my new waterfall rdwc system (credit to bigtoke and blazeoneup borrowed many ideas)

[eL artist]

okay so been inspired in last 48 hours, forgot why i did vert before, now i remember
this is my new design not sure which totes i am going to use but all i got to say is thank you gettogro and dhf, going use my feed bucket design and figure out what height i need to make return waterfall to keep water level where i want, think i will also do a spederate feed, and seperate pump like gettogro, but only until roots hit water level, (worried about rez temps {going do this feed line like cravin suggested individual valve and full loop system so i can keep flow even, thank you for idea}) would love to add feed bucket back in design, and my reason for second (feed {see first page for 5 gallon example next will be 32 gallon brute}) is if i pump to lid and have drop to water level i get amazing bubbles with my 1000gph pump, and as long as both lines out of this bucket are even should have even levels over entire system and back to return

also thinking bout stacking mh on hps on one stack then hps on mh on other stack

 

[eL artist]

and going be building lung room to go along with this room redesign, need to shorten my other room to accomedate a spot for lung room, time to bring out power saw (room is 2 feet too long already), i was bout to be super stupid, already got carbon filter w/ fan, why not use cercualte w/ lung room, thank you gettogro for that idea just saved me money i was about to waste, so glad i checked back into icmag
so check out that too let me know what u think, plan is to keep co2 levels at about 700 with fuzzy logic control and vent both rooms 24/7 to this room, but have rooms on opposite 12 hour schedule so a/c is only cooling one room at a time and co2 only being used by one room at a time, hence lower levels.

 

[eL artist]

week 6 update time start off with the half over views


everything looking lovely did some pruning of the lower, here is couple pics of that

 

[eL artist]

now for my favorite pics

and now the canopy from the bottom canopies prettty nicely filled

 

[eL artist]

the lights one by one
everything is looking good only one issue, same issue as always, maganese def due to water (i believe it is issue with too much mag causing lockout of maganese), going try to supplement some of my water with this run with ro filter and cal-mag at low doses

 

[Sqydro]

nice sorry i missed the started tagging in now roots look amazing mate!

 

[eL artist]

thanks sqydro nice to hve you here.

noticed something weird today, a mature pistil on a couple colas here and there, never seen this before with this strain, 2 years with this girl, only change up in nutes this time is i started doing half ro water 2 days ago (when maganesse dif started showing up) going in to rez with .5 tsp per gallon cal/mag for only ro water.

i have always had, since starting in my current region of the globe and current water provider, a yellow spotting of fan leaves then eventual nerocisis of fan leaves, starting from bottom and starting at 5-6 week of 12/12 on mutiple stains (kill bill, calizar, bogglegum) did research thought it was due to slighly elevated mag in tap water causing maganesse lockout, hence the start of ro water this round, was able to finally get my ro filter back. I was hoping to be able to control mag amount to stop maganesse lockout. wondering what would cause a pre-maturing of pistils, (never seen this before, please help. no other problems {roots, leaves, flowers} noticed right now only one in a thousand pistils maturing, hope it doesnt spread, but this is way to early) i also raised lights to highest level although no signs of bleaching or burn but did it just in case

 

[eL artist]

also rez temps stay under 68 f and only use flora nova 1 part and now cal/mag at .5 tsp per gallon of ro water

 

[Sqydro]

what do u find better mate RDWC or bio? i like the amune system type thing of the bio buckets and the less equiptment used in bios

 

[eL artist]

so far bio buckets now trying to add the uc system to it

started building the new system today waiting on some things here and there
here is the overview

12 18 gallon totes formed in a square that fits the 7x7 room
buckets will be connected with pvc pipes in two lines





couple things i have read and observed is 1. more waterfalls are better 2. you want an upward angle on waterfall pipe these two things provide better surface tension break up. more surface break up= more dissolved oxygen
hince the design also if i need to tweak water level i can cap off lower pvc and raise water level, i hope, more work tomorrow.

 

[eL artist]

here is my maganesse def, starts off with spotting then yellows out eventually

this is a healthy leaf, most leaves are looking good


here are the pistils and buds first the pistil changes

then this buds top growth seems stunted compared to previous runs and other healthy buds

finally just for comparision a healthy bud

overall everything loosks healthy but still concerned about odd growth eespically sense roots and leaves all look healthy besides maganesse def which looks lighter than previous runs, yet still some buds are not looking right

 

[eL artist]

now for the regular weekly pic updates




like i said everything looks pretty healthy

 

[eL artist]

the overalls two halfs


and roots looking nice and healthy real happy with these roots, checked other buckets too all roots look pretty massive

 

[Sqydro]

they look really happy in there roots are perfect, are you running a chiller?

 

[eL artist]

they look really happy in there roots are perfect, are you running a chiller?

i hope they fill out like other runs with her genes

no chiller but way i have intake setup cold air from houses central a/c, blows into lower of room right through buckets and keeps res temps nice and cool

Did come up with a ghetto chiller for other room, was basically coiled gh tubing(feed line) in water with frozen water bottles within a big rubbermaid (think cheap concept from moonshiners worm design) but i would recommend to keep res's out of room always no matter what cost

making progress on new system hopefully full wet run in next week or two (when last parts come in) will post new pics after full shake down, going make sure everything works as planned on full scale this time before transplant and before changing out of current horizantal system.

Very excited about adding dhf, gettogro, and undercurrent concepts to biobuckets, and my three part bucket (return, waterfall/pump, feed) res system from original design

if anyone who reads this post knows the fromula to figure out flow based on surface area of water/nutes, height of drain tube, and circumfance of drain tube, would be very helpful with next build, please post it.

with this design hopefully will have enough control of flow to regulate everything specifically enough to grow some big trees, but would love to know formula to dail in design and have no over due of design

 

[Sqydro]

yeah i always keep my res out of the g room so much easier to control enviroment in the nute solution.

what are you looking for the optimum flow rate for x amount of plants or optimum DO saturation for it?

 

[eL artist]

yeah i always keep my res out of the g room so much easier to control enviroment in the nute solution.

what are you looking for the optimum flow rate for x amount of plants or optimum DO saturation for it?

basing system flow rate on total nute capciety (to maintain proper DO saturation), bigtoke says system should flow 7-10 times an hour through a waterfall that is 7"-12" high for optimum DO saturation bigtoke
but the formula i would like is for example if i have a total surface area of 33 sq/in in my res (return bucket) and a i have a 4x 1" pipes 9 inches below water level (flows to waterfall/pump bucket) how many gallons per hour will come out of those 4 pipes, also would like to know if my total surface area of system (as currently designed and being built), including girl's totes, will act (force due to gravity) on waterfall flow or only surface area of return bucket. i know flow is dependent on surface area (really dependent on volume of liquid/and weight of liquid above drain tube [my return bucket is pretty uniform, why i think surface area will work] but if i need to figure out volume of liquid and weight to figure out equation, easy enough) and heigth and diameter of drain tube, would love to know equation to predict flow so i can dial everything in excatly

this current system is around 100 gallons so i look to flow that 10x a hour but due to misdesign water falls are only 7" from water level, system is on high side of good flow rate and low side of waterfall level, glad my temps are so low keeping root rot away cause not sure if DO is optimum

new system is going be about 216 gallons so upgrading to 2400 gph pump and goin have 27 different waterfalls between heights of 9"-15" plus my feed bucket design which should create a shit ton load of DO on top of waterfalls.

more flow seems to create better roots, my other system has 350gph pump and roots always get brown tint to them, this system 1000gph roots bone white and bigger

 

[eL artist]

peliminary wet run done on new design with 350 gph pump, and totes at same level w/ return and feed system, water fall design kickass those + pvc fittings on end of tubes cause so many bubbles (9 waterfalls with 350 gph pump) and feed bucket works as i kenw it would, 2 weeks til harvest and then goin vert ucrdwc bio buckets, will post pics oncee i install in room with full 2250 gph pump

if you run an uc system instead of pumping into pvc manifold buy a big ass garbage can a grommet for your pvc size and some hose fittings (for lid of garbage can) and just pump into top of garbage can, flow drops into water creating mad DO, pvc comes out bottom connects to manifold and goes to system, free shit load of DO you already using pump why not have it do two things

 

[C@nn@M@n]

Looks good artist keep up the good work

 

[eL artist]

been awhile since last update, (wk8 pics are in album) looks like we have been over fert and also had an issue with some mold on the roots, which we are guessig caused the what appears to be a ot great yield, oh well, wll do beter next time herearethe last update for this system
the overalls


roots