gotdamunchies
Well-Known Member
I am in the process of buildong a DWC setup and was wondering if anyone has ever used one of these instead of an airstone????....Flexible Bubble Wand 36 in. (Marineland)
Thanks for all the info!! I was waiting to buy a pump when I figured out which way to go as far as stones or the wand was concerned...I will be using a 18 gallon rubbermaid for 6 plants, figured 1 12 inch stone for every 2 plants, so 3 12 inch stones per res. Going to have 4 resevoirs, so 12 stones all together. Kinda figured on having to have more than one pump, then I saw the bubble wand and was curious if it worked any better....how loud is the pump you recommend? Also do you have any pics of the setup you were describing??ohh dude.. i've used every type of airstone you can imagine.... i personaly beleave they are no good, reason being your avrage air pump really dosn't work with them... they don't pum the bubbles...
welll lets start t thebegging, cuz i'm a ig ofan of DWC... is your DWC in a 5gal bucket or did you make it our of 6" or 8" PVC? reason being, its important to have alot of air... like your roots and air, they need each other.... like need need each other, if you don't have enough air you will get root rot... nasty nasty nasty.....
soo first off what do you have for an air pump? personaly i use a 100watt pond master to push from 9 to 13 air stones (depending on how i am feeling) you can look up a pond master on ebay... and i'll tell you, i get explosive growth out of it.... now you may not need such a big air pump.. i don't even know what your setup it, but you gotta make sure you get enough bubbles.... i'm looking at putting together puckets and these are what i'm thinking about using:
Price1
the thing is tho, its not just about the air stone your using, its also about the air pump you have, alot of times i find the dinky ones you get at the store, just arnt worth it... for a 2 to 4 plant setup in buckets iw ould recomend using thows disks and a pump like the following one...
and one of these for air...
Supreme Pondmaster Air Pumps - Pondliner.com
the AP-40 is the one i'd recomend
i use a ap-100 for 9 plants... with 12" elite disposable air stones in a nft-dwc highbread system.. made from 6" pvc pipe if your gona make one i would recomend using 8" pvc pipe, you use caps on the ends, with reducers, like with 8" pipe i would get caps for the end, then put in 4" drainage holes, so the pipe is about 1/2 fulll of nutriants, maybe a little better more then 1/2, just so the watter comes up a 1/2 an inch to an inch below the bottom of where the baskets are... , now at the other end of the pipe there is another cap... and you just run a hose to it... so you pump nutes from the res, to the end of the pipe and they run out back into the rez... thats the NFT part..easyer to mage your ph like this too..
you ballance the rez, then after you ballance the rez, it like adjustes to the solution in the rail... anyway, just some food for thought... i'm gona go work on my profile now...