Cheap DYI air stone for 5 gallon buckets - common parts

dirtybud

New Member
Name says it all. As you can see, this is only the beginning of many combinations to setting this up. So don't feel limited by my one design. All done with common cheap parts available from local hardware and wallymart. I'm using the cheap 1 inch air stones that you can get just about anywhere. Common air hose and connection tees which were found in the sprinkler section at hardware store.
When starting my plants, I only need one 1" air stone in a five gallon bucket until the roots touch bottom. Later I was faced with a small problem as the root mass increased, I needed more air coverage because flow is somewhat blocked by the roots of faster growing plants. The other plant's roots were not get enough air flow and I was loosing roots, which started an exponential increase in problems to deal with.
With much research, large coverage air stones don't come cheap. I didn't have much money to invest, and free ideas are great. So thanks to BuddroGreen from this forum for this idea.
I thought I would share this. My goal is to find cheap hacks, though I am in the process of manufacturing my own custom parts for DWC use ...
I will say that I have quite a few buckets with only 1" air stones and are doing just fine. But with huge dense roots, I would like to disperse more air into my buckets without spending a fortune. Some large area coverage air stones can cost up to $20 - 45. And I only have 8 buckets now. But that's a huge investment the price of one large airstone ($20) will do the job ...
I bought bulk, so it's hard to get a unit cost. I would say this cost around $2 per unit. I bought enough parts to build 6 of them.

Airstone1.JPG
 
I forgot to mention that I have a 65 w air pump going to 9 buckets for reference to air flow. I don't know exact flow rate.
 
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