LOL
I take that back. I don't do anything easy. I modify a lot of things to work the exact way that I want it. And if I don't like the way something turns out, I adjust it until I'm absolutely happy with it. Such is the life of an engineer. Always looking at ways to improve thingsI follow the KISS rule most of the time, but some projects are too fun and challenging to pass up
Yes, the blue bucket is the controller. The color is just for asthetics. 2" pipes will help prevent root clogs as well as maintain a good flow.
I agree that there are an increased amount of failure points, but if done correctly, I think issues can be avoided.
We shall see
Looks great man real clean. +1I was looking for square totes that would leave me enough room for 2" pipes in my 4x4 tent, but haven't seen any. The actual DWC square buckets are around $14 + $3 per lid. Way too much for my actual budget, so I'm going with black 5-gallon buckets at HD. Yep, the have black buckets now! And, because of budget constraints, I'm not able to build the LED grow room I had initially designed. But what I've got going right now is pretty similar. I'm using a 600w HID instead of LEDs, and I've also isolated my reflector air from the room, which makes it so easy to manage temps!
The RDWC/Under Current I'm piecing together right now will have 2" bucket pipes/manifolds, and 3/4" return pipes, but again, not as elaborate as what I had designed in the virtual LED grow.
My 4' x 4' grow tent. The duct hose on the left side of the tent is the air intake for the hood. After removing the carpet I laid a couple layers of 3 mil poly on the plywood floor , just to help with small spills. But I've also got a 7x10 pond liner. I'm going to frame in the tent and area just to the right of the tent, 4" high for the liner. The reason I'm doing that is because my UnderCurrent controller will be outside the tent, as well as valves, y-filter, pump, etc. The capacity will be 15 gallons over what my system will hold.
I am a wiring fanatic! I hate loose wires and will spend hours, and sometimes days, organizing cables! LOL
One of two 4" exhaust fans. This one serves two purposes. It exhausts the mothers/clones closet, and brings in filtered air from the hallway next door. The room, as well as the closet door, are really sealed well. I also have a vent in the ceiling which is a passive exhaust for the room. I can feel a decent breeze passing through the ceiling exhaust from the 4" fan bringing air into the room and creating positive pressure.
Tent and hood exhaust fans. Tent is 4" and the hood is 6". Even with all the fans maxed-out in the room, I can't hear them on the other side of the wall. My bathroom fan is louder than the whole room. I got a really robust exhaust fan (440 cfm) for the hood so that I could run it at a much lower speed, bringing the noise down considerably. There are a few things I've got going on that isolate the sound so much you can barely hear the fans right on the other side of the door, but that's a lot to get into here. If anyone's curious, I'll post the things I did to soundproof the room.
Also notice that the closet/room's air intake fan blows air towards the floor, while the tent exhaust hose is at the highest point of the room.
The insulated hood exhaust ducting prevents any heat from bleeding into the room. Without that sleeve, that ducting would get pretty warm. I just bought a duct sleeve rather than insulated duct because the sleeve is really cheap at HD. Insulated ducting can get pricey. Just one more step to make controlling temps a breeze. Also one of the steps I took to isolate sound.
Inside the tent. Scrubber in the upper-right. I'm not thrilled at all with the hood that came with my light package. The footprint sucks, and there are lots of gaps in the welds where unwanted smelly air can get exhausted! I'm in OR so it's all legal here but still, I'd rather not advertise that I'm growing. I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised at the quality, being a package and all. In a couple months I'm going to get a Blockbuster Hood. I had one before with a 1K, and I really liked it. Heavy as all Hell, but an awesome footprint!
2' x 4' mothers (Bonsai Mums) and clones closet.
The mothers hood is a CFL hood I made with 8 CFLs. I think it'll do okay for the mums, being so small.
My newest DIY bubble cloner. I'm going to cut out a few more spots in the lid, and I've got 2" netpots I'll put in after these clones. I just cut off the bottom of the netpots and let the roots hang in the air. They just hold the clone collars better than just using cut 2" holes. The lights are 2 x 24" T8, 6500k lights mounted to a mylar-wrapped piece of plywood. Really cheap and perfect for clones!
I took some Headband cuttings, which are starting to root after only 3 days. I find the bottled Natural Spring Water for the reservoir works really well compared to other sources I know that a hood isn't necessary with a cloner, but it keeps them from flopping over after a few hours of being cut. First day I leave the lights on for 24hrs, mist the cover and cuttings with purified water then cover, and close the hood vents. Day 2 I start leaving the cover off for a few minutes a few times a day, and open the hood vents so some air is getting in, but still retaining a lot of moisture. Also set lights to 18/6 (I believe dark periods help clones). Day 3, remove hood and let 'em root
The duct on the left of the cloner is the air intake for the room. It's a short piece of 6" duct that points away for a little light control. It's actually not even necessary. The closet is light and air tight from the room.
Air intake vent on the other side of the closet
Thanks Man! I've got 4" cylinder air stones right now, but as time goes on I'll probably research better ones. For right now they're working really well, but we'll see how they look a few months from now.
Cool, I have those type as well, last about 6-12 month if you get a cheap nylon brush and brush them every few months.
I use those 12" long, blue aquarium airstones and often can reuse them but any bacterial growth in the tubs seems to plug them right up. Scrubbing with a wire brush doesn't seem to help either. Also tried soaking in bleach, caustic soda and dilute acids to no avail. $5 each so it's no big deal to toss them out and use new ones for each grow.Cool, I have those type as well, last about 6-12 month if you get a cheap nylon brush and brush them every few months.
Good luck.
Yeah, if slime is clogging the pores good I soak them in straight h202 for 24 hrs. That usually cleans them up pretty good. I get cheap so I try and reuse them as long as humanly possible, even though I have a drawer full of them. When they are out of service they become weight hold down the new ones if needed.
Nice clean build bro! Im in the planning stages of my own rdwc and I'm trying to found some square containers with lids just so i can seal the tubing into the sides condifently.I follow the KISS rule most of the time, but some projects are too fun and challenging to pass up
Yes, the blue bucket is the controller. The color is just for asthetics. 2" pipes will help prevent root clogs as well as maintain a good flow.
I agree that there are an increased amount of failure points, but if done correctly, I think issues can be avoided.
We shall see
Square buckets are more convenient, but round ones will still work.
Yep, I hear ya. Ultimately, if I have issues with the round buckets, I can swap them out for squarish totes for cheap, and without losing too much money on the buckets I'd be replacing.
It'll work for any size. The point of going larger is to help avoid root clog. It's still not a guarantee though, and trimming the roots is sometimes required.There are UC systems out there with 3", and even 4" pipes.Things start getting really expensive after 2" pipes though.
I'm glad you brought that up! The day I got those lids I wasn't happy about how big the netpots were. It's much better to use small ones like 3". So I'm going to make my own lids and try to sell what I've got.
When I first started out, I used 2 tubs for 6 plants, and it worked great! I had really good results. The only real downside I saw was having to maintain 2 systems instead of 1, as far as feeding, adjusting pH, draining, etc...I'm still debating whether to go with RDWC or stick with single tubs. With single tubs I only need to top-up every 3 days or so and only lose a part of my crop if something goes wrong as it invariably does eventually. Murphy never sleeps.
Yes on the manifold, and no on the buckets. I don't have the washers yet. Took forever for them to get shipped. Should have them early next week. I'm probably going to do a wet test in the grow room instead of outside. I've got a pond liner in there and I won't have to fill the buckets up much to trouble shoot. The manifold has a hose input where I can vacuum up water anywhere in the room and pump it outside
I just use plastic window screen and a SS hose clamp. Could make a large cone to fit over the end of the fitting inside the pails so it might not plug up enough to restrict water flow at all. I use a small drill pump to drain my DWC tubs especially if they are ScroGs and clamped some screen over the end of the 3/4" tubing that goes into the tub to extract the nutes. I usually only do one drain and refill after the stretch so it's not like it's every week. For my little fountain pump that sits in the bottom of the tub to circulate nutes thru the cooler I hot-glued some screen over the holes on them. I didn't have any plugging problems with that.
I'm looking to have up to 6 tubs going at once. Four in the flowering room and 2 vegging in readiness to move into the flowering room as one gets done. I expect to be running 3 or 4 strains at once so that's another reason to have separate tubs as they will have different nutrient needs according to strain and stage of flowering. With the pH perfect nutes I won't be bothering with checking that. Quick top-up and ppm check so 5min each every 3 days or so isn't a lot of work. Hopefully be cropping one tub every couple weeks once it's all up and running.
Hadn't thought of that. I could bore a few holes in the lid.
