My air-stone likes to float. Air being pumped into air does nothing to aerate my nutrient solution, so I had to devise a way to secure the stone to the bottom of my reservoir. I had a suction cup attached to metal ring, from an iPhone screen replacement I just did, so I ran the air supply hose through ring and stuck the suction cup to the bottom of the reservoir. Perfect, it didn’t float up to the surface anymore.

The air stone I'm using.

I ran the pumps for a few minutes while I figured out my preferred placement for everything, then I shut it down and left it while my seeds germinated in the closet. When I came back to clean all the components of the system, and put the water/nutrient solution I noticed that the cheap metal ring was already rusting and causing discoloration in the water. I pulled it out of the water, drained and cleaned the reservoir, and thought about what I could do to keep the air-stone down, without introducing rust into the system which would potentially disrupt the balance of the nutrient solution.

The Fix!

The answer, as it often is, was zip ties! I love zip ties. I put a zip tie through the suction cup and around the hose as it went into the back of the air stone. I added another zip tie around the air supply line just behind the other to prevent the first from sliding down the barb of the air-stone and falling off.

Air Stone Fixed!