Would 170 gph be straight for a 4 site rdwc ?

500 gph would turn over 20gals in like 2.5 minutes. Is that really needed?

Any good rule of thumb for turnover rate? I would like to build a small rdwc.

I’ve used 190 gph for 4 5 gallon pails. 1/4” feed lines to ea bucket. Ran well ,anything over the 190 will need a bleed valve in the res or more then one feed per bucket.

myke said:

190 will need a bleed valve in the res

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Seen guys using the bleed valve elevated to blast downward for waterfall aeration. Regulates pressure too...
JD

Hey guys, came here trying to get some insight also. I'm just starting out with hydroponics and am building a RDWC with 6-5gal buckets + a 5gal reservoir. I have 1" fittings/tubing and a 75gph submersible pump. Hydro shop owner guy on youtube said that's as much GPH as you should use so the buckets don't have different water levels. I'm just wondering how much water movement is recommended for an RDWC. I started my girls DWC and quickly realized the need for the R. Any thoughts? Thanks for the help.

2WorldsFrog said:

Hey guys, came here trying to get some insight also. I'm just starting out with hydroponics and am building a RDWC with 6-5gal buckets + a 5gal reservoir. I have 1" fittings/tubing and a 75gph submersible pump. Hydro shop owner guy on youtube said that's as much GPH as you should use so the buckets don't have different water levels. I'm just wondering how much water movement is recommended for an RDWC. I started my girls DWC and quickly realized the need for the R. Any thoughts? Thanks for the help.

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You're not doing it right.

Airwalker16 said:

You're not doing it right.

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Man, I usually only hear that from my wife.... could you elaborate a little?

Ive always went with my rez should have more water then the pails,so more water outside the grow room then in.
Also height of rez needs to be able to keep water level at the bottom of net pots.

2WorldsFrog said:

Man, I usually only hear that from my wife.... could you elaborate a little?

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I think what he's saying is that your setup is not ideal due to at least a couple of factors. One is probably the 1" fittings, which can become quite problematic if they clog. The other is that your pump is too weak if you're not using air stones (which you didn't mention).

Major Blazer said:

I think what he's saying is that your setup is not ideal due to at least a couple of factors. One is probably the 1" fittings, which can become quite problematic if they clog. The other is that your pump is too weak if you're not using air stones (which you didn't mention).

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Thanks, my bad I guess. I do have an air stone in each bucket. Just finished putting it all together last night in time for week 2 of veg. feeding. I ended up using 5 -5gal buckets for plants and 1- 5gal for the res. with the pump in it. For the air I'm using 7.8 L/min dual outlet pumps that I've t'd the two outlets into one line going into 4"x2" cylinder stones with one stone/pump per bucket. The 75/gph water pump seems fine to me, I had to dial it back a little to even out the water levels a bit. The first bucket in the loop was an inch higher than the rest and now I've got it to only about a 1/2 inch higher.
Hopefully the 1" fittings don't trip me up. I'm guessing that's why people talk about putting screens on them? I hope I start to know what I'm doing at some point. Thanks though.

I find that the roots tend to stay up in a tall pail like a 5 gallon.Keep the water level up and youll be fine.You can grow some monsters in a system like you have.Ive put a 2x6 under ea pail to help drain back when it comes time to flush.
Good luck.

Awesome idea with the 2x6, that's on my upgrade list for sure.

macsnax said:

That's what I would do. I almost ditched the air stones and said fug it, I don't want to find out the hard way that I don't have enough o2.

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i have just gone away from using air pumps, air pumps are not needed with a waterfall as the water fall is much better at adding o2..

As long as your water moves and the surface moves, you will get plenty of DO.
Airstones are not very efficient in this.
Waterfalls way more.
Also flooming is very efficient and doesn't make a lot of noise.