First Hydro/RDWC Setup (Recommendations)

Hey guys,

Been a while since posting to forums on this, but I'm in relatively new territory. For the past 5 years I've only grown in soil medium with Fox Farms and homemade soil with great results (~1lb per plant). I've purchased a 4 bucket plus 1 reservoir DWC setup, a PH testing kit without PPM, keeping the PH around 6, and growing Gorilla Glue feminized. Room is air conditioned to 72 constant, and can only keep the humidity to an average of 65.

Grow setup is currently using the following.

• H20toGro Hydroponic RDWC system 5 gallon buckets
• General Hydroponics PH Up/Down
• GH Flora Grow, Blloom, Micro combo set - haven't used it yet
• VESTVA DC Series 2,000W LED Grow light full spectrum (consuming 390 watts, 1,400 watt equivelent) -2 of them available, only using 1.
• Holmes Cool Mist Comfort Humidifier

I'm used to a 600 and 400w MH/HPS running at once (first time using LED). I'm also working on getting a carbon filter installed.

Does anyone have recommendations that I should focus on that I wouldn't normally do while using soil both indoor and outdoor? Also, how much do people usually clean out their water/buckets, favorite way to stop root rot, and any other ingredients/options that I should be utilizing.

Greatly appreciate your help in advance as I've been seeing a lot of mixed answers. I'll post pictures once I get some real growth, they're currently just seedlings (about 6 inches high) and just transplanted to the setup 2 days ago. So far so good!

Get a ppm meter pronto! They are instrumental (booo) in a DWC or for that matter any hydro grow. Your plants will tell you how much they are (or aren't eating), you can find and correct issues before they become problems. I've had a bluelabs truncheon for over 20 years, and it works great for stirring, a very worthwhile investment imo.

Change res about once a week, you will know if you leave things too long cuz your pH and TDS will start swinging.

Lastly, keep it simple.

Keep your grow area clean and most importantly you have to clean the fuck out of your rdwc system between runs, I run bleach water for a day through the system, then flush with plain water really really well then after that I run 34% h2o2 at about ~10ml per gallon in ro water and let that run through the system for a day (whole system, including chiller etc) (during the bleach cycle I scrub everything to remove residue etc).

I avoid using kelp or fulic/humic acid as it makes a mess out of your system, I try to stick with "clean" nutrients and additives. You can get away with fulvic if its dissolved really well, I just don't like the residue it leaves behind if its not fully dissolved. Never use any molasses or sugars in your system, that is just inviting pathogens and allowing them to thrive.

I run the water at ~66-68 F and I use hydroguard from day one all the way through, add 2ml per gal every 2 or 3 days. If you try to fight root rot once you get it hydroguard can and will help some but works much much better if you use it as a preventative from day one. You can do that same thing with h2o2 instead if you wanted, run the 29-34% stuff at 1ml per gal, re add every 2-3 days, obviously go one or the other, not both, hydroguard or h2o2. But important to do it from day one all the way through. Make sure you have enough water flow also, I run mostly 8 site systems, I have about 800 gal an hour actual volume total through the entire system (1050 gph utility pump).. in veg the total water volume is about 50 gallons and in flower its about 100 gallons of water. I have return lines going from the pump in the controller/"epicenter" to each site, so the water is splashing/waterfall effect in, which keeps your dissolved oxygen up.

Hey all!

I took your suggestions and implemented them in my grow. I have a 5 gallon bucket DWC setup and the only issue I currently have is the size of the roots (which look amazing, only a little of offset color to them from my nutes), but I'm also running in to an issue where 5 gallon is NOT enough as it's overflowing with my other plants.

Does anyone know of any 7 gallon bucket setups that I can purchase? If not, I'll be re-making it with a dual bucket DWC that I make from scratch (suggestions welcome for this during flowering stage).

For reference, here are my babies. I have a temp controlled Heat/AC unit with a vent system with a carbon filter and 2 of my 2K watt LED lights. The smaller plant is about 5.5 ft. high, the larger one on the right is about 6.5 ft. high for reference.

Zeroskater said:

Hey guys,

Been a while since posting to forums on this, but I'm in relatively new territory. For the past 5 years I've only grown in soil medium with Fox Farms and homemade soil with great results (~1lb per plant). I've purchased a 4 bucket plus 1 reservoir DWC setup, a PH testing kit without PPM, keeping the PH around 6, and growing Gorilla Glue feminized. Room is air conditioned to 72 constant, and can only keep the humidity to an average of 65.

Grow setup is currently using the following.

• H20toGro Hydroponic RDWC system 5 gallon buckets
• General Hydroponics PH Up/Down
• GH Flora Grow, Blloom, Micro combo set - haven't used it yet
• VESTVA DC Series 2,000W LED Grow light full spectrum (consuming 390 watts, 1,400 watt equivelent) -2 of them available, only using 1.
• Holmes Cool Mist Comfort Humidifier

I'm used to a 600 and 400w MH/HPS running at once (first time using LED). I'm also working on getting a carbon filter installed.

Does anyone have recommendations that I should focus on that I wouldn't normally do while using soil both indoor and outdoor? Also, how much do people usually clean out their water/buckets, favorite way to stop root rot, and any other ingredients/options that I should be utilizing.

Greatly appreciate your help in advance as I've been seeing a lot of mixed answers. I'll post pictures once I get some real growth, they're currently just seedlings (about 6 inches high) and just transplanted to the setup 2 days ago. So far so good!

Click to expand...

It's all about the bubbles!! Get as much oxygen in the water as possible, really helps the plants metabolism and uptake of the nutes!
Less is more in hydro, start off with half dose feedings, change water every 5-7 days, keep water temps 18c-21c, get some silverbullet in your tanks works fucking wonders!!!
Hydro is great mate but double edged sword as quick as things grow it can also go bad just as quick i.e keep eye on ur PH as can tend to fluctuate and cause deficiencies, run calmag in with your nutes too!
You'll learn as u go it's all about experience brother!! Feel free to message me for advice
Good luck & welcome to the water lifestyle haha you won't go back!!!!

Switch to totes if your gonna grow trees.Side lighting will also help reduce all that larf.Maybe try scrogging next run.Nice job for first go at hydro.

Thanks for the input guys! Right now I'm kind of stuck with my current setup and will be scaling it up with a SCROG method for next time. Since I'm already in the flowering phase, my roots are getting so big that it's lifting my 5 gallon bucket lid up and overflowing the water out from my reservoir.

I'm wondering a few possibilities, and curious which one is best for this short term problem.

1) How bad would it be to cut the very bottom of the roots out to make space?
2) Has anyone seen a 7 gallon bucket that I can make myself that uses a 5 gallon lid? The roots are completely locked in to this bucket lid so I need to keep the same size.
3) Rigging up another 5 gallon that seals in at the bottom to extend the height by an extra 4-5 inches while re-making the seals/hose connections.

Next time I'll definitely be limiting height, checking nutes better (caused an extra month of little growth to the plant and went straight to the roots).

I do have air stones in each bucket running at full blast, using a root rot formula that's working great, general hydroponics formula trio (sparingly, a bit more now though since my water is leaking after each fill up) a

Any suggestions are much appreciated

In addition, the monster plant is my back bucket, and I believe the roots are literally blocking the water from going down fast enough causing the overflow. I may cut a small portion of the roots off next to my water pump, and raise the bucket by a few inches on a block so that it tries to flow out faster.

can you lift lid and roots out?if so cut the bottom out of new same pail put in old pail that should give you some mmore depth.ridges on pail about 3" apart?