Dwc pump sizing

[Durp]

Hello,

Trying dwc instead of my normal flood and drain. I am using the GH farm kit, and would like to run 6 6in stones. The pump I have now is the Hydrofarm AAPA45L. It will run the droppers perfectly fine, but not the stones at the same time.

My main question is how hard should I have my stones bubbling? They throw some bubbles off this pump, but it's not foaming like a hot tub. How much air is too violent and can lead to root breakage?

I am considering getting a second airpump so I can run the stones and the drippers at the same time incase one pump dies. Should I just get the same pump I have again, or order a bigger unit?

Thanks

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[Ganoderma]

I'm not sure what your system is, but the air pump you have will be fine for say 6 five gallon DWC buckets.

 

[Durp]

I'm not sure what your system is, but the air pump you have will be fine for say 6 five gallon DWC buckets.

Thank you, using about 2/ 2.5 gal of nutes in 5 gal buckets. Would using a more powerful pump on the stones do potential root damage? Like if I used the 12 output bad boy.... prob would be a straight jacuzzi in there. New to dwc, thanks for the help.

 

[Ganoderma]

when I use 5 gallon buckets, I start at around 4 gallons in a buckets with a 6inch bucket lid net pot.

The AAPA110L is going to be a super over kill. You'd be fine with going to walmart and buying the aquarium air pumps they sell. The AAPA110L, AAPA70L and the AAPA45L are going to be loud and they vibrate a lot. Don't expect more then 2 years of life out of them. The diaphragms in them wear out and the company doesn't sell any replacements for these models.

I don't think you'd need to worry about the air damaging the roots.

 

[Durp]

Cool thanks. Guess I will have to just decide whether I want to run the drippers with the stones. So if I used say 4 gal of nutes, I wouldn't have needed the drippers? Sorry for all the questions. Figured I'd go this route because of how easy it is to clean and maintain compared to a stationary recirculating system. I have a spare bucket made up and can just do 1 plant at a time out of the grow area with no down time and little more fuss then just cleaning out a bucket and mixing up some new solution.