First DWC LED auto

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
And maybe just buy a 10 pack of black 5gallon buckets to use instead. Or reuse those you have now if you can successfully widen the hole to 2 1/2 inches for your 1 1/5 inch pipe.
 

censorship

Active Member
Why ?
Because i already got kind of uniseals that i've used now and work good as today showed me.
+ my tube is 1.5 inch, which should be enough normally ? ( seen in reports )
Thing is , my 2small leaks are on the connections of the tubes, not on the rubber/uniseals. So its only a minor problem that will be fixed :D
 

Big Perm

Well-Known Member
I'm not trying to be rude or start shit. Are you planning on running those lights for 14 plants? The lights in the second pic.
 

censorship

Active Member
I'm not trying to be rude or start shit. Are you planning on running those lights for 14 plants? The lights in the second pic.
I will use 3 300w led lights. I have another one but didn't hung it up yet.
Why is everyone so worried ?
If it doesn't leak + my 2 air pumps doesn't fail. What should be the problem ?
My only concern now is the PPM calculations and what i would want as an objective. Since i read mixed things ..
 

censorship

Active Member
True that, in my first setup it was miserable. Could stand properly.
But now with my smaller boxes, i have much more place. And i placed my res in the middle so that its easy reachable.
I can even sit on my softbox for my air pumps do add nutrients to my res !

So far what i found ;

On a scale of 0.5:

Seedlings, Early Sprouts 100 to 250
Early Vegging 300 to 400
Full Vegetation 450 to 700
Early Blooming 750 to 950
Full Mature Blooms 1000 to 1600



This doesn't include the ppm of the water.
I'm going for a 50/50 RO & tapwater , so my ppms will be around 160.

Means I go for

Seedlings, Early Sprouts 260 to 410
Early Vegging 460 to 560
Full Vegetation 610 to 860
Early Blooming 910 to 1110
Full Mature Blooms 1160 to 1760

Thing is, i dont want nutrient burns. And i will grow autoflowers ..
I've read they need less nutrients and have severe reactions on to much ..

Plagron indicates 120 to 200 ml ( for 100L)
Hypro hydro rootstim indicates 600ml (for 120L) ---> SEEMS ALOT ALOT ALOT !
On other places i read , for autoflowers you can reduce it with 75% of what they indicate..
 

Big Perm

Well-Known Member
IMO. Cut those ppm numbers in half. You are running auto's, and they don't feed as heavy. Also a good rule of thumb is to start off at 1/2 the recommended dose.

Ordinarily, I'd recommend putting your res outside the tent for temp control, but I don't think you are going to have a heat problem.
 

Big Perm

Well-Known Member
True that, in my first setup it was miserable. Could stand properly.
But now with my smaller boxes, i have much more place. And i placed my res in the middle so that its easy reachable.
I can even sit on my softbox for my air pumps do add nutrients to my res !
Whatever works for you is what it's all about. Consider your setbacks as learning lessons.
 

Big Perm

Well-Known Member
The way you plumbed this thing is crazy man.... Why didn't you take some time to check out pictures. I know you're excited to build a system. We've all been there. But slow down a bit before you jump the gun on stuff you're going to buy and how you're going to do it.

https://www.google.com/search?q=current+culture+setups+plumbing&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjA-ZHjvO3eAhWJoIMKHU_kD6YQ2-cCegQIABAC&client=ms-android-att-aio-us&prmd=smivn&biw=360&bih=511#imgrc=12slt1LlRFjlYM
I found this video on that link. Kind of cool, gives a good look around.
 

Blent

Well-Known Member
True that, in my first setup it was miserable. Could stand properly.
But now with my smaller boxes, i have much more place. And i placed my res in the middle so that its easy reachable.
I can even sit on my softbox for my air pumps do add nutrients to my res !

So far what i found ;

On a scale of 0.5:

Seedlings, Early Sprouts 100 to 250
Early Vegging 300 to 400
Full Vegetation 450 to 700
Early Blooming 750 to 950
Full Mature Blooms 1000 to 1600



This doesn't include the ppm of the water.
I'm going for a 50/50 RO & tapwater , so my ppms will be around 160.

Means I go for

Seedlings, Early Sprouts 260 to 410
Early Vegging 460 to 560
Full Vegetation 610 to 860
Early Blooming 910 to 1110
Full Mature Blooms 1160 to 1760

Thing is, i dont want nutrient burns. And i will grow autoflowers ..
I've read they need less nutrients and have severe reactions on to much ..

Plagron indicates 120 to 200 ml ( for 100L)
Hypro hydro rootstim indicates 600ml (for 120L) ---> SEEMS ALOT ALOT ALOT !
On other places i read , for autoflowers you can reduce it with 75% of what they indicate..
I'm currently going through my first grow too but mate I'm only running one tank with a bubbler... One day I'll step up to half this scale.. I think you're being overly ambitious here... Perhaps rolling up bigger than you can smoke? It's best to take these guys advice because you don't want to end up with a flooded house and I think your chances of succeeding with 14plants on your first go is slim. Don't worry bout PPM, you're a while away from that stage. Can you keep this updated and add more photos, I'm following because I love a good drama. I wish you the best of luck but I urge you to scale back to learn more. You won't make it around this learning curve at this rate.... Or, prove me wrong.
 

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
True that, in my first setup it was miserable. Could stand properly.
But now with my smaller boxes, i have much more place. And i placed my res in the middle so that its easy reachable.
I can even sit on my softbox for my air pumps do add nutrients to my res !

So far what i found ;

On a scale of 0.5:

Seedlings, Early Sprouts 100 to 250
Early Vegging 300 to 400
Full Vegetation 450 to 700
Early Blooming 750 to 950
Full Mature Blooms 1000 to 1600



This doesn't include the ppm of the water.
I'm going for a 50/50 RO & tapwater , so my ppms will be around 160.

Means I go for

Seedlings, Early Sprouts 260 to 410
Early Vegging 460 to 560
Full Vegetation 610 to 860
Early Blooming 910 to 1110
Full Mature Blooms 1160 to 1760

Thing is, i dont want nutrient burns. And i will grow autoflowers ..
I've read they need less nutrients and have severe reactions on to much ..

Plagron indicates 120 to 200 ml ( for 100L)
Hypro hydro rootstim indicates 600ml (for 120L) ---> SEEMS ALOT ALOT ALOT !
On other places i read , for autoflowers you can reduce it with 75% of what they indicate..
That res won't be reachable when there's huge bushes around it. I smell disaster all over this.
Also here's a tip, if you're going to use ro mixed with tap, just use RO. Skip the tap. You're much better off starting at 0PPMs.
 

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
Heavy day, i know you want to help ! Thanks for that, but i just wanted to try it out myself before ripping all in pieces.
So i went to the store and with the black friday things etc i found cheap boxes. ( black ones )
Bought 2 of them because they looked stronger then my ones.
Also found this in the shop and decided to give it a try, it was the only decent thing i found after doing alot of research.



So went home again to test it out. And guess what ! Drill worked perfectly , and those rubbers too.. ( filled up one box full with water and no leaks )
I drove back and bought 6 more boxes & all those rubbers.
Sadly i ruined 1 box by putting to much pressure on it while getting the rubber in. ( since they are very hard to get in , but found the trick now )
Most of my tubes i can re-use so i will ( they are 4cm btw)
And my previous covers also seem to match the boxes more or less.

After rain comes sun :D

After testing my shitty set up, it seemed that 2boxes didn't got the waterfall of my pump. ( the water didn't pumped that far )
Any idea on how to fix this ?

My 2 airpumps seemed to worked fine though.
And also found the piece i needed to get my RO next to my washing machine.
As you probably found out, i'm not diy savvy , not at all. But by doing you learn afcorse..

The only sucky thing is , my tent i still under water lol.
But because of my pond foil, it can't do harm. That's work for the girlfriend :D
Also, your waterfalls have to be on a manifold to be even in every bucket. So from 3/4" line, to a 3/4" tee that spreads to each bucket, then breaks off to 1/2" Linea to the buckets.
 

Big Perm

Well-Known Member
Also here's a tip, if you're going to use ro mixed with tap, just use RO. Skip the tap. You're much better off starting at 0PPMs.
I agree if the starting ppm is 0, adding tap to that is a huge waste. Turn down your ro to the ppm's you want. getting to 0 or even single digits takes a lot of waste water. You would be undoing this by adding tap back to it.
 
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Blent

Well-Known Member
I agree if the starting ppm is 0, adding tap to that is a huge waste. Turn down your ro to the ppm's you want. getting to 0 or even single digits takes a lot of waste water. You would be undoing this by adding tap to it.
I feel very fortunate to live in an area where the water comes out of the tap at 5-10 ppm.... Beautiful alpine environment.
 

censorship

Active Member
Small update , i'm trying to get all fixed in the next 3 days.
Filled up with water again, saw another small leak next to the leak i fixed. ( that's the reason why i didn't saw it in the first place)
So will fix that today, still got tools for that.

About the waterfall system.
I use those T-pieces, i think the water just chooses the easy route -> shortest route because only my 2longest routes didn't work.
So maybe i should get other hoses , And choose the same length for every hose ? And look that they have all the same angle because i think that matters too?
I'm going to do some youtubings now to check how other did it. Again a mistake because i thought my pump would be heavy enough for it. ( water pumpings going same speed as my faucet )

Also just fixed our air inlet in the bathroom we don't use, because a could breeze was comming from there and went to the place were the tent is.
+ I fixed the faucet in the growing room, buying a tank tomorrow for my RO water. That will be made easily next to the tent :D

I come back to the PPM's etc when the basics are done. Will have more questions about that for sure !

And pictures will also follow when each step is done.
 

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
If you want a waterfall system to work properly and flow even, it has to be symmetrical and equal length or take steps down to increase the pressure.
My pump goes to 1" line that hits a T and splits to 2 lines. The pipes from the T to the first elbows are equal length and every each side is exactly mirrored. The water lines run down the sides of my totes through Ts that have a 1/2" elbow off of it. Like this they all flow even but even with a 1200GPH pump I still had to put caps on the elbows with holes in them to makes sprayers to agitate the water enough. But with the caps on it makes plenty of back pressure and they all flow nice and even.


 

censorship

Active Member
Damn nice spray you have there straight into the water, and a nice full set up afcorse!
From what i read , your pump is 2x the size of mine, so that matters too.
Hmm, using a pvc line like you doesn't seem an option atm. Since everything is in the tent, and i can't easily get it out drilling would be a pain.
Which means i try to build pressure up like you mentioned by letting my hoses go down.
Or i just buy another smaller pump for the right side and use this pump for my left side + middle.
That will work to for sure.

And guys, i'm still a student with not much experience in building things etc.
Keep that in mind . It's just to get a small taste of this RDWC and get my feeling back with growing plants which i always loved to.
A real decent set up will come when i have my own house in 3yrs.

Small update ;
Got the waterfall working !
Also bought other hoses in case of light leaks..


Not really clear but its a picture lol. The white hose won't be used. That was for water transfer from outside.
Waterpump will come in the middle. (which i tested afterward)
Water level seems to be perfectly the same after 10min of pumping.

Box on the left : Selfmade netpot and alu foil.
So 2 pots in 1box.
Above there will be extra reflection material too.
 
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