I'd like some enlightenment on oxygen and water. To get the oxygen in the water is mostly about water movement at the surface. Is my current "foaming" good or bad? Is it introducing more o2 into the water, or is it actually creating a barrier? I can disturb the surface in many different ways through different placements of air stones. View attachment 1438840
The surface takes in x amount of o2 as it is depleted in the water but the bubbles have their own surface in the water creating a lot more surface area. A good stream of bubbles will increase the total surface area many times over the area of the water line. What's more these bubbles contain air that is constantly fresh and moving throughout the water. Bubbles that get trapped in the roots will have an even greater effect by keeping air right where it is used. Foam is likely caused by additives in the water that effect the surface tension in the same way detergent does. This should have no ill effects, certainly not on o2 transportation anyway. How many litres of air per minute is being pushed through the water? And how many litres of water is in there?
Are you sure mate? That's about half a litre per minute. In a 12 litre res I would use about 6 litres per minute pump
40 litres per minute? That's more like it man, that sounds awesome. What's the noise level on that? I have a 25 litre per minute pump running 10x 2" stone balls and the noise level is horrific. I'm sure my neighbours can here it lol
It is loud but I don't think it's really that bad. The vibrations are louder than the actual pumping, and I have been able to dampen the vibrations pretty effectively. I positioned the air pump in various different ways–hanging from the ceiling, hanging from the tent, screwed to a wall, screwed to my workbench–. Turns out the most effective dampening for my situation is to have the pump sit on the concrete floor. Actually, since the pump runs pretty hot, I had to rig a cooling solution for it... So the pump is screwed to a block of 2"x4", the 2"x4" just sits there on the concrete floor. I may or may not decide to screw the 2"x4" into the floor for a potentially better dampening of the vibrations. I'm sure you know already but, the size the type and the placement of the airstone(s) makes a huge different in how loud or quiet a setup can be. I find it's quieter if the air stones do not touch any part of the bucket. Whenever the stone touches the bucket it's as if the bucket becomes an air pump amplifier. I'm running a cylindrical 4"tall and 1" in diameter airstone at the bottom of the bucket, and a small(1/2"?) just below the surface to agitate the surface that much more. View attachment 1434357
I found hanging mine with bungee cords just under the carbon filter works well for the noise and heat. For the air stone noise I put a 1' thick sheet of polystyrene under the buckets. This helped a lot. How do you stop your stones coming in to contact with your buckets? I have the same type of pump, just a smaller version, it's crazy how hot it gets. I'm tempted to buy a small freezer to house it in too cool it and keep the noise down
To keep the stone from touching the bucket, I route my airline through the top of the lid, 0.5" inch from the edge. And I feed just enough line to have the stone hang at the desired depth. You can break the surface in many different ways through different depths. You could try to use a clip on fan aimed at your pump before you resort to a freezer. Though the freezer could potentially serve more than 1 purpose.