As I’m getting to the end of my first soil grow I’m starting to scratch the surface of going hydro. I’m looking to go rdwc for the next go round and maybe a soil grow in another room for backup.
My question is; is there anyone that does a single plant rdwc or do you just do dwc? I do plan on SCROGing and my concern with dwc is being able to replace the reservoir water. With a rdwc, I’ll be able to pump the water out and refill it without having to disturb the plant. And also it seems like it’d be way easier to keep up with water levels with a separate reservoir.
Final question, how do you check your roots with a SROGed plant in rdwc/dwc setups?
If you net them they’ll need rdwc. Better for keeping the plant happy with the perfect PH/PMM that it wants
Roots go bye bye and are never seen after you net them
Being a soil grower looking from the outside I’ve also pondered this. It sure seems like the recirculating crowd moved from dwc or avoided it for some of the exact reasons you mentioned.
I’ll be on a much smaller scale (5 gal) so I’ll be able to pump it out. Also debating valves on each 5gal bucket (both reservoir side and plant side) and unions on the reservoir side so that I can shut off water and disconnect the old water bucket and install the fresh water bucket. And of course quick disconnects for the air stone lines in the reservoir.
Turn one valve off then the other on to drain
Added another airstone but through to much water on lid so now I have 1 large stone in each laying on its side
Make your drains bigger than mine. my pumps can overwhelm my drains
It seems as going rdwc would make life much easier. But I’m not seeing any setups anywhere with someone running just one plant rdwc. I don’t know if there’s a reason for that. I’m assuming I can just eliminate all of the other buckets in the system and maybe run the water pump less often?
That’s what I was looking for, my friend! Thank you. What I can’t really see is how you’re plumbed. Looks like you had a chiller, was that running to your plant bucket or reservoir?
That high times article seems like it’s just a dwc with a reservoir. No pump other than the air pump.
Was this enough flow to recirculate properly? Or did you have another recirculating pump and return lines? I’m getting a water chiller because the only time my house will see 68* is if I forgot to turn the heater on.
It basically is DWC until you take a submersible pump, put it in the “control bucket”, and run a hose from the pump to the “plant bucket”.
I usually run the hose to a barbed 90 like this
This will try and fill the “plant bucket” with water but the interconnected pipe will then allow drainage or an “undercurrent” back into the “control bucket”.
I basically take my chiller and have the pump move water from the control bucket, to the chiller, then back to the plant bucket
Once the water hits the barbed 90 it shoots back into the plant bucket like this picking up when more oxygen and mixing nutrient solutions very quickly.
This is the very first, single plant, undercurrent, two bucket system that I ever built
Yes, you can see in the picture above how fast the water is jetting out
400 GPH Submersible Water Pumps for Aquarium, Tabletop Fountains, Pond, Water Gardens and Hydroponic Systems with Two Nozzles, CE-ROHS Approved, 5.9 ft Power Cord
