Grow Mediums Cleaning dwc airstones?

[Rev. Green Genes]

first round with bleach, run some bubbles through after a ten-20 min soak. Then rinse, and soak in hydroguard overnight. Add straight into reservoir.

 

[Royalroacho]

first round with bleach, run some bubbles through after a ten-20 min soak. Then rinse, and soak in hydroguard overnight. Add straight into reservoir.

I'm using hydrogaurd, I've also tried letting it soak in prozyme. Other things I've tried are pH down, bleach, peroxide, vinegar...they clog up fast. I just noticed I have some root rot even with the hydrogaurd, which reminded me of this thread. I'm about to go buy a soaker hose. I think the protein skimmer will work, I'tll be a while til I get that going though

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[Royalroacho]

I'm also gonna clean up this power head, put a screen on the intake, and try that to agitate the surface

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[Rev. Green Genes]

I have used several of those methods. If you are determined to use organics in hydro than you will likely battle this forever with pumps gumming up, filters gumming up. From my limited experience using organics in hydro, it seems that bacterial colonies are buffering the pH of the reservoir. They are living off the residues. Some of them are good, some of them not. The symptoms were confusing and took me a while to figure it out. The engineers told me it was more common for them to buffer the pH down, but in my case they were keeping it at 6.5, and I added pH down in huge quantities for two weeks before I figured it out. it did end up self correcting after two weeks.

 

[Royalroacho]

I have used several of those methods. If you are determined to use organics in hydro than you will likely battle this forever with pumps gumming up, filters gumming up. From my limited experience using organics in hydro, it seems that bacterial colonies are buffering the pH of the reservoir. They are living off the residues. Some of them are good, some of them not. The symptoms were confusing and took me a while to figure it out. The engineers told me it was more common for them to buffer the pH down, but in my case they were keeping it at 6.5, and I added pH down in huge quantities for two weeks before I figured it out. it did end up self correcting after two weeks.

Oh, I'm not using organics. I'm using cutting edge hydro 3 part, gh calmag and cutting edge silica. I don't know why they clog so often.

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[Ydijadoit]

Oh, I'm not using organics. I'm using cutting edge hydro 3 part, gh calmag and cutting edge silica. I don't know why they clog so often.

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When you say GH calmag, are you using Cmag+, or Calimagic? Cmag+ is full of molasses, and doesn't play well in hydro, in my experience. Calimagic is synthetic, and hydro friendly. If you are running Cmag+, that could be part of the problem. Feeding little beasties sugar makes them fat n happy.
Regards, Kyle

 

[Royalroacho]

When you say GH calmag, are you using Cmag+, or Calimagic? Cmag+ is full of molasses, and doesn't play well in hydro, in my experience. Calimagic is synthetic, and hydro friendly. If you are running Cmag+, that could be part of the problem. Feeding little beasties sugar makes them fat n happy.
Regards, Kyle

Yeah, that's it, the calmag+. I thought the + meant it had iron in it...I've also been letting my ppm get way too high. My first dwc I grew this crazy giant mbap, i kept raising the ppm higher and higher, it just ate everything and turned into a tree. I did the same thing my second run, but it didn't work out that the same. I'm tracking and adjusting ppm now, we'll see if I have these problems still, I bet that was it. It was probably dissolving or killing some of the roots and clogging it. Maybe. It could just been the noots accumulating. I tried that power head but there's no good way to keep it at the water level, it needs to be submerged and right on the surface. I think it'll probably be ok now that I'm keeping ppm stable. Here's the mbap monster...it was like 5 cubic feet by day 50, made me think ppm adjustment was for suckers lol

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[iceman8657]

Oh, I'm not using organics. I'm using cutting edge hydro 3 part, gh calmag and cutting edge silica. I don't know why they clog so often.

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Try soaking the air stones in bleach and hot water for 20 min, then grab you shop vac or any wet/dry vac and vacuum them. Pulls all the crap out of the pores in the stone.


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[Royalroacho]

Try soaking the air stones in bleach and hot water for 20 min, then grab you shop vac or any wet/dry vac and vacuum them. Pulls all the crap out of the pores in the stone.


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I haven't tried that, thanks man

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[Ydijadoit]

Yeah, that's it, the calmag+. I thought the + meant it had iron in it...I've also been letting my ppm get way too high. My first dwc I grew this crazy giant mbap, i kept raising the ppm higher and higher, it just ate everything and turned into a tree. I did the same thing my second run, but it didn't work out that the same. I'm tracking and adjusting ppm now, we'll see if I have these problems still, I bet that was it. It was probably dissolving or killing some of the roots and clogging it. Maybe. It could just been the noots accumulating. I tried that power head but there's no good way to keep it at the water level, it needs to be submerged and right on the surface. I think it'll probably be ok now that I'm keeping ppm stable. Here's the mbap monster...it was like 5 cubic feet by day 50, made me think ppm adjustment was for suckers lol

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That's a beast of a plant, for sure. I have never run the brand of nutes you are using, but any overfeed condition with chem based nutes leads to salt build up, clogging stuff up. Not to mention doing bad things to your plants.
Different strains do different things, sometimes radically so.
Really recommend the soaker hose for aeration of your res. I tried every whistle-dick, micro this, super-diffuser that airstone on the planet, when I first started dwc and waterfarm growing in 2009. Long story short, they all suck, and are insanely expensive. The soaker line simply works!
If you want to add surface agitation to the water, try Googling "home made air lifter pump". I used these for years, made from a buck's worth of PVC pipe, and a few minutes work. They work awesome, and add no heat to the water. I used two of them to recirculate my RDWC, but one could be used like your powerhead, as well.
Glad you are sorting this out, it looks like you have a knack for hydro!
Regards, Kyle