When changing the water in my 20ltr res, will the plants be ok if they are sitting/suspended in a second dry bucket while i change the water of the res or will i need to suspend the plants roots in water with an airstone for the 10-15mins it will take me to get the nutes ready to put back in?
And another quick question while i am at it. I am tossing up if I should put a drain pipe in as such from the top side of the bucket that runs down the side to the bottom (dont want a drain at base of bucket in case of leaks) that i can connect to a dry pump i have so i can drain the bucket and then pump new nutrients back into the bucket once ready saving me having to disturb the plants, can anyone forsee any issues with doing the res change this way instead of lifting plant out of the water? Or are you best to give the bucket a bit of a scrub every 10 days or so when changing water anyway? thanks for help!
Good question....truthfully, I don't know. I keep a couple of extra buckets on hand and just switch them out to change the water. I have had good results with keeping everything clean though.
use a step drill bit to cut holes for grommets and push fittings... it will not leak I try to never move my plants once they are in a DWC.... it causes stress, and i don't like male parts all over the plant
I believe that it is actually good for the roots to be out of the water every so often while you change the nutes. When I change my nutes I pop my plants out and set the lid (with the plant in it) on the top of two chairs facing back to back. In other words the plants are removed from my grow closet and hang out in my kitchen while I clean everything and change the nutes. Obviously you want to be careful with the roots when doing this but it is not that difficult. This does not harm the plant in any way, I have been doing this method for a long time. Marijuana is a HARDY plant! Whoever says taking your plants out of your DWC buckets to change nutes stresses them out probably has never even tried it before. It does not stress them at all.
I do the same thing. I put them in another tote, without water in it, while I refresh the nutrient solution. But I rinse the temporary tote out with an H202 solution so that the roots don't pick up anything bad from it. It's probably good for the roots.
It can be good for the roots, especially of the water levels been high or oxygen levels have been low. Over an hour and you would start to see problems. The other thing is to make sure light isn't hittin them. Check out budslingers recirculating bubble guide in the DiY section. It sounds like what you are looking to be doing. Or if your talking about just drainage fill valves o believe thats part of one of the bubble bucket diy guides
You are much better off draining and refilling. Your pump idea is one solution. When the plant is larger and if you have a screen, you won't be able to move the plants in and out very easily.