Hi everyone. So my toes have been dipped. I’ve made a DIY RDWC. I’ve been pulling it apart and putting it back together for three days now, but it’s up and running. I’m happy for any feedback from any other growers on where it can improve.
27 litre reservoir in the tent which is 400mm off the floor. Pipes run down through the floor to a 40 litre reservoir underneath.
I am using some pumps from an old fish tank and work. Settled on an old work one. It’s over powered for the job so I did a little pipe mod on the inlet because it was too loud.
I’m thinking that the 40litre reservoir may be a bit of overkill and will probably mean I’ll need to use more nutrients.
that’s it for now
Happy Growing!!
Vivosun 2x3
Viperspectra XS1500
A and B
@cookiegrow morning, looking good so far.
other suggestions may follow over time but for starters, I’d like to suggest covering your netpot to prevent light leaks to your nutes (light leaks can promote algae growth in your nutes, not good). And if Rez temps are a concern, a loose fitting insulating jacket around your plant site will help. Loose will be more effective because of the inefficiency of air as a thermal conductor.
here’s An example of what I did, feel free to copy any ideas.
@cookiegrow looks sweet mate! I think your sizes are spot on 👌 I'm running 2 x 38 litre totes with a 65 litre reservoir outside the tent. It's very similar to your setup and I'm loving it. I've actually used the exact same totes as your 27L. They come in larger sizes, at Bunnings, here in Oz.
My old setup was roughly half the size and, so far, I've found my nutrient use has only slightly increased. I do use more to fill the reservoir but now I don't need to top it up nearly as much. I haven't done the math yet but I wouldn't be surprised if my overall nutrient use was similar in both systems.
For me, the larger reservoir also makes it easier to control the PH, EC and temperature. But the best sweetener by far has to be bigger plants. Nice work mate 👍 I hope you enjoy it mate! RDWC can be real fun so I'm keen to see you smash it.
@josh82 cheers mate. Bunnings is where I shop. I’m feeling good about my setup now. And I can easily upscale on it as @sevans said. Saw the insulated covers that will be my next step. Thanks for all the help and advice.
happy growing!!
@cookiegrow can't beat Bunnings right! Have fun and all the best with the grow mate. I'm still new and have heaps to learn but don't hesitate if you have any questions.
Got roots. It’s been 2 1/2 weeks since cutting. I’m hoping they don’t take too long to reveg. I do have a little clone in soil that looks like it’s growing but it wasn’t as far into flower. I’ll remember for next time to take a cutting earlier.
happy growing!!
So I’ve made a bit of a change. I’ve got two girls that I need to get flowering and I decided to put them in the 2x3. She has taken her time going into reveg. I’ve got a couple of sets of three leaves on top which I believe is a sign she has started. I’m getting 10000 lux with both the doors open which is enough for her to veg until she gets back in the tent. On a plus it was quite easy to remove the bucket so I’m pretty happy with my design. Starting to get some nice roots happening.
happy growing!!
TWO WEEKS!! She is a little under the weather. Definitely time to change the res. But unfortunately the EC/PH pen I ordered hasn’t shown up yet. It’s only a cheap one but I’m off work after I tore my calf muscle then put my back out while on holiday so no workcover. Should be back at work next week 🤞. I have a EC/ppm pen (supercheap one) and a garden moisture probe that measures ph in .5 increments that I’m using, because I dropped my PH pen in the res and now doesn’t work.So who really knows where PH/EC really sits right now. WHAT A ROOKIE!! The new one is waterproof 😬.
I’m pretty happy with the root development . But I have no comparison being my first time and all.
happy growing!!
Tough position to be in all around, I hope your physical condition is improving.
ouch, not have test pens, defiantly like driving with your eyes closed. Roots look good from here so far, the root volume will increase exponentially.
BTY- since you’ve not been able to test regularly (recently), has your water level at least been dropping daily ?
@sevans1965 thanks mate. Yeah the res has dropped. I probably lost a little bit of water when I disconnected it. It’s now a couple of centimetres below the outlet. I watched a video about airstones some produce small bubbles some large. You have any experience in this and if ones better or a combination of both?
to be clear about my comment, in your absence of being able to measure ph/ec, if your water level was dropping, indicating she’s still drinking, that’s a good thing. If she hasn’t been drinking you’ll need to take some quick action. That moisture pride with a 0.5 measuring range, first, as you probably know, that’s way too much range for hydro, second, I’m not sure how accurate it is in this application.
Small fine bubbles air bubbles are the best (Champagne bubbles size wise). Will equal more bubbles and surface area of the bubbles contacting and oxiginating the water.
what I was trying to get across regarding the bubbles, the surface area to volume ratio.
example (arbitrary #’s as far as actual bubble size). so the math doesn’t hurt my head on a Friday):
If you had 1 bubble with a volume of 1 cubic mm, it would have a surface area of 4.836 sq. mm.
now take that 1 cubic mm bubble and break it up into 10 equal bubbles. Each bubble has a volume of 0.1 cubic mm, which has a surface area of 1.0419 sq. mm . Multiple that by 10= 10.419 sq. mm
to summarize:
1 bubble of air has a surface area of 4.836 sq. mm
that same bubble divided into 10 bubbles has a total surface area of 10.419 sq. mm
A 50’ish% increase of efficiency in this example.
the more surface contact between the bubbles surface and the water, you will get better dissolved oxygen in your solution.
in my setup, I opted for two smaller airstones in each bucket verses one larger airstone. I posted a video of my setup I think in my grow diary #17, I made an air manifold, then taped off smaller airlines. Cheap easy and effective without having a shit load of hoses laying around my tent.
@sevans1965 thanks for all your input. I was looking the other day at your #17 diary I don’t think it was that one. Anyway it’s all good. Oh my head is still hurting from your maths.
cheers mate. I’ll definitely do my best to get to the next zoom chat
Hooray my pen finally arrived yesterday. I changed the res a few days ago and did my best to setup up the Ph/Ec. Tested it with the new pen and I wasn’t to far off. I’m feeling happy that so far everything has been at an acceptable level.
On another positive is it looks like we are moving out of re-veg. Starting to get some new sets of leaves shooting. Roots are starting to get long now and look pretty clean. For now my ph is at 5.8 EC 860 which I assume is a reading of 0.8 with my water temp at 18.6c. Haven’t been checking heaps but it’s remained pretty steady when I have checked. I know it’s not perfect Ph/Ec but I’m going to leave it until the next res change as she seems happy enough.
Also I said fuck it and chucked the two girls waiting to flower in the big tent. So I put everything together in the 2x3 again. I’ve got two more cuttings going in coco that are going to come along for the ride. I know one is also a pineapple chunk the other is either argyles stash or pineapple chunk x strawberry cough. I’ll only veg these guys in here. I’ve set up a self watering system that feeds them out of the res.
Happy growing!!
Looks like we have moved on from re-veg. The new growth is taking over.
Roots have smashed it this week. I was really surprised how they packed on. I’m going to change out the res today as I’m back to work tomorrow then I’ve got a few things to get done on my days off after that.
The coco grow is coming along as well. The one on the right is looking like she has moved on to veg the girl on the left is still about behind.
happy growing!!
So I trimmed her up getting rid of all the re- veg growth and did some training. Roots have changed colour and all the re-veg was yellowing. I mixed the nutrients when I changed the res and was sweet with my readings but was way off the next day. Also my water temp has gone up to 24c so I added 3 litres of cold water out of the fridge which will hopefully get my EC from 1.5 down to 1.2 as well. Trial and error for now still working on it.
These are the coco clones. Trimmed them up getting rid of the unsightly re-veg. I transplanted the small one into a larger pot as roots were coming out the bottom. So without enough room I have chucked it in the flower tent. I have done training on one as you can see.
6 weeks from cutting starting to get things dialed in a bit better. Ph is sitting at 5.9 and EC 1.2 she has had some great growth over the last week so I’m going to for go a res change for now and just let her keep drinking.
happy growing!!
A little early on my weekly update but I got things I gotta do man!! Ph jumped around a bit this week but checked today and was sitting on 6.12 with an EC 1.1. I will change out the res over the next couple of days.
It was a bit of a mission but I got my cover off to have a look at the roots. I was pretty impressed. Question for anyone that reads this. Do the roots look healthy? I think they are.
happy growing!!
@cookiegrow morning-
24c for rez temp is getting too high.
root health, hard to tell sometimes if they are healthy due to color.
the brown tint you’re seeing would have me on high alert for root rot. But not necessarily, depending on you nutrients etc., depending on brand, they can stain your roots, as well as the plastic.
the nutes I used to use would discolor my roots and plastic, usually it would rinse off no problem, until one day it didn’t, roots were slimy and didn’t smell pleasant. How does it smell, if they have an off smell that could be another indication of trouble.
if you’re struggling to keep rez temp low, you may want to change nutrient solution more often, and/or use something like hydrogaurd or similar.
@sevans1965 cheers mate. I chucked some ice in the res this morning before I left for work. I didn’t notice a smell at all but there was a bit of sliminess around the air bubble tube. Last shift today, so I’ll get on to giving it all a good clean and change out tonight or tomorrow.🤙
@sevans1965 could he do a hydrogen peroxide spray and run a water only res with rdwc Ive never dont it but coming from doing planted aquariums my whole life I know when I would have things like excess algae or black beard algae the hydrogen peroxide would kill anything back and the by product was oxygen never effected any plants or fish then after a day get his nutrients back in
@jdog always hard to tell for sure across the interweb, I know others have used H2O2 washes to clean roots. My grow diary #17 I got root rot just before switching nutes (nutes that don’t stain). I ran a sterile Rez for a week, I’d have to look at my notes, but I added maybe 1 ml Clorox bleach for every gallon of water.
looking back at his photos though, I wonder if it’s discoloration from the nutes. Not the last pic of the roots, but the one before that, that got my attention, but the very last picture of the roots, I don’t think would look like that compared to the last if there was root root. But given the temps, be on the look out for sure.
@sevans1965 was just a thought from passed aquatic experience I use it on my pumps to remove algae build up still usually half way through my runs and at the end always love watching it eat away the algae I know from memory that the break down when it kills the algae only creates oxygen still remember the first time doing it on my aquariums was so worried it would kill my fish tank was a 6x2x3ft tank planted super heavily with big schools of things like neon tetras and rummy nose tetras but every now and then the mosses would get bit of algae on them even with the 1000s of shrimp in their cleaning hopefully its just some staining from the nutrients tho
@jdog more than one method of attacking root rot, and hydrogen peroxide is one tool that can be used. 👍
I use H2O2 throughout my grows and it seems to do a good job. I think it has multiple benefits as it keeps my roots and system clean plus it also produces more oxygen which the roots love. I just add 2ml per 10 litres of feed. I'm not very botanical or scientific but it may help. This is the stuff I use.
So some bad news with this grow. My water temp was up to 26 degrees and adding ice blocks wasn’t helping much the plant was really suffering. I shut up shop and transferred her outside into a 10 gallon pot of soil. Let’s see what happens. I’ve bought a small fish tank water chiller which was delivered today. Will revisit dwc in the near future. Just need to finish off some other grows first.
happy growing!!
@cookiegrow so this was the problem I had with hydro that kinda made me turn away, but I didn’t stop 😋
my pot/hydro setup works good as it only holds about 2.5 liters at any given time (adjustable)
my 10 gal Rez is in a closet that is cooler than my room by about 10 deg F
i have had root rot before and peroxide water wash and then a phd water soak helped after trimming bad roots
here is how my dwc setup works. I don’t use an air stone or a pump just straight gravity feed.
https://percysgrowroom.com/forum/hydroponic-diaries/octopup-promix-hydro-setup/
Just Grow It!
~ Johncarlson21 ~
Today is the start of day 5 since I chucked her into the soil. Net bucket and all 😂. She has actually started to perk up on the tops. Yesterday everybody was still looking sad so hopefully it won’t be a total loss.
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