Anyone has build plans for a RDWC?

This may help. I too used to do the bubble buckets, and hated the nute change problems, as well as the heat problems. I added lines to the buckets, and raised them up on a platform, which lowers the amount in the buckets. The object being, that the majority of the nutes are in the rez, staying cool, and PH/nute changes made to the rez have a smaller swing as the nutes outside the rez join the changed nutes.....that is a mouthful. I changed some old waterfarms (bubble buckets) to do this. I hope this helps

 

I check ph, ppm's @ lights on, and near lights off. I always top off with water, and notice the diff between the days before to see if they are eating nutes, or drinking water. The swing I was talking about was not the normal swing, but the swing from adjusting nutes in the rez, till the rest of the nutes in the system returns to the rez, and using drippers, that process is slow. So by keeping pots on a raised platform, It has a smaller amount of nutes in the system waiting to get back to the rez. Also dripping nutes into warm water in the pots under the lights, in the system gets warm very fast, and is harder to cool. I hope this makes sense. Bottom line, out of 18 gal rez, I only have 2 gallons in the system of three pots(Drain pipes, buckets etc.) I hope this helps.

 

These are the two main RDWC set ups...

 

Have you had issues with temperature still being high in individual waterfarms? I am just recalling from my own personal experience that this wouldn't have worked until about the second or third week of flowering where they would actually drink a half to a full gallon a day.

I wonder if you could recirculate it with a small half inch return line... Really small pump just to keep it moving. Would be interesting to see.

 

Golden, I'm in the process of doing a build list for a 8-12 RDWC setup exactly like the Current Culture UC8XL or UC12XL.

I'll throw out up whenever I get it done.

 

For one or two waterfarms just to keep it moving (since you could just drill another 1/2" hole and run a line to a inline pump) I would think 1/2" would do the job well considering they're not made to recirculate. You would also have to make it dump over top of the plants at the same rate it returns it to the controller bucket (unless you're running it like an undercurrent).

As far as a real RDWC, I would never go with anything less that a 2" if you're running 4 buckets or greater. Actually over 10-12 I would consider 3".

The whole point is to recirculate the system between 6-8 times in an hour. If your plumbing is too small you create a bottleneck and defeat the entire purpose of the system.

I have not ran a UC myself, but have studied them for quite some time and am pretty confident in my knowledge as to how they operate.

Biggest thing is keeping the water circulating and maintaining low 60s water temps.

 

Use a good root inoculant like real growers recharge or hydroguard and keep your temps low in the tent with a good ventilation system. The buckets work well by themselves. I don't think there's any need to complicate it.

Let me tell you what you give up when you pipe a system: It makes it hard to move plants, rotate, move to a different location in the room. You can pretty much no longer run a perpetual harvest which is plants in staggered stages of development. They require different nutrient mixes and so you can't run them all off a central res. If you want to run two reservoirs and two rooms veg and bud then you could run two nutrient mixes. Running different strains that have different tolerances to nutrients could also be problematic. I find water changes easy in the buckets. The pain is measuring all the nutrients but there's short cuts to that if you really want. What each plant wants can really be tailored.

You are right though, when the plants get big you have to top off each bucket every day or the water gets too low. You can stretch it two days if you run a fairly weak ppm solution and you top it off a little extra high. 2 days is max neglect though on a bubble bucket with a good size plant in it.

 

I never had temp issues as the majority of the nutes was in the rez. I went to 1 inch lines, but roots can still be a problem clogging in the lines. I am thinking of hot glueing a screen over the drain lines to help keep roots at bay

 

The NS doesn't need to be circulated at any great speed but small hoses in under current set ups can get clogged with roots, especially if the flow is too fast. With over flow, it's much less of a concern. But generally speaking, the larger the tubing, the less likely roots will block it up

If you run it in series, all the lines are return lines, but if you run it parallel then have the return lines twice as wide as the feed lines. Parallel systems can be run faster, but I find there is no real advantage if you aerate each plant reservoir

 

This is true and there is a much greater risk to reward. If you win you can win big but it can be catastrophic if you come into issues.

The kicker is that even with Hydroguard or similar product you can still get taken over by bad bacteria. Hydroguard is a preventative product and works well but doesn't 100% guarantee to keep everything at bay if you're not maintaining a clean reservoir and if your environment isn't reasonable (which is a given for all things in this industry). Hell, even guys running 30% hydrogen peroxide in a sterile recirculating water environment almost never win the battle entirely. Just part of the game you play.

Below 65 degrees the bacteria has a much harder chance growing, which is why if you can afford a small chiller if you're running 2-4 plants it's definitely worth it. You cannot necessarily run an undercurrent without one unless you have a cold floor with a cold environment. It seems most people end up losing their crops cutting corners this way.

Do you plan on RDWC or connecting Waterfarms?

For Waterfarms since you really won't be able to fully turn it into a RDWC without heavy modification and building of manifolds I would think 1/2 to 1" should be fine just to keep the water circulating and topped off.

For even 2 in a RDWC system I wouldn't go under 2", since bulkheads are cheap and uniseals blow for anything over 1.5". Plus it guarantees your exchanging out your water in each bucket a good 5+ times in an hour (if your water pump is sized properly)


Steviodaddios Medical Perpetual

 

Cost is based invest price from my local shop or online, could vary location to location.


I can send out the excel sheet of this but had to run out of the door and wanted to get it up just for reference.

This build list uses the CC lids which are costly compared to the $5 ones you can get and cut the tops out with a saw, but considered the use for ease and cleanliness. Plus they're white and I didn't want to deal with drilling out an 8" hole. So if you didn't want to use you'd save about another 75-85 bucks.

Also uses an Air Force Pro 40 and Danner Mag 500 pump which are the same ones CC H2O use in their 4 and 6 bucket systems. I'm sure there are pumps out there you could get cheaper but I'm just going neck and neck with their design specs. I do like how Air Force pro's stay cooler than some of the cheap air pumps though.

One thing I noticed I just forgot is air stones for each individual bucket and a diffuser disk for the epicenter, so account for another 12-25 depending on how you take that route.

Also have to factor in a 3" hole drill bit for $20-30 if you don't have.

So GRAND TOTAL: ~$695
Current Culture UC4XL: $995-$1100 depending on where you buy

Over a $300 savings (30%) that an average handy person can do and invest towards a chiller or to nutrients, etc.

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I'll do an 8 and 12 bucket materials list just for an update on price. I do believe that once you start getting over 6 on the DIY setups you start to see the value and cost savings more but we'll find out.

 

I got my 6 bucket system for $109 from HTG. That's a huge cost difference. It comes with an 950gph air pump, lines, nice net pots, manifold, airstones, black 3.5 gallon buckets, and potting pellets. All you need is nutrients and water. If you can form a successful routine with your setup it can certainly be done just fine in independent buckets. $99 right now online.
HTG Supply - Bubble Brothers 6 Pot DWC System

Any piped system is just as much if not a bigger ticking time bomb for an infection since it's much much harder to clean properly than a bucket.

Another disadvantage of a piped system: If you do have a problem you pump it to every bucket. If you have a problem in an independent bucket system it is typically one plant. I haven't had a problem since I started using silica and hydroguard. It's starting to get colder now too so I won't be getting too warm this year. The winter should be easy to maintain good temps. I'll probably have to get a thermostat and kick my fan down in speed so it doesn't get too cold.

I would say the biggest disadvantage of independent buckets is having to check your plants almost daily. Other than that the advantages of independent especially for me being able to run perpetual harvest is great. I don't want to wait 4 months for a harvest.

If you can't check on plants daily, you don't care about running plants in different stages, the increased cost and clean up work isn't an issue, you have plenty of room for the increase in equipment, and you have problems keeping a cool room of about 78-80 degrees than go with RDWC.

 

With my Waterfarms, unless you're keeping them smaller, I felt a 4 gallon bucket (subtracting nearly 2 for the top bucket of Hydroton), was way too small. I would say 5 gallon at the bare minimum, especially if you're trying to stick to two plants.

Do you have a local hydro store around? Square 8 gallons are only between 12-16 depending on where you get them. I would go square, especially if you're using uniseals or bulkheads (go bulkheads, uniseals are garbage).

Also, don't feel like you have to buy an air force pro or Danner mag. Like I said I'm sure you can find similar things (like what come in that $99 setup mentioned above) and REALLY cut costs down even more. I just built a list that stays within the same quality of what CC's pre builds and ships. I'm sure my nearly $700 build out could be cut down to $450 if you didn't go as far as I did.


If this is for personal stash, I wouldn't spend the money doing a recirculating setup. Get a good air pump and buy two 8 gallon square buckets and run them as individual DWC with one or two nice round air stones in the bottom (not the shit fish tank ones).

Yield and quality all depends on strain and growing ability. I know guys that have pulled a pound from a 4 gallon waterfarm. My first run I vegged for 19 days. My drip line got plugged and they messed up the final 3 weeks which really killed my yield. Only averaged 5.5 ounces a plant, so I'm assuming I might have seen 8-9 if things went well. That shouldn't happen with DWC though.

If you do to the individual bucket though I would spend the money on an Air Force. They run much cooler and push more air than the Eco Plus garbage.

Steviodaddios Medical Perpetual

 

Not trying to pick on RDWC obviously that is what you want, but to play devil's advocate. I like arguing a point it's how I learn best. The last post is a good example of another disadvantage of complicating the system. More parts = more potential problems. Nozzles can clog, pumps can fail, ect. Stevio would have still had a bang up crop if he didn't have to rely on nozzles.

The main danger time in dwc is when the plant is first getting established. Once you get healthy root growth you pretty much have to make a big mistake to make the plant fail at that point. Once you get good at getting through the danger zone and maintaining the plant to the end it's easy to keep dwc healthy.

 

I think you have beef with RDWC...

I should have put an air stone in each Waterfarm bucket.. Roots clogging the drip line is a pretty common thing apparently but figured that out the hard way.


Steviodaddios Medical Perpetual