Guide for DWC, got a link?

[Sloppy Seconds]

Hey gang, I want to try the DWC thang...do we have a guide here for this type of grow?
I will be using black 5 gallon buckets with powerful air pumps/airstones.

I have a lot of questions and didn't wan't to "re-invent" the wheel...do we have a guide around this forum that will help me?
Thanks for your continued support. peace

 

[trademanny]

Did you look up?

(sticky on top of this forum)

 

[Sloppy Seconds]

I did look there first, most of it is a construction DIY, I dont have any real construction to do.
I have questions about:
water level throughout grow
water temps
Hydroguard?
H2O2?
nute change schedule
etc.
So I thought if someone had done the leg work I might be able to benefit from their wisdom.
If I need to read all the post I will, I just was wondering if we had a link.
Thanks.

 

[trademanny]

Oh, my bad... I misunderstood.

I don't have a link offhand, but I can give you a quick brain dump...

Water level, keep it about an inch below the pots.. it can drop a bit, but you dont want your pots submerged.

Water temps - 68 is 'optimal'

Hydroguard is great stuff and allows your res to drift into the mid 70's (temperature-wise) with no adverse effects

H2O2 will cancel out the Hydroguard. It will kill any bacteria in the res, even the good stuff. (Hydroguard is just that -- beneficial bacteria) Don't use it unless you need it.

Nutes.. use Floranova Bloom from seed to harvest.. one bottle solution, nothing else needed. Some strains may need a little cal-mag too. Run at EC 2.0 thruout flower. Personally, I never change my res (except between crops.) I just top up with regular water and add FNB to bring it back to the desired EC.

Hope this helps!

 

[Sloppy Seconds]

Thanks trademanny, I'll take your advice to heart.
I have pure blend pro grow and liquid karma, I also have the fox farm bloom.
I'll look into the hydro guard, sounds like good stuff! and stay away from the h2o2.
do you know of any bad reasons not to use what I already have? I'll go get the floranova bloom if I cant use my other stuff.
Thanks again!

 

[trademanny]

Thanks trademanny, I'll take your advice to heart.
I have pure blend pro grow and liquid karma, I also have the fox farm bloom.
I'll look into the hydro guard, sounds like good stuff! and stay away from the h2o2.
do you know of any bad reasons not to use what I already have? I'll go get the floranova bloom if I cant use my other stuff.
Thanks again!

I've not used PBP, but I have a friend who swears by it.. I'm not sure on the dosing of it or anything else as PBP is supposed to be organic. Organic ferts don't register EC I've heard (again, don't know myself, I'm a FNB guy)

Stick with the PBP.. no sense spending more cash.. Get some Cal-Mag tho (Botannicare makes it) .. Is good to have on hand in case you see a Mg deficiency.

 

[oldbubbler]

I did look there first, most of it is a construction DIY, I dont have any real construction to do.
I have questions about:
water level throughout grow
water temps
Hydroguard?
H2O2?
nute change schedule
etc.
So I thought if someone had done the leg work I might be able to benefit from their wisdom.
If I need to read all the post I will, I just was wondering if we had a link.
Thanks.

I'm an old bubbler from way back, so my thoughts for better or worse:

Water Level - I grow in 60l drums so keep that in mind when comparing to what you need. I go 6+ inches or so between basket and water level - the main thing is keep a good gap, the cubes (or whatever your medium) should only get moisture from what your roots suck up.

These pics are from a mobile phone cam so quality's not the best, but hopefully from my overflow pipes you can see the gap I got (NOTE: lower pipe is the water level, upper pipe is just an emergency backup overflow in case of clogging which thankfully has rarely ever had to be put to use). NOTE these just went into flower from the grow room and are in effect day #1 of the flower cycle.






(and btw - yes the reservoir does have a lid - an opaque white lid.)

Water temps - I'm in an air conditioned room so I don't really have temp problems except for the dead of winter when I add a heater to my res and set it at 21 deg celcius. Your biggest problem as anyone will tell you for pathogens and disease is heat. With that in mind those black buckets you're using really should have reflective coating applied - I know I'm saying this while you're looking at my dark blue buckets with black lids but as I said I have no heat problems either water or ambient so it's not a great issue for me, a week or so after the pics above I got a massive canopy anyway so NIL light gets to my drums.

Hydroguard, H20 ets - I've run with OXYPLUS for years now and that's ALL I use apart form nutes (don't even play with PH as my waters stable and I don't like adding friggin acid and alkaline non stop to water to try to "balance" it... plus I got a hole in my foot that had to be skin-grafted from an accident with PH up (or maybe it was down) from years and years ago... but that's another story).

I just run the OXYPLUS as a PREVENTATIVE rather than an ADDITIVE. That is I just run it at half strength to keep the meanies out (recommended 2ml per 10l, I run 1ml per 10l added every 2-3 days) ). It is an EXCELLANT product for keeping root rot and other meanies at bay (never had it since I've used it) and keeping your waterworks pristine.

Nute change schedule - I'm realy biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig on this and do it CONSTANTLY. I'm sure this is why I have NIL worries with PH and any other water quality issues. I say rather than a complete dump every few weeks - every time you top up, dump a percentage before you do (every 2-3 days for me). I probably dump something like a 6th or so every time I do this so if you take a 6th every 2-3 days that gives a "complete dump" every 3 odd weeks or twice a cycle (8 week flowering cycles for me). I'm reaaaaaaaaaaaly BIG on this and i reckon it's one of the MAIN things any bubbler should set themselves to do. I maintain there's not a single water quality issue that can't be overcome with regular water changes and not a single water quality issue you won't be exposed to without.

Dump a percentage CONSTANTLY. If you want to do something useful with the dumped water I can promise you your lawn will love it and if you're worrying about "wasting" nutes then your priorities are wrong.

Another thing I'll leave you with is AIR AIR AIR! Pump as much bubbles as you can without turning your buckets into washing machines. I'm actually reserching aero at present such is my love affair with air and I'm even thinking of spending the bucks on Fine Bubble Diffusers for my bubbler system. Get the air in there man, if you can afford it (and consider it an investment) go for high quality fine bubble diffusers and the pump to drive them. If you want to use coarse bubble diffusers (standard diffusers), you're better of putting 2-3 or even more in your bucket at low pressure to get complete saturation of your water top to bottom side to side rather than a single air stone under higher pressure. SATURATIUON SARURATION SATURATION. The more you can get the bigger your yield and IMPORTANTLY the less exposure to disease.

If I really had to stress two things to prospective bubblers IMO it would be AIR SATURATIUON and REGULAR WATER CHANGES.

Hope I've given you something worthwhile.

To finish here's the same cycle as above about 2 weeks later - 15 days in from memory. They really fill up the room once they get bubbling in the big drums and of course the 5 x 600w helps! NOTE, they probably reach a metre+, so about 2 weeks in while they're still supple I bend them over and support them on strings which you can see in the pic.

 

[FreezerBoy]

Run at EC 2.0 thruout flower.

Uh ... ask you plants first. Mine said 0.9 was too much. 2.0 would've fried them.

 

[oldbubbler]

Uh ... ask you plants first. Mine said 0.9 was too much. 2.0 would've fried them.

When I start growing them in small 5l bubble buckets for my grow cycle, I start them at 1.2 and by the time they're near finished the grow cycle I got them about 1.6 -1.8.

First three weeks of flower I run them hard at 2.0, then three weeks at 1.6-1.4, then two weeks runnoff.

I really think myself it's a thing everyone has to find their own niche via observation as variables like your temp and the p/h out of your tap among many play their part.

Good way to do it is run them weak at first (1.2 or less) and use 1 bucket/plant as your test subject to see how hard you can run them. That's what I did to find my niche and I'll bet London to a brick my parameters won't necessarily work best for anyone else nor anyone elses for me.

But err on the weak side and work your way up rather than the other way around.

How do you find your niche? When the EC stays the same as your water level drops they're feasting happily. If your EC raises as your water level drops they're over-fed and leaving the scraps there to rot.

What I will say if you're running them hard you really want to think hard about your regular water changes - because what they don't use sits festering in your water.

 

[trademanny]

Uh ... ask you plants first. Mine said 0.9 was too much. 2.0 would've fried them.

Yes, technically you should read your plants, however I've found using Lucas's ratios is a good starting point for a newbie..

What strain were you growing that was hating life at 0.9 EC??

 

[FreezerBoy]

What strain were you growing that was hating life at 0.9 EC??

Thunks (T*Haze x Skunk#1) It was happy at 0.9 but rising EC and falling pH was a sure sign of "over feeding" Note, however, that was the plan. By running slightly rich and alkaline, EC climbed, pH dropped and tap water from the hose returned them and res levels to original numbers.

 

[Sloppy Seconds]

Thanks for all the great info guys!
oldbubbler, your set-up should win some kind of award! Awesome.
I cant imagine how big those plant could get.
I'll take all this info and put it to good use. be cool.

 

[medgrowr02]

Read Blaze's tutorial on how to construct a DWC system. It's nearly flawless, and speaking from personal experience... you will learn a lot about how things work when you read/follow his tutorial. Of course, you probably wont do everything the same as he did, but you get the idea.

Here's the link...

 

[FreezerBoy]

How do you find your niche? When the EC stays the same as your water level drops they're feasting happily.

I had mine locked down for over a month. Turned out to be a bad thing as no EC movement meant no pH movement and no one pH number delivers all nutes. Wide spread mag deficiencies resulted. Building in a mild EC/pH swing solved my problem.

 

[oldbubbler]

I had mine locked down for over a month. Turned out to be a bad thing as no EC movement meant no pH movement and no one pH number delivers all nutes. Wide spread mag deficiencies resulted. Building in a mild EC/pH swing solved my problem.

What would fix your ph problems and plenty others even better is DUMP YOUR WATER.

I know I'm repeating myself on this but let me point out all you have to lose is some nutes, and if saving nutes is a priority you got your priorities wrong.

Constant, regular partial dumps and re-fills = NIL water quality issues - pending of course there's no quality issues with the water straight out of your tap in which case don't drink the crap either.

And remember you'll have the best lawn in the street by pleeeeeeeeeeeeenty too!

 

[oldbubbler]

Thanks for all the great info guys!
oldbubbler, your set-up should win some kind of award! Awesome.
I cant imagine how big those plant could get.
I'll take all this info and put it to good use. be cool.

A friend of mine's is better. I feel dirty after I look at his and walk in my room.

But I am updating and wether it be aero or refined bubblers with ultra-fine diffusers and a better retic system (as I'm leaning) I'm determined to outdo him.

 

[FreezerBoy]

What would fix your ph problems and plenty others even better is DUMP YOUR WATER.

Why dump perfectly good water? I made the mistake of locking down the grow. That's pilot error not pH problems. Now I feed slightly rich and alkaline, EC rises and pH drops. Two weeks later I add 4 gallons of tap water and all my numbers are back where they started. The 0.4 pH swing isn't a bug, it's the plan.

 

[oldbubbler]

Why dump perfectly good water?

Because fresh is better. The only things on this earth I know of that get better with age are wine and me.

Every minute of every day something's decomposing in your water wether it be nutes or bits of roots - may be minutely may be excessively but it's there never the less. And everything that breaks down breaks down into something and that something's usually something nasty.

 

[FreezerBoy]

The only things on this earth I know of that get better with age are wine and me.

You need to get out more. Weed has been thriving in decomposing materials for tens of thousands of years. It's called dirt. Extra work, extra cost, extra waste for no benefit. I'll pass.

 

[oldbubbler]

extra waste for no benefit.

Well that's where we'll disagree, because I consider it no waste at all because of the benefits.

I'm not gonna argue with you over it and get in some d.ck waving contest because I don't pretend to be a horticou... horticul.... hortac... plant expert and don't care to be one either. All I'd say is if you haven't tried it give it a go on a single bucket and compare yourself. I've done it both ways, both deliberately and as the result of bog laziness and I know the comparison.

Now the friend I was talking about in an earlier post I'm planning to out-do - we've been trying to out-do each other for years. Now his latest upgrade to his system which I referred to with envy he's elevated his system so he can dump the whole thing just by opening a tap to drain and letting gravity do the work (I have to use a pump) - and he does it *WEEKLY AND COMPLETELY. I rubbished him with it being utter overkill when he fired it up and then he out did even that by hard-plumbing a tap and hose in his system so he can flush his cubes on every plant until the water runs clear while dumping too (and anyone who's ever flushed their cubes before transplanting from grow to flower knows how much sour looking crap can be flushed out).

And the moral of the story?

His plants on a watt v watt scale with all things being reasonably enough equal have gone from consistantly producing less than mine to consistantly producing more than mine and the health of his plants from day one to harvest have improved multi-fold too.

So I've seen the results on my own sytem via observation both with and without regular water changes, and I've seen the results on a mates system with super-indulgent water changes and flushing - both to the positive and incrementally so.

Next time I upgrade guess what I'm doing?

Because like I said - I consider it no waste whatsoever.



* Edit for clarification - I got me numbers wrong there, should read BI-WEEKLY AND COMPLETELY. Four times a cycle, every two weeks. Mind you, I'm sure he'd go weekly if he had more lawn to use it on.