Thoughts On Hydroponics and RDWC Systems

DHF said:

Medi , I`m not sure there`s a way to do away with the airpump/heatpump in an undercurrent setup due to the way it`s built/setup to flow.....

See.....the pump`s setup "outside" the control bucket/epicenter , whatever the fuck they call it , and it "pulls" juice through the buckets slow as fuck IMO, and then pumps it back to the controller for somewhat of a waterfall effect , but with those bigass pvc drainpipes , it`d be hardta pump enough juice through the system without disturbing the rootzones while surely pushin roots straight into the drains for constant clogging.......

Smaller pvc pipe increases pressure and would recirculate far faster as in Heathies "souped up" Aquafarms he uses 1 1/2" drains on.....

I often thought about a recirculating setup that would blast juice through the system in 1 direction with 1 pump for X amount of hrs, and then that pump kicks off and another 1 kicks on ta pump juice in the "opposite" direction to train roots away from the drains and keep em from growing/flowing in 1 continuous direction FTW.....

I also thought that inside the bottom buckets could be "T"`s on the front and backside of the feed/drainlines to divert flow away from directly hitting the rootmass`s straight on , and create flow "around" the rootzones with a big enough pump to cause a swirling vortex of seriously oxygenated juice around the rootzones as it gets pushed on to the next container , so on and so forth.....

Smaller feed/drainlines= more increased pressure/faster flow.......Bigass pipe= less pressure/slower flow....My vertical rack rooms used 5200 gph "pond aerator" pumps with 13' head pressure to be ableta choke down the flow with control valves on all 4 levels so as to create "equal" flow and pressure to each individual plantsite/container regardless of which level they were on regardless of how close or how far away from the pump they were located...........

That "T" with an elbow inside my rez`s above the pumps helped as a bypass for such a bigass pump while blasting juice back down for that jetstream waterfall effect.......

Pretty sure your UC can`t be retro`d to do away with the heat blastin airpump Bro , cuz you`ve already got the waterfall return comin back to rez as juice gets pumped back through the buckets.....

Get rid of the shit and build a "Heathie" setup like Cyat`s killin it with.......I`m sure you can prolly get closeta what yas paid for the UC`s since they`re so popular with the kiddies.......

Peace....DHF.........

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Billy Liar said:

HI peeps,
RE pumps, I've tried a few submersibles now and what I've found is that pumps that give more head pressure tend to transfer more heat to the solution (only submersible pumps), so I use a low wattage pump that moves lots of water, the trick is to size supply pipes accordingly... A few warm res's led me back to my college books on pipe sizing... lol..
Externally fitted mag drive pumps should not transfer any real heat as the motor (coil) is not in the solution, but for me piping a pump externally is not simple enough...
A grower known as cabron has just built one of these systems and has his pump on a timer, cant remember what intervals but he's reached impressive DO levels.. I personally think NO timers should be used on pumps as it's introducing another point of failure risk.. timer sticks off and BIG probs are on their way..

Simple ways to get the DO required IMO are:
Waterfall effect in grow tub AND res,
Plenty of flow through pebbles using either full bore pipe or lots of drippers..
And Constantly running your Circulation pump.

It would be interesting to hear Heaths opinion on this but my minimum flow to each bucket would be 1000 lph... I suppose bigger buckets would require more flow... with enough flow and DO there should be NO dead spots in the system, ie areas with low DO, and root growths shows this to be true....

peace
BL

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Al B. Fuct said:

1. Decide while stoned to become a weed baron
2. Plant leftover bagseeds and go looking for lights
3. Try to steal neighbor's floodlights, burn fingers, go to plan B after healing up
4. Buy incandescent halogen lights at OfficeJerks cos they look real bright and one blacklight over at the head shop cos it's purpleyness is cool as fuck and makes the Jimi Hendrix velvet poster glow something wicked
5. 4 out of 72 seeds sprout, fuckin ace!
6. All 4 get stretchy, fall over and die
7. Put the black light a little closer to cheer it up
8. Smoked the dried out seedling, gave me a headache, so I planted some more bagseeds
9. Dug out Uncle Bob's marijuana grow book from 1972, marveled at nail-thru-stem technique for improving potency
10. 9 out of 147 sprout, fuckin ace!
11. Put a pound of nails in salty water to get em good and rusty
12. All 9 get stretchy, fall over and die
13. I figured they wasn't getting enough light, so I stole granny's big ole heat lamp and a couple of headlights from some passing cars (damn they're hard to grab at stoplights)
14. Planted more seeds, put more bullshit and a couple of dead fish in soil mix this time (hey it worked for the Indians and the Pilgrims)
15. Neighbours complained about the shitty fish smell, I told them to rack off, so they called the cops, who confiscated all the 'evidence.'
16. Saw story on Fox News about wicked intarwebs sites about marijuana growing warping kids brains, figured I wasn't warped enough
17. Found pot growing website, figured I'd do a big favor for all those newbie idiots who'd never planted a seed and show em how to do it
18. Typed Uncle Bob's entire 1972 Yippie Underground growbook into the pot growing website, waited for praises to flow in
19. No one said nothing, so I typed it in again IN ALL CAPS SO THEY COULD READ IT BETTER
20. Decided I'd hang around and learn something, there's this guy who says his friend's uncle's brother in law once knew a guy who grew like POUNDAGE in an old refrigerator
21. Stole a refrigerator and put all my halogen lights in it along with a 5000 watt security light I found on top of a football stadium
22. Planted 693 more seeds in old coconut shells and put a half a box of Miracle Gro granules on each one
23. One sprouted and it screamed at me to kill it before it had to spend another second in that damn fridge
24. Gave up tryin to be a weed baron
25. Got stoned again decided to put the Arabs out of biz with a car the will run on leftover Mountain Dew
26. Broke into a vending machine and stole 900 cans of Mountain Dew
27. and so on...

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I was like WTF....2 threads ?.......

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MediMary said:

So in heaths modifided aqua farms, it had the inner and outer bucket, on heaths last build out he used this thing.

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I notice he only drills holes in the bottom, Is this to prevent lateral root growth from floating over and clogging the pump??

Also does having the inside bucket closer to the wall/side where the drain is help prevent roots from growing into the drain? here the 4 gallon bucket is much further from the side with the drain, where as in the pictures of the aquafarms it looks to be super close(which seems like it would help prevent clogs)

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