Starting to grow on hydro questions

Good day all, hope everyone is fine and safe.

I will try to be as direct as possible in my questions, take you all for your time and support.

0) The first question would be single dwc bucket system or rdwc (would the rdwc be a good option if I want to grow few plants and get one or two in flowering and one or two in veg stage?)

I will start by getting a heated propagation dome and some Rockwool Cubes to start the beans...

Do I need products like VitaLink Plant Start, Canna Rhizotonic...?


1) So should I choose which system...?
/////////// systems that seem good options:

https://www.hydroponics-hydroponics...-c8/deep-water-culture-c13/iws-oxypot-xl-p462

Or

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hydrogarde...64&hvtargid=pla-422232294641&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

Or

https://www.dutchhydroponics.co.uk/product/grow-a-b-1-liter/


2) Ph / Ec and Base nutrients... I already have quite a few products can I still use them?

Biobizz organic liquid ferts, ... Biobizz pre-mix can be used as a tea also suitable in hydro? I will update this with the products that I already have.

3) Ph e ec will use cheap pens and those liquid or strip tests upgrading to a Bluelab or a better one when money will be more available.

4) Enzymes and beneficials... Are they needed...

The product Silver bullet roots, seems very good as well... Or is it just one more product to waste money on?

5) Spare equipment like pumps and others, which ones do you recommend to have.

6) In terms of cleaning and maintenance of the system, what's your recommendation and how should I do it, according to my knowledge I should clean the system every two weeks and change it's water every week... Is that correct?

I'm very sorry for all this questions, but it's better to be safe than sorrow.

Once again thank you all very much for any input. Stay safe, bless and lots of love

I wouldn't use rdwc for a couple of plants. The smaller oxypots seem fine to me. A bit larger bucket wouldn't hurt, but these are easy to move and operate. I have a bigger air pump and a good airstone. Personally I found that using Canna nutes at proper ammounts buffers my solution just fine, so I stopped measuring PH and just check EC daily. I feed canna a&b and calmag.

Curious, why not rdwc for small plant amounts?

Horselover Fat said:

I wouldn't use rdwc for a couple of plants. The smaller oxypots seem fine to me. A bit larger bucket wouldn't hurt, but these are easy to move and operate. I have a bigger air pump and a good airstone. Personally I found that using Canna nutes at proper ammounts buffers my solution just fine, so I stopped measuring PH and just check EC daily. I feed canna a&b and calmag.

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coredump said:

Curious, why not rdwc for small plant amounts?

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I don't see a benefit really. Some would probably disagree, but the main advantage of rdwc over dwc is ease of operation. Ten dwc buckets would take a lot more time to maintain than a ten bucket rdwc. If you just have a couple of buckets the difference wouldn't be much. DWC has an advantage over rdwc because of the seperate buckets. You can monitor each plant's nutrient and water uptake individually and root rot etc will not affect all plants in dwc.

what about a wilma 4 x ?


easy to use either with hydrotons or cocoperlite or whatever you like

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wilma-Pots-Dripper-System-Hydroponics/dp/B00MH3M7NQ

Hello dear members, thank you all for your inputs.

In terms of substrate I'm all in favor of trying and see what's best... Some say clay others the coco perlite mix, benefits on both sides probably. But for the long run probably the clay would outperform the coco perlite...

I was thinking on that Wilma dripper system but isn't it the dwc bubbler better?

Can you add some air stones inside of that Wilma system? Or you simply don't need the extra aeration?

I thought that with fewer sprinklers and having "bubbles", the dwc would outperform the Wilma system...

Less normally is better... Once again huge thank you for all your advice.

Ps. I thought that rdwc as even better then dwc because of the added flow of nutrients, that way you could have a 4 basket system with 4 different stages of grow, and less ph/ec fluctuations... Kind regards all

ofc i use 16x wilma i added another waterpump too 2 x 8 dripper not 1 x 16

and also a filter to clean like fishtanks, plus a very big airpump with 2 x big stones

Good morning all, hope all feel great.

Dear Whipedmeat, can you let us which type of filters I should pick, there's internals/externals, a combination of them, and their power also varies from each other (should we match the power of the airpump?)...

I will buy the Wilma 4 bucket 25liters, can you let's know how do you do to maintain the system clean and on top notch?

Do you use products like Silver Bullet Roots?

Do you use any type of chiller or does the temp of the water in the tank keeps fairly good?

Thank you very much for all the help, take care and stay safe. Best regards

i use:
- hesi root stimulator
- ghe mineral magic
-ferticare II, ferticare IV
- ghe floranova bloom
- 75% phosphoric acid
- h2o2, bleach
-CaN, MgSO4
- superthrive
- ghe ripen

- florakleen




the filter i use is a simple dense sponge in a plastic case with a little circulating pump that catches floating shits from the reservoir, nothing fancy,.
with the size of 150 l tank i added 2 x 1500 liters per hours pumps, and split the factory dripper system into 2 half parts and connected with less hoes


chiller no i never had to use chiller much more heaters xD


best thing is the k.i.s.s. keep it simple stupid

I used an udwc for my 1st grow & ½ of my 2nd. A reservoir bin & 2 grow bins.

I gave up for 3 reasons:

I didn’t have RO water – just filtered town water - so the maintenance was very high.

I didn’t have a chiller & I could never keep the water cool enough.

My system sprung a leak when I was away on business. Mid grow I came home & switched to coco. The plants barely missed a beat & I have never looked back.

Fwiw

Share_The_Pain said:

Good day all, hope everyone is fine and safe.

Click to expand...

I'm here off and on, and I've definitely been worse thanks.

Share_The_Pain said:

0) The first question would be single dwc bucket system or rdwc (would the rdwc be a good option if I want to grow few plants and get one or two in flowering and one or two in veg stage?)

Click to expand...

My personal preference is to use one large bucket per light, and to also use clones which are all from the same plant.

Question: Are you able to keep your water temperature between 65F and 69F, always and forever?

Yes? Then DWC/RDWC and other "Roots-In" hydro systems will work fine. These systems have the roots constantly "in" the solution, so the temperature of the solution must be controlled.

No? Then you will want a drip or flood type system which uses a media of some sort. A "Roots-Out" type system. These systems have roots in contact with the nutrient solution only occasionally, while most of the time the roots are 'out' of the solution itself. During these drying out times, the solution available to the roots staying cool through evaporation.

Share_The_Pain said:

I will start by getting a heated propagation dome and some Rockwool Cubes to start the beans...

Do I need products like VitaLink Plant Start, Canna Rhizotonic...?

Click to expand...

Not a fan of rockwool, but everyone has their own preferred method of sprouting seeds. Myself, I scuff the seeds, soak them for 12-18hrs in clean water, and then I plant them in pure perlite without a dome. I keep the sprouts misted until the seed hulls fall off. When they're a couple inches tall I simply transplant them to clay pebbles.

I don't use any boosters or bottled products of any sort when sprouting seeds. I DO use Wallace Organic Wonder myco inoculant when I transplant, it makes a big difference in both soil and hydro.

Share_The_Pain said:

2) Ph / Ec and Base nutrients... I already have quite a few products can I still use them?

Biobizz organic liquid ferts, ... Biobizz pre-mix can be used as a tea also suitable in hydro? I will update this with the products that I already have.

Click to expand...

I would look around the site (Use an external search engine) for multiple people using a working recipe with your fertilizers. Otherwise I would look for a working recipe using fertilizers you can acquire locally.

Share_The_Pain said:

3) Ph e ec will use cheap pens and those liquid or strip tests upgrading to a Bluelab or a better one when money will be more available.

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I started with liquid, moved to cheap pens, moved to Hanna, and have now moved back to cheap pens again. The newer generation of cheap pens are reliable, and they're so cheap you can buy 6 replacements for the price of one bluelab. I've gone through 2 in the last 8 years.

Share_The_Pain said:

4) Enzymes and beneficials... Are they needed...

The product Silver bullet roots, seems very good as well... Or is it just one more product to waste money on?

Click to expand...

Wallace Organic Wonder, or another myco product which uses rhizophagus intraradices, There are two names used for it, one of them is the older name which is being phased out.

15+ years running clean hydro, without any enzymes, chlorine, h2o2 or other products. I also don't dump my reservoirs until just before harvest, using the same nutrient solution with addbacks throughout flower. Good practices, including not using any organic derived nutrients in hydro, keep the res clean.

Share_The_Pain said:

5) Spare equipment like pumps and others, which ones do you recommend to have.

Click to expand...

I recommend at least one backup airpump or water pump, depending on your system, and at least one spare lamp for ballast type lights.

Share_The_Pain said:

6) In terms of cleaning and maintenance of the system, what's your recommendation and how should I do it, according to my knowledge I should clean the system every two weeks and change it's water every week... Is that correct?

Click to expand...

Completely depends on the style/recipe you follow. I use r/o water and a nutrient mix similar to the Lucas Formula (actually a ratio) and, as previously stated, I do not dump the reservoir at all till harvest.

I mix the nutrients to within 50ppm of the desired ppm. I use GH pH up powder to raise the pH to 4.3'ish for DWC/Roots-In systems, and 5.8'ish for drip/flood/Roots-Out systems with media.
The reservoir is topped off every day with pure r/o water, nothing else. When the pH in DWC rises to 6.0 - 6.1, I add nutrients back until I reach the starting ppm. This resets the pH back down to the starting point.
When the pH in a Roots-Out system rises to 6.1'ish, I add the nutrients back until the solution reaches the starting ppm. This resets the pH back to the starting point.

Cleaning? I skim any leaf bits or other things which fall into the res. Other than that I only rinse the res between runs, because I prefer to keep the thin film of bacteria which forms on the sides of the tub, pumps and airlines/stones.

Share_The_Pain said:

I'm very sorry for all this questions, but it's better to be safe than sorrow.

Once again thank you all very much for any input. Stay safe, bless and lots of love

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Questions are good. Now read as much as you can to answer the new questions which form after reading this. When you get stuck again, ask more.

Hey, sry for the late reply. Hope everyone is well and safe.

Thank you very much dear Douglas. Still haven't started but I will definitely try it out as soon as I can.

All the best people, kind regards