4 bucket DWC system build suggestions

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
yep me too. i have a 30 gal reservoir feeding them that gallon at 8am every morning. i just check pH around 730 and that's it.

not trying to change your mind but these waterfarms are hard to beat.
Maybe if I had 4 of them I wouldn't have to grow them so big. They ran perfect this grow till this late stage in flower. They ran out of root space. The leak is totally my screw up.

Maybe I'll just fix it for next grow and turn it over to flower sooner. 4 of them would be perfect in there but I'm currently scared of them. I'll try one more time and if it goes smooth after some corrections I'll get 2 more. My plants don't look upset or anything after all.
 

J232

Well-Known Member
I was up to 5-7 gallons every 30 hours during week 7-8-9, airstones can cause contamination and mess with ph, waterfalls provide more dissolved oxygen. I started with air stones and ended up tossing them.
 

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
Maybe if I had 4 of them I wouldn't have to grow them so big. They ran perfect this grow till this late stage in flower. They ran out of root space. The leak is totally my screw up.

Maybe I'll just fix it for next grow and turn it over to flower sooner. 4 of them would be perfect in there but I'm currently scared of them. I'll try one more time and if it goes smooth after some corrections I'll get 2 more. My plants don't look upset or anything after all.
i can get all we need from 4 at a time. i usually do multi strains which makes it a bit harder to dial every plant in.

either way you decide, you'll be fine with a great system
 

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
I was up to 5-7 gallons every 30 hours during week 7-8-9, airstones can cause contamination and mess with ph, waterfalls provide more dissolved oxygen. I started with air stones and ended up tossing them.
How many plants are drinking all that?
My air stones are not giving me a hard time but they look disgusting after the grow. Last one I threw out because I didn't want any root rot fungus contaminating my new grow. My new ones, I will try cleaning them and soaking them in bleach before next grow but ill probably get worried and replace them. I need to get comfortable with plumbing to attempt a waterfall. It won't work with water farms it would have to be a new setup. Someone showed me his undercurrent clone he made and I'm pretty sure he changed the air to waterfall in his setup.i would like nothing more than to reduce equipment and not have to clean or replace air stones. I would 100% switch to waterfall if I can.
 

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
Was 5 at the end, this being the biggest.
You know that's about how big my old plants stock was. My new ones are bigger i think lol. Its hard to tell but its crazy. Its like a big ball ill snap a pic when my lights go on. Maybe I'm just growing monsters lol.
 

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
That first run on that setup yielded around a pound a plant.
Yeah my last plant got me only 8oz but I had to harvest at the end of week fuor from rot. The plant struggled the whole grow. They hydroton was full of disgusting goo and wouldn't let water pass through. I'm clueless as to what I can expect right now, its a lot more than last time and I still going. I'll try to finish the whole 8 weeks. I'll snap some pics of everything in 4 hours when lights go on. This is by far my best grow ever and I am impressed with what I got so far.
 

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
to attempt a waterfall. It won't work with water farms
i had to explain this to somebody here about a year ago:

think about this, the water dripping from top res to bottom res in a WF is a waterfall. it's how the lower res isn't desgined with a stone. i add one anyways when the roots hit the lower res just because.
 

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
i had to explain this to somebody here about a year ago:

think about this, the water dripping from top res to bottom res in a WF is a waterfall. it's how the lower res isn't desgined with a stone. i add one anyways when the roots hit the lower res just because.
I figured it would help but I thought people make the waterfalls high pressure to make turbulence and bubbles. I do run it constantly as apposed to last grow I put it on a timer. Last grow the timer helped but it was due to drainage problems that are resolved. I also have a 4 inch bubbler in each bucket and one in the res.

I was thinking about waterfalls... do they use 2 water pumps? I can't wrap my head around how to have a waterfall in the buckets and the res. I didn't look it up yet I was planning to it just popped in my head. I feel like ill need one pump sucking from the res and waterfalling into the buckets, but then how is the water returned and forced through a chiller and back to the res without a second pump? I would expect the pump can force through the chiller before a water fall and gravity feed into the res but ill need a bubbler in there. I have lots of material to look up and read but having 2 pumps seems like I'm asking for a flood. Maybe the pumps line is split into 2 and one goes to the chiller then waterfall back into the res while the other line does the bucket waterfalls which gravity feed back to the res but thats gotta a serious and expensive pump!
 

J232

Well-Known Member
I figured it would help but I thought people make the waterfalls high pressure to make turbulence and bubbles. I do run it constantly as apposed to last grow I put it on a timer. Last grow the timer helped but it was due to drainage problems that are resolved. I also have a 4 inch bubbler in each bucket and one in the res.

I was thinking about waterfalls... do they use 2 water pumps? I can't wrap my head around how to have a waterfall in the buckets and the res. I didn't look it up yet I was planning to it just popped in my head. I feel like ill need one pump sucking from the res and waterfalling into the buckets, but then how is the water returned and forced through a chiller and back to the res without a second pump? I would expect the pump can force through the chiller before a water fall and gravity feed into the res but ill need a bubbler in there. I have lots of material to look up and read but having 2 pumps seems like I'm asking for a flood. Maybe the pumps line is split into 2 and one goes to the chiller then waterfall back into the res while the other line does the bucket waterfalls which gravity feed back to the res but thats gotta a serious and expensive pump!
Most use a separate pump to circulate the chiller, the main pump puts water into the totes and the undercurrent flows back to the res it’s being pumped out of.
 

J232

Well-Known Member
Here’s my res, the 1” pipe dipped in feeds the pump, you can see I just circulate the chiller into the res. The other pipe is just left over from the air stone setup but I have a pinhole in it spraying so I can make sure the pump is working, my pump is in the grow room. Green hose and pump is my service pump for draining.

E258C786-5526-4E13-9208-A9D72A4703DF.jpeg
 

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
i totalyy isolated my chiller. it was a closed loop. a 5 gal bucket, a stainless steel wort chiller in the control res and a small pump to circulate
I had to look up a wort chiller. Its new to me. It looks like just a coil, does that attack to the chiller to keep nutrients out of the chiller but still cool the res? Thats a fantastic idea.

My chiller was disgusting from last grow. I ran it for weeks while it puked out brown crap. I had to use chlorine, h2o2, even final flush through it and shake it to get what I can out. I thought it was normal...
 

J232

Well-Known Member
i totalyy isolated my chiller. it was a closed loop. a 5 gal bucket, a stainless steel wort chiller in the control res and a small pump to circulate
Yeah that’s pretty slick, I might look into that later, I’m trying to get co2 setup, take that plunge I guess, don’t want to vent to a lung room anymore.
 

rkymtnman

Well-Known Member
Here’s my res, the 1” pipe dipped in feeds the pump, you can see I just circulate the chiller into the res. The other pipe is just left over from the air stone setup but I have a pinhole in it spraying so I can make sure the pump is working, my pump is in the grow room. Green hose and pump is my service pump for draining.

View attachment 4693053
now you are making me miss my rdwc setup!!!!! it was fun to grow like that: like running full speed ahead all the time.
 

J232

Well-Known Member
I had to look up a wort chiller. Its new to me. It looks like just a coil, does that attack to the chiller to keep nutrients out of the chiller but still cool the res? Thats a fantastic idea.

My chiller was disgusting from last grow. I ran it for weeks while it puked out brown crap. I had to use chlorine, h2o2, even final flush through it and shake it to get what I can out. I thought it was normal...
Mines only 5 months old, I have no idea how to service it, my tubs and water were pretty clean all the way threw, set the chiller at 64 and went with it for 4 months.
 
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