RDWC build

[Wise]

Awesome engineering! How do you clean this thing?

 

[Ole MacDonald]

Awesome engineering! How do you clean this thing?

Good question! We are going to be running peroxide regularly which will do two things:

1. It will eliminate any amount of chlorine in the system. I ran a test a few days ago where I added straight bleach to a reservoir containing water and a high concentration of H2O2. The bleach fizzed up the second it hit the surface of the water, and the chlorine smell was totally eliminated seconds later. Adding this will allow us to reset the ppms of chlorine-based products easily.

2. Clean any biofilm/bacteria that could be forming.

As far as particulate matter, that will get caught in the drain sleeves on the way out. If the particulate matter is too heavy to make it into the drain spout, like clay pieces, then it will just sit on the bottom until the plant comes out. The system will harvest three times a cycle... 12 buckets each time. Each of these times, we will be able to clean 12 buckets by hand.

Every harvest, we will run Physan 20 (1 ml/gal) through the system for a couple hours, followed by a new batch of H2O2 (3 ml/gal), and then a new clean reservoir containing nutes and something like Pythoff, Clear Rez, UC Roots, etc. We haven't decided on the sterilizing agent yet, and will be trying several to see which one allows us to go the longest between res changes.

We are also going to be trying to run this system with beneficials, and there is currently talk of alternating between the sterile approach and beneficials.

I still want to try the lava rock basket for beneficials under the waterfalls. After we get the plants established, we will test the system with beneficials and lava rocks to see how long we can go without a res change. We'll still clean the system periodically with peroxide to eliminate any build-up, and we'll add back the beneficials after each cleaning.

In short, I'm not sure how this system will run for the long-term. But I will be sure once we test each possibility. Zero reservoir changes per cycle is the ultimate goal, and Big Toke said he was able to accomplish that with his bio-bucket system. This is very similar to that system.

Looking forward to posting our findings. =)

 

[olddirtybastard]

great work, i can see a lot of thought went into this build. heat guns work wonders for stubborn hoses btw

 

[dupester]

So.......


Here is something interested and unexpected that happened. I bought 1000 Watt Phantom digital ballasts with the 600W and 750W option. The plan was to run the ballasts at 750 Watts all the time, but I learned something today. Even when set to 750W, each ballast uses 1000 Watts to warm up. I wouldn't have known this if the relay I have didn't tell me the amperage being used. So nine ballasts, all set to 750 Watts, used 41.5 amps for about 15 minutes upon start-up, and then dropped down to 31.5 amps. This is important to know!!

I ran a 50 amp line that was intended to handle the flowering lights, veg lights (three 600W magnetic), and the 1 hp water chiller (800 Watts). For the 15 minutes these ballasts take to warm up, I would not be able to run all of these at the same time safely. So the veg lights are going to have to be off when the flowering lights first turn on to prevent maxing out the circuit.

I would have been very confused when the circuit popped each time if I didn't have this relay that told me the amperage. Lesson learned.

Or... stagger your HPS light startup by 15 min

 

[BreezeEazy]

We are also going to be trying to run this system with beneficials, and there is currently talk of alternating between the sterile approach and beneficials.

Bennies can thrive side-by-side with salt based nutes? When I made the switch from synthetics to organics I was taught it is all or nothing kind of deal. With organics, the bennies do the work while with synthetics everything is already available and that the salts hurt the bennies more than anything. What line are you going to run?

 

[Ole MacDonald]

Or... stagger your HPS light startup by 15 min

I am all about efficiency in the flowering room, and all twelve hours of light are spent growing flowers at full power. I don't use individual timers either, as you'll see above in the thread. Someone else already suggested that.

Bennies can thrive side-by-side with salt based nutes? When I made the switch from synthetics to organics I was taught it is all or nothing kind of deal. With organics, the bennies do the work while with synthetics everything is already available and that the salts hurt the bennies more than anything. What line are you going to run?

No salts don't keep bennies from thriving. There are many products specifically designed to run in hydroponic reservoirs that introduce bennies to a system (Aquashield for example). Big Toke's Bio Buckets ran GH 3-part, and I've been running GH for most of my time growing. I messed around with other nutes, and I really like Canna too except for the price.

"Synthetics" are the same exact molecules that you find in organic nutes, except they are broken down into smaller pieces. This is exactly why beneficial bacteria are so useful in soil. Plants cannot consume big organic molecules without breaking them down first, and bennies help plants do this. Hydroponic nutes are already broken down for the plant so it can use them more easily. If you go to the grocery store, buy your food, bring it home, cook it and eat it, then you'd be a plant in soil. If you do all that work, but have staff helping you prepare your food, then you would be a plant in soil with bennies assisting you. If you go out to a nice restaurant and the food is brought to you already prepared and ready to eat, then you would be a plant in hydro. So these compounds are present in soil as well, and the bennies are actually helping to deliver them to roots. This is evidence that the compounds are not bad for them.

 

[Ole MacDonald]

We've been experimenting with different approaches, and I thought I'd post some findings.

I ran a series of tests, including bleach, SM-90, Clear Rez, Pythoff, etc.... in different combinations, trying to find the approach we liked best for a sterile system. In the end, I liked using them all (except for bleach) together in reduced amounts. SM-90 is really amazing stuff, and I'm liking it more and more.

I really love running bennies, so we emptied and flushed the system entirely and threw some Aquashield in while we brewed a compost tea. Today we administered the tea by pouring it through the clay pebbles in the net pots. There is a big basket that sits beneath one of the water falls in the reservoir containing lava rock. The lava rocks were in the tea while it was brewing to inoculate them before introducing them to the reservoir.

In other news, we successfully rooted clones in this thing too. (pre 98 Bubba Kush) This was done while running the system sterile. This system holds 225 gallons total, and the following was used while rooting...

16 oz Clear Rez (hypochlorous acid)
75 ml Pythoff (chloramine)
200 ml SM-90

This might seem a little overboard, but the cuttings seemed to love it. I couldn't see if they were rooting through the clay pebbles, so I pulled them all out. 15 out of 16 had grown roots, and the last one had nubs. Of course when I pulled them out, the roots were damaged, so they will have to grow back.

The test now is to see how long we can go after inoculation without changing the reservoir. There are hardly any roots to colonize at the moment, so it will be interesting to see if the lava rock is enough to keep the bennies happy. I suppose without plants feeding them, they will go south at some point. I have another tea brewing right now. I love compost tea!! Here is the recipe we used:

5 gallon bucket filled up to about 4 gallons:

2 liters Alaskan Humus (thousands of different beneficials)
A squirt of Plant Success's "Orca"
One Scoop of "Pro-Mix PUR Mycorrhizal Inoculant" (Glomus intraradices)
30 ml of Aquashield
.5 liter Bountea BioActivator (food for the bennys)

We start the water at around 60 degrees to give the fungi a head start. As the tea brews it warms to around 72 degrees and stays there, which gets the bacteria going strong. I stop brewing tea anywhere between 24 and 36 hours to keep the diversity. The plants ultimately decide the bennies they wanna keep around.

On a side note: I met the brother of the guy who invented Bountea at a seminar once, and he told me that after further study, they now believe that brewing compost tea for only 24 hours is best.

Anyway, the humus is enough to get a massive diversity and keep the bad guys away all on its own. The other stuff helps with longevity though.

I will report back on how the cuttings respond to the beneficial bath they are in. =)

 

[BreezeEazy]

Killer man, I'm glad I'll get to live vicariously through you as I'll be sticking to soil for the moment Keep the grow porn coming!

 

[Pophamseasmoke]

Finally caught up I'm subbed in. Gonna be makin' the switch also to another Bio-rdwc Frankenstein myself. Thanks alot this tutorial is sweet whole lotta work there! Hope your gonna make this your grow journal would like to chronicle the system.

 

[10after420]

I'm subbed. Lovin it so far. Can't wait to see you rockin some plants! I have two 33 gall rdwc setups, and am debating adding waterfalls to my buckets, over airstones right now. i run a chiller so it's interesting to me to not have it run so much. My airpums are hot! so get this show rollin lol! I'ma waitin on you!

All bs aside, good luck man! This grow is gonna Rock the House!

 

[DapperDon]

Would it be possible to show how the drain lines are connected back into circulation? This is a very well thought out system and there are aspects that I am interested in using myself. Thanks.