nixusr
Member
Curious on starting down the rdwc road to put a screen over the setup. How in the world do you change a res in a rdwc setup. Seems hard to completely drain the res since the water is disbursed to and from buckets...?
Building a RDWC myself. Have questions. Need help, hints!
- Thread starter ULMResearch
- Start date
Mineralz
Well-Known Member
I've been doin some thinkin on the RDWC shtuff too as of late. As far as the rez changes go....I would think you could just use the water pump to pump it out elsewhere? If you were runnin top feeders from an irrigation splitter you could just slide it off and replace it with a drain hose I would think? I'm tryin to settle on a 4-bucket system with an external cooler rez so I'm just assuming 
BendBrewer
Well-Known Member
Gravity. All the buckets flow out of the bottom back to the reservoir. Gravity balances out the volumes.
ULMResearch
Active Member
So do you have only the first bucket in a chain top fed and let the gravity balance out the rest?
BendBrewer
Well-Known Member
No, all have feeders on them. Not saying that is the only way to do it, just how mine is set up.
View attachment 1689080
View attachment 1689080
ULMResearch
Active Member
Ok, so you don't run a chain of buckets. You supply water from the rez to a top feed on each bucket separately using the same feed line. Then on the bottom of each bucket you run a return line from each to a main return line to the rez?
There isn't any one way to do this, there are more than a few.
The 3 main ways to recirculate your buckets are:
A: Top feed on each grow bucket with drain on bottom of grow bucket back to control res. Water level in system stays level at all the times, and drops as plants drink. (this is what BendBrewer is using)
B: Top feed on each grow bucket with drain at water level on grow bucket. Drain must be graded on a slight angle back to the res, therefore the water level in your grow containers must be slightly higher than water in your control res. With this system only your control res drops in water level while your grow buckets remain at a constant set level (wherever you put the drains on them)
C: No top feed, All buckets are connected in a loop, One "IN" and one "OUT" on the bottom of each bucket. A pump somewhere in the chain circulates water through the buckets in a series, or loop. The water in the system is level at all times, and drops as plants drink.
For the two systems that drop in water level, you can use a float valve and a water feed line to keep it constant. My favourite is system B, because it avoids this.
If I didn't explain one of those well enough, I'll elaborate more if you'd like.
The 3 main ways to recirculate your buckets are:
A: Top feed on each grow bucket with drain on bottom of grow bucket back to control res. Water level in system stays level at all the times, and drops as plants drink. (this is what BendBrewer is using)
B: Top feed on each grow bucket with drain at water level on grow bucket. Drain must be graded on a slight angle back to the res, therefore the water level in your grow containers must be slightly higher than water in your control res. With this system only your control res drops in water level while your grow buckets remain at a constant set level (wherever you put the drains on them)
C: No top feed, All buckets are connected in a loop, One "IN" and one "OUT" on the bottom of each bucket. A pump somewhere in the chain circulates water through the buckets in a series, or loop. The water in the system is level at all times, and drops as plants drink.
For the two systems that drop in water level, you can use a float valve and a water feed line to keep it constant. My favourite is system B, because it avoids this.
If I didn't explain one of those well enough, I'll elaborate more if you'd like.
ULMResearch
Active Member
I'd prefer the simplest solution as I only have room for a 4+1 I believe. I might might could squeeze 6x1, but that is an addition I can make later. I don't mind refilling water daily myself as I'd likely be checking them anyway so having some valves and feeds isn't a priority.
Those 3 methods are very informative however. Which do you think would apply best, simplest and relatively cheapest to my situation? I already have a 20watt 48lpm air pump or whatever with 6 outlets. The rest.. well, that's what I'm planning out!
Those 3 methods are very informative however. Which do you think would apply best, simplest and relatively cheapest to my situation? I already have a 20watt 48lpm air pump or whatever with 6 outlets. The rest.. well, that's what I'm planning out!
BendBrewer
Well-Known Member
In my flower room, the buckets drain to 1 of 3 lines that return to my res.
In the veg room, the buckets are connected together in chains. Not sure if it is the same as Parallel vs. Series, but I think you can get the idea.
ULMResearch
Active Member
Think I might abandon this idea and just go with some totes. 4 plants per. I can fit 3 in the closet I believe for 12 plants. Going to go 12/12 from seed so size shouldn't be an issue. Just going to need to find a way to supplement the 400HPS. Maybe some 2700K CFLs.
mushmaster
Member
I'm workin with a tote right now. There are def disadvantages. I'm relatively strong and getting that 12 gallons of water across the house to drain/fill is a pain in my back lol. Also, roots tend to bind if you don't keep them seperate. Overall it's faster than doing individual buckets I'm sure but just letting you know ahead of time some of the issues I have run into. I will be changing over to the round coolers probably. Like 5 gallon buckets but light proof and will control temp better...not to mention they are built with drain valves lol. Saves my back! But I'm a noob so what do I know?
ULMResearch
Active Member
Well my plan is to do 12/12 from seed so size won't be an issue. Thinking 3 totes with 4 plants each, rotated every month.
Totes and air stones is easy setup for sure, but like mushmaster has said, it's gonna be a pain later.
More thought into your setup means way less work during your grow.
I've also been noticing more and more that air stones really suck ass and made my plants grow more slowly. The roots don't like the bubbles hitting them, they don't like really turbulent water. I bet you'd be way better off, if you went the single tote route, to use a water pump to top feed all 4 plants in the tote, and have the water drain back into the tote. If you use a pump capable of circulating the whole solution every 3-5min, you'll be sure that you have perfectly oxygenated water with less turbulence so roots can take up more water and plants can grow faster. Your water also doesn't heat up as fast with a water pump compared to an air pump.
I know it seems like it goes against everything you'd heard, but I've seen it with my own eyes. The air pump slows growth. Then I come across someone like Heath Robinson getting 76oz off a single plant with 1500W of vert lighting, using only water pump, no air.. Then I figure I'm on the right path as well. I really don't know how air pumps became so popular for DWC, maybe because they're so easy, I think they're terrible and I'll never use one again.
The bubbles themselves actually do little to no oxygenating at all with an air pump. All they do is agitate the water so it all comes in contact with the surface, while continuously at the surface atmospheric pressure is pushing fresh oxygen into the water. The bubbles do nothing helpful (other than mix the solution) but disturb your roots and stunt their ability to take up water and nutrients. With a water pump as you top feed through hydroton the water spreads out to a very thin layer as it runs over all the hydroton pebbles. This means that atmospheric pressure has the chance to jam fresh oxygen into every little bit of that water, there's a huge surface area to work with! Way more than the surface of the solution in a tote, especially with some larger net pots, which brings me to my next hint/tip that you asked for.
Net pot... Get the biggest ones you can fit, don't even dink around with those 2" things.
Something else I noticed is that in the hydroton you get those fuzzy roots like you do in soil or aero. If you have a netpot of decent size you have a lot of these type of roots, and then your non-fuzzy heavy drinkers down in the solution. I noticed it helped quite a bit to get lots of hydroton area for fuzzy roots to grow, and gives a better ratio of fuzzy to non-fuzzy, then you get the best of both worlds, and would be kinda like nature if you imagine a big plant with fuzzy roots harvesting more air up top and the big heavy drinkers poking down into the water table. More hydroton also obviously gives you more surface area as your top feed water drains through it to gather more oxygen.
If you do one tote with air, and one tote top feed with a water pump, I'd bet the farm the water pump side will eat more nutes, drink more water, and grow faster.
P.S. I also forgot to mention, air pumps are damn noisy! Water pump is whisper quiet... Anybody want a barely used 45W air pump? I'll never use it again.
More thought into your setup means way less work during your grow.
I've also been noticing more and more that air stones really suck ass and made my plants grow more slowly. The roots don't like the bubbles hitting them, they don't like really turbulent water. I bet you'd be way better off, if you went the single tote route, to use a water pump to top feed all 4 plants in the tote, and have the water drain back into the tote. If you use a pump capable of circulating the whole solution every 3-5min, you'll be sure that you have perfectly oxygenated water with less turbulence so roots can take up more water and plants can grow faster. Your water also doesn't heat up as fast with a water pump compared to an air pump.
I know it seems like it goes against everything you'd heard, but I've seen it with my own eyes. The air pump slows growth. Then I come across someone like Heath Robinson getting 76oz off a single plant with 1500W of vert lighting, using only water pump, no air.. Then I figure I'm on the right path as well. I really don't know how air pumps became so popular for DWC, maybe because they're so easy, I think they're terrible and I'll never use one again.
The bubbles themselves actually do little to no oxygenating at all with an air pump. All they do is agitate the water so it all comes in contact with the surface, while continuously at the surface atmospheric pressure is pushing fresh oxygen into the water. The bubbles do nothing helpful (other than mix the solution) but disturb your roots and stunt their ability to take up water and nutrients. With a water pump as you top feed through hydroton the water spreads out to a very thin layer as it runs over all the hydroton pebbles. This means that atmospheric pressure has the chance to jam fresh oxygen into every little bit of that water, there's a huge surface area to work with! Way more than the surface of the solution in a tote, especially with some larger net pots, which brings me to my next hint/tip that you asked for.
Net pot... Get the biggest ones you can fit, don't even dink around with those 2" things.
Something else I noticed is that in the hydroton you get those fuzzy roots like you do in soil or aero. If you have a netpot of decent size you have a lot of these type of roots, and then your non-fuzzy heavy drinkers down in the solution. I noticed it helped quite a bit to get lots of hydroton area for fuzzy roots to grow, and gives a better ratio of fuzzy to non-fuzzy, then you get the best of both worlds, and would be kinda like nature if you imagine a big plant with fuzzy roots harvesting more air up top and the big heavy drinkers poking down into the water table. More hydroton also obviously gives you more surface area as your top feed water drains through it to gather more oxygen.
If you do one tote with air, and one tote top feed with a water pump, I'd bet the farm the water pump side will eat more nutes, drink more water, and grow faster.
P.S. I also forgot to mention, air pumps are damn noisy! Water pump is whisper quiet... Anybody want a barely used 45W air pump? I'll never use it again.