How To Clean Air Stones For Hydroponics?

Finally deciding to make use of hydroponics as a method of farming your plants or crops, is actually not the finish of your journey. The use of hydroponics as a method of farming one’s crops comes with a lot of decision marking too. Some of the questions you did be asking your self is, what type of hydroponic system am I going to use, figuring out how the system works, what to grow and as far as how to grow plants with hydroponic. Hydroponic systems, do make use of air stones in reservoir to oxygenate the nutrient to the roots of plants. Due to this, maintaining of cleanings does not go only for the tanks used in hydroponic for recirculating water to the roots of plants, but also getting to know how to clean air stones for hydroponics system.

How To Clean Air Stones For Hydroponics

As air stones oxygenate nutrients to the roots of plants they gradually tend to lose their effectiveness from clogging. Depending on the mineral content of your water and if not kept clean nor maintained air stones will start to lose its effectiveness after six weeks of use. So below are a few ways to help you know on how to clean a bubbler.

1. Rinsing method: In this method of cleaning an air stone, you take each stone out of the water and place them on a dry napkin. You then rinse them in fresh clean water, and then gently scrub any material build up round it. Scrubbing should be done with caution and not too vigorously as this can cause damages. Once scrubbing is done you then place it at an open place to completely dry it.

2. Boiling Method: This is a well-known method and is commonly used by everyone. Well as the name described, at this method you boil the air stones to remove any dirt or accumulated materials. What you do is, place your air stones in a cooking pot and pour fresh water on it. You then put on fire and let it boil for about ten minutes. Once done you leave it out in the open and let it dry.

Stones to Remove Any Dirt

3. Sock method: This is a bit deeper on getting your air stones all refreshed and clean. This method entails you soaking your air stones in a solution of bleach and fresh water in a ratio 1:3 for about 1 day. The added bleach gives it an advantage of cleaning and disinfecting your air stones. The air stones should be socked for about 24 hours or two days, depending on how clogged it is.

4. Air pump Method: With this method, what you do is by simply attaching an airline from an air pump to your air stone and placing it in fresh water and letting it run for 5 minutes. The method will help dilute and get rid of any bleach from your air stone. This method is only done in help of getting all bleach used in the soaking method.

5. The baking of an air stone in ovens and microwaves are not recommendable. This is because, it does not only make it ineffective but also a bad idea. An oven or microwave will not be able to clean the inside of your air stones.

Most individuals prefer to replace the air stones with completely fresh ones than rather attempt in cleaning it. In fact, the thought about cleaning your air stones do not come to mind for some, as they feel it is cheaper and quicker in getting it replaced than finding actual ways of cleaning it or maintain it. Learning how to clean air stones for your hydroponic system will not only save you money but go in length in helping keep your plants from dying.

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