I guess I would say from a risk perspective, why not aerate? It costs between $20-$30 to aerate a single reservoir, and the benefits are critical to plant health. Arguably, one of the cheapest value-add additions to a hydro setup besides maybe a cheap fan.
Air stones raise ph and solution temperature, and don’t really make a huge difference in terms of dissolved oxygen vs other methods, if I was gonna aerate I’d use a wave maker pump, and still only if I wasn’t moving much water per day, I’m talking like 1 irrigation per day then yeah I’d use a wave maker, anything over 4 with a decent run off to add back to the res is plenty oxygenation. Air bubbles aren’t even the roots source of oxygen, dissolved oxygen is what u want
Air stones and air pumps do produce dissolved oxygen as a function of agitating the water surface, and they do so with only 1 to 3 watts of power consumption where as a wave maker is 5-10 watts and is running mechanics in the reservoir producing more heat than the air stone by a large margin. I pH daily, and I have not seen an issue. I am not going to discount your thoughts, but the impact is not what you are making it out to be.
It increasing dissolved oxygen in the solution, and plants uptake dissolved oxygen through the root zone.
I agree with what ur saying but I’m not sure if you’ve considered the air temperature that’s usually being blown through the water, and that is what generally heats the water to a higher temp than I’ve ever noticed and I’ve done it both ways. And that extra heat in the solution actually reduces the amount of dissolved oxygen said solution can hold. This is why dwc usually employs a chiller
That makes sense for DWC or something where the roots are constantly submerged in water. But OP is growing in peat, so there's oxygen in the medium itself already, in the gaps between the peat particles...
