A little advice please

[Rodriguez]

I need to leave town for about 6 weeks, have 2 plants that will be eventually put into a dwc 20littre tub, wife does not grow or really know how to maintain my grow so i take it i need my dwc to have a gravity feed res on top of it??, thats what im thinking anyway....a 10 or 20 littre gravity fed res above the dwc tub be enough for 4-6 weeks of veg while im away??
many thanks for opnions, cheers

 

[Dr. D]

Hey man how you doin? in a situation like this i usually get loads of empty water or any plastic bottles and make up my nute solution in there so the plants can just be topped up when they need it i do this at grows i run at other peeps houses i make up the nute solution into bottles then they just water when needed..im sure the mrs can top it up when its low?

 

[Rodriguez]

Yeah man im good thanks n you?
I think she can top it up for me while im gone, i just figured if i could set it up to run itself that would be a bonus not to worry about anything fluctuating like ph or tds levels etc she can top up though no worries

 

[Rodriguez]

Hey bro, it turns out that the timing of my wifes part time job and studys dont leave enough time to make me feel secure that the girls will be properly maintained..

any more help on setting up a small gravity feed enough to last a few weeks?, i need to leave states to find a new house for us to move so its a big move and ill be gone a little while trying to organise everything so it would be nice not to have to worry about the girls if the mrs isnt home or something happens..

The dwc tub is about 20-30littes, how big would my gravity feed res need to be to sustain them for 4 weeks approx any guesses??

 

[sunnyside]

not a good idea to leave the house for 6 weeks with a hydro system left to its own devices...just being honest. I'd love you help you BUT, it is dangerous at best. Are you running an HID? Do you have a security system on your home? What happens when your ph starts to swing? Best case scenerio is that your plants are dead when you come home...you dont wanna talk about the worst case. Dont do this!

 

[DankBank]

A friend of mine used to try to do basically the exact same thing you're talking about.
He'd get 'em going somewhere down south and then would head to AK for a month or two.
More often than not, he'd come back to some sort of disaster. It did work a couple times if I remember correctly, but usually the mess and death were sad ones.
Basically the rule of (green) thumb is that if you can't be with 'em, you shouldn't have 'em... although I've heard rumors of people going completely remote control & doing everything with net cams and R.C. equipment. To me, that sounds like a great way to stress yourself into a stroke!!
good luck,
db

 

[HighMaintenance]

Ive never left a hydro grow for more than a 3 or 4 days. For the same reason as everyone has already stated.

I know your asking about DWC but soil would be easier to maintain. I frequently left my soil grows for 2 or 3 weeks at a time, Im sure you could leave longer if you could figure out how to adjust the light height.

I had two timers with a pump in each res that were alternately set to go on/off on certain days. One res was for nutes and the other with plain water.

Worked out pretty well. The only drawback was your screwed if you have a problem while your gone. But that goes with anything you do. To me hydro is not something you can setup and not check it. To many fluctuations in nutes and ph.

 

[Rodriguez]

**not a good idea to leave the house for 6 weeks with a hydro system left to its own devices...just being honest***

Id rather honesty over anything anyday so its all good Sunny, i thankyou for your opnion and everyone else cheers guys, it turns out we are moving locally again not interstate so i should be right to keep an eye on them myself again.phew thats good in a way i guess as i was thinking maybe id have to pull down if i couldnt maintain them automatically somehow. as with most things it turns out ok in the end.