Drain to Waste or Recirculate ?

[alpo]

My setup is four 3-gallon buckets filled with a Rockwool grow cubes and clay pebble mix with 2gph drip rings on each bucket. Feed every hour.

I have a condensate pump that is set up to drain to waste but was thinking about changing it to go back to the reservoir. The reason, I could water more and use less water at the same time.

Which would be better?
Thanks

 

[Bush Dr]

Drain to waste ….. then feed your veggies with it

 

[CalcioErba2004]

If you don't pay for water then drain to waste and reuse the water for other plants. If you pay for water, then recirculate. It will save you money in nutrients and your water bill in the long run...

 

[LostTribe]

You can recirculate. If you are running salt based nutrients you will want to dump and flush once every week or 2 max. I would do it with PBP every 10-14 days. Although you probably aren't feeding as often with a lot of RW in your mix so that would point me to DTW as it would max out your feedings keeping them closer together. Thats an advantage of RW I suppose, less frequent feedings and the Macro/Micro nutrients stay constant all feeds vs some being depleted over the course of rez changes. I prefer Hydroton but not much experience with RW other than cuts and seeds and RW turning green.

 

[jfcgrower]

drain to waste, then if one plant has problems, it does not pass onto the other plants.
jfc

 

[f-e]

With an hourly interval, nothing is ready to be called waste.

I used to run just pebbles flood/drain and thought every 4 hours was quite regular. Most people were doing twice a day. Hourly, with RockWool, that sounds a lot. It's well into the realms of re-circ. It's nearing constant in my mind.
I never did the pebble coco mix, but that was every couple of days. People struggled with the 24 hour timers of the multiflo, as it was too regular.

An hour later, that's just not ready to be called waste.


I really think that hour interval needs looking at in order to get back to a waste based system. That's a topic for another coffee though.

 

[alpo]

I ran the drain line back to the reservoir (instead of the shower drain) and everything seems to be going well so far.
I'm at day 22 above ground. I started out feeding 1minute - 17 times during lights on and then when they got the first true set of leaves I fed 2minutes - 17 times during lights on and since the first topping I am now feeding 13 times during lights on for a total of 34+minutes.
I use the FloraFlex PotPro platforms that drains into a condensate pump and then back into the res. The plants started drinking more the last two days, I had to add one gallon of water both days. The first two and a half weeks I only added less than a gallon a week to top off until weekly res change.
If it continues going well I will put 9 of these buckets in this tent when this grow finishes and maybe use my ChilLED GrowCraft X6 1000w.

Edit: using 2gph drip rate

 

[clown baby]

Been running recirculating in hydroton for 12 years now. Mix of ebb & flow and drippers, depending on the size of the grow.
Jacks 3-2-1 nutrients for the last 7 years or so. Buffers itself to the correct pH, don't even have to worry about taking pH readings anymore.
Using bleach to bring chlorine up to about 4ppm, added every 3-4 days (that's about 1mL per 5 gallons in the reservoir). Feel free to use clear-res or UC roots if you want to donate to your hydro store.
The setup is stupid easy. Runs on timers. Change the water out once a week and watch your plants thrive.
Only lost one crop in 12 years running this system, which was due to a partner bringing dirty clones into the room and spreading root aphids.

I wouldn't switch from this unless I decided to go big and get all of the equipment to do crop steering.
Until then, recirculating works great.

my 0.02