Blazeoneup's Recirculating Dwc Construction Tutorial!

[Feijao]

Incredible thread Blaze..You are a good soul to share your wealth of experience and help so many.I just started my first dwc after wanting to try it for ages.So far so good.It is exceeding my coco by far in terms of speed and health.
my question is if i were to use 5 gal buckets(four) under 1k and keep my room the tent is passively vented from at 65 degrees..Do you think I'd need a chiller? I plan on getting one and setting up a controller but until then..do I stand a chance? the chem d being vegged now is maybe 14" and has a lot of roots.I'm concerned that as the roots continue to build up(which they are doing pretty quickly) the lack of volume available for h2o will make the temps rise ...Much thx again

Yes you stand a chance. With that being said I would never run this system without a chiller. Its an investment that I think has to be made if your wanting to go full hydro. If you can keep the room at 65 I am sure your water temps would be fine (depends on the heat of your water pump). Your plants will slow down quite a bit at 65 though.

You could get by with a 1/10th HP chiller but I would pay a little extra and get a 1/4 HP. This will allow it to run a lot less and be usable if you upgrade. I ran a 1/4 eco plus on 16 5 gallon buckets under 4k watts and it kept the water just right.

If you really want to see plants go crazy in RDWC chill that water to 68, get a big air pump, increase the temp in the room to 78 - 80, and run roots excel with your favored base.

I have ran many types of systems and this one when dialed is about as good as it gets. The only reason that I have moved on is that its summer and its so hot where I am that my chiller was running almost 24 hours a day. Once it cools down the Blaze buckets are coming back out for sure!

Amazing thread, thanks so much for all the detail and hard work. Quick question,
I read that RDWC systems permit significantly lower total nute concentrations (as little as half of norm) due to the added DO and root zone health / micro beasties aiding in uptake.
Early on it points to 1300-1500ppm max at mid flower stage.

What am in missing?

Each strain is so different I think its impossible to give a base line PPM max. I have ran a Super Lemon Haze that I had to cut down the PPM verse the same strain in my hempy buckets. On the other hand I have a G13/HP that I can feed way more PPMs than while they are in the hempys.

I think the increased DO and other things that you mentioned allow the plant to either use nutes more efficiently and/or allow them to uptake a lot more due to the super natural environment they are in. I really have pushed that G13/HP hard without much more than a little tip burn.

 

[Feijao]

Hi I really loved the whole thread which I read today every post. I am in the proceeds of building a DWC before i read this post. It was good to see that what i was going to do was exactly like yours blaze. But I did notice a couple of post from someone that put the return line in the top and feed from the bottom (well i guess you could feed from the top but put the line down the bucket) I have thought about this and can see some benefits
1, No clogging outlets and
2. No chance of overflow.
3. Plus outlet water can waterfall in the control tank
Before I go ahead and build this system do you have any thoughts on this.

Here are a couple of things that I ran into when doing it like this.

1. If your water levels drop below the return line then there is no way for the water to recirculate. You need to make sure that you have your water levels dialed in at all times. This became very difficult for me.

2. Its very difficult to empty the system due to the fact that once the water drops below the return line you must empty each bucket by hand or engineer a way to do this. You can drain back through the feed line. However you can only do this if your feed line coming out of the controller is at ground level. Then if it is it needs to be big enough to drain in a reasonable amount of time.

When using Blazes system as is, I always have roots in my return lines but never enough to clog the entire system.

 

[AlaskanSun]

Been wanting to do this!

I have room for 4 tree sites and thinking on having the return lines up higher and 1' pipe, flume back in the res. Get a 500+ gph pump put the feed manifold up, waterfall down from the top of the bucket. Problem I see is that the nutes will be stuck on the bottom if I do that and have to get airstones and air pumps witch make my chiller work harder. I figured with enough gph and waterfall fluming that i was hoping to be able to cut air diffusers all together...

Holding me up has been looking for some sort of 1' bulkhead type fitting for pvc locally but have been unsuccessful. looking at even more of a diy bulkhead fitting thats gonna seal perfect.

 

[highocaine]

Been running perlite/coco with smart pots and drip to waste, recently switched to recirculating, and after reading this I'm wondering how I can add in DWC. Thanks.

Would be a big PVC bill, but one thought is skipping air entirely and running high flow rate waterfalls instead. Too hard to change mid-grow, but I'm too much of a tinker to leave things alone for next grow..

 

[HyGradeChronic]

SOOOO, NOW U A ROK STAR MOD EH??? WUZ UP W/THAT...

SOOOO, NOW U A ROK STAR MOD EH??? WUZ UP W/THAT...


.....
.....
..... IT'S GOOD 2CU ESE!!!!! SEGURO!!! BUENO...
..... so, guess u did ok stickin' close to yer back 40. made it to the "MOD SQUAD", 'LONG W/~SPORTZ~, N EEN KHARMAGURL!!!! YOWZA YOWZA YOWZA!!!!!
.... WAS JUST TRIPPIN' DOWN G'OLD MEMORY LANE N I STUMBLED INTO GYPERS SITE N FOUND YOU. IMAGINE THAT...
..... ANYWHO, ....., ....., ALLA BEST TO YOU N YOURS AS ALWAYS. N RMEMBER, HGC LUV U LONG TYME!!! U BETT CHA!!!!!
..... peace
..... HGC

 

[Feijao]

Been wanting to do this!

I have room for 4 tree sites and thinking on having the return lines up higher and 1' pipe, flume back in the res. Get a 500+ gph pump put the feed manifold up, waterfall down from the top of the bucket. Problem I see is that the nutes will be stuck on the bottom if I do that and have to get airstones and air pumps witch make my chiller work harder. I figured with enough gph and waterfall fluming that i was hoping to be able to cut air diffusers all together...

Holding me up has been looking for some sort of 1' bulkhead type fitting for pvc locally but have been unsuccessful. looking at even more of a diy bulkhead fitting thats gonna seal perfect.

When you go to Lowes or HD go to the electrical section instead of the PVC. Once you are there look for a male and female PVC adapter in the size that you would like. I ran the 1.5 inch before and liked it a lot. Ask the clerk where the O rings are and get some that will fit the male end of the adapter and you will be ready to rock and roll. FYI I could not get these to work on round containers. They were totally leak proof on all of the 12 gallon square totes that I tried.

Here are the 1 inch pieces that you were looking for. With the O ring they come out to about $1.25 per unit.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_72856-223-E...n&pl=1&currentURL=?Ntt=carlon+1-in&facetInfo=

http://www.lowes.com/pd_115917-223-...n&pl=1&currentURL=?Ntt=carlon+1-in&facetInfo=

 

[AlaskanSun]

Feijao thanks alot! I picked up 1 of each of the 1 1/2 on your suggestion (more drain the better right?) to try on a 10 gal tote and see what it can do.

It's amazing that the electrical adapter fully seats into each other... but the plumbing which is supposed to hold water does not! I tried the plumbing ones and they wouldn't hold a seal so i gave up on that avenue of thought, but I can see with o rings these will fully seat and be water tight on my tote. If i could give rep I would man... thanks. taking pics as I go and will put a post on it later... just another rwdc post but wth. Thanks again man it helped.

I wonder if i could get a barb fitting to seat in there so i could use 1 1/2 black drain tube instead of pvc. It would allow a valve on every bucket if you needed to emergency pull one and still have it running.i guess that's still keeping it simple but adding accessibility

 

[Feijao]

I don't think that I have ever seen an adapter that has the barbs on one end and a slip fitting on the other. Here are two parts that would allow you to use 1 inch tubing instead of PVC with your original 1.5 inch PVC adapters. Just fit the 1-1/2-in x 1-in reducer bushing into the previous mentioned adapter and then screw the 1" male barbed adapter in.

http://www.lowes.com/pd_22717-1815-...&pl=1&currentURL=?Ntt=1-in+bushing&facetInfo=

http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay...gId=10051&cmRelshp=rel&rel=nofollow&cId=PDIO1

Let me know what you think brother.

 

[smithsutton]

.....
.....
..... IT'S GOOD 2CU ESE!!!!! SEGURO!!! BUENO...
..... so, guess u did ok stickin' close to yer back 40. made it to the "MOD SQUAD", 'LONG W/~SPORTZ~, N EEN KHARMAGURL!!!! YOWZA YOWZA YOWZA!!!!!
.... WAS JUST TRIPPIN' DOWN G'OLD MEMORY LANE N I STUMBLED INTO GYPERS SITE N FOUND YOU. IMAGINE THAT...
..... ANYWHO, ....., ....., ALLA BEST TO YOU N YOURS AS ALWAYS. N RMEMBER, HGC LUV U LONG TYME!!! U BETT CHA!!!!!
..... peace
..... HGC

GOOD LORD LOOK WHAT THE CAT DRUG IN LOL ..



GOOD TO SEE YER STILL SUCKIN AIR ..

PEEZ ..

SS ..

 

[XxNinjaxX]

Hi Blaze,

Excellent Tutorial! I've replicated in to a T

Only thing I cannot understand is how do the roots bridge the gap between the Net pot & the solution in the base of the bucket without being top fed?

I understand the feed lines circulate the nutes but how do the plants access water to survive for the 1st week or so?

Cheers, XxNinjaxX

 

[CannaZaffa]

Hi Blazeoneup

This is an amazing tutorial and I have just registered with IC. I'm much less experienced... ok let me rephrase.. looking at this site I don't know cannabis from common lawn, but let's pretend i can grow too.. haha

I do have a question in here somewhere if i brain will allow me to access that particular part.. (good ol Swaziland outdoor speaking at the moment)

I suppose the question would be In your opinion, How would you set this dwc system up to do a perpetual 5pound per month harvest. This obviously if we are talking same 8 week flowering strain and from rooted clone.

ps: sorry if this is not the place to ask. Dunno where else.

regards

 

[Feijao]

Hi Blaze,

Excellent Tutorial! I've replicated in to a T

Only thing I cannot understand is how do the roots bridge the gap between the Net pot & the solution in the base of the bucket without being top fed?

I understand the feed lines circulate the nutes but how do the plants access water to survive for the 1st week or so?

Cheers, XxNinjaxX

There are a couple of things that you can do.

1. For the first week or until the roots get down in to the water just run your water level about 1/2 inch above the bottom of the net pots. Then you can reduce the water to whatever level you want.

2. You can also just get a cup and fill it up from the rez and dump it on each plant every couple days if you feel that you need to.

3. If your running really powerful air pumps they usually will splash enough to keep the bottom of the net pot wet. To me this is about all the moisture you need at first.

It seems to me that the more you try to speed this up the longer it takes. If the plants are thirsty the roots will work there way out of the net pots naturally in search of water.

 

[Feijao]

Hi Blazeoneup

This is an amazing tutorial and I have just registered with IC. I'm much less experienced... ok let me rephrase.. looking at this site I don't know cannabis from common lawn, but let's pretend i can grow too.. haha

I do have a question in here somewhere if i brain will allow me to access that particular part.. (good ol Swaziland outdoor speaking at the moment)

I suppose the question would be In your opinion, How would you set this dwc system up to do a perpetual 5pound per month harvest. This obviously if we are talking same 8 week flowering strain and from rooted clone.

ps: sorry if this is not the place to ask. Dunno where else.

regards

We all started somewhere Zaffa. With that being said your goals seems almost unattainable to me with out multiple systems and other dialage.

If you are going from rooted clone you might want to look into SOG set ups for the kind of harvests that you mentioned. 16 to 25 plants per 4 X 4 under 1k watts. If you were pulling 1.5 pounds per light you would need 6 or 8 lights to hit your goals.

If you could do multiple rooms I would set up the Blaze system with two 8 X 8 rooms. Each room would have a 4 1k lights and 16 plants vegged for 2 or 3 weeks. This would also get you to your goal.

Since plants like different nutrients during different stages of their life hydro isn't the best way to go for one system perpetual grows. I have seen it done running just MaxiBloom but the yields did suffer with it.

 

[XxNinjaxX]

There are a couple of things that you can do.

1. For the first week or until the roots get down in to the water just run your water level about 1/2 inch above the bottom of the net pots. Then you can reduce the water to whatever level you want.

2. You can also just get a cup and fill it up from the rez and dump it on each plant every couple days if you feel that you need to.

3. If your running really powerful air pumps they usually will splash enough to keep the bottom of the net pot wet. To me this is about all the moisture you need at first.

It seems to me that the more you try to speed this up the longer it takes. If the plants are thirsty the roots will work there way out of the net pots naturally in search of water.

Feijao - Thanks for the response. I've pulled the 1/4 inch feed line off the barb & fed it through to the top of the pot. Feed 15min every hour & hope the roots go diving deeper during the other 45min

 

[smithsutton]

.....
.....
..... IT'S GOOD 2CU ESE!!!!! SEGURO!!! BUENO...
..... so, guess u did ok stickin' close to yer back 40. made it to the "MOD SQUAD", 'LONG W/~SPORTZ~, N EEN KHARMAGURL!!!! YOWZA YOWZA YOWZA!!!!!
.... WAS JUST TRIPPIN' DOWN G'OLD MEMORY LANE N I STUMBLED INTO GYPERS SITE N FOUND YOU. IMAGINE THAT...
..... ANYWHO, ....., ....., ALLA BEST TO YOU N YOURS AS ALWAYS. N RMEMBER, HGC LUV U LONG TYME!!! U BETT CHA!!!!!
..... peace
..... HGC

HOLLY FREAKIN CHRISTMAS LOOK WHAT THE CAT DRUG BACK IN ..HOW YAZ DOIN GOOD TO SEE YA STILL SUCKIN AIR ..

SS ..

 

[CannaZaffa]

We all started somewhere Zaffa. With that being said your goals seems almost unattainable to me with out multiple systems and other dialage.

If you are going from rooted clone you might want to look into SOG set ups for the kind of harvests that you mentioned. 16 to 25 plants per 4 X 4 under 1k watts. If you were pulling 1.5 pounds per light you would need 6 or 8 lights to hit your goals.

If you could do multiple rooms I would set up the Blaze system with two 8 X 8 rooms. Each room would have a 4 1k lights and 16 plants vegged for 2 or 3 weeks. This would also get you to your goal.

Since plants like different nutrients during different stages of their life hydro isn't the best way to go for one system perpetual grows. I have seen it done running just MaxiBloom but the yields did suffer with it.

Thank you very much for the reply, i have 2 flower rooms that will have ample space.. I'm from South africa so 8x8 to me sounds like 2.5m x 2.5m (i have little over 3m x 3m per flower room).

I am looking at keeping mothers in autopots and that will obviously be in a seperate room as well. (also in a grow tent)

I have searched and found a dutch pot system that seems to be like a drip system with 9 14 18 or 24 pots. that could also work.

For the SOG, would this still be Hydro? or sould you do a SOG in coco and vermiculite or something like that.

I suppose using the word perpetual causes confusion in my aim. I just want to basically run 8 week strains and in my mind if i put an 8 week strain in flowering every 4 weeks i should get a monthly harvest. I did forget the 2 week vegging that will be needed for the plants to grow slightly bigger. So i suppose its every 10 weeks from rooted clone.. which makes it 2 harvest in 3 months.. or i have to have another flowering room. So 3 in total..

Luckily i'm growing on a farm so this is totally do-able.. ROOM i have. lol.

I am considering to change the system to be able to space 3kw over 24 pots and then use 2 x that system. So 6kw in total over 48 plants.

regards
CZ

 

[Billy_Pilgrim]

What are some pros and cons pertaining to under current vs. top feed?

 

[Mr Blah]

What are some pros and cons pertaining to under current vs. top feed?

You can still have top feed with UC system and RDWC.
UC has a higher flow rate,(at least the DIY do)
Top feed is more or less coming out of 1/4" drip lines and that would be the rate of flow to and from the control bucket.
Cons; like any hydro, not so forgiving as soil but with a few grows under your belt you should be able to read the plants needs and learn from your mistakes. my .02

 

[Primalraindrop]

bookmark this... damn this is a great as thread!!!!! Nice work!!!

 

[Pophamseasmoke]

Lots of great info!!! The generosity of folks on this site is amazing. Tutorials like this and Big tokes really blow my mind With all the follow up info and detailed plans. Thanks again for all you put into it and still are!! Keep'em green