Yo! Horse.

There ya go stressin' out over details.

My friend, it no gotta be/gonna be perfect.
Ever!

With all due respect to Don Ho, it's more da fact dan da size or volume udda bubbles.

Some guys dont use airstones a'tall. Just shove a hose in da root ball.:rastasmoke:


I'm sure you know that at a given temperature, a given volume of water will only hold a certain maximum volume of dissolved gas.

Tinier bubbles, increased air volume, ad nauseum will not change that.

If one needs more dissolved air to, say, prevent anaerobic slime molds from growing, it would seem that the most effective way of doing so would be to lower the temperature of the water.

So, stone schmone.
Just weight the end of the hose and toss it in.
If you are obsessed with bubble size, or efficiency, seal the end of the hose and poke umpteen holes in it.

Or use a soaker hose as da bottom section.

What ever.

Point is.
Whatever it takes to saturate the res. water with air, in your situation, is enough!
Any advance on that is by definition, in-efficient, yah?

As for your dilemma?
I had trouble balancing pressure with even a 4 port maniford.
So at the end I was using one pump per bucket with dirt cheap mail order stones and Wallyworld pumps.
Too cheap to clean.
When they get funky, I toss 'em. I have 6 dozen.

That said, I hadda stop growing DWCoco.
Worked way too well.
I need to limit my yield to stay legal and still have a wide variety of meds to choose from.

In udder news.
Just got some Bubbledust clones ,(Bubblegum X Angeldust), from a friend.

Will grow some in coco and some in a soil mix that's used in the the best producing dirt grow I've ever seen.
(Check out Issack ovah at ICM.)
If his dirt can out-do coco, I'll be a very impressed convert to dirt.
But, I doubt it.

Funny, I'd have called it Angelgum.

Weeze