The air
pump running 24/7 wont even be noticeable on your electric bill, so I wouldn't worry about the electricity use. If you want to tell for yourself use this
Electricity Cost Calculator, all you need to know is the wattage, and cents/kw-hr that's easily found on your electric bill. Then just put 24 in the section for hours, multiply the total by 30, and that will tell you what it cost to run it for an entire month. If the box dosen't have the wattage listed, multiply the amperage by the voltage, and that will give you the wattage. I don't have the box for my air pumps but I'll use the
High volume air pump I linked in the to in the other thread as an example. That pump is 66 watts, and I pay 9.29 cents per kw-hr (that includes the base charge as well as surcharges). Using the calculator I linked to, that pump would cost me $0.15 (15 cents) to run all day long, $0.15x 30= $4.50 a month 24/7 all month long. The air pump/s you'll need wont be annoyware near that wattage. Found it, here's the air pump I grew my 8 lettuce plants with in a water culture system
Tetra Whisper 60 Aquarium Air Pump - AquaCave (I got it at wal mart for about $12). Look under specifications, that air pump is only 4 watts. At the rate per kw-hr I pay, that pump only costs me $0.30 per month to run 24/7 all month long.
As for what size basket to use for a 2 foot tomato plant in a water culture system (bucket). Well I would probably use something like a 4-5-6 inch basket. But there are a lot of people who would say you can use a basket as small as 2 inches. And it probably would be OK for that small of a tomato plant, especially if your planing to support the foliage. But I just like having more
growing medium around the main root-ball myself (again because it's more forgiving for the plant).
P.S.
I get heavy duty timers (15 amp) at Kmart for about $7. My largest water pump has a maximum pumping height of 8.7 feet, and will pump a max volume of 500 gallons per-hour, and is only 35 watts. So even if I had it running all day (24 hours), it would only cost me 8 cents (or $2.40 to run 24/7 for 30 days).
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heres a little drip vs dwc question... should power fail, what will die out quicker?.. dwc wouldnt be able to aerate the liquid, and drip wouldnt be able to supply it
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That would depend on a lot of variables, but in general I would say the plants in a
drip system not getting any water at all for days would probably completely die before plants in a un-aerated water culture system that had plenty of water. The biggest factors being temperature, the type of growing medium used in the drip system, as well as how much growing medium is used, and relative humidity. As well as how much water volume is in the water culture system, and how big the plants are in either system. I live in the desert where relative humidity is very low most of the year (below 10%), and I often forgot to plug back in the pump to the timer after I did something to my broccoli plants (the same ones I linked to in the other thread that were in the 5 gallon buckets, that was a drip system). I used coco chips as a growing medium for them, and coco chips hold moisture better than most growing mediums. And even on days that neared 100 degrees, I saw no singes of wilting from those full grown plants over 24 hours later when I noticed that I forgot to plug the pump in the next day.