I had to chop a bit more off the table but I now have the drain pipe screwed to the front and running along the side to the rear where it will enter the reservoir
The drain buckets are all drilled out and the returns fitted to them. I hope these joins are waterproof
I poured a couple of gallons through the drainage system and I can't see any leaks, I'm so pleased about that. All I have to do now is drill out some drainage holes in 15 buckets and a couple of holes in each lid, fit a plug to my water pump, and fit the feed lines to the lids and manifolds. That will have to wait until Monday unfortunately because I'm going away for the weekend. I'm thinking that I might start some seeds tomorrow so they will be ready to go in to the system when it's completed
I have an 8watt water pump, 320 litres per hour. I have a feeling that it's not going to have enough power but I'll try it first before buying a bigger one I will veg them for 3 weeks and then drop the light hours to about 16/8 and then after that I'll reduce the light hours at about half hour per week
Thanks man. Yeah full on SOG, no screen for this one. I'm not really bothered about yield on this, it's all about finding an early flowering plant that I can clone and put outdoors. The weather here in the UK gets too cold early in the autumn and plants rarely get to finish properly. I figured if I got a plant that starts flowering early I'd stand a better chance. All these strains supposed to be 8-9 week finishers
i finally got the chance to get some more holes drilled. I got a couple of drainage holes in the bottom of the buckets done And a hole in the lid for the plant to grow up through, and a small hole for the feed line This is how it's looking. I'm just testing things out, I don't have any clay balls in the buckets yet
It turns out that my pump isn't 8w, it's only 6w. It stood no chance of moving the water even as far as the manifolds lol. The biggest pump I have is an 11.5w (950LPM), it's what I use to empty my reservoirs, and it proper moves water quickly. Tried that, and it just manages a small dribble from each line. The feed line's elbows and manifolds are just so tiny, probably only 1mm bore on them. I'm concerned that a bigger pump might blow one of the joins off, but have to try one so I have just ordered a 22w pump (1350LPM), hopefully I will be able to use it with it turned down on a low flow setting. If I'm honest I have no confidence in this system and wish that I hadn't started it. I have spent many hours working on building it and quite a lot of money. Now I'm left looking at all the potential leaks it could have. If one of the feed lines block I won't know until a plants dead, and if it leaks ill have to explain it to my neighbours underneath me. This is why I love DWC, there's nothing to go wrong
Aw fuck, gold. It is a very cool build. I hope things work out. I can imagine you spent a decent bit of cash
I've had it running for a good few hours now and there's definitely no leaks so I'll give it a try. It definitely still has all the advantages that were a consideration when planning it, so I can't moan. The main one being that the plants are kept separate so I can move them around and swap them over. The noise level should be low and high reservoir temperature should be less of a worry
Throw some sheeting underneath and around the legs like an envelope. No problem with leaks. Wet and dry vacuum could come in handy also.
That's not a bad idea. I was thinking along the lines of water retaining gel crystals like what they have in nappies/diapers so if there was a leak they would soak it up. But I don't know how to package the crystals to stop them blowing all over the place when it's in its dry state
Go to a aquatic shop and get a 3m x3m pond liner... probably less then 20 quid. Use drawing pins to hold it to the legs of the table.
If it did spring a leak it would probably be from one of the feed lines or possibly a drain bucket so it would spill on to the table and run off the edge. If I had the liner attached to the legs the water would run off the top and miss the liner. The liner would have to run up the sides higher than the table to make sure it would catch the water running off. Putting in a liner now would be a right pain, I wish you came on here a few weeks ago before I put the table in lol