Aeration of nutrient mix?

Welcome to Percy's Deep stuff! The bigger the airstone the better really, the more air that can be pumped into the water the better. 

You can get big flot round ones that will sit at the bottom of the bucket:

Hailea Round Air Stone 6" Air Stone

One of those will work great

Ima go totally against the norm here and tell what I do. I used to run air stones and a pump on a timer that would run the air pump about 15 minutes per hour. This seemed to be plenty for me and I’ve left my plants for 10 days without any problems. Then I changed to use food grade hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) to keep the res clean and oxygen rich without air stones. It worked for me as well and the plants liked it equally well. I’m my situation, constantly running the air stone caused the ph to creep higher even tho I use the Advanced Nutrients ph Perfect nutes and that wasn’t good but my modified method worked better. Ph creeping up is the biggest obstacle imo. Try to build and test your setup before you leave it on its own. This will help troubleshoot and give you confidence that your garden will be thriving  when you return.

My exact process today, even tho I’m home tending the girls. I have a 5 gallon res on 2 different tents. I use no air stones or peroxide and the res last me 3 days. Auto water system fertigates 4 times a day in coco. Using Advanced Nutrients ph perfect nutrients, the ph and EC stay exactly where I need it to be. This works for me but do some experiments before you put all your confidence in the system. Wether this is best for you in your situation is unknown but some tests will help you dial it in

Ok,  I thought peroxide was to stop things from growing in the water?   It does both add oxygen and stop things from growing?  When I'm away from home should I us peroxide and an air stone or will they counteract each other? 

@monkeydo Great info Monkey!

@deepstuff yes, peroxide should help kill bacteria in water but that is exactly what you want. The added oxygen of either peroxide or air stones helps prevent your res from going sour with bad bacteria. If this ever happens you will know it because the res begins to smell of rotten sewage. This is the biggest obstacle in long lasting res systems other than ph. I believe there is one other product that I didn’t mention, hydrogaurd is also used in hydro res setups to accomplish the same thing. Side note here, your plants usually grow faster with lots of oxygen in the feed water.

• @monkeydo thanks!  SO, air pump and peroxide or hydroguard it is.

How much peroxide do you use?  I see 3% and 12% solutions.  Both are food grade.  

If you use peroxide get the 12% food grade stuff. Typically growers use 35% if they can get it but it is unstable to mail so it is diluted to 12% before sale. Because it is 1/3 strength you multiply the recommended rate by 3. 

Recommended rate is 2-3ml/gal of 35%, so the adjusted rate is 6-9ml/gal of 12% peroxide. I’ve spoken to growers that use two or even 3 times that amount without issue but that’s a good starting point.