The Official Dwc Cooler Club - Any Kind of Cooler Res
- Thread starter Flo Grow
- Start date
I'll spin it this way.
No offence, but if we all had that attitude, everyone would still be growing in dirt. Some smart cookie decided fuck simplicity, lets get rid of dirt all together and hydro was born. So dont be so harsh instead offer your knowledge skills and failures to help others advance. Just because one person thinks its to hard or not worth the effort does not mean it can not be done.
iFreeSki420
Well-Known Member
It's all good, we worked it out. On a side note, I bought another cooler today and put a basil plant in it. Excited to see how this turns out. I put in some free nutrients I got from my local store, Ionic Grow. Didn't do any research, but I may have to as it is drooping quite a bit and looks possibly over fertilized. Anyone have any tips?
Cant help with the basil but please post pictures of your construction efforts with the RDWC coolers. Would love to see how you worked it out and how it holds up.
Neumann
Active Member
Check out post #298 in this thread. I did a "folded" RDWC with the flowering bucket inside the res. So far it's working out beautifully, I'll post some pics later. I think I've found a style I'll be using from now on, it's fairly simple, the plants LOVE it and it's totally portable and modular. I can clone in 3" pots, veg and grow in the same pot, with no medium and no re-potting. I move the 3" pot from the cloner then into it's cooler for life.
iFreeSki420
Well-Known Member
I am going to wait until I can make a trip to Denver to pick up the supplies I need as no one sells the hull fittings I need anywhere in my county. I am moving next month so I will probably finish it in my new place
iFreeSki420
Well-Known Member
I like your design Neumann! What did you use to cut that giant hole in the lid of your cooler?
Neumann
Active Member
Thanks! I used a Skil-Saw, I'm a power tool guy. It wasn't too bad, you just have to make sure you find the exact center and work from there, there isn't a lot of extra room for trying over. I'm adding an 8 stake PVC system to hold the plants up, I'll post pics of that later.
dbkick
Well-Known Member
I just officially left the cooler dwc club (although I was never really a official member I did do cooler dwc). If you remember me I'm the kind of guy that likes to complicate things and am doing a pretty good job of it, my original idea was to connect two large coolers together but still retain the ability to run them as two different systems, I'm still gonna do this but ran into a catch when I went to find a float switch solution(to mantain proper levels in the different coolers which I thought gravity and a passive connection would do but it turned out the hoses needed a little pressure to transfer right), I'm still gonna do as planned and I might even try a JBJ auto top off system again since I'm not real sure it wasn't the pump that was faulty instead of the jbj.so anyway, heres what I got in a few photos( I'll have some deep water back soon).
Attachments
dbkick
Well-Known Member
I might add, I am getting some better ideas than that foil backed foamboard for tops (if you decide to keep the cooler top intact and fabricate one yourself. I intend to use nothing but styrofoam and 1/8th in vinyl panel glued to it,.its white, its vinyl, wtf more could you ask? oh, its cheap!. updates soon. Oh I dunno if its been touched on but if you introduce a water pump INSIDE the cooler AND don't cycle it you're gonna build up heat, I already tried it, thought my answer was another cycle timer (and it was) but I also but an inline mag drive to put outside the cooler (hooked to the 3/4 in malehose adapter and pumping out from there) to solve heat problems even more. I found I didn't need the external /inline pump and could go supbmersible as long as it was cycled a 1 minute on and 3 to 4 or. man I'm ripped on xans. nite nite
cronusoner
Well-Known Member
nice fuckin work guys!!
Looks great. Dont know how I missed that.
iFreeSki420
Well-Known Member
So I was near a Home Depot and got 1.25" couplers, expanding foam, silicone, 1.25" flexible PVC tubing. The couplers are way more snug to the holes than I expected. I don't have room for the foam so I can either just use silicone or drill some bigger holes? I wish I had the coolers with me in the store. Also the 1.25" tubing is really hard to get onto the 1.25" couplers. I should just go a size up and use clamps? This is definitely way more expensive than I realized. Interested to see difference in yield, if any.
BluBerry
Well-Known Member
Now you're understanding why we said to keep it simple without drilling the holes. More money, more problems!!
It can be done, but it's just a pain in the ass.
Try the silicone on the inside and the outside and if that don't work then make bigger holes.
Or throw them out and start fresh.
It can be done, but it's just a pain in the ass.
Try the silicone on the inside and the outside and if that don't work then make bigger holes.
Or throw them out and start fresh.
iFreeSki420
Well-Known Member
Drilling the holes quickly without having all the parts was my mistake. I was too excited. I still think it's going to work really well though so it's all good
FreeSki what size hole did you drill? It's no big deal bro, just go get yourself a bulkhead fitting. My coolers are RDWC, and now I'm setting up a med grow for a friend with 16 coolers all connected in an undercurrent system.
I cut a hole in each cooler's lid for pot, then a 2 more holes drilled in the lid for feed lines, another 3 holes in the side. 1 DWC for drain, 1 for air, and 1 for rez changing drain. You folks who cut no holes in your coolers, how do you flush your res? Unless you get a cooler with a spigot. You have to take all your shit out and then go dump your cooler upside down somewhere? That's ridiculous.
No offence to anyone who does it super simple, that might work for your little closet grow, but you're not gonna be topping off 20 different coolers and checking PH and nutes in every single one. At some point, you have to link your coolers together and go with RDWC or UC to connect them all. This makes for a way more efficient system with much more DO, your plants will love you for it.
I hate to see people shitting on someone for taking things one step further. RDWC or UC is better than any number of non-connected containers, so get off this guy's back and help him out, he's taking cooler growing to another level.
I'll take some pics of my RDWC cooler closet grow when the lights come on tonight FreeSki. I'll also snap some of my 16 cooler UC setup once it's built.
P.S. Hot-Glue and a glue gun is an amazing adhesive/sealant for us folk. It's a thermoplastic, you just heat it up until liquid, apply, then it hardens. There are no solvents or offgas curing with Hot-Glue, so it's perfectly safe for use with plants.
I cut a hole in each cooler's lid for pot, then a 2 more holes drilled in the lid for feed lines, another 3 holes in the side. 1 DWC for drain, 1 for air, and 1 for rez changing drain. You folks who cut no holes in your coolers, how do you flush your res? Unless you get a cooler with a spigot. You have to take all your shit out and then go dump your cooler upside down somewhere? That's ridiculous.
No offence to anyone who does it super simple, that might work for your little closet grow, but you're not gonna be topping off 20 different coolers and checking PH and nutes in every single one. At some point, you have to link your coolers together and go with RDWC or UC to connect them all. This makes for a way more efficient system with much more DO, your plants will love you for it.
I hate to see people shitting on someone for taking things one step further. RDWC or UC is better than any number of non-connected containers, so get off this guy's back and help him out, he's taking cooler growing to another level.
I'll take some pics of my RDWC cooler closet grow when the lights come on tonight FreeSki. I'll also snap some of my 16 cooler UC setup once it's built.
P.S. Hot-Glue and a glue gun is an amazing adhesive/sealant for us folk. It's a thermoplastic, you just heat it up until liquid, apply, then it hardens. There are no solvents or offgas curing with Hot-Glue, so it's perfectly safe for use with plants.
dbkick
Well-Known Member
Sometimes connecting them all isn't the best idea , I agree with you about its a pain in the ass even with as few as 6 buckets to change/ph them once the plant gets fairly large, its actually even a pain in the ass when they're small too, but with one res you're limited to one nutrient solution when (depending on your situation) you may require different levels for different plants. I'm just starting a diy aeroflo perpetual grow, it consists of 3 rails with 3 sites per rail. the first rail will go in flower while 3 more are in veg in a different system. so now I've reached a point where I had to decide on how to use additives, since they are called for at certain weeks in flower. I decided to use a bloom enhancer that is used the whole flower cycle, hammerhead. I'll use another bloom additive sparingly just because I like it so much , Big Bud and of course b52 is good most any time . dunno how its gonna go but I'm interested to find out, any info on this subject would be helpful. Now back to the subject ...... Igloo rules!