DWC with no Air Stones! you Heard me!!!!

thought this might interest u man. its just something a little different to what most are doing.

instead of using a waterpump to recirculate i use an air pump so it aerates and recirculates all in one.



and heres one with it up and running

Yeah mate thanks i tried and failed to make air feed drippers mate what do u use exactly? Looks like some nice diy mate!

As for the do meter its just sheer lazyness i need surclip plyers or small needlenose ones to get it open n get a battery in there then il do an experiment! Thanks for stopping by!!

in this system it was a piece of cake because the waterlevel is so close to the end of the outlet hose anyway so it doesnt have far to go. because its so close i could get away with much lrger tubing but i also made my own waterfarms to go into this recirculating system and i found that if u want water to climb a longer distance the tubing has to have an internal diameter of no more than 1/2 inch

Ok, I see now Forgetiwashere. WOW, thats a total different concept from the way I was thinking and a hell of a lot simpler. The flow would be slow enough not to suck the roots into the return line. GREAT POST Thank you..

Just my luck, a day late and a dollor short. I've been running the water farm for a few years now and am waiting for this grow to finish up to change over to the under current system. Hard plumbed 1" flow with 1/2" . 132 gph return pump with a cooling thermostat to divert to a DIY chiller and back to the controller. Hopefully no more ice jugs in the res.

sonofdust said:

Ok, I see now Forgetiwashere. WOW, thats a total different concept from the way I was thinking and a hell of a lot simpler. The flow would be slow enough not to suck the roots into the return line. GREAT POST Thank you..

Just my luck, a day late and a dollor short. I've been running the water farm for a few years now and am waiting for this grow to finish up to change over to the under current system. Hard plumbed 1" flow with 1/2" . 132 gph return pump with a cooling thermostat to divert to a DIY chiller and back to the controller. Hopefully no more ice jugs in the res.

Click to expand...

DIY chiller now u have peaked my interest i love DIY and have found so far there hasnt been anything i cant build, chiller though may be a bit of a challenge i would love any info on this

Forgetiwashere;
If you like DIY this is a pice of cake. I picked up a mini freezer for $130. a plastic garbage can that takes up half the inside of the freezer, the outher 1/2 holds my trim for Hash/ Budder.
4" x 24" and 6" x 24" stove pipe.
75' of 3/8" and 75' 1/2" poly flow tubing. I took a grinder and cut two 6" doors in the back of the freezer one high and one low. BE very carefull not to cut too deep ( FREON LINES INSIDE ). Cleaned out the foam. Cut the top lip off the trash can and placed it into the freezer. From the back side of the freezer I drilled holes through the inner freezer wall and trash can and fitted rubber gromets.
I wraped the 4" stove pipe with 3/8 poly tubing and the 6" stove pipe with 1/2" poly. Every 5 to 6 wraps drill two holes in the stove pipe and use a plastic tie lock to hold the tubing in place. The first time around I didnt use the tie locks and it came back around and bite me in the ass.
Make sure that the tubing wraps have a good downward spirol with no sags to hold water. It will freeze up on you.
The 4" stove pipe went inside 6" and this went inside the trash can in the freezer, poly lines went through the gromets and out the back. I wraped The freon lines with silver tinfoil tape. Fitted the doors on the back of the freezer and put two extra small holes in the doors and filled with non expanding foam. I filled the trash can with windshield washer fluid, rated for -20 below. it will not freeze and buckel the inside of my freezer.
The 3/8" tubing was to cool the air from the air pump before going out to the air stoned in the Water farms.( THIS DID NOT WORK )
hot air hitting the cold fluid caused condensation and it froze in the line, However the 1/2" fluid line works like a charm.
( NOT INSTALLED YET ) is a hot/cold thermostat with probe and a normally open 110v valve. Valve plugs into the thermostat, prob goes into controller. The temp rize, valve cloese and diverts water to chiller then to the controller and I can have anther cup of coffee before checking on the girls.
I tried for a picture but the antifreeze is dark blue and you cant see through it. I hope this makes sence, it was easyer to build then to explain. If I screwed up somewhere, let me know.

Looking good, Sqydro - you pretty much have me convinced that I can/should drop the air stones in favor of a fluming device. I have 4 plants in independent reservoirs at the moment. I'm running 4 short n' stubby stones on 2 independent airlines, and one GH Waterfarm Irrigation Ring on its own airline for each plant. The irrigation ring definitely provides top-down watering, and a bit (a bit) of waterfall, or really multiple water driblet agitation in the buckets. I believe that my air stones are actually limiting the health potential of my roots (you can see the gunk build up on these (any type of these)). I'm also finally contemplating setting up a recirc, but I'm a bit skittish of my own abilities, and still like to maintain root separation at the moment. Any way, thought I'd share, because it's mostly due to your picture proof that I'm intrigued by this air-stoneless approach.

View attachment 1985303

Peace.

Lookin good mate, and what u speak of is a small water pump in each site if ur stand alone buckets? So ul be running 4 pumps 24/7? Will that be efficient enough to get rid of the air stones, i think u should go recirc mate if u plan ditching the aorstones!

Well, my collective owner did a grow with just the GH rings, but that has me a bit sketched (too little DO?), so if I do ditch the stones, I'll def go recirc and ditch the separate reses as well. Thanks again - can't wait for the finish.

The gh drip rings will supply all the d/o u need. The air pushes the water up via bubbles this oxygenates it then it drips back in to the res that oxygenates it plus the highest percentage of d/o is held at the surface of the water and the gh drip system only picks up surface water for use in the drip ring

Id stick a stone in the res if itbwas singular and drill more
Holes though, for better drainage and more root mass in the res basicly drip fed DWC!

Okay gang, I'm using 10 inch net pots in 5 gallon buckets - no need for more holes than that; but I'm still hearing debate. The one thing you both agree on is fewer stones. Perhaps on my next res change, I'll yank the excessive stones in favor of one; see what happens.

One more question: my GH drip ring has a pumping column that draws water from the very bottom of my res, so I'm unclear about the surface comment. Water in my rings is definitely not from the surface of my res...?

yeah the column goes all the way to the bottom but bubbles still only pick up the water off of the surface inside that tube. by all means though run airstones aswell if you wish. i have airstones in my current setup and it saved my ass. my drip ring failed and i cant get it out due to the size of my plant and the scrog frame so now its just dwc but if i didnt have the airstone in there aswell i would be fucked right now

Good to know - thanks for helping out newb, guys. Peace.

so we have a slight bit of bleaching on this top bud the highest in the groom may have to supercrop it as it may be stressing the plant and that i dont want, woman are bad enough without adding stress lol

here they are youll see the bleached fellow feel free to give me advice or comment away sorry for blurry pics new cameras here just cant get it working as im a technical retard!!













comments abuse or general discussion all welcome!!

^^^
It might be to close to your light.
What do you think?

Is the yellowing just on one plant....are they all the same strain?....

I don't grow different strains together any more myself because some grow faster than others and it mess's up keeping my light's at the right hieght....just wondering ........nitro...

all same strain its bleaching due to being to close to the lights its about 6" away with a fan on it moving the air and air cooled hoods but the lights are as high as they can go! unless i cut holes in the roof of my tent and mount them there, what u think for the lifo of that one beautifull bud? only 1 affected? supercrop im thinkin!

looking good your gonna get sum big'uns there mate

cheers mate heres hoping and i no why the bleeching has occurred, the ducting had constried a bit and the air cooled hoods werent doing there job right so hopefully now thats it sorted!!