I have just started one plant in a 3.5 gallon bucket to give this a try. The bucket I had is white. So I wrapped with tin foil to avoid light leaks. I must have been getting light in as I could see algae building up. Washed out the res with water and bleach etc. mixed solution again and here we go. The roots are way deep in the water. Not a lot of them yet but they are going. I am not noticing a lot of difference in growth between this one and my soil plants. Using DNF nutrients. Have calmag. PH is good so far. Waiting for a ph pen. I find the large 5 g bucket difficult to lift because I am a girl. Where do you get these smaller black buckets.Hey VoidObject, love the tutorial bro. DWC is so simple in design it amazes me that it even works when you see how complicated some of the other systems are. Anyway just thought I would throw out some advice since it happened to me recently. I went in to my tent to change a res and low and behold no F'in bubbles, plant was looking terrible almost like a drowned soil plant. Found out one of my older pumps went out leaving two of my reservoirs without air! Man I was so pissed.
I also run two stones in each resevoir so to correct this I decided to run each res off of two pumps, meaning each stone gets air from a different pump. This gives me redundancy now so if one of my pumps goes out at least one stone is still pumping in oxygen. Now, I know in a power outage your still SOL but I hope this helps because these pumps do fail and if it goes unnoticed too long well you know...
Also anyone that experiences high reservoir temps in DWC I recommend trying a cooler as a reservoir and if your still too high then add the frozen water bottles. Using the cooler also helps making trips to the freezer less frequent.
KnB
Some "foils" actually re-direct and focus light much like a mirror does. This creates heat spots and stress for the plant. In which case foil tape depending on the type might be a bad idea. I know I have seen people try and use aluminum foil before with horrible results lol.use foil tape it reflects lite away and reduces heat. lich lord has spoken! I miss Rift. or foil ot oww mylar is cheap tape mylar to iy with the foil tape, type/thought process in real time lol
I have attached a tap on my 69l bucket so when it comes to nute change I just flip it down straight into a bucket then fill it back up with fresh nutes with a pump and hoseHow do you change water in bucket when your in later weeks of flower when plant is so heavy? Don't want to break branches cuz of heavy buds.
I have a speed controller but I have to run it wide open anyway.Yea I have a 745 hurricane fan that sounds like a dam chopper smh just ordered a fan speed controller to hopefully bring down noise....I've read that some people put the bucket on top of a workout mat and maybe towel and then create box with holes and insulation....idk it's an idea ill definitely put my bucket on a mat though