@Graysin here you go. 
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You da MVP - I’ll read up.
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Hi all! Thank you for the replies and tips and grow journals. Thank you @HappyHydroGrower
I’ve had a busy couple work days but I’m happy to report that I am getting a higher stability on pH readings! After my confusion on the TDS and pH changes after the water change, I adjusted it and things have been pretty steady. I’ve topped off with distilled water like you guys mentioned, been measuring multiple times a day, and things have been good. I’m also seeing trichome improvement in just a couple days on one of my weaker plants.
My conclusion to my problems is that like you all pointed out, 5 gallons isn’t a lot for a grow. That coupled with user error on not topping off water and fixing pH changes well enough at times led to some wonkiness.
So I’ve been a bit worn down and still need to look through grow journals but I really liked the look of the buckets @Jungle sent along and found a place online selling them on sale for $13 a pop and bought 5x 8
gallon buckets. Then bought lids on Amazon for almost the same price. Not sure if I’ll do a 4 plant grow to start or go a little easier on myself and do a 2 plant grow when I build this new system. And need to research your grow journals.
Attached are some pics of the current grow and then of
the new buckets I ordered. I need to put a lot of thought into whether to do a chiller or not.
Eyes are blurry. Onwards ho!
-42-
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13$ each?!? Well now I need to go looking that is a great price for the ez store buckets,
I’m using the same 8 gallon ones, they are great!
Work and life come first!
Every other knowledgeable hydro grower on here says to bite the bullet and get a chiller, everyone agrees it sucks the price sucks but the value and consistency is well worth it. 1/10 or 1/4 hp depending on how many gallons you plan to have in your system.
Glad you are getting it all figured out and heading in the right direction! Girls are looking good great start on those bud formations!
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Hah I bought one but can’t use it until add a breaker
I exchange 4 two liter bottles every day . It sounds like a pain but is easier than mixing nutes every day when I was watering coco every day.
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@Syndrix I found it at groindoor.com. It was a one day sale but currently at $15. But they didn’t have the lids. I really liked the look of the buckets but was struggling with the idea of $38 on Amazon so I jumped when I saw it! Lol
As far as a chiller, I’m not sure I’ll need it. But I won’t know till it’s too late I guess. I have my tent set up in my kitchen and I can close the kitchen off and have an air conditioner in the window in there possibly. I also run the ac in my apt cold non stop all summer.
I’ve had my current water temperature at 75-80 the entire time and I don’t think they’ve had any issues with it. Maybe just not perfection.
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I’ve had my chiller the entire, so my solution stays 66-68f.
I’ve seen others successful not use chillers, and your right it’s grower/situation dependant really.
Basement grower on slab in north won’t need a chiller as bad as someone in Texas without ac 
dramatic example, but I specialize in those.
I’ve seen growers use all sorts of solutions instead of chiller as well, frozen bottles of water, copper coils in buckets or routed through a fridge, some of this depends how available you are to address it as well.
It was important to me to be able to be away for x days and my plants not need me, which is a huge bonus to RDWC get it all set up and going smooth you literally can leave it for days/weeks
I’m curious to see what the other way more knowledgeable hydro growers say about 75-80 f water temps, I’ve heard anything over 70 isn’t recommend, but that could have also been a dramatic number
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In my reading through the forums now, I’m seeing 68 as the target and a big emphasis on cooling but when I bought my current setup my research online in general said to keep it under 80.
I do need to be able to go away and have some vacations planned. But the chillers are pretty pricey. I have a feeling I can get away without one for early summer but may need one for late summer.
The chiller factor will play into my decision making on whether to create a 4 bucket system or 2. That’s what I’ll wrestle with the most for now bc 4 buckets could be a lot of work on a system I’m unfamiliar where things could go wrong. As well as not knowing if 4 plants will get too big for my 4x4 tent. So far I’ve grown 2-3 at a time and they end up growing so damn big.
But of course I want to go big also and 4 plants would be really cool🤣. Damn decisions.
Why the hell are bulkheads so expensive, it’s ridiculous.
-42-
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Hey this is jj and you can buy a stick style transfer pump at menards for 12 bucks
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Thanks Jay. I don’t think I have any if those stores near me on the east coast - I haven’t heard of them. But soon after beginning growing in soil I bought one on Amazon. Unfortunately it was a few times that price but has served me well.
Tonight I changed the water on my one fussier plant again. I decided to change water more frequently until I have a firm control of my pH issues. I decided to first put the plant in a separate bucket of clean water and swish it around a bit before putting it into the clean nutrients. The dunk/root-wash bucket is chock full of root bits. I think that’s at the ROOT of my problem! 
Lol.
The pic doesn’t show it that well but the bucket has so much dead root in it. I bet I could do it more times with clean buckets and wash away more dead root.
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yea you should not be getting what you see when rinsing your roots…small bits that break off while moving but that would be all you should see…time for Hydroguard or some other root inoculant…
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Yeah Roger that. I have only began using hydroguard for the last 2 weeks or so of the grow. Lesson learned. And I’ll continue the root washes and more frequent water changes for a bit.
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@42 your pic is exactly why i purchased a fluval aquarium canister filter. This res is 3 weeks old. A pump bag “a good one” will help tremendously also. Mine flows back to the res in 3" drain pipe, i have a pump bag on thatvas a prefilter, then the fluval cycles the res at 1000 gph through the filter. The recirc and chiller pumps are also im a composting bag to keep stuff from going back to the plants and trapping it in the res and filter.
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@42 i got the idea from a science non canabis hydroponics article. Just remember you want to remove any carbon or specialty filter media, and only use mechanical so you dont leech out the nutes.
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So the aquarium filter is just a mechanical filter?
I have a 100 micron filter in my system which does catch things floating around. But I have an unused aquarium filter like yours (not a fluval, but same idea)…
How often do you see material build up of significant quantity?
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I use Jack’s and never have build up or cloudy water. Going on 3 weeks right now with just adding nutes and sometimes just water.
1040 ppm’s right there.
Now, with that being said, if your not having problems, don’t fix it…. Just sayin.
Also you have to keep in mind, my growing conditions may be different and I don’t use near as many additives as anybody else either.
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@Syndrix dammit! I knew it was too good to be true. Just got an email today that the buckets I ordered are on backorder with no ETA and they cancelled my order. So pissed! I already bought the darn lids from Amazon and received them. Very frustrated and will have to rethink my build. Or maybe just go with another plain DWC but implementing better practices.
Bunch of malarkey!
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Dang that sucks, I was debating ordering the 13 gallon ones lol
I still want to replace my buckets at some point lol
The issue I had with most of the regular plastic totes is most of them bend out pretty bad when full of water
Never did any thick enough I really liked besides these stupid expensive ones.
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