OK ILL BE THE ONE TO SAY IT....FLOOMING! The latest craze in aerating your water

sqydro said:

mike91, if u place a vent on your res then or pc fan then this would create better DO exchange and be better than stones, which dont ad DO by the air thats pumped through them its only the bubble bursting on the surface that breaks the surface and gas exchange takes place i thought??

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No sir. Think about it. Each bubble contains the exact same elements as the air above the surface, so theres no reason one would behave differently than the other. And between the extra surface area(so many spherical shapes is ALOT more than the surface itself) and the active movement through the water, oxygen dissolves out of the air in the bubbles on the way up as it comes into contact with the h2o molecules its being dissolved into, moreso than it does breaking the surface and being released into the atmosphere

I still have no idea why the flooming or waterfalls get higher DO levels. Theoretically, with more total oxygen present and it being more easily available, it should continue rising further than the other methods. But for some reason, it doesn't.

yeah its wierd eh. thanks for the info. i much prefer airstoneless il maybe do a side by side next with 2 clones from the same mother see if theres a diff in veg/yield etc.

ive done this because i was too poor to get another air pump and air stones lol. Had a water pump threw it in the bottom of a rubbermaid container to stir the solution and break the water tension. The plant grew slower then the one with airstones. What i ended up doing was creating a pvc tube in the bottom of the bucket that led to the top so it would create air bubbles when the water splashed back down, I also connected a 360 sprayer on the other side . Plant seemed to like this setup a lot more. Now grows around the same speed as the ones with the airstones. I would only do this in a big container as the more water you have the easier it is to maintain water temp. If you do this in a small bucket your temps could get really high. Never had an inline pump or a rdwc unit...small apartment. I daydream about a rdwc unit daily....

I cant see this working how many pumps would you need for a 200gal 10 site dwc? I took a flood table with some net pots and filled it up with a pump just to keep it agitated and had 1 big air stone and it went to hell untill I added the second air stone.

kazmaxxx said:

I cant see this working how many pumps would you need for a 200gal 10 site dwc? I took a flood table with some net pots and filled it up with a pump just to keep it agitated and had 1 big air stone and it went to hell untill I added the second air stone.

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ive seen a 86 site rdwc run off of 1 4000lph pump ive done 4 6 and 8 site with 1 pump, its all about how fast u recirculate ur nutes, instead fo the airstones, havyour pump in the res fluming or a tube coimg a few inches out the water surface splashing back in like a guyser / waterfall easy job!!

Interesting idea. My question is this:

Let's say you have air stones in a fish tank that bubble away all day long. Now you put a sheet of glass on top of the water with only one tiny little hole to let out the air introduced by the pump. If you eliminate the surface area down to almost 0 will your fish die? If the bubbles don't do anything but take water to the top of the tank allowing the atmosphere to introduce DO into the water. Then you eliminate the surface area. What happens? Following the logic in this post your fish would die after a very short time. It doeasn't seem to pass the common sense test. I'm not saying i'm right. Just confused and curious. Does anyone have someplace I can go read more about this?

sqydro said:

ive seen a 86 site rdwc run off of 1 4000lph pump ive done 4 6 and 8 site with 1 pump, its all about how fast u recirculate ur nutes, instead fo the airstones, havyour pump in the res fluming or a tube coimg a few inches out the water surface splashing back in like a guyser / waterfall easy job!!

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that meant to say 8 not 86 lol

well ur air pump would be drawing air and pumping it in so it deasnt matter if it was enclosed with a hole or not unless ur air pump was inside said encolsure then i assume ud run out of DO pretty quick yeah

If any of you guys happen to use waterfarms / aquafarms in your UCrdwc systems, I can say that raising the dripper ring to 2" or so above the pebs' surface, increases the do during feeding. I keep fish as well as the dwc caper, & can say that it's fully accepted among aquarists, the DO exchange takes place ONLY on the surface, this would give some weight to the idea that flooming increases DO, due to the typical increase in surface aggitation - the "sweet spot" between the water & air, where surface tension is aggitated / broken with more force, the exchange of DO from air to water is quicker/greater.

Also, as I understand it, because oxygen is very easily disolved / disolvable in air, unless you have a res sealed tight enough to produce a vacuum in the air above the waterline, DO will pour in from the air outside the res, to the air inside very easily. Hence your fish don't die due to this, & neither should your plants. How's it going sqydro btw, been a while pal

So all this time I have went through great expense and painstaking effort to make sure that every single plant had an airstone blowing bubbles directly under it with no good reason? I could just take a 6x4' DWC system (100+ gallons) and create a little waterfall on one end and the entire 100+ gallons would have all the D.O. that was needed? Even the water on the other end, 5 feet away from the waterfall i create?

I sure would like to get away from using all those air stones, pumps, lines, etc...But I need to make sure I am doing it right. And thus far it seems too simple and easy to be as/more effective than delivering air bubbles directly under each plant.

And, even if I stuck with air-stones I have to reevaluate where I place them, since the roots pretty much stop the airbubbles from ever reaching the surface. Therefor, I might be better off putting the stones in the spaces between the plants if that's the case OR so it would seem????

I'm lost. lol

ForbiddenFruit said:

So all this time I have went through great expense and painstaking effort to make sure that every single plant had an airstone blowing bubbles directly under it with no good reason? I could just take a 6x4' DWC system (100+ gallons) and create a little waterfall on one end and the entire 100+ gallons would have all the D.O. that was needed? Even the water on the other end, 5 feet away from the waterfall i create?

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if you are saying you have a tank that is 5 feet wide and holds 100 gal of water and if you made a waterfall on one side would it oxygenate the entire tank? then the answer is yes. if that water then flows somewhere else, it is carrying oxygen.

anything that agitates the water will allow the water to oxygenate.

having airstones under each root mass is over kill. however i'm sure that at least in theory if one has a very vigorous, large volume of air bubbles rushing through the root mass, the roots will get exposed to more air since the bubbles break (and reform) as they make contact with the roots for minute instances of time.

tokaa said:

If any of you guys happen to use waterfarms / aquafarms in your UCrdwc systems, I can say that raising the dripper ring to 2" or so above the pebs' surface, increases the do during feeding. I keep fish as well as the dwc caper, & can say that it's fully accepted among aquarists, the DO exchange takes place ONLY on the surface, this would give some weight to the idea that flooming increases DO, due to the typical increase in surface aggitation - the "sweet spot" between the water & air, where surface tension is aggitated / broken with more force, the exchange of DO from air to water is quicker/greater.

Also, as I understand it, because oxygen is very easily disolved / disolvable in air, unless you have a res sealed tight enough to produce a vacuum in the air above the waterline, DO will pour in from the air outside the res, to the air inside very easily. Hence your fish don't die due to this, & neither should your plants. How's it going sqydro btw, been a while pal

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+1
totally agree.

i would say though, the people who keep fish usually don't take into account an air bubble smacking a fish right in the gills before it hits the surface. i imagine if air bubbles are breaking as they pass through roots, the roots will be able to make use of some of it, unlike a fish's body (other than the gills).

Thanks for the response MBB.

Another question, if I may (directed at whoever might have an answer).

I was thinking of using a 1200GPH utility pump and having it suck water in from the bottom of one end of my reservoir and dump it back in at the top of the other end. Keeping in mind that my reservoir is 6x4' and that I want a good flow of water so the oxygen makes its way around to every corner. A simple pump in the middle might not do the job as well and I'd prefer the pump out of the water so as to not add any heat unnecessarily.

1st question is: should I have the water coming into the reservoir dropping in above or flowing in below the water level? I was thinking just above, so as to add a waterfall effect, but if it makes more sense to have it under the water level, then let me know?

And I was also wondering if a 1200GPH pump was big enough for my reservoir?

I would be happy to do away with these damn hoses and airstones once and for all!!!

thanks

ForbiddenFruit said:

Thanks for the response MBB.

Another question, if I may (directed at whoever might have an answer).

I was thinking of using a 1200GPH utility pump and having it suck water in from the bottom of one end of my reservoir and dump it back in at the top of the other end. Keeping in mind that my reservoir is 6x4' and that I want a good flow of water so the oxygen makes its way around to every corner. A simple pump in the middle might not do the job as well and I'd prefer the pump out of the water so as to not add any heat unnecessarily.

1st question is: should I have the water coming into the reservoir dropping in above or flowing in below the water level? I was thinking just above, so as to add a waterfall effect, but if it makes more sense to have it under the water level, then let me know?

And I was also wondering if a 1200GPH pump was big enough for my reservoir?

I would be happy to do away with these damn hoses and airstones once and for all!!!

thanks

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i'm no expert but it sounds like it should be enough. i guessing your res holds about 300 gal of water. your pump would turn that over about 3 to 4 times per hour, that would be plenty. you can keep the return above the water level but it will probably be kind of noisy, just under the surface would be good, but that would be a bit hard to keep it there as the level would continually drop as the water is being used.

in short, IMO if you don't mind the noise of the water falling then you should be fine. you can also use those airpumps just for the res. in other words it doesn't matter where the water gets oxygenated, so long as it does.

MisterBouncyBounce said:

i'm no expert but it sounds like it should be enough. i guessing your res holds about 300 gal of water. your pump would turn that over about 3 to 4 times per hour, that would be plenty. you can keep the return above the water level but it will probably be kind of noisy, just under the surface would be good, but that would be a bit hard to keep it there as the level would continually drop as the water is being used.

in short, IMO if you don't mind the noise of the water falling then you should be fine. you can also use those airpumps just for the res. in other words it doesn't matter where the water gets oxygenated, so long as it does.

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I don't have a separate reservoir. It's just one big box and that's it. I thought the movement of the water itself was enough? Or if not the movement of the water then the rippling of the surface... But it seems you are telling me that I still need some air-stones in there?

ForbiddenFruit said:

I don't have a separate reservoir. It's just one big box and that's it. I thought the movement of the water itself was enough? Or if not the movement of the water then the rippling of the surface... But it seems you are telling me that I still need some air-stones in there?

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no you don't need the air stones.

i was just saying if you want to make use of them. since i wasn't sure if the res was separate i was picturing a res tank connected to other separate buckets where the plants were and you had air stones in those buckets and you wanted to get rid of hose and wires from them.

so yes, having one big box with plants sitting on top, just keeping the water rippling is enough.


you would be "flooming".

Im considering using this method but with airstones and a "water pump" I have a Fluval FX5. Its a canister filter that you load your own filter media into. You don't have to have filter media in it at all. But you can direct your spray nozzles into whatever position and direction you want. The very fact that you break the surface tension of water you end up oxygenating your water. Yes you can take my Fluval for example and filtering over 607 gph. (without filter media) in a 150 tank. So im thinking I could do that in a large tote that has multiple plants in it. Pour said nutrients into tote and within a minute all plants will be fed because it'll circulate to all plants while providing air at the same time.

The plants are in water and they receive their food through roots anyways, why feed em through the top down instead of at the root? Also the water won't get hot going through a canister filter because it doesn't pass through any motors. Just a magnetic impeller. I have to heat the water up myself as... most fish keepers do. I know this is an old thread but im looking for thought also. Im considering trying hydro out only using this sytem.

xoshi64 said:

Im considering using this method but with airstones and a "water pump"

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I use a combination of flooming and air stones. Previous cycle using a small water pump and a small air pump, but I now have a better air pump that does it all in one. So I'm still introducing air from outside to the rez, but the main reason for me to still use an air pump isn't adding oxygen, but to keep the rez cool. I placed the air pump itself in an small active intake box (for my grow closet), in which fans cool the air down a lot. It doesn't actually chill the rez once it's too warm, but it does prevent it from climbing up too fast during light on periods.

A bit hard to take a decent pic of it, but it should be obvious by the way to bubbles spread from the center. Achieved by using a long air stone vertically.

(the thing on the right is the main water pump for the sprayers flooding my tubes)