How To: RDWC/UCDWC diy (advanced)

Heisengrow said:
and here is my top off float connected to the rez that keeps my water levels perfect.I can leave my system for a week and not have to sweat it.

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heres the rez PPM setting'
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and the main system,always slightly lower.If my system EC goes above my top off there is a problem so i always tune in my system to a stable EC than mix the res nutes accordingly.
You can see the auto float valve that refills the system when my water levels drop.I always keep 4ML per gallon of calmag in that bucket and only mix parts A and B in there.thats it.The other stuff i add straight to the control bucket in the system based on how many gallons ive used.I have a stick with marks on it for each gallon in my top off rez.It tells me exactly how many gallons they are taking in a day.right now my Scotts OG are eating 1 and ahlf gallons a day.
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Hey, what lights are over your grow?
 
Heisengrow said:
I run 2 315W CMH over one scrog and HPS on others.Im sure your refering to the CMH cause it looks like daylight indoors.watt for watt there is no comparison.CMH is killing 1000W HPS setup.
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And your screen size?

The first plant that I grew under 315CMH came out great. II currently have My screen full and 1 week from the flip. I have a lot of plant under 1 light and My space is 3.5' x 3.5'. My first plant did not have enough time to veg. (vacation plans) so, I've got her good and filled this time around. All of the screen is getting full light with the light being at 20 inches. 8 more weeks and I'll know if this light will finish out to the edges. :bigjoint:
Please have a look at My grow. :weed:
 
I must say, Heisengrows post and setups look amazing! I have always grown in hempy buckets and get great results.
However now ithink i want to try a RDWC grow.

I currently run a perpetual hempy grow with a
3x3 veg tent, couple of the cheap "450w" led lights. 4x 3.5g hempy buckets.
5x5 flower tent, 1000w hps lights(new for my current grow. In the past its always been a 600W), 4x 3.5g hempy buckets.

I average about 3-4 ounces per plant(under the old 600w, hoping for slightly more with the 1000). generally under 2.5ft tall each.

One thing i love about my hempy buckets is i can pull the plants out of the tent and get a good look at them to trim or train etc. I'm not sure you coudl do that with a RDWC setup


Would i see any improvement on yield or quality if i went with a RDWC?
 
catfishclyde said:
One thing i love about my hempy buckets is i can pull the plants out of the tent and get a good look at them to trim or train etc. I'm not sure you coudl do that with a RDWC setup
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Depends on your setup. When I did DWC, I used an empty bucket to set the lidpot in so I could do maintenance and clean. I knew I wanted to do that going in, so I didn't sog them. In my RDWC I don't think I'll need to take them out for anything this time, so I'm going to run a net later. With a stretchy net it allows me some room to have peeks and I can always slide the lidpot to the side and that gives enough room to get my hands in there if I have to. For trim and training I do it on site.
 
Whats a good diameter for return lines in a small rdwc? I'm just afraid of clogging a return with roots and flooding the room.

Maybe put the return pipes near the top off the res level??
 
Hi Everyone, Just entering the RDWC world. I ordered a 4 bucket 5-gal top-fed RDWC with a 5gal reservoir. I plan to transplant rockwool-germinated seedlings into a clap pebble medium. I was wanting to use some beneficial bacteria, like Great White (or something comparable and not so pricey), as a safeguard against a few things, but was concerned that there would be a potential film or slime that would further restrict my already small intake lines which are looped at the end (with the help of a T connector and connecting the ends) and the small holes in the looped line that drip the water.

Do organic, non-sterile RDWC setups suffer form any significant buildup that can clog lines (other than roots stuffing or breaking off)?

Thanks in advance and I hope I can contribute in the future and as I get some grows under my belt.
 
StonedFerret said:
Hi Everyone, Just entering the RDWC world. I ordered a 4 bucket 5-gal top-fed RDWC with a 5gal reservoir. I plan to transplant rockwool-germinated seedlings into a clap pebble medium. I was wanting to use some beneficial bacteria, like Great White (or something comparable and not so pricey), as a safeguard against a few things, but was concerned that there would be a potential film or slime that would further restrict my already small intake lines which are looped at the end (with the help of a T connector and connecting the ends) and the small holes in the looped line that drip the water.

Do organic, non-sterile RDWC setups suffer form any significant buildup that can clog lines (other than roots stuffing or breaking off)?

Thanks in advance and I hope I can contribute in the future and as I get some grows under my belt.
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I'm wondering what you paid? I built my own, saved a ton and I still haven't seen the limits of its performance.
 
I paid 115 per 4 site setup plus reservoir I got two sets. I priced it out to build my own and could not compete. I did so with a combo of Amazon and Home Depot. I recall the cost to DIY being close, but still higher, even without the necessary tools being purchased. With shipping it was 300 even. It came with everything but the hydroten.

I'd like to see your DIY setup. I bought mine to get a better understanding of what works (or doesn't) since I want to build a setup for another tent.
 
StonedFerret said:
I paid 115 per 4 site setup plus reservoir I got two sets. I priced it out to build my own and could not compete. I did so with a combo of Amazon and Home Depot. I recall the cost to DIY being close, but still higher, even without the necessary tools being purchased. With shipping it was 300 even. It came with everything but the hydroten.

I'd like to see your DIY setup. I bought mine to get a better understanding of what works (or doesn't) since I want to build a setup for another tent.
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I used 27 gallon tuffboxes as grow sites and because of their size and the fact that I use 4-12 per system I don't need a reservoir. I use a 5 gallon control bucket and 1" tubing and bulkhead fittings to allow water to gravity flow to it. One water pump, sized about 100gph/hr per tubsite, sits in the control bucket and feeds a manifold that sends water to each tuffbox, where an elbow fitting in a hole in the lid creates the waterfall that churns and aerates the solution being delivered.

It's super simple, hard to clog and no I didn't forget to talk about chilling the nutrient solution, because I don't need to. Magic of waterfalls even helps keep the water temperatures down by evaporation!
 
ttystikk said:
...and the fact that I use 4-12 per system I don't need a reservoir.
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Just to make sure I understand, Are you saying you have 4-12 grow sites per 27gal tuffbox, right?

I saw setups like that, even several YT videos. Do you find the aeration to suffice from the waterfall alone?

Do you have enough room to LST or ScrOG or are you getting those 27oz plants from SOG?

The versatility of this plants never fails to amaze me.
 
StonedFerret said:
Just to make sure I understand, Are you saying you have 4-12 grow sites per 27gal tuffbox, right?

I saw setups like that, even several YT videos. Do you find the aeration to suffice from the waterfall alone?

Do you have enough room to LST or ScrOG or are you getting those 27oz plants from SOG?

The versatility of this plants never fails to amaze me.
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No, each tuffbox is one grow site, and I run as many as a dozen in a given system. The tubs are never totally full, maybe up to 20 gallons each. Because I run waterfalls I can let the sites run almost empty with no ill effects. Add up all that capacity and you can see why I don't need a separate reservoir.

I get 27-32oz per plant.

Yes, waterfalls alone provide all the oxygenation and mixing I need. I don't even need to run a water chiller, anything from mid 60s to mid 70s is fine.

I grow each plant up a vertical trellis, 6' tall x 4' wide and SCRoG. I run 900W of COB LED using water cooled fixtures of my own design per trellis.
20160803_133003.jpg
She's two steps up a stepladder in this pic.
 
Forget everything I said about enough room then, lol.
Vertical lighting caught my eye early on, I just figured I was too noob for it. Gotta leave something for me to upgrade to, lol.

Thanks for sharing the pics. That wall of green is memorizing.
 
Seeing those colas growing horizontally is awesome. I think I'm gonna give vertical lighting a try once I get some experience with my dual 1200W LEDs in the mundane vertical growing method. Is that setup, with the soil even, how you get those 1.5 lb plants?
 
StonedFerret said:
Seeing those colas growing horizontally is awesome. I think I'm gonna give vertical lighting a try once I get some experience with my dual 1200W LEDs in the mundane vertical growing method. Is that setup, with the soil even, how you get those 1.5 lb plants?
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I got those yields both ways; with RDWC and with a coco mix called Tupur Royal Gold; it had activated carbon in it for extra buffering. People here would be proud of getting up to a zip per gallon of coco until I told them my ratio was five times that much lol

I think vertical growing is an excellent way to both gain more yield per square foot of floor space and reduce labor time. There's nothing quite as easy as training a plant growing straight up right in front of you, instead of having to lean over to work under a screen on a flatlander table.

What might blow your mind is that such trellis panels made my plants portable; two people could carry a plant from one place to another. This made moving them from veg to bloom a snap- which then allowed me to have different spaces for each stage and move plants between them, dramatically improving efficiency. We could harvest a batch of girls, carry them to the trim room AND replace them with full size bloom ready plants in the same bloom racks in 20 minutes or less. Dump and refill the RDWC tubs with fresh nutrient solution at the same time- no heavy cleaning repaired- and a complete turnover could be accomplished in half an hour.

Once, we even put them flat in the back of a pickup and drove them across town! As far as I know, no one else has made plants this size truly portable.

My next iteration of vertical will use multiple plants in the same trellis on a continuous drip rail system. Should get better per square foot yields that way. No big res needed for that, so the vertical racks could be on wheels for the ultimate in portability.

I have an agri-tech startup built around these ideas and others, including the water cooled LED. That innovation alone will save commercial grow facilities over 50% on their total energy costs- that's lighting AND HVAC.
 
The portability is nice to have, but the greatest benefit I see is the labor ease like you mentioned.

That looks like a great setup. I wanna see the drip rail you come up with. I saw an outdoor one made for less than 100 and grew a dozen plants, but it wasn't vertical, which I think will make a big difference.

I just did a flooring job for a new dispensary/grower and the owners were talking about the jugglr between lighting and cooling that they had to figure out. They were the 11th new dispensary that month in my city alone (OKC) so it sounds like you picked a good industry.
 
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