Micro DWC Ideas and ?'s

Diesel_N_Blood · Oct 12, 2011

So I've got this plan on running a couple plants in the beer cup challenge using dwc. I've already made 2 cups but am waiting for the net cups and airstones to arrive. I started 2 more PistolPete's Bubba x Blueberry IBL. These are what is going to be placed in the cups.

I took some pics of the cups as I made them. I tried a couple of different ways and this seems to be the easiest and most successful way.

Here's what I used.

[*]Cheap aquaium air line.
[*]your choice party cup. (I used Solo cups.)
[*]some kind of drill (I used a RC body reamer, which makes perfect holes and I can get the perfect size thats needed to seal the hose to the cups).

Take reamer and start hole as close to bottom as you can. Remember that you need to take into account for the hole you'll be makeing so I started about 1/4" above the bottom curve.

Now that you have a hole made keep double checking the hole size to the tubing. You want the hole to be undersized and perfectly circular so it will seal with out using any type of sealant.

Once that size is reached insert the tubing and check to see if it seals.

Here I hooked up the airlines to a whisper60 pump. I am going to split the 1 side into 2 seperate lines so I can hopefully run 4 cups.

Hopefully I can run the cups for a couple of days without changing the nutes. I only have ph down right now but will be heading to the store to get some PH UP also.

So what do you guys think about this little setup. Is it worth a shot? Any comment or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks
DnB

GP73LPC · Oct 12, 2011

cool...

you don't have to use the airstone, but i guess if they are already ordered...

best of luck

Diesel_N_Blood · Oct 12, 2011

GP73LPC said:
cool...

you don't have to use the airstone, but i guess if they are already ordered...

best of luck

I thought about not using them but since I am going to be running 4 cups I want to have a little pressure on the lines and try to get the bubbles as small as possible. I order 7/8"long mirco bubble airstones. I'll try them first and see if it will work. They were very cheap. I got 16 of them for under $5.

Besides I am still waiting on the seeds to crack open. OR they'd be filled already.

Thanks for the comment GP

+K
DnB

MMJcali · Oct 13, 2011

hmm, pretty sweet. what exactly is the black cap thing?

Diesel_N_Blood · Oct 13, 2011

MMJcali said:
hmm, pretty sweet. what exactly is the black cap thing?

They are lids off of the small folgers coffee container. They fit perfectly inside the cup and have a lip that keeps them centered.
DnB

GP73LPC · Oct 13, 2011

ha, ha, that's what i was gonna guess, plastic coffee can lids :good:

FreezerBoy · Oct 13, 2011

D'oh! Deisel make Freezerboy feel dumb like rock.

I'm stealin' this!!! Mine, mine, mine mine, mine!

Recently moved, starting over from scratch with seed, I used 4" Rockwool to keep plants in until they sexed (tried doing it in a shared dwc once, tangled roots were a nightmare.) After years of DWC I'd forgotten how slow cubes are. A six unit farm like yours would make a perfect starter/holding pen for transfer to a larger tub. No untangling roots daily, no root condoms, no big ol' cubes...

I wonder if 2 liter soda bottles might work... May not even need to cut off the top. If the starter cube were small enough (still love Rockwool for germ) it could just slip into the top of the bottle. Figure a way to drain and fill...

This one's for you Diesel

mcfly420 · Oct 13, 2011

I would connect them all to a larger reservoir using that tubing. Have a 5gal bucket next to them, and raise the cups a few inches. It would keep things consistent and make draining/filling much easier

Diesel_N_Blood · Oct 13, 2011

mcfly420 said:
I would connect them all to a larger reservoir using that tubing. Have a 5gal bucket next to them, and raise the cups a few inches. It would keep things consistent and make draining/filling much easier

Thats the next step. I've got a small pump that i was going to put in a 2.5gal bucket and circulat the water between the cups and the rez. Having them on a stadium would help also. just pump water to the top teir and let gravity work it down to the bottom cups. would work as long as the tubes didnt clog. As of right now though I figure these would work until they are really sucking the nutes.

One drawback to the RDWC is I will be running different strains. So they maybe calling for different nute formulas.

Maj.Cottonmouth · Oct 13, 2011

When I was thinking about doing a RDWC for the beer cup challenge my idea was to have a 5 gallon bucket for the res. It would have a small pump to feed the cups and a large air stone. I was going to put the cups in a small tub with a drain line back to the res bucket. The cups would be fed using the same type of line you used for the air line. Put the hole near the top of the cup and run the feed line to the bottom of the cups and let them overflow into the tub.

Diesel_N_Blood · Oct 14, 2011

Maj.Cottonmouth said:
When I was thinking about doing a RDWC for the beer cup challenge my idea was to have a 5 gallon bucket for the res. It would have a small pump to feed the cups and a large air stone. I was going to put the cups in a small tub with a drain line back to the res bucket. The cups would be fed using the same type of line you used for the air line. Put the hole near the top of the cup and run the feed line to the bottom of the cups and let them overflow into the tub.

I had some Time tonight to build the RDWC micro setup. Maj's right about the way to set it up. I tried to link the cups together with the line. The only way to link them would be to have first cup higher than second and second higher than the third and so on. Way to much going on for my simplistic grow tech. So I tried Maj's way. It works but the you'd have to drill 5 holes around you cup where you want the water level cause it doesn't drain fast enough. I'm going to try the Gen. 1 version for now. They're cheap and quick to make. So we'll see how it goes. Still waiting on my airstones and net cups.

+K
DnB

captaincanabis · Oct 15, 2011

whats the point of going that small? just curious not hating at all

MikeRoOrganix · Oct 16, 2011

A long time ago I used a 150hps above a tiny hydro system. The system was a 1L rubbermaid tub for the roots. This was connected to a 4-gallon res outside the cabinet with two lines, a fill and drain line. The pump in the big res was on 24/7 circulating the water in a loop. From the res, to the rubbermaid, back to the res. It worked great for the year or so I used it. There were no airstones, just the water pump. The res was needed to keep the water cool enough.

Diesel_N_Blood · Oct 16, 2011

captaincanabis said:
whats the point of going that small? just curious not hating at all

My set up is for the Beer cup Challenge. But in doing this hopefully it will lead to a DWC perp. sog. using the small cups allow you to have veg'n plants in their own cups. This simplifies the up-potting and space issues involved with dwc. If you can mantain small plants untill ready to use them without having to cut, seperate, and mantain seperate plants roots in the same container, it will simplify everything. With these cups, you can have a cloner, your first stage (cups), Final container.

FreezerBoy · Oct 16, 2011

captaincanabis said:
whats the point of going that small? just curious not hating at all

Small? That thing's HUGE.. koff, koff

Seriously though, I guess you never saw the shot glass challenge.

Diesel_N_Blood · Oct 16, 2011

here's a pic with the net cup and hydrotron in the cup. just waiting on the seed to pop.

FreezerBoy · Oct 16, 2011

You germming in there...?

Diesel_N_Blood · Oct 17, 2011

FreezerBoy said:
You germming in there...?

trying to.......damn seed just keeps falling down into the cup......

naahhh... I've got the seeds in small chunks of rw. This is the first time for the rockwool germ so Im kinda flying in the dark. I ran 5.5 ph'd water over the cube, before splitting and inserting seed. I have them sitting on top of my speaker-grow-box, inside a dome. temps have been steady at 83*. Still no new growth. seed spit a tail in a papertown before gingerly placing in the cube.

GP73LPC · Oct 17, 2011

GrownOut · Oct 17, 2011

Cool idea!!! I am in for this one.

Micro DWC Ideas and ?'s

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