Hap-py Buckets, cooler DWC

[Haps]

Hap-py 420 Folks! I have wanted to do a simple show and tell thread on the insulated buckets I am running this year, they are working like a charm, and represent 3 years of work in learning my environment and hydro. I had big heat problems my first year, and tried a mess of stuff including styrofoam iceburg floats last year, and learned new lessons with each crop and season. It is my hope that the pictures will help folks chill for the summer.

Here is a couple shots of the bucket units, each is a stand alone, with it;s own air pump on board, and two bungee straps to stick my cross stakes into as needed. I use reflectix insulation from the homegrown stores, but it is just bubble wrap with aluminum foil on both sides, so think about what you might already have to work with. I use duct tape to secure the wrap, but I do not seal it top and bottom completely, so water will drain when it gets wet, or cleaned.

Hap-py Buckets
H

 

[Haps]

Air Rig

Air Rig

I hang my air pumps on the unit with a wire, twist tie, or pipe cleaner - ez on ez off. The pumps are in their third year, so I take the little filters out to improve air flow, only one of these pumps has failed in 3 years. I call this the air rig.
H

 

[Haps]

Access port

Access port

My dremel tool died last summer, so I had to make my access ports with drills and saws and files, so they are not pretty, but they serve the purpose. I stick my hand in this port to feel the water level, and to add and drain as needed. I drill the air rig holes on both sides of the bucket to give me options if I need to make a change mid crop. I made many of these too small, and had to cut them bigger mid crop, messy and stupid, it is better to test this dry. This shot is the inside of the bucket.

H

 

[Haps]

C. flap

C. flap

This is the access port from the outside. I call it the cunt and the cunt flap, for the obvious reasons, this is not sexist, it is just the word that fits best. So, I stick my hand into the cunt and feel the water level, if I can't feel it, I add water till I do feel it and fill to my level. I use a measuring funnel from wallyworld, which is just a funnel with a handle and a long tube I can snake into the cunt to fill, maybe a little sexist.

Cunt & Flap
H

 

[Haps]

Peek

Peek

Here is a peek at the open cunt and root of a large widow - H

 

[Haps]

Bare Tube

Bare Tube

Bare tube is my air solution, after several crops testing side by side, I gave up stones and just got stoned instead. To tape the lines down, the bucket needs to be clean and dry, and the air tube also must be clean. This pic is a unit that has gone two bloom cycles, with just a tap water rinse between, and you can see the tape is loosening in some places. This is why I put lots of pieces instead of bigger ones, one comes off, and it is no big deal. If these are looser than this, I replace between cycles. Duct Tape Babay!

Bare Tube
H

 

[Haps]

Cooler Lid

Cooler Lid

The final component in chilling yer girls is to insulate your lid, most of mine are recycled styrofoam floats from last year's experiments. This seems simple, but it does help seal the deal, use anything you have available, express yourself! I cut them in half for ease of use.

Cooler Lid
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[Haps]

420 Flowers

420 Flowers

I would be hap-py to improve this design, please give me any thoughts or questions you have to that end. Here is a shot of the bloom I have running with these units, the pic is week 4-5, m/l.
H

 

[Haps]

Reckon this is a boring thread, but I wanted to run it by one more time, in hopes it will help someone else in their journey to mari. This pic shows the buckets & coolers in bloom, I will take new pics if there is any interest. Happy Buds!
H

 

[Stonerguy]

Do you use any type of cooling now or does the insulation keep it cool enough by itself?

 

[Haps]

I have AC in the room any time it goes over 70f outside, and fans moving the air in every direction. I have not run this unit in full summer, and am going to only run one bloom in the room this summer to keep the heat down, so the buckets continue to function. Here are some bud shots, these are blue nepalese and blue sativas, lovely flowers.
H

 

[Carp]

Thats Awesome Bro, So what do your temps run?? I've had the same Problem but a friend came up with a Diff idea but this seems simple.

 

[Getawaymonkey!]

B E A Utiful bud shots bro.....slurp!Slurp!
why not hotglue those airlines to the bucket.That shit is great!...Right up there beside ducktape IMO.
Just scratch the surface of the bucket with sandpaper lightly,where the glue needs to stick and it wont go anywhere for years,....Viola!
And best of all ...its nontoxic to plants unlike that ducktape your using.(been running hotglue for years with NO problems or leaks if your scratch and glue)

Nice job bro...REAL NICE.Whats strain is that in that last pic??

 

[Haps]

Thanks chaps the temps run 68-71, m/l, I just test with my hand mostly, after many seasons, it knows the range to worry about. The room temp is key here, I have to keep the room cooled down with lights off, in the 70 range, then the buckets can handle the 85-90 degree canopy temps when the lights are on. It was many crops tuning in to get this mostly right.

The bud pics are from beans I made a couple years ago, Reef's blue nepalese x G13xblue sativa, also from Reef's genetics. I love the blue sativas, can't imagine a day without them.

These pics are above and below shots, the canopy is falling dowm, these have been flushed and are a few days from harvest. These are sweet widow, white widow, sour diesel, abd big budda's cheese f2's. Except for the SW, these beans came from a nasty old coot, bud o mine, Goldking.

H

 

[Haps]

Someone repped me on this old thread, so I figured I would bump it. All the insulation principles here can translate into and ebb n flo bucket system, so that you do not need a chiller. It will not work in all environments, but it works great if you can control room temps. Most of the reflectix insulation in the units pictured were recycled into my current tidal systems, pics in my old gallery if anyone wants to see that implementation.
H

 

[zanedog]

My dremel tool died last summer,

I bet it's the brushes on the dremel, they are easy to replace, and cheap too.

 

[bendoslendo]

Hey, do you really do just as well without the oxy stones?

 

[delta9nxs]

hey, haps

nice, your plants look great! you got some serious smokin to do!

in looking at everything i can only see a few things i would change. airline tubing is 1/4" od, which is 16/64, take a sharp 15/64's bit and drill a nice clean hole anywhere you want but if you go in through the bottom sidewall you won't need anything to hold your airline down. take the end of your airline and cut it at a sharp angle, stick the point through the hole, grab it from the other side with pliers, and pull. it will deform slightly and slide through. cut off the excess if needed. it won't leak. also i used black 1/4" drip tubing for airlines to keep out light and suggest aluminum tape instead of regular duct tape where needed.

later

 

[2fast4u2]

I would be hap-py to improve this design, please give me any thoughts or questions you have to that end. Here is a shot of the bloom I have running with these units, the pic is week 4-5, m/l.
H

upgrade???

Try ebb&flow.

3 years to tune your grow isnt worth it brother! Im not dissin ya, in fact, you are one of the few people who puts his creative side to use, and it shows, i feel i am one of those "creative growers" as well and ive been through too many grow styles, soi, organic, hydro and with all the buckets and what not and the problems i had with dwc, i must truly say good sir that once you go ebb&flow, you rarely go elsewhere.

Aeroponics is the next step, and i think people like you would do fine, but the new guys might find the dodgy ph flux to be a bit of a pain.

All in all, great tips for dwc growers having issues, Its the reason i only grow ebb&flow.

Sure, nothing exciting about the simplistic design, its an old setup. But, dwc imvho was an attempt to recreate the wheel, and i feel that "wheel" is ebb&flow.

Other E&F growers no where im coming from.

timers.

timers literally run my entire grow for me, the only actual "physical" work i have to do is one or two reservoir top offs which take only minutes.

But i typically have about 9 total days in between res swaps where i quite literally observe. God its so simple.

thanks for the thread, wish i wouldve found it when i was having temp issues, oh well!

 

[Haps]

Yeah, I built two ebb n flow bucket systems two years ago, my own twist of course, I call them tidal systems, I would not go back to dwc, but it is handy for seed projects or a special project or overflow. SOme of the buckets were recycled from these dwc units.

The duct tape tubes work great, but noisy, when I turn my big rig on, it has fifteen dual pumps ganged onto two power centers, when I flip the switch it sounds like a small airplane till they warm up, very cool, freaks the dog out. The aluminum tape is great where strength is needed but the all weather duct tape is easy and can be removed and reworked easily, I used the aluminum a lot in my earlier tubbler systems. All this stuff is in my gallery, but I do not know how to post them now, or I would. Thanks for visiting.
H

edit, oh, and I built and tested three series of my own sytems that first three years, five generations of sytems in five years now, that is a bit beyond tuning,