If you grow your crops using any kind of Deep Water Culture methods, then I highly recommend getting yourself one of these Oxygen Diffusers from "Deep Water Innovations". These units come in all different sizes to best suit your DWC buckets, tubs, or whatever you use. The wide area coverage is gives you really makes a difference in the amount of oxygen the roots receive. These are not cheap and ineffective rocks. Switching over to these after using the typical "air stones" was very impressive. The large area coverage it supports in comparison to spaced out stones was great and used just one line instead of multiple lines supplying multiple stones. I must say, I was stoked.
The area coverage is just half of the equation. The other advantage it offers is the ability to turn your 20 millimeter bubbles (on average) from you stones, into micro diffused .25 (1/4 millimeter) bubbles. There are 2 different bubble sizes you can get with these diffusers- 3 millimeter and .25 millimeter. Thats a massive size difference between the bubbles that air stones create. A new air stone will produce bubbles that range from 20-30 millimeters, an air stone covered with algae and other organic matter will make even larger bubbles, more than 50 millimeters in diameter. Thats a big bubble that does not work well with the roots. What the roots love are tiny, micro diffused oxygen bubbles that are able to work in harmony with you N,P,K and beyond. The Oxygen Shield helps to create this environment.
Deep Water Innovations is a stand up company that has really good stuff. You can find all of their products through Sunlight Supply, another "stand-up" company with a great reputation. Clicking on the flowers at the top of this page will bring you to their site.
