changing water dwc/scrog setup

I've heard of people that don't change their rez the entire grow (Lucas formula) but honestly I wouldn't recommend it because even though you can monitor ppm's you can never tell what those ppm's consist of, so you might get toxic buildup of calcium but be completely depleted of phosphorus. I what a similar issue but I switched to rDWC and that problem was solved.

 

Dude, I have contemplated this problem for days on end only to wind up supercropping and lst'ing. Possible solutions I've thought of: Use a dry-vac to get the water out -just make sure to remove the paper filter. Or use velcro tape to attach your screen to whatever stable structure presents itself; when you have to do res changes un-velcro your screen from the wall posts or w/e and just reattach the velcro when you put em back in. Haven't figured anything else out but the dry vac seems to be the best option. Get one from a thrift shop on the cheap.

 

I use 5 gallon buckets as reservoirs and I installed pvc ball valves at the bottom of each bucket.
Whenever I need to change nutes,I open the valves and let em drain with a hose hooked up, then I hook a pond water pump (20 bucks on eBay) and pump my new batch of nutes right back in through the same valve. I also am running a scrog so my plants are locked in under the screen. I find this way quick and easy to change my nutes.

 

Is your plant too big to remove the screen to add a drain line to it? If so then siphoning seems to be your only solution. Just make sure your prepared and have the necessary tools to do so quickly and cleanly. An leave her in another bucket with clean ph'd water while you do so.

Did you make any water level indicators on your bucket, if so you could unplug the hose and use that to siphon the water out and fill the same way, If you have one that is.

As far as flushing... its really debatable, but I feel it is a necessity. I usually only flush at the beginning and end of flower or if I can't keep a stable 5.5-5.8 ph range. This usually indicates residual nute buildup in the res that the plant can't use, and must be flushed out.

I'm having that problem right now in my current system, I'm just waiting out a few more days till my FloraKleen shows up. I have to adjust the ph twice a day in my SCRoG 11gallon DWC... just a few more days lol.

Good luck to ya.
Mac

 

.... Currently scratching my head with this same issue... Such a pain in the ass... I have my screen hanging from chains so I think I can lift the whole thing... I have a while to think about it because I'm still at seedling stage but damn... This sucks lol

 

Well guys, I also thought of this problem as well. My initial thought is to put the DWC 5 gallon bucket on some sort of raised platform, not a whole lot of height, but something to where you can remove, hold the plant in place, and then put a 2nd clean bucket right back under it, not completely full of water, but just enough so you can get it under the roots and not spill any, then top if off once it is put back in place (might be a two man job, haven't tried yet). I am currently thinking of placing my bucket on a 6 inch platform (books or something).

 

First grow for me and I totally understand everything you guys are talking about lol.
I have tried various things (includding ball valve pvc stuff) and pumps electric water transfer pumps, you name it but least until this first grows over I have been likening to using this manual transfer pump picture attached.


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You can put a small aquarium pump in the bottom, run the hose to above water level and put a plastic shut off valve.out of the other side. Then U just need a short hose and a bucket and your good to go!


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I too ran into this problem, and I believe the easiest is to raise plants on a platform, which drains back to a res on the floor. I changed it to a rswc(s=shallow) I moved airstones from pots to res because pots only have 2 inches or so in them now. (although I think it would not matter either way) Now I simple deal with a res and never have to disturb plants other than lst, scrog or whatever I am doing with them. I hope this helps

 

when i first started i bought the 5gal buckets with the blue pvc tubes used to check water levels. when i decided to scrog, these buckets worked pretty good. the site tube doubled as a drain tube. bought a small pump to pump the soup back into the res.

 

U shud of drilled a small hole at bottom with a valve and two rubber grommets(to seal the hole).so then u dont have to physicaly move anything.but U DEF WANT TO CHANGE RESERVOIR......AT LEAST EVERY 2WKS.

 

You probably figured it out already but fuck it. I build my screen and attatch wire running to each corner of that screen. Then i take the front and back corner of the left side of the screen and run it up to the pvc "t intersection" at the top of my tent and wrap them on the opposite side of each wire respectively to the position of the pvc making a pulley system if you will. I then place a wire clamp or whatever you can find to hold them where you adjust it to. Abd whenever you need to change resevoir. Simply lift the screen while holding the dwc bucket top (helps if you have a lady or someone to help) pull the old bucket out of the way and put an empty bucket under her you can work and she can get an airbath. Then repeat to get her resevoir back in. Boom.

 

Small,submersible aquarium pump (buy a used one for $2 at a pet shop), $4 of vinyl tubing (also at pet shop) and some pantyhose....I've heard that if your doing a project and there's no pantyhose involved, it can't be that good of a project...lol. Drop the pump with tubing into pantyhose, zip-tie that shit up, throw it into your rez and turn her on. If it's a cheap pump it may take 5-10 mins or so to empty the 2 gallons remains of a 5 gal bucket....but your roots will be safe and majority of the water will be easily transferred to another bucket or drainage.

 

Sounds kinda crazy but I use my old auto siphon for wine racking and I drain 10 gallons in like 4minutes get a really fat hose

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I understand that this isn't a solution for everyone but my buddy is doing 2 large walmart containers DWC with a scrog. He mounted a 1" PVC valve to the bottom of each container and spaced the containers just enough off the ground to turn the valve. Both drain valves feed into a tee then he drilled a small hole in the floor and ran a clear vinyl tube into his crawl space. He drilled a hole in his septic main drain line for the house and just sealed the drain line in with some silicon on the top side of the pipe.

When he wants to do a water change he opens the drain valve and both reservoirs drain in down the house drain in a couple of minutes and he refills fresh water and nutrients. It's pretty slick.

I would recommend water changes with DWC. There are byproducts that can build up in there. I try to do it at least once a week. When the plants get older sometimes I do it more often like every 5 days. You can check ppm but when you're running things like humic/floric acid, budcandy, silica, cal/mag. A ppm check cant tell you how much of each of your supplements are still in there after several days. You just get a generic number. Good luck balancing the amounts of each nutrient as the plant uptakes them at different rates throughout the life cycle. It doesn't use nitrogen at the same rate for sure. How does just a PPM check tell you how much nitro or calcium is left in the mix? You have to do water changes to make sure you are back to a balanced nutrient profile.