The Official Dwc Cooler Club - Any Kind of Cooler Res

With the igloo you only need to drill one hole.. The abs washers i cut from a black 5 gal bucket, were needed to address the thin walls on the outside and fit the curve.. The rubber washer goes on the inside.. The 1/2" side of the standing water column elbow is shaped to fit the inside of the igloo.. That was done by holding a piece of sandpaper against the inside off the igloo, and shaping to fit.
I had to buy a 13/16 hole saw deep hole saw.. Amazon.com : Starrett ADCH1036 HSS BI-Metal, DEEP Cut Hole Saw with Arbor, 13/16" - 21MM Diameter .. Everything is 1/2" the rest of the plumbing fittings were bought at HD.. You need that hole saw.. The inside is tapered so you need the drilling angle to be adjusted for that.. I also used a GH dripring.. Simple as it seems, its not.. If you are determined to build it I'll give all the help I can.. Despite peoples thoughts to the contrary, this is a rdwc system.. This air drive drip system will draw and circulate about 120 gal of water a day from a reservoir, for each grow container used, without an electric water pump.... This covers it a little better..
DWC Waterloo Scrog - Recirculating Reservoir - DS-200 LED | 420 Magazine ®

Thank you @mytwhyt mighty whitey! Great link too, those pictures are worth a thousand words. I guess I'm at the point of trying to decide whether I should keep the round reservoirs or try to return them for something else for my 2x4 tent. I have a lot to think about for sure but I better get cracking, seeds are on the way! Are you still running the igloo setup? Any issues with leaks with your method? Cool idea to run RDWC with a air drip draw!

This air pump is a godspent. I have 2 in my different grow areas. Spendy but worth it. Super quiet, imperceptible vibration.

I have run (3) 15 gallon Igloo coolers (3) separate 4x2 tents for the past 3 years in DWC. I have one used 1/15 hp aquarium chiller (cost $100) keeping dwc temps at 67 all day everyday. I use aluminum coils in the reservoirs to pump in cold water from the chiller (has it own small reservoir and pump)

For water change I drain from the top using bottom feed aquarium water pumps to empty, and I have a 50 ft expandable water hose attached to laundry plumbing to fill.

I replace the light leaking cooler tops with 1" thick insulation foam from Home Depot cutting the net cup holes with a kitchen knife. No need to secure, just lay over the tray. I store the original stops in case I want to restore the ice chest to default use

I'll be starting the igloos back up soon.. Things kind of fell apart this last year.

I picked up a 150 qt Igloo to replace my existing 2-plant DWC tank and looking for some experiential plumbing guidance. As with my current, DIY tank, I plan to put 2 x 1 3/8" holes in the side -- one below the water line and one above -- for bulkheads to run 3/4" PVC to/from my chiller. A few questions;

1) Any clue as to the material that lines Igloo marine coolers? I *think* it's HIPS (high-impact polystyrene) but not positive.

2) The cooler walls seems thin and I'm wondering if it would be wise to laminate a 2" square piece of HIPS to the inside wall to support the bulkhead. Good idea or overkill?

3) What kind of adhesive would you recommend using on the inside that maintains a watertight seal when it's submerged?

4) How do you cut your holes?

Any other tips?

Thanx for any help.

Dr Evil said:

Well...I decided to become part of the cooler club. Today I bought those 5 gallon team coolers, and got everything setup. Each cooler has it's own thermometer. It has allowed me to use less frozen water bottles, and I can go longer between each change of bottles, but I think I will have to add a second bottle each day. I think the reason I heat up a little more is that my air pump puts out some heat. Its one of those metal ones. I have a fan on it, but it still gets warm.

I am experiencing one real problem though. When I moved everything to the new coolers, I simply transferred the solution to the new coolers. It was already PH balanced, and is only about two or three days old. I took a PH reading before I moved the solution, it read 6. Then after moving the solution, the PH went up to about 7. I put some PH down in, but the PH keeps going back up to around 6.5 - 7.0. Anyone have any ideas? The coolers are Igloo brand.

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Have you tried putting a frozen bottle next to your air pump with a fan blowing over bottle. That way the air going into buckets will be ice cold.

Flo Grow said:

Better growth ?
Than soilless ? YES !
Than other DWC attempts ?
Don't know since this is my first.
But I started off correctly too, after the 1st week in a Sterilite Tote.
I truly believe temps play the major roll in ph stability.
I didn't put in a frozen bottle and let my temps go up 10 degrees, to 75F.
My ph was down to 5.1, from 5.8 !
I got my temps back to "normal" and have NOT had my ph fluctuate again !

Also, what appears to be THE most common issue in DWC ?!
WATER TEMPS MOSTLY !
Warm Water causes all the probs to start, beginning with PH fluctuations, then :
Root rot
Nute deficiencies
Nute lock out
Slow growth
Etc...

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Water chiller is needed.
As for pH fluctuations set your pH at 5.5 then let the pH go through the range to 6.5. This way your not trying to keep a constant pH. And your plants will only thrive as all the nutrients become available. Cleaning out your system weekly will help tremendously. Along with water chiller. Silicon is a good additive

Flo Grow said:

Well that explains it right there.
Even though I use only R/O water w/ 18 ppm's, I have to adjust it EVERYDAY.
Despite it bubbling 24/7. I drop it to 5.8, and it starts to rise within hours until it settles from 6.9 - 7.2
That's daily again, mind you.
BUT with nutes, it's a completely diff situation.
You didn't waste your doe, my friend. Gotta put some nutes in those puppies.
What is the ppm of that "plain old water" ?
^^^ Whatever it is, you are starting from there as your ppm's rise.
I.E. my tap is 290, and I am at 1090 now. So if I used my tap, I only really added 800ppm's of hydro nutes.

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Add tap water to your r/o water and keep water around 17c with a chiller or frozen bottles. Allow pH to drift 5.5-6.5 before adjustment. Try adjustment using water and additives like super thrive /silicon /humic acids /fulvic acids/

Dr Evil said:

Since you have that pump on the floor below the water level, I'd install some check valves just to make sure the water doesn't backup into the pump.

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Try a frozen water bottle in front of the air pump with a fan blowing over bottle on to fan. This way it will be cold air being blown into coolers Instead of warm air

wastingtime said:

The only reason my rez temps go up I think is because my air pumps get somewhat hot. I have thought of different ways to use the cold air intake on the air pump, but not sure where to put it. I thought about looping it around my ice bottles that are in the tub, but that doesnt make sense from a heat in heat out stand point. I dont want to use any more bottles, Im at an easy amount now with 1 trip up the stairs.

I read that someone put it in their AC vent, but I have central and it really doesnt run often in that room. I think Ill just have to live with replacing bottles every two to three days. The one thing I can say is that even using a high end cooler, or with all the little additions is sure beats the heck out of a res cooler that not only is expensive, but is electric and can malfunction leaving you up a creek.

DWC COOLER RES all the way!

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Frozen water bottle in front of the air pump with a fan blowing over the frozen bottle on to the air pump. Cool air into buckets will regulate your pH better

After checking back to my ice chest with the Ice Probe, I realized of that there was no picture of its installation.. It too needs to be up against the outside wall of what ever it's installed in.. Also the same problem as any large plumbing fixture that needs to be clamped to both sides of the same wall to seal.. A crushable wall such as an ice chest is a formable problem.. Being stone cold lazy, I choose to eliminate the problem.. Take away the outside wall and the insulation.. Done perfectly to fit whatever size fitting you're using... This inside wall can be reinforced from the outside if needed, and sealed on the inside.. That small loss of insulation wont affect it's overall job of staying cool.. You always need to keep in mind it may be less sturdy

Found those pics..

Haven't seen anything for ice chests or rolling coolers so i thought I'd highjack this thread with my version of the ice cooler dwc system.
Pretty simple, two makeshift netpots cut out from top lid of cooler(when i find 4" squared pots, I'll use) in a simple two barrel Air stones and a small 50gph pump to connect to a mister in center of cooler, aim at bottom of lid for better atomization of h2o @the fragile root hairs above solution level.
Everything is heavily insulated with HD foam and this chest will be used on basement cement floor this fall and winter so there will be no need for chiller or ice bottles. Last years soil grows i had to use a heating pad on top of 2" R10 insulation to keep even soil temps acceptable when it was -40°F outside. This years basement grow is all set up and i will be monster cropping two plants in this chest, i just hope this is enough capacity for two plants and it can keep temps steady low 60s in december. Not too worried about air temps, I've grown some plants that went black blurple because of extended low air temps 53°F but stable 70s root zone temps.
Got my hands on some tarantula genetics and have heard great things about hydro and cooler temp grows with strains from them.

Edit:
I will also be using diced pool noodle as an alternative to rockwool and I'll only use clay pellets to weigh down and give noodle material rigidity and a bit more water absorption. So far seed has germed, sprouted and is working on 1st set of leaves in noodle Kratky starter kit. Will add photos tomorrow but the hydrophobic abilities and porosity makes it perfect and using real CPA poly, there's no leaching or offgasing of cfcs or toxins. Plus, its sterile and is very resistant to mold.

So I was directed to this thread by mytwhyt and thought I'd share my setup. I just recently started growing again after a decade hiatus. I quickly found that in a 4x4 tent, rez temp issues were a real thing. Prior to finding any information online, I decided to try actual coolers and man, have they done wonders. Prior to switching to coolers, I was placing frozen water bottles in my buckets 2 or 3 times a day. Since switching over, I find myself placing the same water bottles in my rez, once every two days or so. For my current set up, I run 4 (3 this go around, as one of the beans took a shit on me), 5 gallon igloo coolers with two cylindrical air stones per cooler. Through trial and error (I'm still a relatively new grower) I found that ANY modification to the lids, creates light penetration, so I covered them with black gorilla glue duct tape, which rectified the issues I encountered. I have also outfitted each cooler with its own height adjustable scrog netting, as I like to be able to clean out the rez every nutrient change, without disrupting the netting. It's not the prettiest, but it accomplishes what I need it to. The girls posted below are 3 weeks into flower.