Hi There Gc, Looking to build a rdwc system , but with just the one pot for one big plant. If my Dwc bubble bucket is 5 gallons and my ress is 10 gallons can any1 experienced in rdwc have a poke around and reccomend a suitable pump, not to break the bank but without buying some bullshit that will break lol and recommend what width piping i should look for. Got my plan all figured out at this point but the water pump size has me stumped, couldnt really find any understandable info out there. Can anyone help me out ? thanks guys
would a 300L/H 80 GPH Fish Tank Aquarium Submersible Pump Fountain Water Fall Hydroponic do the job? It would change my 5 gall bucket 16 times an hour
Yeah that pump would be fine but your design has a couple of flaws. Don't have any tubes going through the bottom of the buckets. You are just asking for a leak. Have your air lines going through the lids. You should have a small air stone in the header tank also. It doesn't have to be big but it's worth having. Have one large pipe going from the side of the bucket to the header tank, have this level and as I high up as you want the waterline to be. Then have the pump in the header tank pumping water up through the lid and then down through the bucket lid. The water will then overflow back in to the header tank. This keeps the waterline in the bucket constant at all times even if the header tank runs almost empty and you have less risk of the bucket leaking, or the roots clogging the pipe and the pump pumping water out all over the floor. You want the overflow pipe to be twice as wide as the pump pipe so it can easily flow back in to the header tank. If you can't get pipe wide enough run 2 or even 3 overflow pipes. You will then have a back up if one gets blocked. Those roots get everywhere
Thanks Gold thats a real good point, so bassically have inlet and outlet of my bucket at the top, have the pump push the water through then drain back to res. That does sound so much safer, thanks for that. I think id put the drainage pipe from the bucket about an inch above the base of the net pot, that way it will stay full yes? iv looked around and many say the 5 gall pots just dont have enough room for big ass plants root systems, because of the mrs im only able to keep 3/4 plants at one time, so its going to be a pre pep 1 plant a time so trying to max my results. would you recommend a bigger bucket? might use the 5 gall for the veg plant. The veg wont be rdwc, just dwc.
is there any reason you want a rdwc instead of just one bucket dwc? I just think worrying about leaks is a hassle easily avoided. I wrote bucket but i dont mean the dwc has to be a 5 gal bucket. A one container dwc is what i mean.
I agree a 5 gallon bucket is too small for most full size set ups. Joining up another helps but the roots will still fill the 5 gallon bucket and you run an unnecessary risk of leeks and the possibility of a pipe blocking and the pump pumping water all over the floor. A very small risk but an unnecessary one. Have a look at my most recent grow http://forum.grasscity.com/hydroponic-grow-journals/1298425-blue-cheese-dwc-scrog-2x-250w-hps.html#entry19891935 I use a 70 litre (18.5 US gallons) container like this with just the one plant Your idea will work very well but if the only reason you are building it is to hold more nutrient solution there are easier ways With a complete container like this with no holes there can't be any leaks. Air lines and pot go in the lid, nothing can go wrong You wouldn't get roots like this in a 5 gallon bucket lol
Well im only able to flower one plant at a time, so im looking to grow a big plant to max my results, in the flowering stage im going to be using a scrog, so i wont be able to access the the dwc bucket with ease. Using an external res will just make life so much easier to maintain the ppm ph etc... im also thinking of elevating the whole system so i can drain with ease, or i may just use the pump to empty the res, not sure yet. And yes leaks are a pain in the ass, but done properly it wont leak. Thanks for the input, i only posted a question but i may post my build and go from there into a journal.
The extra res will help when it comes to a fixed ScrOG screen. But it's not your only option. Did you check out the link I gave you? It sounds like you want to do something very similar, I'm sure it could give you some ideas
hi gold, yeah just got off from your journal man, you got things all set up nicely. I think iv posted in it in the past, cant remember though for sure. i have a 1m x1m x2m tent and found a really similar 50 litre box very similar to yours, i found the 70 litre one that you have also but sadly its too big for my tent . But im happy with the 50L , totally beats the 5 gallon fish bowl lol, One question i do have is do you have a separate res? And if you dont how much hassel is it to do a res change? i see alot of piping in ur res, is that like 4 airlines or something?
Its just single reservoir, no holes except for the lid. There are 8 air lines going through the lid, 4 on each side. I have 2x 10 lpm air pumps in there. I'm pretty sure it's less than a metre long, it should fit in your tent. One of the benefits of a large reservoir is you don't have to refresh it very often. But when I do need to I wait until the plant has half emptied it for me and them use a aquarium pump to pump out the rest. I fill it with a hose pipe. The screen is fixed to the lid so when I slide back the lid the screen and plant goes with it. It works fine but having an additional reservoir would mean the screen wouldn't have to be moved so I totally see the advantage of your original plan. I recently had a pipe block on an RDWC and the pump emptied the res all over the floor ruining my wooden flooring. So I'm not a huge fan of RDWC if it's not needed lol
Well yeah that was the whole idea of a nice big res so i could maybe only have to change every 10/14 days, and so it doesnt fluctuate as much. iv just looked bk at your journal and the way you have setup that scrog is great, it exaclty what i need to be honest. i also would of tryed to make a scrog net without using the string method, im wanting something to really keep those branches down without ANY give atall. Youv turned my plan upside down damm you gold!! haha, for the better in many ways though, Thanks for the input. Yea double checked the measurements on the 70L tub, your correct its 810x 620x 225mm . will fit nice and snug
Im going to be using tap water left out to evaporate the chlorine, its not perfect but hey, thers no way il be carting water from any shops lol is there any reason why we cant use rain water collected in a butt, with an air stone on 24/7, just an idea
That is the exact reason I don't want RDWC . If I'm going to use a water pump I will go a step farther and go aeroponic. Filter it to take out bugs and dirt.
If you grow in soil and use bacteria to convert raw organic fertiliser in to nutrients that the plant can use chlorine is quite literally a killer. But in a normal hydro set up you don't use bacteria, all the nutrients are already available in a form that the plant can use immediately so chlorine is not your enemy. You can use rain water, but it can pick up a lot of shit on the way down so may not be worth the bother. It depends on a lot of things really. I wouldn't use city rain that's for sure. Most of the time I don't refresh my res while I'm vegging and only the once while flowering and my last plant was taking up 10 litres per day. I let my waterline drop down to half full before topping up so I had to only top up twice a week
Oh right ok thanks, i was under the impression chlorine was harmful no matter what, hydro or soil. so when you fill up ur res, you said you use a hosepipe? is that straight from the tap or from a water storage youv got setup? yeah city water is what it would be, il giv that one a miss.
The chlorine will help keep everything clean so I see it as a benefit. Adding hydrogen peroxide is common with many growers for having the same effect. This gets turned in to oxygen so has additional benefits. Yeah I fill up straight from the tap. My tap water EC is 0.10 (about 50-70ppm) so pretty excellent really. Anything above 0.50 could cause problems with seedlings. Do you know your tap water's EC?
Well h2o2 was on my list of things to buy, maybe il buy a smaller bottle as im going to be using tap water like you. il have an exact reading of my e.c next week when all my stuff is delivered, but iv been online and my area can be 200ppm on the hanna scale, so its gunna be a bit strong, all though i may get lucky, others in my area quote 50ppm so il just have to see. If it is hard water im going to have some problems i think because like i said i WILL not be carting water from shops to feed my plants. For me thats far too much hassel so hoping the water companys aint gunna kick me in the teeth with shit water/ (Fingers crossed)
200ppm is ok, even very high like 300 would only be an issue with young seedlings. A bottle of distilled water to mix with your tap water can fix this but once they are a few weeks old they can handle pretty high ppm anyway
Was just mooching through some of your topics, that CFL Reflector is the bomb, really good idea, i may just use that idea aswell lol I think this is going to be a GoldGrower inspired grow haha. So a little more on the dwc, When your checking ur E.C, and say it was a little lower then you would like, Do you just add ur nutes back to the E.C your targeting and some water if needed. Why do others do a res change? Is it because you have a larger res which gives more stability or is it because you use a one bottle nute setup? i understand the plant may suck up more water then nutes which means im over feeding the plant, and the other way round, and understand trying to get the plant to take up water and nutes simultaneously. Cant get my head around why so many people are throwing nutes down the drain
Res changes are when you go veg to flower, have a root slime or alge problem, nuts chemistry all fucked up. A happy plant will drink so much that change is unnecessary, the soup never gets old. Used soup waters other outdoor garden plants very well, never down the drain.