TEST: Is Aeration Necessary for Hydroponics? 

Dude! You are killing it! Keep up the great work! Still love your set up.

Hello, for lettuce you don't need an aerator, because the plant is ready to be eaten in 5 weeks. On the other hand, you should do the test with strawberry and tomato plants, in my opinion the difference will be significant.

I also have several rails using vinyl fence posts like you. It’s sort of a semi-ebb and flow/semi-nft. Since there is always water in the rails, I have the pump run on a cycle of 5 min on, 30m off. Even in the summer, none of my plants had issues with root rot. And we had several heat waves. I did have a grow bolt super quickly though, even with shade cloth over it. The roots stay damp due to the humidity in the rails and when the pump is on, the water level rises and fills the rails up to 60% or so. When the pump is off, the water level drops back down to 25%. So plenty of the roots are out of the water and can get oxygen. Thus, there really isn’t a need for aeration in the reservoir.

Great vid. Thanks for taking the time to make this, and sharing

Awesome video! Your one of the best hydro channels, not over complicating stuff and keeping it simple. I am waiting on a strawberry update. If you have success I will be buying your guide on building the system. Thanks

Hey I appreciate the effort and thought that went into this, very cool. I am thinking while I watched this - and you noted a few times yourself - that with a circulated system you might be getting enough agitation just from the movement of your solution through the system that lettuces (ever forgiving as they are) are perfectly happy to go without supplementary air. I have seen (sure you have too) a few setups where the return pipe is deliberately set up to agitate the res when it returns without bothering with air stones and pumps and so on. I imagine if you had a kratky and a DWC set up side by side with something with a longer grow period like a pepper that the difference might be more pronounced. But hey, in any case, it is good to know in a CDWS rail system like this you can produce brilliant results without supplemented aeration. Cool vid, thanks for going to the effort running the experiment.

I recently tested this for myself in a simple system. I use 2" netcups, root riot, and romaine seeds. The netcup is placed in a 32oz plastic jar, and it's essentially the kratke method. I used to drop a small air stone in the jars, and I've honestly not seen any difference. The root rot issue is the primary reason I think that using an air stone or similar aeration method is helpful. Nice to know this applies to the rail systems as well. I'm still trying to get mine back up and running. The main reason I'm not using it is that I'm trying to figure out a way to put in a mesh barrier between lettuce plants, so the roots stay a bit more separated. Pulling one lettuce out and then having roots break off in the water seemed to be leading down a problematic path.

Love your videos, you have been my inspiration for my own setup. Just finishing up my setup, already got the plantlets growing!

Awesome test and conclusion in one video.

Thanks for sharing this test

As long as the roots aren't almost or fully submerged, aeration is not an issue, because the plants will develop or turn roots into air roots. The Kratky method also depends on that, and at the later stages when the water level dropped significantly, you can see the air roots very clearly. The air the plant needs doesn't need to come from aerated water, and it's much harder to maintain a fully submerged system with water aeration than an NFT, so why should you go for that? Something I'd really love to test though is if it brings any benefits for the plants if you pump fresh air into the air space of your tubes.

Hi,your plants growing so well!

Are you using 4x4 or 5x5 vinyl fence posts? I built my system with 4x4 posts and 1" net pots instead. Like you, I got tired of starting seeds in trays and transplanting all the time. Got the idea from you but went with smaller net cups and using Kratky for now. So far so good.

Very useful. I'm just getting started and want to keep things as simple as possible, so no aerator is a good thing!

Thank you for this! I want to start doing hydroponics inside my bedroom, we don't have any space where I can do it, so I chose to do it inside my room. I also don't have enough money to afford any expensive stuff, so I was to wonder if LED strip lights would be good for an alternative for indoor grow lights? Also, can I use aluminum foil for the background of the plants? Furthermore, I did notice that silver material on the back part of your plants.

have you thought about a small airstone in the first position on rail one ? maybe a smaller air pump (less electricity ) for same results

i bought the led strip lights you reccomended but in the all white version not red . your plants look bigger than mine at 4 weeks with the red leds. any thoughts .

Add an aquarium air line to the water return line just before the tank. It will act as a Venturi and add air to your system. No air pump required.

Have you tried putting the air bubbler in the trays under the plants?

Your lettuce looks so nice and crisp! My hydroponics lettuce has always grown a bit limp. Any tips to share?

What are the lights your using in the video?

In the non-aerated system, if the return water line is above the water level would not the air induced by the falling water aid in aeration without the use of an air pump anyway? I know my fishing boat "livewell" uses a spray bar for the recirculated water to induce air into the water. Sort of the same principal in what I'm talking about here.

Hi, are you still involved in hydroponics? I noticed that your grow lights are positioned high above the plants. Could you share the specifications? Is that the regular height of your lights, or did you adjust them for the video shoot?

Would like to see a motionless water system (kratke) compared with an aerated(or circulated) one. What you did here was not that. Basically an NFT vs aerated NFT system, which I suspected would give similar results. Water is aerated in an NFT system without the need for a bubbler. The circulation aerates the water. Your experiment shows that a forced aerated reservoir is of little benefit in an NFT system. Thanks for this experiment... good stuff to know.

Depends on the minerals you use in the water. The most popular fertilizers create a galvanic/chemical reaction to feed energy to the plants. So it doesn't need energy put into the water in some form like aeration (static electricity in the air). With other fertilizers like compost tea, something like aeration is necessary.

THANK YOU!!!!!!

You are correct that the water movement in your system is enough for oxygenation. Consider a aquarium stays oxygenated in relation to gas exchange at the surface, so the water movement from the filter/pump keeps refreshing the water at the surface.

What kind of system is this?

The temp, is a big factor. if the room temp is high, then you will definitely need to supply more oxygen.

whats your opinion on tower set ups?

Also in dwc you rely on the temperature of the water for oxygen to be dissolved so if the water temp is not at the appropriate temperature your air pump is pretty much useless

I am Andy from mars hydro,would you like to test our product?

I think the need for an air stone is water temp related. If the water temp goes into the 80’s you definitely want to aerate, otherwise I don’t think it matters much.

This was good. I would have thought aerated water would provide a significant difference. Guess not.

👍

air roots need space so deeper container is better

Lettuce is a pretty neat plant its a pond like plant it oxygenates the water its in this makes it great for sustaining itself and other plants in a system. Lettuce is kinda in floating plant group so lettuce is actually built for this environment. I found this out with my own hydroponic system(deep water there was a very little gap for air) I tested aeration and without aeration found little to no difference only difference was that it wasted water a lot faster by evaporation.

For people who purchase the small table top hydroponic systems (they have and complain about root rot, the water probably is too warm (maybe from the submersed water pump). It's a small enclosed system, heat builds up and warmer water oxygenates less. Some people get an aerator and finally claim success with failing Aerogardens.

I guess the experiment is just the same. Because waterfall method aerating the water is just the same as having aerator pumping oxygen at the bottom of the water. BOTH oxygens pop at the surface of the water. so most of the oxygen molecules are dispersed inside the water reservoir, not entirely on the entire water volume. I'd say i will have a difference if you can supply one reservoir with a nanobubbles or micro bubbles which have very low boyancy and very low chances of popping out in the surface of the water so the oxygen are just staying in the water.

So, colder water dissolves more oxygen. Maybe that's all that really matters?

my left ear enjoyed the video

circulation is enough. dont need to add air

Pardon my ignorance, but I thought that plants needed carbon dioxide, not oxygen!? I thought they made oxygen and they breathed in carbon dioxide..?

My tomatoes frow way faster with air

I thought air bubbles needed to hit the roots? I literally have 16 airlines going in to buckets and totes

🥬🌶🥬🌶🥬Great thanks🥬🌶🥬🌶🥬