Title says it all. Tried searching around OG, but didn’t see anything. Anyone know of a quiet air pump for a DWC setup? If I go this route it will be a 6 site inside of a 17gal Home Depot HDX tote. Trying to figure out if I can pull off DWC without too much noise as its about 2 feet from my bedside.
Other options for setup include Coots mix soil (silent, but longer til I can start), and a timed pump drip system based off of Mr. Sparkle’s setup.
Put the pump outside of the room and run a line in to your rooting area.
I don’t know of a quiet air pump worth it’s salt. I use a 100L pump in a four location setup, so it sounds, well, like a gargantuan air pump. Air line can be ran for a distance though. I’d rather have an overabundance of air in my water than a deficit. Also, keep your solution cold. Warm solution leads to pythium outbreaks, then it’s peroxide time and that’s a pain in the ass.
I agree with @KillerKrickit .
Put the pump outside the room.
All of mine are noisy. Even the small one bucket ones
Not an air pump per se, but take a look at this:
It’s quiet. Injects air via a venturi due to the natural pressure differential formed by the pump. The needlewheel pump impeller helps to make for fine air bubbles. No compressor noise / buzz.
They all make noise, but Eheim air pumps make less. They cost more as well but are extremely reliable and move more air.
I have mine in a tub, filled with sound foam, which is in a LARGER tub, also filled with sound foam with feed and intake tubes in/out. This large tub is also resting on an anti-fatigue mat from the dollar store. I also zip-tied all by air stones to my net pot in each growing site, keeping them about 1-2inches off the bottom of the tank.
Even with the zip-ties, the vibration through the stones still could be felt/heard UNTIL the root mass surrounded it adding a netted layer of vibration suppression.
Doing all this means: NO SOUND; but there are STILL vibrations traveling through everything as I’m doing all this on the 2nd flood of a 1960’s home.
I’ve recently added a 650L/Min agitation pump with aerator into my reservoir to boost oxygenation in the solution before traveling down the pipes and into the growing sites; and this thing is SILENT and VIBRATION FREE. You only hear the water movement when I open the res!
So, I may end up ditching air pumps and getting 4x more of these little units; one for each site. Though, I want to do more research to see if anyone else is solely using power-heads/mini water pumps with aerators rather than loud bubbles.
Thanks for the responses everyone! I pretty much expected that the air pump would be an issue. I was hoping there was the equivalent of an AC Infinity but for air pumps.
@Northern_Loki, that setup looks sweet, but I think a bit much for my space lol. Just a 40"×24" cabinet.
@vernal, thanks for the heads up on the eheim. Just saw a review that measured the dB and it was 10 under everything else they tried of a similar size. Gonna order one of those and hang it in the cab, hopefully that will be the ticket. Not much louder than the AC Infinity fans.
The Tetra Whisper 100gallon model works pretty good. Quite and lots of bubbles. I use 3 of them, two of each of my buckets and one for the rez.
They are pretty cheap on amazon too. Gonna check these out. Thanks 
Is there a model I could search for comparable to
I’m about to order a third one but totally open to quieter options if able.
I’m going with the eheim 400. It’s a full 10 dB quieter than the tetra and already set up to hang. Bit more expensive, but I’ll pay extra for quiet.
Mmm I think I would need a bigger one than that but looks like their largest model. I run 8 lines into 2 x 45 gal tanks that each float to 2 x 5 gal res. The ones I get last a year or 2 and aren’t rebuildable. I would like to find a rebuildable ones that were quiet but might be a pipe dream.
I hope its good for my 5 gallon top fed DWC build. I haven’t worked with anything bigger than that
Definitely let us know what you think once it’s up and running. I bookmarked it, so I can upgrade later.
This is what I have been using for my small rdwc. Works well. Very quite.
The other options are really small air compressors. Definitely the next logical step up, but I havent saw the need using multiple of these for my needs. Let us know how these work out for you!
All the diaphragm pumps make noise and even the pricier ones get noisier as time goes by. Piston pumps are quieter but are usually only high capacity in the better quality models. The only really silent air pumps are the old laboratory pumps that have a big flywheel on them, these are very hard to find , occasionally you will see one on eBay but usually only small capacity ones and very pricey per gph
3d printer. Insideout reverse vacuum can.
If you have the 3d printer.
Whats the saying? “Water flows downhill”
Unfortunately no. Eheim only makes smaller hobby level air pumps.
1000 gph is a good amount of air. Granted, the Vivosun/Chinese amazon products often advertise a higher capability than they actually deliver, I assume the same is true of their air and water equipment.
Iwaki makes very nice air pumps but $$$. Professional grade type shit, IDK if you need something that high quality just to bubble air. Might be cheaper to just dampen the sound with insulation.
