RDWC setup

I'll try to keep this brief, I was looking to put together a RDWC setup in my spare room, I was going to so a simple setup like the one below 4-8 Gallon pots ScrOG etc. 2 1/2 months harvest.

I had a friend tell me to try something like the first pic below (please excuse my attempt my MS Paint skills aren't that great lol) 4 plants per 27 gal tote RDWC smaller plants quicker harvest, he still wants to ScrOG to some extent apparently, but does that not defeat the purpose of SOG? not to mention there would likely be very little room right?...

unlike the drawing these totes would be right up against one another touching (ignore the res the control bucket would be another tote i don't know what his reasoning was but he said have a 'massive res') I was going to start smaller but this friend wanted to help, he was apparently much more experienced so i thought I should take his advice but it's really starting to sound strange at times.

I guess my question is would the SOG system work?
what are the potential downsides?
Is four plants in one tote too many?
would the extra water, nutes and potential root problems be an issue, water temps harder to control etc?
does one system seem like it would yield better results?
would the turnover time be that much faster in a SOG system?


Apologies for any poor grammar it's late and i banged this out as quick as i could before bed, im sure i've forgotten some of the most important questions but any reply is appreciated. Thanks

(P.S the size of the system aka how many grow sites, is subject to change depending on lights and space so nothings set in stone)

TychoWinter said:

I'll try to keep this brief, I was looking to put together a RDWC setup in my spare room, I was going to so a simple setup like the one below 4-8 Gallon pots ScrOG etc. 2 1/2 months harvest.

I had a friend tell me to try something like the first pic below (please excuse my attempt my MS Paint skills aren't that great lol) 4 plants per 27 gal tote RDWC smaller plants quicker harvest, he still wants to ScrOG to some extent apparently, but does that not defeat the purpose of SOG? not to mention there would likely be very little room right?...

unlike the drawing these totes would be right up against one another touching (ignore the res the control bucket would be another tote i don't know what his reasoning was but he said have a 'massive res') I was going to start smaller but this friend wanted to help, he was apparently much more experienced so i thought I should take his advice but it's really starting to sound strange at times.

I guess my question is would the SOG system work?
what are the potential downsides?
Is four plants in one tote too many?
would the extra water, nutes and potential root problems be an issue, water temps harder to control etc?
does one system seem like it would yield better results?
would the turnover time be that much faster in a SOG system?


Apologies for any poor grammar it's late and i banged this out as quick as i could before bed, im sure i've forgotten some of the most important questions but any reply is appreciated. Thanks

(P.S the size of the system aka how many grow sites, is subject to change depending on lights and space so nothings set in stone)

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Unless you have a legal limit of plants to work with, use as many as you can. SOG is the most efficient way to grow indoors IMO. The down side is needing to keep mothers for clones. But ideally you root clones and straight to flower with multiple plants per square foot.

Flood and drain is better suited for SOG, much less piping easier to maintain etc.

myke said:

Flood and drain is better suited for SOG, much less piping easier to maintain etc.

Click to expand...

I agree, I wouldnt build an rdwc for sog but you could convert a table to dwc and fab your own lid...my next build.

Interesting, thanks for the clarification guys...

I'm not even sure the lids could support 4 plants... does the size of the net pot just relate to how big of a plant you can support?... 5 inch net pots about as small as i would want to go? how would 3 inch net pots limit me?

I would say it's counterintuitive to grow SoG style in DWC. One point of SoG is to maximize space and bc of all the plumbing and spacing needed for rdwc, that doesn't even seem possible.

TychoWinter said:

I'm not even sure the lids could support 4 plants... does the size of the net pot just relate to how big of a plant you can support?... 5 inch net pots about as small as i would want to go? how would 3 inch net pots limit me?

Click to expand...

Netpot size doesn't matter with dwc and plant size unless by "support" you literally mean support as it relates to the plants' stability in which case extra medium can help but another point of SoG is that you're not vegging the plants anyway so there shouldn't be much to support; nothing a trellis couldn't assist with anyway.