RDWC + DWC Durban Poison (600W MH/HPS & 600W LED)

Background

I have 7 grows that I have completed, with 4 being extremely successful, 2 annihilated by spider mites weeks into flowering, and one that was half destroyed by mold/fungus. All of these, save for the last, were Deep Water Culture (DWC). I have used the Lucas formula (loved it) as well as Fox Farms nutrients. All of my grows were of Blue Dream which was incredibly resilient, easy to clone, and for the most part, aggressive in growth.

My last grow was a Recirculating DWC (RDWC) using ¾ inch tubing for the pump AND return lines. As you would expect, while it worked pretty well for the first few weeks (amazing, in fact!), eventually roots and debris clogged the lines and leaks began to form due to the cheap parts I used and little knowledge of how to build water tight containers/seals. The humidity went through the roof, some strange mold/fungus appeared on half the plants, and I had to trash more than half the crop. That was 6 years ago, almost 7.

I live in a medical/recreational legal state, and the spider mite grows and the fungus grow-ad the lost time, money, and energy spent on the process-made me retire my growing equipment.

I created a "chassis" system using bulkheads with slip PVC to slip PVC ends. I can remove/add buckets to the system in between grows because the gasket nut is all that holds the bucket to the system, just like tires attached to a car.

I did discover that the bulkheads were not as easy to tighten with my wrench because the curve of the bucket, but because the buckets were spaced out enough and because they were mounted on the chassis, I was able to manipulate the buckets and twist them each tight so they did not leak. But DAMN did I need to apply a LOT of force to get those buckets tight enough to not leak. The system is hooked up to a Uniclife 550GPH in line pump.

A few more tweaks here and there, and I had myself a RDWC.
<img src="https://i.ibb.co/9ZDHyyz/Final-System-Hooked-Up.jpg" alt="Final-System-Hooked-Up" border="0">

After the system was built, I realized I needed upgrades for the NEXT chassis build.
I want to use square buckets (which I did buy….after the system was built) for my next grow as I think it will be easier to tighten the nut on those (and as a matter of fact, I already tested it and it is much easier).

I also want to replace the T PVC connector I have at the end of the gravity return line and swap that out with a cross connector, so I can add a valve at the end for easy draining.

Finally…..


DAY 1

Finally! I had the tent set up, the equipment was installed, and my system was running. I use city tap water for my hydro grows and I let the system run all night as I slept both to test the system and to let any city water chemicals evaporate out. You better believe I was nervous that I was going to wake up to a 30 gallon lake in the next room over. So far though, so good!

In my state, getting specific genetics/clones is as easy as walking a few blocks down the street to a local cannabis store. I drove, but I was able to buy 6 Durban Poison clones at 10 dollars each. I asked for Blue Dream, but out of the 25 or so strains (most of them I was unfamiliar with and all but 4 were Indica…I wanted Sativa). I had done some research before plant shopping, and Durban Poison was on my list of desired strains. It is of African origination (good because it gets HOT in my area during the summer) and a strong Sativa. It is also supposed to be lenient for newer growers which I still consider myself to be. If Durban Poison was not available, they had the strain Euphoria which I have heard great things about.

I have 4 plants in my system, while of the remaining 2, one is waiting for a small mother cab and LED system (going to test it out on my mother first) and the other is an “insurance policy” I keep around for a few weeks until the grow is going strong. I keep it sitting near a well-lit plant loving window just in case I need to take clones, toss it in for flower, whatever I want. I’ll keep both in their own DWC systems with one serving as my mother plant.

I am using the General Hydroponics Flora Grow, Bloom, Micro Combo Fertilizer hydroponics nutrients for this grow. I LOVE the Lucas formula, especially when a 12 dollar bag of powdered FloraMax will last me an entire grow and then some….but I thought, to give myself the BEST chance for this “redemption grow”, I will go with the more robust GH nutrients. That said, I am pretty liberal in interpreting the GH recommended nutrients, and add my own strength/mix for the most part, especially early on.

For this first week, I keep the PPM’s to around 400…..once those roots dunk down into the water the plants will let me know when they want more nutrients and that’s when I will start to slowly increase depending on what they do. For today, I added my nutrients, PH’d to 5.8, and the PPM came out to……420! This is a good sign!

See the glug glug glug of the gravity return line and res: Reservoir

Inside the tent:
Rear Door 02
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Rear Door 01
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Main Door

Day 2

Not much of anything exciting happens during this first week, so I spent today continuing to adjust the wiring, adding and moving plants, and adding/moving equipment. No leaks so far!

I started with hooking up my Simple Deluxe LGPUMPAIR38 602 GPH 18W 38L/min 6 Outlets air pump which replaced3 pumps I had in storage that I had used during my past grows over 6 years ago. I had intended to use the beefy simple deluxe from the get go but I needed a larger diameter tbing to connect the pump to the 6 outlet port. It’s a much nicer improvement over the wimpy fish tank pumps, and much quieter compared to 3 pumps going all at once.

The next adjustment I had as to “plant” my remaining 2 clones. I have net pot bucket lids on the way through online order, but hey won’t arrive until next week. So I decided to don my mask and drive down to my local hydroponics store. They were AWESOME! They had some of the bucket lid bet pots in the back and when he brought out the two I wanted, he just handed them to me and told me I could have them. Yet another auspicious and positive vibe going into this grow. I left them a great review on YELP and I will be going there for my nutrient and ph balance solution purchases in a few weeks.

I set up two bubble buckets: one in an 8-gallon square/rectangular type container that sits in front on a kitchen window, and another “regular”, 5-gallon bubble bucket that I have sitting in my main cab. It is a simple DWC bucket and not connected to y main 4 plant chassis system.

The main tent DWC bucket is sitting under a 600W BLOOMSPECT LED Grow Light. My original intention was to put this bubble bucket and LED light into a mother tent, but I am now considering just leaving it with the rest and running it on the same light cycle just to compare the results side by side of an LED plant vs. my MH/HPS setup.

As for the kitchen top bubble bucket, I have it sitting in a spot where flowers and plants always thrive, and I have a CFL fixture hanging above it for when it gets dark to keep it on an 18/6 cycle. If it lives, I will use that for my clones. If it dies, I’ll remove the tent bubble bucket and install it inside its own tent to be a mother.

Due to this new light and new buckets, I had to move the electrical around a bit. While I don’t expect any major gushing type leaks, if one does occur, I have arranged all of my cabling so that any plug or electrical component that can actually electrocute me is very high up and elevated. I do have 30 gallons of water sloshing around an active system so if there is a bit of a flood, I have plugs, power strips, and pumps all elevated above any level of flooding that might occur.

I added a power strip to my main timer power cable that I had the MH light plugged into, and I plugged the main MH light and the LED light into the power strip so they will turn off/on at the same time. I also went around and added foil tape to cover the air tubing holes so no light enters the buckets.

I lost about a gallon over the past 24 hours between the 4 plants in my main system. I added a few gallons of PH’s water back to keep my res well stocked. In doing so I got to play around a bit with adjusting the gravity flow to get it just right. I’m loving the precision this setup allows and I already am planning improvements and upgrades for a future chassis build.

I am keeping the PPM’s very low, in the 150 – 250 range with the top off and I’ll keep it that way until I see roots pop out and begin dangling inside the water. Once that happens I will slowly raise the nutrients closer to 500 and see what they tell me. I’ll continue to incrementally add nutrients so long as they gobble them up. But that won’t begin until the roots pop out.

Day 3

Still nothing exciting going on. The plants seem to be doing well and are smelling quite nice. They appear to be perking up a bit. Still no roots poking out of the netpot. I busied myself with basic maintenance shores today, including spraying for pests.

I combined a mixture of NeemOil/fungicide and peppermint oil with RO water and sprayed the mixture generously over my ladies as a preventative measure for pests. I will probably spray daily. It smells fantastic and the plants don’t mind at all.

My “sunlit lady” window bubbler is also doing well. I hung a CFL fixture from an older grow above her to turn on when the sun goes down since I want her on an 18/6 schedule and the sun is most definitely on a 12/12 schedule right now I’m going to laugh if natural sunlight and a CFL produces better growth than my new LED light!

My temps are on point: my minimum for today was 67, my max 84, with the average tent temp holding at 77.8F

It’s just a waiting game now for the roots to poke into the water and then the real growth begins.

DAY 4

Still no roots popping out. The amazing pictures don’t really start coming until explosive root growth, plant growth, and eventual flowering occurs. The PPM’s are sitting at around 500, but probably 150 of that is tap water junk. Just a game of patience now.

There was a little foam in my res this morning, and the PH had risen from 5.8 – 6.5 overnight. I adjusted the PH and the foam eventually went away. I’m not worried; I’m pretty sure it’s due to the aeration and the nutrients. Nothing smells bad. The PH continued to creep upwards through the day. I’ll OH it back down to 5.8 before I go to bed tonight. I’m hoping that these fluctuations are a sign that roots are growing and starting to take in nutrients and water, which will adjust the ph level. If it turns out that is not the case, it’s best to have major problems or failure early on so I can start fresh without having invested a lot of time/work so in either case I will be satisfied.

I raised my LED light; it was hovering about 16 inches above my bubble bucket and further research into my specific light suggested it should be in the 28inch – 36 inch range for veg, so I raised it to 28 inches.

I also added two bubble stones to my reservoir. I had an extra pump laying around so I figured why not? I have two stones in each bucket, with a waterfall effect on top, and now two in the res.

I am mostly surprised at how perky and happy my Sunlit/CFL Lady is doing. I really expected this thing to be dead within a day or two, but she seems to be thriving. She just sits next to an open window that gets a lot of sun, and when the sun goes down (to keep her on an 18/6 schedule) I lower a CFL over her. I added 2X 2 inch high paver stones that elevated the bubble bucket 4 inches so it gets more sun for a bit longer.

My temps are within acceptable ranges: the lowest night time temp reached 64.2, and the highest temp today reached 85.1, with the average daily temp of 77. The humidity is still hovering at 32% reaching up to 40% overnight (probably because I’m not constantly opening up the cab to inspect/tinker with them!).

Of course, my main focus and attention is on my 4 bucket chassis grow, but I am pleasantly surprised with the LED bubble bucket and the Sunlit/CFL bubble bucket. I believe they will both be quickly outpaced (the Sunlit/CFL more so than the LED) once the chassis plants pop roots and begin to dangle into the water, but we will have to wait and see what happens.

DAY 4 (UPDATE)
After taking a closer look at the pictures I took, I believed the Sunlit Lady was thriving and the tent plants looked a bit sad. MH/LED lights make plants look strange in general, but something about them just looks off to me. I TDS tested my Sunlit Lady and she came in at 330ish. I tested my ladies in the tent, and the bubble bucket was at a whopping 650 (woah!) and my 4 bucket system was hoovering in the low 500’s. I decided to thin the nutrient mix down to a lower concentration using RO water, and was able to bring it down to 400 by taking out a few gallons from the res, and replacing it with ph'd RO water. I’ll see how they do overnight and move from there. I just didn't like them sitting at such a high TDS with no roots dangling into the bucket.

I also consulted some of my notes from older grows, and decided to reduce the water level in the buckets. The bottom of the net pots were all sitting about a half inch or so in the bubbling water. Now the water sits just a hair below the net pot and the bubbles are spraying the bottoms of the pots. I think this will encourage root popping.

Besides lowering the water level, this gave me an opportunity to play with the water flow control valves. My original (failed) system design had a valve for each bucket and each return line, something I plan to incorporate into the next chassis system I build. For this system, I only have two control valves: one that is connected to the two buckets in the rear, and one that connects the front two buckets/chassis to the reservoir. To my surprise, the simple two nozzle design is surprisingly precise. I was able to adjust the water levels in the buckets by:

1. Closing the rear bucket valve just a fraction to slow the return water exiting the rear buckets.

2. Opening the valve that connects the system/front buckets to the res all the way for a two or three seconds to drain all buckets to the desire level.

3. A gentle/precise turn of the front bucket/res valve back into its “mostly open” position to equalize the flow level.

It worked precisely as it was supposed to! More control/valves would be better, but this works near perfect with just the two.

Day 5

Still no roots

I had to cut and connect a new, longer piece of 6 inch metallic vent tubing connecting my intake fan/carbon filter to my light since the piece I had on there was prohibiting how far I could lower the MH light and the plants look a bit stretchy. I also lowered my LED light; I’m trying to get them just right. The plants looked nice in the morning but looked sort of sad to me during the day. Again, maybe it’s just the lights, but hey look sad. They appeared to perk up to me when I lowered the lights.


I drained the water level so there’s at least an inch, nabe 2 of space between the bottom of the netpot and the water. The bubbles are causing spray to constantly hit the bottom of the netpot,


I’m going to drain the system on day 7 just to clean it out after adding that messy hydroton. My original system design had fancy outlets but this one that I am using now doesn’t have any. So, I built a little reservoir/bubble bucket drain pipe that I am going to use with my spare pump and extra 1 inch tubing. It will pump directly into a drain so I think I can have the entire system drained in a matter of minutes. Once it is drained, I’ll quickly get in the reservoir and clean up the mush and junk. The plants will be without water for what I estimate to be no longer than 15 or 20 minutes, so I don’t think it will be an issue. I think it’s best to do this now before the roots pop or, fingers crossed, before they get too long and this becomes more of a chore.

The Sunlit Lady continues to love life. It loves the sun from 6am – 5pm, and it loves the old CFL lig from 5pm – 12am. I used this CFL bulb once about 7 years ago for a short-lived small cab grow. I pulled it out of storage because this “countertop experiment” was not expected to survive past a day or two and I thought I’d test the old equipment. The plant absolutely loves it.

The main system PH has remained pretty steady at 5.8, going up slightly overnight to 5.9. TDS was also slightly lower, from 450 to 430. The tent bubble bucket went from 5.8 to 6.3 overnight, so I adjusted back down to 5.8

cool grow man! could you show me what your using to track humidity and temperature? is that an ios or android app?

im always amazed at these grows DWC , or in general everything that is not soil . Just amazes my brain to the max on how a plant can grow like that and what the difference it makes on yield and smoking experiance . Nice grow for sure gonna follow this one.

DAY 6 (morning)

ROOTS HAVE POPPED! Two of my ladies, #2 and #3, have some roots poking out of the netpot. Hopefully the others follow suit over today and tonight. They really liked my lowering the water level and, apparently, the lights.

xox said:

cool grow man! could you show me what your using to track humidity and temperature? is that an ios or android app?

Click to expand...

It's a Bluetooth Govee Temperature Humidity Sensor. 11 bucks on Amazon. I check it sing a phone app and/or poking my head into the tent to see the display.

ikushy420 said:

im always amazed at these grows DWC , or in general everything that is not soil . Just amazes my brain to the max on how a plant can grow like that and what the difference it makes on yield and smoking experiance . Nice grow for sure gonna follow this one.

Click to expand...

Thanks! Outside of a small plant I let grow on a dorm room balcony 20 years ago in college, I have never grown in soil

Anonymousm0nkey said:

It's a Bluetooth Govee Temperature Humidity Sensor. 11 bucks on Amazon. I check it sing a phone app and/or poking my head into the tent to see the display.

Click to expand...

i just checked that out on amazon hard to beat that price i was hoping it connected to the wifi and stored that data in the cloud so i could look at the data while outside of the house the push notification feature for going outside of the predetermined range is sweet tho i might get this for now thanks for the info

DAY 6 (Continued)

As noted this morning, plants #2 and #3 have popped roots. #1 and #4 are still chilling, looking healthy, but no roots yet. #1 and #4 had a slightly higher water level than #3 and #4 (by about 1/8th on an inch, not much) for a longer period of time, so I expect to see roots any day now that I have lowered the water level on all buckets significantly. I'd say there's about 2 1/2 to 3 gallons in each 5 gallon bucket at the moment, with an estimated 12 - 14 gallons in my reservoir. I like having a lot of water to help buffer nutrient/ph adjustments.

The PH in my main system dipped slightly from 5.85 to 5.77 over the course of the day and the PPM's dipped a hair from 455 to 444. This is a good sign, suggesting that the nutrients are being gobbled up by the plants.

My spare pump that I ordered, which is the same model/make as what I have hooked up to my system, arrived and I hooked it up to my drain pipe to test it out on a bucket before my reservoir drain tomorrow. The pump did not function! It turned on but there was almost no suction. It didn't suction any water and I felt no suction with my hand over it. ARGH! Pumps do go out on these systems; they run 24/7 and they can fail. I need a spare since they are pretty cheap and a vital component. I re-ordered another pump, but a different brand this time. It should be here in time for my reservoir change.

Right now I have a 27 gallon "mix tank" bin sitting in my grow room with 20 gallons of tap water and 2 bubble stones going overnight. I am allowing 24 hours for the water to aerate and evaporate any chlorine or other crap that may be sitting in there. I'll mix my nutrients in the tank with the 20 gallons of water a few hours before my res drain, then fill my main system 17 gallon res with the 20 gallon PH'd nutrient mixture from the mix tank. I think 20 gallons will give me a good water line in my system, and I can add it all slowly into my res to see if I need all 20 gallons or, if that's not enough, just add some more PH'd tap water into the res.

DAY 6 (Continued)

A few extra pics.

I am going to start bending plants #2 and #3 tomorrow for LST, so I glued some metal rings onto my netpot lid to serve as anchors. I wanted to give them another night of rotting before I begin slowly bending them downwards. I have had a lot of success in the past with this very easy method of plant training.

My Sunshine Lady is also doing great.

This is the music I play when I work inside my tent:

DAY 7 (part 01)

Roots continue to grow in Plants #2, #3, and #4. This morning I began the low stress training of plants #2 and #3. I will work on #4 later in the day but I need more rings to glue down onto the bucket lid.

I also have my res change this evening!

DAY 7 (part 02)

I have begun my LST bending on plants #2, #3, and #4. Still waiting for roots on #1. This technique has worked very well for ne in the past, resulting in multiple tops/main branches emerging from some simple bending.

Due to quarantine and lockdown in my area, I used what was at hand for anchors once I rant out of metallic O rings: soda can tops! Hey....they work. A little hot glue and they do the job of serving as eyehole anchors.

DAY 7 (part 02)
My reservoir changeout is complete. I have just about 20 gallons going through my 4 bucket system with fresh, nutrient water. I have a fairly simple blend:
Hydroguard
SIlica Blast
General Hydroponics Flora Grow, Bloom, Micro Combo

For the GH nutrients, at this stage I am using 40% of recommended strength/measurements and my PPM is sitting at around 565. If I start to see them drop at a consistent rate, I will strengthen the mix.

I'm planning on doing a back to back grow right after I am done with this one, but I'm going to be using the Lucas formula with the powdered GrowMax, which I have done before. I wanted to do a direct comparison between "fancy nutes" and just plain old powdered nutes.

I also switched out my bubble buckets with the same mixture as I have in my main system: those use RO water so I added a little calmag to the those as well.

The LST plants are already turning upwards towards the light, and I'll be gently bending and guiding them for the next few weeks. I usually do a 4 week veg, but I'll play it by ear. The roots are starting to explode, as you can see,

Week 2, Day 8

All of my tent plants- 4 in my main system and the one LED DWC bucket-have popped roots. I have LST’d all of them now. I actually tried LST on my very first grow and was surprised at the results. Without cutting anything, I get multiple tops. The downside is during flowering, the plant gets very heavy and needs support or it risks toppling over (had that happen) or even breaking due to the bend close at the base. The plants I LST’d last night are already converting side branches into main branches.

The roots are exploding and forming “spines”. PH is trending upwards but I PH’d it from 6.3 to 5.8. The PPM rose slightly, and the water level looks a little lower in my res, so that tells me they are gulping up water at the moment. I’ll add a few gallons of ph’d fresh water this evening.

looks very nice so far.

ikushy420 said:

looks very nice so far.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I hope they explode in size from here on out. I'll get to decide in a few weeks if I want to take clones and do the same genetics for my back-to-back second grow or if I want to go down to the store at the end of this grow and buy some new genetics/clones. I've never grown an Indica before, so maybe I will try that instead. Hmmm, decisions decisions!