Aero Undercurrent DWC Design, thoughts?

I've been thinking about the switch to 'proper hydro' recently just been running passive hydro systems (hempy buckets) and soil.

I am a micro gardener so my stock is limited to 3 plants in flower, also a legal issue over here, I was considering perpetual ebb and flow (which I'll run once or twice to get 'real hydro' down and learn as I go) but our 'guidelines' state that we can have up to 9 plants with less risk of jail time more than likely just community service and/or a fine or even acquittal depending on the situation. Anyway the point of that was to say my ebb and flow would have a total of 10-11 plant's running including veg which is too many.

I'll be putting 1 large'ish plant into the flower section every 3 weeks in an attempt to yield 3-5 oz per plant every 3 weeks. My ebb and flow setup should yield roughly the same (2oz every 2 weeks) but this one will have less plants. All yields are based on my lowest estimates and from yields I've achieved in smaller grows under worse lights and worse setups

A few things about my setup, I am limited to 3 plants, my cab is hx80cm, wx65cm, dx38cm, I have a 250w HPS proper ventilation and all that, my temps are bang on and all environmental conditions are as near perfect as they're going to get.

AND to the point now

Here's my design:


The little hook things are sprayers (look at the right hand side diagram for actual sprayer layout) Anyway, the point of this is to have a low level res in the bottom to allow roots to grow into, there will possibly be a larger res above with a float valve in these pots so the res will always be topped up to the required level.

The sprayers accommodate an aero system as usual and the lower res is in case any of the nozzles clog/break or the pump stops, basically a backup watering system. The pump in theory should create a sort of undercurrent as it sucks water out of it's res to the sprayers, the water from the other res's should flow through the connecting pipes into the middle one creating some water movement utilizing gravity XD (not sure how much it's not built yet)

An eventual addition would be airstones but I think the motion of water created by the pump and the sprayers should be plenty of oxygenation for now.

An addition I thought of after I drew this was to lower all of the joining parts (1" PVC tubes) to the base and have a drain valve on one end of the system so all the little res's can be drained simultaneously.

That's the idea, any thoughts or comments?

Well that many views and no replies lol....

anyway, I got the spray nozzles today and my pump isn't powerful enough to make a 'spray' so I'm using them as water or aqua farms, connected the same way so they share a common res and using my pump in the same way to create water flow and as a drip feed line instead of misting aero.

Still any thoughts? or do I have to build it first lol

Went ahead and built the system anyway 'cause I got bored.

Just need a 'T' splitter to attach to the top of the pump tube to supply drips to the left and right buckets. And need to cut holes for the net pots.

interestin idea ya got there

that is a clean little setup. how many gallons do those hold and where did you source those, if you dont mind my asking? dimensions? as a dwc grower my 2 cents would be to add air,fill those up the rest of the way, and skip the aero part lol. water culture can produce great results with low plant limits. explosive growth with less complications and attention required than aero. i would get an ulcer if i had to be gone for a couple of days while running an aeroponics system.

Nice. Seeing some really nice SCROG potential here!


Kind of like this(not my pic or setup btw):



Upgrayedded to this...




Interested to see where this goes!

Thanks for taking a look guys, sorry it's been a while I lost the thread in my recent posts XD

guerrilla medic said:

that is a clean little setup. how many gallons do those hold and where did you source those, if you dont mind my asking? dimensions? as a dwc grower my 2 cents would be to add air,fill those up the rest of the way, and skip the aero part lol.

Click to expand...

with all 3 linked it's a maximum of 30 litres so roughly 6.5 gallons, not the biggest but hey the dimensions of each pot are roughly 20cm across, 30cm back and 35cm tall. I brought them from Ikea lol they are just basic 10 litre waste bins that come with lids for about £4.50 each.

Well the aero thing kinda died as well 'cause the pumps not powerful enough and I can't afford another one. My hope was that the waterfall effect would oxygenate the water enough without the need for airstones (but I'm willing to add them later if needed) and the idea of this was so that I could leave them a week or so without checking them as they have a res to grow into, the aero part was just a starter system to get the roots into the res and then as a secondary watering. But this setup can easily be converted to DWC. Check the grow in my sig for a 95% complete photo It's 100% finished now with the drippers plumbed in and everything I just haven't bothered to take photos.

Decided to take some pics;



The drippers are more like waterfalls they put out quite a bit of water, the pump has a valve that I've situated at the top of the middle bucket that lets air into the flow and provides some ridiculous oxygenation.

Stay Frosty!