Reddit reviews EcoPlus 728450 Eco Air1 Air Pump 1-18 Watt Single Outlet, 6 Valve Manifold For Aquarium, Fish Tank, Fountain, Pond & Hydroponics, Commercial 793 GPH, Silver

They're selling you a blackbox education package and some weirdo modular farm for $2500. You have no idea what you're getting in either. All I can tell you is this:

A 200 sq ft system (including everything) cannot feed 8 people. 1,100 lbs of vegetables and 400 lbs of tilapia won't feed 8 people, and that's what they claim their system makes. Average people eat 4.5-5 lbs of food in a day on average, meaning 1652-1825 lbs per year per human. A system that produces 1500 lbs won't even feed one person, but they say it right there:

>This one module will feed 8 people FOREVER

That's a lie. Even on their inflated estimates of how much food they produce, that's an outright lie.

Another thing I know: This system does not include fish tanks. Fish tanks are the most expensive part of every build I've ever done, and this system asks that you provide your own. This system does not include filtering tanks, either, which will run you another good bit of change. Potentially most importantly, This system does not include fish. Food-fish are hard to source, and you'll have to source your own.

And to add insult to injury, this system does not include grow medium or PVC. You are paying over a thousand dollars a unit at the the lowest prices (which you can only get at huge volumes, over 50 units) for grow beds, a patented water pump, two air pumps (for no reason, one air pump works just as well), two air stones, tubing, a patented electrical panel, worm castings, mineral dust, and a list of all the other shit you'll have to buy.

Let's price this out:

• Grow Beds - they're not using box beds, they appear in the pictures to be using black pvc sheeting, like for ponds. 250 ft sq - $150
  
• Water Pump - Dr Nate from Bright Agrotech says moving all of your system volume once every two hours is okay. if you have an 8 inch deep grow bed filled to 2 inches below the top of the medium in a medium that takes 60% of the space in the container that would be roughly 320 gallons, so you need to move roughly 160 gallons an hour, and you'll probably want to move them three feet up. So using Pondmaster pumps (a pretty solid brand I see in heavy use) you'd use the Pondmaster mag Drive 3 - $65
  
• Air pumps - fuck it, use whatever. If it won't kill aquarium fish, it won't kill aquaponic fish This looks like insane overkill, let's buy two, then add air tubing and a fistful of junctions and Four of these air stones and call it a day (I measured NOTHING and I don't regret it, everything I picked was probably insane overkill) for a grand total of $125 for the air setup.
  
• A patented electrical panel? We'll use a surge protector. $10 if we're fancy here.
  
• A pound of worm castings - $6
  
• Two pounds of Azomite Mineral Dust - $12
  
  And the grand total is: $368 for everything they offer, minus the list of other things you'll have to buy.
  
  Hope that list is worth $600+ in your mind.
  
  Seriously though, just go watch all of Bright Agrotech's videos five or seven times apiece to get the science and then read here to figure out what kind of system you want. I just spent fifteen minutes and saved you over a thousand dollars setting up your system. Imagine what you can do in a couple hours.

Here's my air pump just bought a new one yesterday as the old was getting weak after a year.

Here's my build with all the info

And yes, I use rDWC, and have it from seedling through finish.

If you can afford it I HIGHLY recommend this pump for dwc

https://www.amazon.com/EcoPlus-728450-Single-Outlet-Commercial/dp/B002JLJC0W/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1485748465&sr=8-7&keywords=air+pump

I'll get some pictures of everything for you later today when I get in the tent.

Using 3.75" net pots with hydroton rocks and rapid rooters.

For air pumps I'm running 2 of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002JLJC0W/ref=ppx_yo_mob_b_track_package_o1_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1

1 line from each pump into each bucket, in case of pump failure. So each bucket has two air lines/airstones.

Cloudline T6 for exhaust

My ecoair is supposed to push 253 GPH and I wouldn't even consider for a second moving to actually using all 4 ports. That GH pump says 320 GPH. Not sure if that step up is going to be enough. Then again I'm not entirely sure the ecoair is actually putting out 253 GPH....

Any experiences with this Pump

I think that GPH looks a lot better, but reliability is a whole nother issue.

Yah you can find them on amazon for sure, I got this one from my local hydro shop for I think $35. It can run 6 air stones at once so it's not something you need for a smaller system (i'm running 6 seperate 5 gallon DWC's off of it). I do use one of these on my 55 gallon rez but that's probably overkill for one system.

Its not loud outdoors at all, but indoors it is sort of annoying. I use it in my garage but couldn't use it like in the kitchen or something. They get a little warm but they don't ever get particularly hot to the touch unless it not in a ventilated area. If indoors id probably hit it with a fan.

This is the one I'm using. $34

I changed up the design after taking those pics and added another airline down the middle. For the pump, I use the EcoPlus 728450 1 to 18W Single Outlet Commercial Air Pump, 793 GPH for 3 plants and it is crazy! It is really like a foam bath of air in the buckets my girls are digging it, they are in week 4 of flower and the buds are about to explode in size. http://i.imgur.com/3WMFbfC.jpg

sounds like you just had an inefficient system tbh

i never empty out my dwc, i let the water get low enough that it forces me to fill it back up with nutes, no issues whatso ever.

constantly ph checking= once every couple days? even then it is stable enough to not do anything with it except maybe once a week. get a decent sized container and it isn't an issue. it's an issue when people are growing 4ft plants in 2g pails

i don't use a chiller, and haven't had high temps ever, AC for the house and the tent is in the basement, so cooler air is pumped in always

if I'm lazy i just fill my vegging plants with plain tap water and no nutes, deficiencies aren't the end of a plants life instantly, it takes weeks and weeks of no nutes

the price of my dwc was cheap as hell...all prices cdn

13$ containerx2 - https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.102-l-strong-box-tote-with-locking-in-blackyellow.1000706729.html
45$ air pump (does my entire tent and veg area without issues)- https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B002JLJC0W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
12$ air stones - https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B01MT45VCM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
7$ air splitter - https://www.amazon.ca/Uxcell-Jardin-Control-Aquarium-Diameter/dp/B00A8X1XI2/ref=zg_bs_6292472011_39?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=KC92XXTPW3FJSTWA4C12
7$ air tube - https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B000255NYQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
15$ netcup - https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B073WJ78MM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01__o00_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1
24$ digi ph pen - https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07C9WR156/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So complete setup, without having to buy anything else again for a 4x4 tent is a grand total of 136$

i have left it for 12 days without touching it after a fresh top up due to work requiring me to be away

now, a RDWC could be a bit more advanced, overwhelming and costly to a newer person, but for sure throwing an airstone in a bucket isn't complicated for newer people

if you want run all those buckets, its better to get a upgraded air pump, some thing [like this](https://amzn.com/B002JLJC0W
)

I have this one, but I got it when I was using the nozzle style air assist, so I think it is more powerful than I need with the tubing. It is also kind of loud, I only turn it on when cutting. I use silicone tubing, the same as used on the water cooling, to bring the air to the laser head. Using a drag chain to support it.

I just tried making this myself just today. I had to special order the hose to the store since they didn't carry it. No bubbles will come out! I am using the https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002JLJC0W/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 pump.

What am I doing wrong??

An air pump similar to this https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002JLJC0W/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1.

I had a shittier pump with one stone for a while in veg. The plant started dying before my very eyes one day, fuck me, right?

The only thing I could think of was more oxygen. Guess whats better than 1 shitty pump, that's right, 2 shitty air pumps. Good thing I had a spare with another stone.
Plopped that had boy in the res and I had fresh new roots popping up everywhere.

I ended up losing a few branches but the plant kicked ass anyway and covered half my 5x5 at the end of flower.

For my next grow, a too powerful air pump, a handful of air stones, and an r/o filter will help keep things fast and smooth.

I'd say head toward solar + batteries (or even just a battery array charged from your normal home power supply). I've done a lot of thinking about the same requirements because I also have frequent outages where I live

A storage tank would work, but only for a short time. Most AP systems at your scale use a 300-900 GPH air pump, but from http://www.binks.com/resources/tip-of-the-week/how-much-compressed-air-is-stored-in-a-storage-tank
> If you have an 80 gallon tank pressurized to 150 psi, the tank would store about
> 880 gallons of air. This is typical of a two stage compressor. A single stage 30 gallon
> compressor common to the big box stores usually maxes out about 110 psi and
> would hold about 300 gallons of free air.
It just wouldn't deliver what you need for long enough unless you scale up a ton.

You'd need something like 1300 AH of battery capacity assuming the following

-a 24 hour power outage

-an air pump that uses 30w 0.3amp 120v (e.g., https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002JLJC0W)

-constant 24 hour usage of that air pump

-no recharge opportunity (no solar panels/generator or worst case cloudy/snowing)

Back of envelope estimations done using https://www.batterystuff.com/kb/tools/calculator-sizing-a-battery-to-a-load.html and https://www.batterystuff.com/kb/tools/ac-to-dc-amperage-conversion-run-through-an-inverter.html

Runtime gets much better if you use a timer to run on a cyclical basis, if you assume solar panels are available during the day, etc

I run this air pump on 3 6ft tanks and 2 smaller ones. Each tank has a fx5 1 sponge and airstone. Air stones will be switched to sponges in the near future.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002JLJC0W/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1468031340&sr=8-2&pi=SX200_QL40&keywords=eco+air+pump&dpPl=1&dpID=41o1RHxarXL&ref=plSrch

If was to go just running sponges I would 4 or 5 for each tank and run a much larger air pump.

Amazon would be the place to look for those. Something like this.

From what I understand, yes... This one is often recomended

I used an airbrush compressor, but its probably overkill. The important aspect isnt the pressure, but the volume it can pump (GPH). Though I'm not sure how much you actually need.