Ok, my Purple Queen clones, and Diesel and Green Crack seedlings have grown nice long roots in the aerocloner (pic) and they are ready to move to their DWC buckets.
I have 4 buckets, each with a basket pot lid (these are awesome), a thermometer, air stone, and little pump to move the fluid up to drip through the clay media on a schedule timer. And everything has been disinfected.
Here’s my question…to drip or not to drip?
Obviously there’s an electricity difference of running 4 little pumps. With separate buckets and no pump, there’s no fluid movement as in a connected system. Are there potential problems with non-moving fluids in DWC? Or, should I continue with the drip plan?
What size buckets do you have? BTW that’s a pretty red picture. Can you take a picture in natural light. It’s very hard to tell what we are looking at.
Also tells us about your grow. Why would you want to drip?
If you’ve got air stones and they’re sitting in water, why get the upper part all wet?
Sorry for the pics. I don’t have daylight or regular lights in the veg room, and that LED isn’t adjustable.
I moved all 4 plants today into their 5gal buckets (from hardware store, painted black). Here are a couple of pics after I changed to a different (1000W) LED.
I guess there would be less mold problems if the media is dry, but what about no fluid movement?
The plant in the center is in soil. It is one of the original Purple queen that had several life traumas and stunted. I’m only keeping it for sentimental purposes as it is very hardy. Don’t expect much out of it, and I don’t need a mother in soil.
Ok let me start by saying, sorry if I tell you something you already know.
In Five gal buckets, let me ask some questions:
Are you gonna scrog or just let the grow?
If you do decide to scrog how do you plan on changing the water?
If you don’t scrog how are you gonna change the water?
When they are in flower, they will drink 1-2 gal of water a day possibly, pending on a lot of things. Your bucket probably only is holding about 3 gal of water now. You will possibly be fighting PH problems throughout your whole grow. Or at least during flower.
Solution;
If you can get a tote and a water pump and a chiller because the water needs to be kept around 68 degrees, tie them all together, that will save you a lot of headache.
If you need help doing something like that, we will help you out. If this is all you got to work with, then good luck… j/k It’s not optimal but, it may work.
I’m sure there are plenty of folks on here that have grown in 5 gal buckets, I’m just not sure who.
If you need any help, please feel free to tag someone using the @ symbol in front of there name like @MawiWowi@BetrayedSoul@Myfriendis410@ItsPat
Looking good so far. Keep up the good work.
P.S. use your flash on you phone when you take pictures while lights are on. Or take pictures with flash right after lights go out.
OK, so quick answer to a couple ?s…I put brewers spigots at the bottom of each bucket, each connected to a hose. Makes for easy sampling, and drains about 95% of the fluid. The bucket filling part I’m still working out, but thinking a funnel and hose. I mixed all the fluids together, then distributed to 4 buckets, for consistency.
I had avg rez temps of 78 in the aeroponic cloner. I’m thinking of ice bottles set around outside of buckets.
I have 3 different strains there, and separate veg/flower rooms. This is the reason for separate buckets. The 2 in front of the pic are Purple Queen indica and will be moved to the flower room sooner than the Green Crack sativa. And the Diesel Autoflower will stay where it is.
SCROG only on the PQ, LST for GC, and I’ll just let the Diesel go natural.
Sounds like you got a plan! That’s great!
You got this!
If you want to go through my journal I’m working on now, it might give you an idea or two, or not… lol:joy:
Let me know and I’ll tag you in it. There are several awesome folks on here that can help improve on what you have to work with, if you want.
My journal started as DWC but, ended up doing RDWC. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Constantly improving for the good of the head!..lol
I’m sorry to say this won’t help much at all. I hated to do it but ended up buying a chiller. There is nothing that compares. I found mine on sale: get one for salt water aquariums which means they’re titanium lined. A standing rezervoir and buckets tied together will also help greatly. You will be having FUN in late flower (it puts the ‘Eff’ ‘You’ in FUN haha.
To refine into a single system will need to wait for the next grow, when I’ll be sticking to either autos or photos, alternately. This time the plants are so different, I need to treat as 4 separate systems so I can move them around.
Due to my excitement in rcvg sativa seeds from HGS, I germinated an auto and a photo. Added to the indica clones, my head is (will definitely be) spinning! Sativas are rare here, what I prefer for all day dosing, and I haven’t tasted good diesel in a couple years. Soo…I have to live with it and then begin again with the sativas creativity juices flowing!
In the meantime I’ll get ready…anyone have a used chiller for sale!?
Sorry I’m late to the game. How did they turn out? Is it no water movement at all? Not even an agitator? My concern would be algae and aeration. No movement would promote algae growth and no water oxidation would stunt root growth in my experience.
