Hello Again - 2400watt Recirculating DWC Grow

It has been years since I have been on these forums and grown anything indoors, but I recently decided to get something going again, just for fun and for medical reasons. Originally was going to do soil, but quickly realized I missed the insane growth of the recirculating DWC I used to use, of which I owe the inspiration to blazeoneup's original writeup which I used as a model.

This time, I'm doing things a bit smaller, a bit cheaper, and since its the first grow in a new spot, I don't have too high of expectations. I'm also making some changes, but in general am reverting back to my original recipe. No CO2 this time either.

4x 600watt digital HPS lights, all air cooled with a single 6" fan that sits in the middle of a U-shape. We ran this before, and it was fantastic even with large 750watt digitals. These are smaller and cooler lights to begin with. Lights draw cold air from the window box, but these days, maintaining heat is more an issue. 8" CanFan ventilates the room. Oscillating wall fans and an oscillating floor fan to maintain under canopy.

Setup is pretty simple; 9x 5 gallon buckets, 6" netpot tops with hydroton, 3/4" drain fittings, 3/4" drain line to a 30 gallon reservoir, 30 gallon gravity backup reservoir (float valve). All the buckets will be on 8" raised platforms in order to fill the entire 30 gallon reservoir, which will actually be more water then my previous larger reservoir which was only partially filled. 1/2" main feed line down each row with 1/4" to each buckets. 40 watt air pump bubbling an airstone in each bucket, and a small airpump bubbling both reservoirs. Smaller water chiller is being used, 3/8" instead of the previous 1/2" model I used, should be plenty, placed inside the room since its cold out. 400gph water pump.

Not much beyond that. Strain is either GDP or Purple Urkle. Need indica for some medical reasons. Pics are a week old. Much more done. Just need to build platforms, fill it up, test run, and then drop in clones.

Try to update every week or two.

Very nice! I'm tagged and here to stay.

I'm ringing a 4 bucket set up blazeoneup style under 1k for veg and gonna be 2k hps for bloom.

And id vote for purple urkle.

Been super busy, but things are dialed in and blowing up nicely.

water chiller has everything at 67 degrees, room temps are sticking @ 75, roots are pearly white.

I will upload some extensive pics this weekend.

Suscribed i am relocating me and my grow room and i was
thinking some upgrades i am going for 4*600 watters too
and i cannot decide RDWC or Hempy's .
I am going to run sealed this time cause i am tired fighting
heat with outside temps around 100 F.
I like your U shape aircooling idea and i will use it for sure i want
to know you yield expextetions even if you not bother much and how
many buckets will you squeeze under those 4*600 watters.

Nice clean setup keep up.

Adding extra nitrogen to get them to stretch out a bit so I can spread them around the room via a screen.

Pictures included. Taken a couple days ago. Things have begun to get quite large, and I'll need to flip them soon or they will go out of control. However, in my experience, Grand Daddy Purple doesn't have as much of a 12/12 growth spurt as others. The plan is another 2 weeks of veg in order to top them a few more times.

kusher.jim said:

Suscribed i am relocating me and my grow room and i was
thinking some upgrades i am going for 4*600 watters too
and i cannot decide RDWC or Hempy's .
I am going to run sealed this time cause i am tired fighting
heat with outside temps around 100 F.
I like your U shape aircooling idea and i will use it for sure i want
to know you yield expextetions even if you not bother much and how
many buckets will you squeeze under those 4*600 watters.

Nice clean setup keep up.

Click to expand...

I ran a sealed room on my previous 4 recirculating DWC grows, supplementing with CO2 and a window mount A/C and a dehumidifier. It was a struggle to keep everything going well; problems keep popping up. In order to take full advantage of the CO2, you need high temps to open the stomata, but this creates problems; especially when you are aircooling your lights. The drastic change in temperature creatures a lot of condensation, requiring insulated ducting or wrapping them. Then you have to figure out a way to have a continuous drain on the dehumidifier cause it will produce a few gallons with a full canopy in the room...

The results were fantastic, but it was a ton of work. I leave my current setup for days at a time. Keep a somewhat close eye on pH and ppm.

PPM is about 900 right now, with about 200 of it my hard shitty well water. This caused a problem at first, but once the pH was balanced, it allowed nutrient uptake. Rocky start, now back to stellar growth. As usual, there are some star players in the mix which will dwarf some of the other ones.

There is no "climate control"; I run an 8" Can Fan on very low setting to intake, and it blows directly on the airpump to passively cool it, which means the water chiller doesn't have to work as hard (putting hot air into the water versus cold air). I am cooling the lights by drawing air and exhausting through them; because temperatures have been pretty low so far, I haven't had a need to isolate the air cooling of the lights from the room. Since there is no Co2, this also doesn't matter.

Thanks for taking time to answer my questions in your thread i will
throw you some more cause it is my first attempt to seal a room and i need
every help.

Outside temps where i am growing is between 90 and 110+ for at least 6 months a year.
i am trying an unsealded room but when my intake is at 100 F i cannot do alot of thinks for cooling thinks down exept seal the room.

So keeping the temps of a sealed room at 85 i think is doable , but with the use
of an A/C for cooling thinks down.About the dehumidifier i am thinkink to plave it
over a 30 gallon container so it can drain there.

Do you have any more suggestions from your experience



ps.
I love it when those buckets go out of control

kusher.jim said:

Thanks for taking time to answer my questions in your thread i will
throw you some more cause it is my first attempt to seal a room and i need
every help.

Outside temps where i am growing is between 90 and 110+ for at least 6 months a year.
i am trying an unsealded room but when my intake is at 100 F i cannot do alot of thinks for cooling thinks down exept seal the room.

So keeping the temps of a sealed room at 85 i think is doable , but with the use
of an A/C for cooling thinks down.About the dehumidifier i am thinkink to plave it
over a 30 gallon container so it can drain there.

Do you have any more suggestions from your experience



ps.
I love it when those buckets go out of control

Click to expand...

You can simply use the A/C as your intake/exhaust; I wouldn't suggest running a sealed room without any CO2 supplementation. The plants either need somewhat frequent air exchange, or supplement them. Most "window mount" A/C systems have a recirculating feature which allows you to simply recirculate the air in the room; you'd want to turn this off.

Also, a dehumidifier is just an A/C system that doesn't blow the hot air away, and the A/C can do a fair amount of dehumidifying on its own.

You can try various tricks too... Try drawing air from cool areas, such as a basement or at least a shaded area outside; the sun heats up stuff a lot. If possible have the grow room on a shady side of the house too. But the A/C will act as an exhaust or intake, it just won't exchange as much air volume as a normal setup.

CO2 can be used pretty simply; while I've always used an IGS environment controller, its practically impossible to overdose the plants with CO2 and OSHA says that people can be subjected to almost 2000ppm of CO2 without ill effect (besides being very lethargic).

You can simply inject it via a tank, regulator, and timer. Run the A/C on recirculate, and inject the CO2 every 15-45 minutes. You can get one-time tests at your local hydro store or online so you can get an idea of what concentration you have.

Oh and I expect about 2 pounds this time; very low expectations because the first grow on this system after it has been setup always has some issues. I am also using different nutrients then normal, and a new strain. Next grow, I will expect 6. =)

I will enrich with bottled co2 and a co2 monitor for sure and i am going
to run it sealed.i descripe you the outside temps just to be sure that
there is no other way to handle those outside temps (90-110+) with out
sealing and A/C a room.


And just wait a minute i am considering running 2400 with 40 hempy's
just to be sure that i will easily reach the 1gpw and you tell me that
1gpw is doable easy with 9 only plants dwc !!! how long r u going to veg them ?

i made some runs rdwc and make it to 1gpw but in a smaller setup with 600 W and
4 plants 1 mont veg but running 16 plants in a 8*8
(11*11 but 2 feet around for moving) kind of scare me .
Anyway i will run it Hempy's for the first runs.

So i am going to run 40 Hempy's under 4*600 on 11*11 sealed with co2 enrichement
and co2 monitor looking for 2 ounches per plant averege.

Any tips and tricks that you learn seting up your previous room will be very helpfull and thanks again for helping me
out here so much.

I am waiting for you girls to give us a look of the Rdwc power.

Search my user name and check out my older threads. There should be 2 or 3 at least documented.

I remember some of you're old threads, nice to see you around again.

So how long do you plan to veg those girls?

Work2much said:

I remember some of you're old threads, nice to see you around again.

So how long do you plan to veg those girls?

Click to expand...

Hola,

They've been 18/6 for exactly 30 days today. The pic I posted is from the beginning of the week; I'm always behind on posting pictures. I'm going to take one more run of about 50-75 clones, and then flip them to flowering, so probably about 5-7 more days of veg.

In my experience, Grand Daddy Purple doesn't explode when you flip them as much as some of the other hybrid or sativa strains, so I want to make sure I get veg enough. That being said, EVERYTIME I've ever grown this hydro system, I always veg to much...

I'll take some more pictures today.

nice and clean setup

I have a few questions.
I don't understand the U shaped cooling thing. Can you post a pic in action?

You don't mention what size of pump you're using. Are you not having problems draining? I run 4 "pod" systems with dual 3/4"drains in series like yours. When I tried the first system (feed is a 1/2" line feeding 2 1/8" feedlines per pod) with a 350gph little giant the drains couldn't keep up. the last pod would overflow very soon after turning on the pump. I dialed the voltage back to 70 using a variac. Now I just run 160gph pumps for feed and am using 1-1/2" drains and larger tubs. Didn't have any clogging issues with the 5gal and 3/4" drains though.

And finally,
Where are all the lights? Do you just raise them for the pics? Are you keeping them REAL high to induce stretching? What's up with that? Will they eventually be hung vertically in amongst the plants?

Thanks.

To Kusher Jim..your temps of over 100degF...are those night time temps? Geeze..it must get REALLY hot in the day.
Not quite sure how to say this without sounding like a dick but...if those are daytime temps, you know you can have your lights on at night when it's cooler out right?

PEACE!

hey this shit looks good. i was thinking about making my own dwc next round or doing a flood and drain with 6'' rockwoll cubes with AN sensi a/b and possibly carboload + big bud. what is ur viewpoint on cubes compared to dwc. your plants look extremely healthy, im just concerned if i tried to make my own dwc it wouldnt be nearly as good and problems that i wouldnt know what to do

real nice setup , dwc rulls

You leave things for a few days and it just goes crazy! this is AFTER i topped the crap out of them and trimmed them back. Time to move the lights out about 2 feet, and spread the buckets.

Then, decided I will swap the water after all. Last grow, I kept the same water throughout, but I feel its getting a little saturated.