME88/99s on the touring bike which I'd put on in the autumn had developed cracked sidewalls after winter layup. grr. grrrrrrrrrowl. Car tyres have a lot of polymer in them and don't crack as easily, but motorcycle tyres are natural rubber and dry-rot in nothing flat with lots of O3 around.
 
T

techhead420

Well-Known Member
Al B. Fuct said:
yeah... I discovered the effect of O3 on rubber parts the hard way. Many moons ago, I had an op in a shed where I stored my motorcycles. You don't wanna know how pissed off I was when I discovered a brand new $400-something set of Metzeler ME88/99s on the touring bike which I'd put on in the autumn had developed cracked sidewalls after winter layup. grr. grrrrrrrrrowl. Car tyres have a lot of polymer in them and don't crack as easily, but motorcycle tyres are natural rubber and dry-rot in nothing flat with lots of O3 around.
Click to expand...
Man, that more than sucks, that's quite dangerous. Front tire blow out on a motorcycle and you're in for a world of hurt.
 
Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
aw, a little dry rot on a sidewall is more aesthetic than anything. It just fucked me off that my nice new tyres got cosmetically screwed due to my own ignorance.
 
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