Drip Drip Goes The Uniseal (Leaking!)

Post a pic of your set up might have ideas

My rdwc is pretty straight forward lol

That's basically it. .
3/4" Bulkhead with slip, on both sides of each container.
3/4" flex pipe connects bulkheads between each container.
Out of view (outside of tent) is a brute with a 3/4" bulkhead with slip, also connected to the first HDX with the same 3/4" flex pipe. (All in a straight line.)
Out of the last bucket (on the right) the 3/4" flex pipe coming out of the right side, has a slip which goes to a 1" pipe all the way back to the pump.... but just before the pump there is a slip which goes down to 3/4" now and then that 3/4" flex pipe goes to the pump. (It was 1" originally but switched to smaller pump so 3/4" now.)
And then a 3/4" going out the top the pump and into the top of the res.

Without the restricted pipe infant of the pump, within about 1-2minutes my last bucket (all the way on the right) becomes half empty.
With the restricted pipe, all buckets stay levelled, but the circulation from the pump is minimal.

This was the original one.. it has been taken out. This is why I had got a 1000GPH pump..Would have been Kick-Arse if it worked!

New one. You can see the piping in the middle connecting the bulkhead. It is the same all throughout, in a straight line. I like the added height I have with the HDX versus the Brutes.

Pump and Res just outside of tent, to the left of the first bucket in the picture (left side). Pipe exits from the last bucket on the right, outside of tent and back to the pump that is beside the res at the very left.

So you switched from round to square but you didnt go with the 4 inch return tube?


Also use white trash bags on top of the black ones they wont absorb heat

I think youve seen my setup with 2 inch returns

Mine will seep every now and again if i rocknit hard.

Then its will seep a little till the salts block it up.

Next run im flipping my uniseals around.

I wouldnt have given up on the brutes
Up here they are about 4 times more expensive then a tote and they are pretty beefy.

I have square brute 50g can that i used for an aero/dwc setup

And wanted to hook 5 of those together i just didnt want to spend 5 hundo on trash cans lol (at least what they charge up here for brutes)

Your first idea would have had lots of flow lol

i already bought some HDX totes in anticipation of rebuilding my DWC system, but now i am leaning RDWC.

where are you guys buying these 1" bulkheads?

Amazon lol
Uniseal warehouse .com

Dont go with anything smaller then 2 inch for returns imo

4 might be a little over kill

But 2to3 should be good.


2inch works great for me at least

Mechanical bulkheads are only better if you have straight vertical bucket walls.

If they are angled much you will get leaks even with mech bulkheads and teflon thread sealant lol
Unless you do a full glue up with slip mech bulkheads and unions

And that was rdwc design number 1 lol

4 16 gallon totes with hinged lids woulda been bad ass if i could have gotten the leak thing figured out

But with 60 plus gallons water pressure is a bitch lol

Hence why i yook my final design down to 30 gal

That way i can just dump once a week in flower
And not waste excess nutes

True a bigger system will be more stable but not needed unless your trying to let it run for more then a week

ok, so with angled sides on the HDX totes, i need to go with uniseals.

Sour Wreck said:

ok, so with angled sides on the HDX totes, i need to go with uniseals.

Click to expand...

I’m thinking if the side of your tank isn’t perpendicular to the floor you should go with Hayward bulkheads. But even if it is perpendicular I still wouldn’t mess with the uniseal.

You could get a ball valve and throttle the output. I can't see how a tiny pump like that is causing a bucket to empty and not fill up.

Sounds more like a circulation issue and not an oversized pump issue.

Uniseals have more of a bad wrap then anything mostly due to user error.

Remeber they where invetex to tie pvc plumbing together
So straight walled round cylinders

Im not familiar with a hayward bulk head so i couldnt say.

You can use mechanical bulkheads but caer must be taken if you do a glue up system.

Basically im ocd so i try to make shit straight and level as possible. But the was a mistake since the walls of the totes where angled.

So i would "dry" fit the system and then use a silver marker to put witness marks in so you can glue it up with the angles built in

My set up is my 3rd design not perfect (yet)
But not pissing me off yet either
But it shows how i ran my plumbing

I only get weeping if i bump the return line too hard so next run im going to flip the unis seals around since i dont use silicone

After the surge of my pump all buckets run Dead even and i get a circulation every 2 min

Cold$moke said:

So you switched from round to square but you didnt go with the 4 inch return tube?


Also use white trash bags on top of the black ones they wont absorb heat

I wouldnt have given up on the brutes
Up here they are about 4 times more expensive then a tote and they are pretty beefy.

Click to expand...

That's right (no four inch return).. my budget was maxed before the second tote setup. I did not want to put the 4" uniseals into the totes and still end up with a leak, so I went with 3/4" Bulkheads.
^Why 3/4" bulkheads? Literally the ONLY thing I could find online, shipped in a reasonable amount of time, at a reasonable price! ~7 for 3/4" bulkhead .... ~21! for 1.5" bulkhead .... ~120+!! for 4" bulkhead.

Those brutes were just one of many big hit's I took... including a ~340driver.....that stopped working. (On a plus, I did get the brutes on sale, but by no means were they cheap.) I'd still like to figure something out for the Brutes, I'm not going to get rid of them just yet, but my budget does not allow for any playing with them right now.
^...maybe I can just retest it, replace the two leaking brutes and hope the new brutes hold up better? Ehhh for now not going to worry about the brutes... for a few weeks at least.
..But they're sitting there like a caged beast and I know it! I must get it to work down the road!


Thanks for the White Trash Bag tip! I will add that!

@firsttimeARE You make a really good point. The pump is doing what the pump should... but the 3/4" lines are maybe too small for the water to get to the the last bucket in time, before the pump pulls it back out?
I think to get the hdx setup working correctly, I need to add a separate line/manifold so there is like a separate "loop" for water to travel between the buckets.... and a separate "loop" for the pump to pull water through. (Or basically like FirsttimeARE's sketch posted on page 1.)

@Cold$moke ..GOALS! That's a NICE, Clean setup! I WANT! Before getting into the the DWC world, I really thought I'd just build a setup and that's it... like putting soil buckets down. But I'm starting to see this (just like growing) will be a continuous game of improvement and adventure.

@Sour Wreck Lots of websites sell them. There is always good 'old Ebay.

I doubt the lines are too small. I think your issue is not enough of them. It's all bottle necking back thru the same lines.

My sketch shows multiples paths for the water to flow back.

When I turn my pump on all my buckets are level even the control. So that means they are draining and filling at an even rate.

Yes thats why an undercurrent is so spendy lol
They work right outa the box

If i wanted to spend more i would have bought the uc totes

I think you can make your brutes work

But youll have to do a top feed like mine i think for even flow

That is one place i change from undercurrents set up.

I make each one of my containers an "epicenter"

I tried to keep it k.i.s.s. as possible
With 0 dead spots and flow being my goals.

If you ever want to try the brute thing again ill help out.

As to running multiple smaller lines i wouldnt know as i havent tried .

But makes sens to me as enough small pipes will equal bigger pipes.

But when i build a set up i cringe whenever i make a potential leak point

Hope you get it sorted

Smaller the line the faster the water flows. The larger the line the slower. I believe UC does the large lines so to create the same flow but at a slower rate so to not suck roots in because their containers are tiny.

Think of flow as a constant determined by pump size. The variable is the velocity. Smaller pipe faster velocity. Bigger pipe slower velocity

my pump is set up with a 1 inch neck hence my 1 inch feeds

I dont get roots in the pipes on this run because the air stone bubles them out of the way.

I have an "undercurrent " cause you can feel the suction on the return pipes
But it doesnt suck the roots cause im top feeding (hard to explain) at a high rate


Im running a 900gph pump though with a small volume set up
And it still doesnt "suck" the roots in so you should be ok

Sounds like you need bigger roots.

Cold$moke said:

My set up is my 3rd design not perfect (yet)
But not pissing me off yet either
But it shows how i ran my plumbing

I only get weeping if i bump the return line too hard so next run im going to flip the unis seals around since i dont use silicone
View attachment 4114105
After the surge of my pump all buckets run Dead even and i get a circulation every 2 min

Click to expand...

Lined up like soldiers!! I’m the kind of guy that just flys things to and fro. When I had a problem with a 1” circulation pipe on a few Rubbermaid pails I enlarged the intake to 1-1/2” and put a 1-1/2” in-line basket strainer and it worked but it was expensive because they were $30 each and I had to buy 4. They also took a lot of space in the pail and got in the way of the air stone bubbles.