DWC Plant Configuration - Question

Do you prefer a single plant per DWC bucket, or a bigger DWC reservoir with multiple plants?

Same strain is OK for bigger res with multiple plants.. different strains I like my own res because each strain has different appetite.

Can't say I prefer either because I don't run dwc so this may be of no help, but from journals I've seen a bigger central res that connects multiple buckets helps stabilize ph and keep water/ nute levels rather constant for all plants. Look into recirculating dwc, if you have the resources that seems to be the best bet imo.

Definitely go with a recirc, everything will be consistent.

Consistency is over-rated. A bucket for each plant allows you to move them independently, horizontally and vertically. It allows you to feed them independently. It allows you to run experiments trying one thing with one and another with another. I would never use recirc, it's a big hassle and all it saves me is time tinkering with my plants which I like to do.

Illegal Smile said:

Consistency is over-rated. A bucket for each plant allows you to move them independently, horizontally and vertically. It allows you to feed them independently. It allows you to run experiments trying one thing with one and another with another. I would never use recirc, it's a big hassle and all it saves me is time tinkering with my plants which I like to do.

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good answer. i love tinkering

WileyCoyote: please consider this: if your buckets are linked what happens to one is automatically linked to the others. If there's a problem then it easily spreads to the others. If you're in individual buckets and there's a problems it's confined to only the one plant. I favor growing individual plants in separate buckets. I don't know where I'd put a 55 gallon drum in my 2' by 4' tent. I hope that helps. HSA

Im currently in a 90l res, 50l water with three autoflowers. I am loving the stability! A couple of liter water a day and ph down at the weeks end. Steady PPM. Havent changed res for 3 weeks and still smells good. My 1. grow was in 10l buckets and i had to change water almost daily, cause of water heat and ph fluctuation(In my mind thats the word?.
The only problem now is not being able to move the plants around. I had no idea these Devils would get so big. So they are fighting over space :/
For me bigger res and same strain is the way.. For now Check out my roots..
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The work involved in changing out individual buckets, been there done that, never again.

Illegal Smile said:

Consistency is over-rated. A bucket for each plant allows you to move them independently, horizontally and vertically. It allows you to feed them independently. It allows you to run experiments trying one thing with one and another with another. I would never use recirc, it's a big hassle and all it saves me is time tinkering with my plants which I like to do.

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Yeah I agree. I prefer individual buckets too. I will trade whatever benefits recirc. gives you for the ability to move my plants around as needed. I dont believe there is a whole lot of benefit to recirculating a DWC setup anyway.

I need to be able to move them around to do optimal LST. With that, I am getting more yield from 4 plants than I used to from 6. I never flush more than once. I use 7 gal coolers with 4.5 gal of water and I can do 4 easily in less than an hour. The rest of the work I enjoy. I don't want to make my growing hands-off and automated - that's why I like DWC.

Illegal Smile said:

I need to be able to move them around to do optimal LST. With that, I am getting more yield from 4 plants than I used to from 6. I never flush more than once. I use 7 gal coolers with 4.5 gal of water and I can do 4 easily in less than an hour. The rest of the work I enjoy. I don't want to make my growing hands-off and automated - that's why I like DWC.

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What kind of yield are you getting from 4 plants?

bigv1976 said:

What kind of yield are you getting from 4 plants?

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I'm new to using lst and just upgraded my setup so I don't yet have a good benchmark. But I'd say 4-5 oz per plant and approaching a gram per watt.

I agree with illegal smile, single buckets = way to do it. I started in 3.5 gallon buckets and moved to 5 gallon when switching to flowering and I feel like the roots can still have more space to grow bigger thus increasing nute uptake. And you can turn them/move them etc with out moving the whole garden

This is how I used to think but now I've adopted a whole new way. I use to do that too. Start in 3.5 gal buckets and then put them in 5 gal buckets when switching to flower. I liked individual buckets and being able to move my plants when needed especially for doing LST. I've done it this way for 3 years but the problem was I could never go on vacation. My plants would drink 2 gallons of water a day and needed to be topped off daily. I also run 10 inch net pots so there's only 3 galllons max in the bucket. This got very old for me and I needed a new way so I decided to connect my buckets and run an under current system with a control bucket and a gravity top feed of low ppm nutes which I have dialed in. To my suprise my root ball is now like a complete cylinder shape of the bucket when I pull the plant out. I couldn't believe how huge the root ball is. Also it turns out that moving the plants for training or other reasons is no problem. I simply pull the plant out of the bucket and put it in another bucket. Now I can go a whole week without worrying about topping off. Nutrient level is now always at the same level all day and ppm's are completly dialed in and very stable. pH is also very stable. In individual buckets I was getting 10-12 oz per plant depending on strain but now I'm well a lb per plant. I still give the plants a lot of attention with training, pruning, etc. but now I have the ability to go on vacation for a week or not worry about going home just to do the top off before the bucket goes dry. In fact once plants are fully trained and moving them around is not necessary, the work gets even easier. And just for a sanity check, on a daily basis all I do is take the lid off the control bucket, check the pH and ppm's and I'm done. No more lifting each individual plant and checking each bucket and also topping off each bucket. Once a week I dump the nutes and reset it which only takes 20 minutes to do. And on top of that I'm getting bigger roots and larger yields. I had great results doing individual buckets and I agree it's good for doing experiments and keeping things in complete control but if it's for your normal cycle of plants you already know then a recirculating system is the way to go. You can still do experiments in individual buckets if you need to. In fact one of my experiments was actually done in a recirculating system. I ran different strains because I wanted to see if there would be any problems with feeding plants with light and heavy appetites. I had no ill effects. All I did was set the ppm's to feed the light feeders at the max that they could handle. Now I run different strains in the same system all the time but I do try to run strains with similar appetites but it's not a problem if I don't.