DWC preparation - power outage (light and pump loss)

I am looking at preparing a DWC setup and I would like to have it planned out. I need help planning for the following two situations:

1. Air pump dies out: Say I go out of town for a few days, or it dies after I check ppm, ph, and top off.. to the point where for some reason or another I don't notice that the air pump dies. How long can the plants go with a dead air pump? How long does the water stay oxygenated? How would I recover from this? (I'm thinking chop off dead roots(if any); use hydrogen peroxide and a high phosphorus nutrient to encourage new root growth).

2. If the power were to go out. (I've seen battery powered air pumps that go on when power goes out, but I dont remember what they're called/who makes them, I'm sure a simple google search would find it.) What do people usually do about their lights when the power goes out? I was t hinking some battery powered LEDs (would not provide much light, but at least enough to not knock them off their cycle.) the downside would be having to do manually turn them on and off.

Have any of you all been in similar situations? If so, what are your suggestions or can you think of any improvements to my suggestions?

I've survived an 11 and a 13 hour blackout with no visible signs of distress. All you'd need keep going in a longer blackout would be the air pump. I suppose a UPS, like those for a computer that give you 10-60 minutes of power to save and shut down would do. A UPS that can power a 19" monitor for an hour would probably run a pump for days if not weeks.

FWIW I take off for weeks at a time and have never come back to a dead grow.

for the light situation I was thinking of getting two timers.. one for my normal lights, one for powering just a small LED light.. set them both at the same interval.. stick a UPS in front of the LED one so that if the power does go out, the UPS only needs to juice up a small LED light, i guess the air pumps could go under that UPS as well.

Reason I'm so worried about this is a year or two ago, there were some horrible wind storms and an ice storm in the area that knocked power out to some areas for a week at a time. (It's a decent sized residential area too, not exactly out in the country)


How do you keep your reservoir levels up when you leave for weeks at a time?

Healthy plants in dwc can last for up to 24 hours without taking damage, if temps are cool, but some will be unhappy after 15-18 hours. A power inverter for your vehicle can give you emergency power to get through most outages.

Make a very close friend/business contact at a local tool rental store that regularly has a few 3KW generators sitting on the lot.

jdog12 said:

How do you keep your reservoir levels up when you leave for weeks at a time?

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One plant in an 18 gal tub (12 gal nutes) My feeding formula is designed around biweekly top offs. A simple top off allows for 2 weeks with no problems. Three weeks is survived but, shows obvious stress.

The airpumps should be situated above the water line so if the power goes out the water can't siphon out through the air-lines.

Make sure your light timer has a battery backup so it keeps the right light cycle once the power comes back on.

UPS is a good idea, just make sure it doesn't have an audible alarm when the power goes out. I have a UPS for my computer, it beeps loud and continous when the power goes out, not very stealth for a grow.

mars_to_uranus said:

The airpumps should be situated above the water line so if the power goes out the water can't siphon out through the air-lines.

Make sure your light timer has a battery backup so it keeps the right light cycle once the power comes back on.

UPS is a good idea, just make sure it doesn't have an audible alarm when the power goes out. I have a UPS for my computer, it beeps loud and continous when the power goes out, not very stealth for a grow.

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what size/capacity is your UPS? How much lighting do u hve it hooked up to and how long does it last on a power outage?


Btw if anyone is interested in the air pump with Battery backup you can google b11 air pump.

I just did a neat little experiment, pipes burst in the basement, had to call the plumber, moved all plants to attic for 48 hours, temperature in attic, 120 degrees, I am 60 days in on a 90 day flowering period on some sativa's. NO lights but what was coming through the small windows, no air pumps but had water in the bottom of the General Hydro waterfarm buckets. Plants stretched a little, all the growing nodes/terminal flower ends, faded to a pale green, since I am playing around with this batch anyway.

I feel that it is highly unlikely that you would have a failure of both air pumps and lights outside of a power outage. You would more than likely have a failure of one or the other. I say that a pump failure would be worse than a light failure. (Heat + dehydration = sure death)

Water is oxygenated via gas exchange at the surface. So the more surface area you have, the better the water will hold oxygen. Warm water does hold less oxygen than cold water.

So a resevoir with a larger surface area of water, would hold more dissolved oxygen.






I love starting up new grows and waiting for old "schwaggy" to get done, it gives me something to play with while waiting for new "good stuff" to pop from seed and mature enough to get serious.

jdog12 said:

what size/capacity is your UPS? How much lighting do u hve it hooked up to and how long does it last on a power outage?


Btw if anyone is interested in the air pump with Battery backup you can google b11 air pump.

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My UPS is for my PC not a lighting setup. If you are only lighting a single LED i'd have thought any UPS would give at least a weeks light. If you're without power for longer than a week you've probably got bigger concerns than just your grow i'd imagine.

I have thought about getting a UPS for my grow, but in my situation i'm far more concerned about keeping the extract fan/carbon filter running to prevent smell leakage getting outside. Plants can be replaced, a criminal record is for life.

DWC SOS

DWC SOS

I realize that this thread is 7 years old. I post for people doing research as I was.
I own 2 CyberPower UPS. We are going to have a power outage(Hurricane Irma)that is scheduled for tomorrow at 2pm. The storm may keep the outage for sometime. The combined run time at 24 watts is 100 minutes(approx). That is 1 24watt 2"T5 on one UPS@50min and my GH air pump which pulls 24 watts for 50 minutes on the other UPS. I will probably use both in intervals with the air pump. From what I have been able to glean, plants can go longer in a DWC/RDWC with no light than they can with no DO in the water. They will drown. When I run out of UPS power I will probably McGyver something to blow air into my water manually.
I cannot wait to move west. I am sick of hurricanes, aggressive drivers, rudeness, etc
Born in the south, lived here 60 years and news flash, the south is dead. F everybody and get out of the way is the new way. Rude is the rule. I weep for the future.

Air problem is easy all u have to do is fill resi's half way up they will get air from the gap between the water line and meshpot .


Wish I had a answer for the light situation
JL