The water in your DWC setup

Hello all, New here.
Ive been reading up on DWC, but have not found a good explanation of how it works exactly and what is added to the water and what kind of water would be needed/level of water and how close to the plant. Help always appreciated! Once I get my setup going ill be sure to make a grow journal

Standard nutes are used. I use Foxfarm myself..

Basically your roots sit in water. The water air airated heavily so the roots do not rot. This provides a constant oxygen and nutrient source for the plant. Basically it roots are in peak position to absorb the things it needs and thus the growth rate can be stunning. I have seen new shoots appear in an hour! Amazing stuff but it generally is not a set and forget system. You need to monitor it at least daily and there are some issues because of the radical environment the roots are in.

WOOT! thanks for the reply. IM really stoked and excited to get my first grow going.

Ive got a pretty good grasp on the process and have been keeping up on reading others grow journals, and trying to find out as much as i can before asking.

Im assuming the idea is to let the roots grow from the basket down to the water? Ive got a grasp on everything after the roots hit the water, i just dont want to screw up the most important part. Ive also heard to use distalled water, and from my understanding nutes are added to the water.

I know this sounds like trivial stuff, but ive had a hard time coming acrossed these sort of answer.

thanks all!

yea, you've got it. You will want to bring the water to the bottom of the basket. once the roots hit the water a growth explosion will happen and you can lower the water level a bit from there...

Would you recommend watering the rock wool until the roots hit the water?

What if you have an another reservoir, could you leave the system allow untended for a couple of days? How do you go out of town for the weekend?

Mr.Bob Saget said:

What if you have an another reservoir, could you leave the system allow untended for a couple of days? How do you go out of town for the weekend?

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Would i need to set up another reservoir for just six plants? i could stack another 30 gallon below. Would i then be looking for three pumps? one for bubblestones, one to pump from the main reservoir to the spare, and one from the spare to the main to give the water a good cycle? or is the idea the water is absorbed and water levels go down? How dramatically? How often would water need to be changed?

Im a homebody and rarely leave town for a day "twice a year" and im going to give my grow the up most attention.

Hey i have a smaller bubbleponics system (holds 2-3 gallons of water) with larger pots then i see in the ones here, from the time my seeds germinated to know has been about 2 weeks. The seedlings are growing, they are about 6 inches in height thin and have 3 sets of leaves (sprouted out from the middle grew 2 leaves sprouted more grew 2 leaves etc...), im trying to get a camera to post some pictures, but dont have one right now. The roots have not yet come thru the bottom of the pots and wouldnt expect them to for at least another week or so given the size of the pots, my question is do you guys suggest using de-chlorination chemicals in the water, these are ones that would be used in an aquarium. The exact system im using is actually emillys garden system by hydro farm it can be found here on amazon. I had a friend who was throwing it out after growing some vegetables with it and decided to give it a shot. I only plan on growing 2 in here, and transferring the rest to soil when they begin to take off. Any feed back would be appreciated because im brand new at this.

Careful saying you can use standard nutes - people will go to the store, buy MiracleGro, and wonder why their plants are turning yellow from the bottom up and dying (because most soil fertilizers don't come with enough nitrate-fixed sources of nitrogen, that's why!)

I've used a regular soil fertilizer but that's because it had half of its nitrogen content in nitrate form, which is ready for plant use. urea and ammonia nitrogen sources need bacteria to fix them into usable nitrate form for plants.

You can get good results using cheap flora series 3-part GH nutes. I don't know why people say to not follow the label on the bottle, I've followed the label and haven't had a single problem.

You'll also likely want some cal-mag and silica blast at the bare minimum, to make up for what hydro fertilizers usually leave out (calcium and magnesium) and for stronger stems (silica makes up a large portion of plant cell walls and is what gives them their strength.)

Mr.Bob Saget said:

What if you have an another reservoir, could you leave the system allow untended for a couple of days? How do you go out of town for the weekend?

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You can but you need to make sure its perfect before you leave.

what would you use for water? i know tap water is out of the question, so what else is there to use?

obibongkanobi said:

what would you use for water? i know tap water is out of the question, so what else is there to use?

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I thought tap was ok if you let it so out to settle and usedechorlination drops

Hell I use water filtered thru a PUR filter. Chlorine is bad but not as bad as some of the other chemicals that come with your tap water supply.

heres a couple of pics . a DWC set up using a seperate rez . 3 x 5gal buckets and seperate rez total solution held in the system is 60ltrs with plants .

set up runs with:-
3 x 5 gal buckets and a 55ltr volume rez.
1 x 36ltr p/min air pump which gives air to all 4.
1x 900ltr p/hr water pump.
regen-a-root
ionic grow + bloom
big bud
over drive
flushing agent
ph balanced every 3 days at 5.6
solution temps 67d
all water is filtered using britax filters in a home system for aquick turn over.

solution levels start at about 1/2 inch from the bottom of the pot.

ph and temp of solutin is very inportant with DWC.

the rez and buckets are sat at the same hight on the floor a return feed pipe of 1.75 to 2inch is then plumbed in as low down as poss. the water pump is then plumbed in with a 1/2 inch system into the tops of your buckets creating recirculation from the rez to the buckets and back giving an even dose of nutes to all plants .
the added capacity of the rez gives you more time betwean top ups aprox top up 15ltr every 3 days at turn of lights.

hope this helps abit,

growem green spike------------

obibongkanobi said:

what would you use for water? i know tap water is out of the question, so what else is there to use?

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I'm going to go with Distilled water, I would assume you couldn't go wrong with this. Except it does cost .80 cents a gallon. I check the PH of some stuff I got at the store, it seemed to be about 6, I'm used the drops in a vile test kit.

obibongkanobi said:

what would you use for water? i know tap water is out of the question, so what else is there to use?

Click to expand...

I use pH 6.5 adjusted tap water with declorinator.

what kind of declorinator and where can i get it?

Is it normal for my ph to rise over night? I changed the water last night and it was around 5.8 this morning more like 6.2? They are only 3 weeks into growth so its not like im having an explosion of growth to cause this.

Yes that's normal. I have to adjust pH about every three days.

What brand tap filters are others using? what is a recommended temperature to keep the water at? Whats teh easiest way to keep temperature stable?