Sorry if i take offense but if you had spent all night hunched over buckets, recording numbers, taking pictures, and then posting everything and have someone just come up and say. "its flawed". You would probably be a little defensive as well. Again, I wasn't trying to test big reservoirs.
The point is that every stone is rated above oxygenating 4-5 gallons. therefore buying fancy stones or putting multiple stones in a bucket is a waste of money and energy.
I would anticipate that using a commercial pump, any stone could also easily oxygenate a bigger reservoir. Thus the hype that you need a micro difuser or boss hog or any other expensive device is bunk. Your not talking that much of a volume increase from 5 to 18 or even 30 gallons.
To prove this point I went down and measured my flower rez. There is about 30 gallons in there. I have a single 2" round airstone in there driven by one outlet of a whisper 100 pump. I don't know the rating on the whisper as it is not listed anywhere but it ain't much cause its only a 10 watt pump. and YES, the outlets are independent so it doesn't matter what stone is on the other end.
76.5 degrees , 8.88 ml/l Tested three separate times, calibrating before each time. So there you go. A relatively cheap stone and a weak pump has achieved maximum saturation in 30 gallons.
The test was as scientific as it needed to be. It's not my masters thesis. There are a myriad of variables you could account for but in the end, I don't feel it matters. I determined that the cheap stones are plenty to keep DO rates at their maximums. Therefore, I will never ever never think "hmm, I wonder if I would get better results if I used ________".
Tell me you never thought "man, I wish I could afford those micro diffusers, those things look uber professional" I USED to think that.
