BigTokes ~ "How-To" Of The Bio-Buckets 101

[BigToke]

Ocanabis ~ ………if you’ll pardon my expression but that’s way to much shit to add to a hydro-grow for the Bio-Buckets……..not needed!! Please do not add Epson salt to your res or else!!

Welcome to IC-Mag, rv9308 ~ …….lets get right down to it shall we ~ you’ll need a three gallon reservoir with a one-foot drop (very important). Pump size of 140,GPH that should give you an exchange rate of 7 times an hour (plenty enough) and as for the size of the supply pips just use whatever the size that the pump is, ok, ……….myself I like Mag-Drive pumps, there durable, dependable and last a long time!!

 

[rv9308]

THANKS

THANKS

Thanks for the reply Big Toke....i went to the store to look for the rest of the equipment and I got stuck again lol on the pump issue...they had only submersible type pumps and not inline does it make a big difference and how? Also the pipe were very flexible type...I saw that you had pvc pipes attached to your pump, but since yours is a bigger pump i figured that's what was needed for that, so should i look for something more durable that wont rip or is what i found good enough? it's 1/2" (what fitting it needs). Then I'd downsize it to 3/8" right? and also i know you said i needed 3 gallon rez for my three 5 gallon buckets but what do you mean from a what foot drop and how would i acheive that? sorry if i missed somethings. Thanks!

 

[Rattrap]

Tommorow is assembly day!
On the subject of the waterfall effect, i noticed in the pics that the main return pipe emptys into the top of the res where u then get the 1 foot drop. Is it alright to pipe the return water down 1 foot to the res? I've got a sunken res - i dug a hole in the ground & droped the res into it because i have a bit of a roof height problem so i'll be running the return pipe right down to the top of the res, ground level. The drop from the top of the res to the max water level is only around 6" but i'm, aiming to have 1 1/2 feet of pipe down to the res. Is that ok???

 

[Rattrap]

1 other thing, i noticed that the inlet pipe just directs the incomming water to the top of the bio-bucket. Do u get satisfactory mixing in the bio-buckets or would u get a better distrubution of water if the inlet flow is pumped right down to the bottom? I was thinking of a pipe going down to the bottom of the bio-bucket with 1/4 inch holes down its side to give a good all over spread of incomming water.
Worth the effort?

 

[Smokin]

http://www.icmag.com/gallery/data/500/2668AngelBigToke4-thumb.jpg[/img

[b]Photo eight[/b] – Drilling the supply line, take a 7/16 to an 1” hole saw and drill a hole at the very top, right under rim-lip.
[url=http://www.icmag.com/gallery/data/500/2668Bucket-8.jpg][img]http://www.icmag.com/gallery/data/500/2668Bucket-8-thumb.jpg

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I'm a little confused with this part of the bucket construction. Can someone clarify this? Am I suppose to drill a 1" hole for the Supply Line for the "L" piece 7/16" down from the top of the rim of the bucket or is it suppose to be a 7/16 hole 1" down for the "L" piece?

Smokin​

 

[Guest]

question big toke.....
say for the sake of arguement i need a 18 gallon res. if the 2 4" pvc drains come into the res through the side towards the top, will that take down the total volume of the res? if you are losing minimum 4" due to the pvc, would that res go from 18 gall to say 14 gall? could i bump up to a 24 gallon res to compensate for volume lost due to the drains?

 

[Guest]

smokin'.... i believe it's the latter, that's how i understood it

 

[Rattrap]

Well i went to town yesterday & got some pummice stone, but all i could get was the black pummice, is it ok???
Also i had an idea on the way home regarding the grow medium. Would unglazed terracotta work? Like old terracotta pots broken up into small peices?

 

[Smokin]

Quick update on the 3/4" "L" piece for the nute input.

I went back to BigToke's How to Guide and reread the whole thing over, but it doesn't read correctly. Maybe I was way too stoned or just being too stupid, but this is what it says :

"Photo eight – Drilling the supply line, take a 7/16 to an 1” hole saw and drill a hole at the very top, right under rim-lip."

From my understanding, I thought this ment take a 7/16 Hole saw 1" down from the rim of the bucket. So I purchased a 7/16" drill saw and drilled it in, but the "L" piece would not fit cause the hole was WAY too small. So then I went and bought a 1" hole saw and drilled the hole where I intially drilled the 7/16" hole saw. Now the hole is WAY too big. Anyway, I went to Home Depot and bought a Hole Saw set and then I started drilling holes in the bucket untill I found the correct size. :lol:

I found that the 11/16" hole saw was the tightest fit. So I drilled the rest of the buckets with the 11/16" hole saw and sanded all the sides, inside and outside of the hole and inserted the "L" piece. I only finished 12 out of 24 of them last night.

Smokin

 

[Guest]

11/16" thanks for the 411 smokin!

 

[Keefhead]

Some folks may know about this, a step bit, with one bit you can drill holes from 1/4 up to 7/8. No more running to the store for bits like Smokin had to do, you can just keep drilling until the hole is right. I bought mine at Home Depot, but I've seen them at OSH and Lowes.



Great thread. Someday I'll try to read ALL of it....

 

[Smokin]

Keefhead - I wish I knew about those types of drills, cause I sure could have used it! I tried taking the extra hole saws that I purchased, but they wouldn't take them back since they were used. Oh well. Live and learn.

Smokin

 

[coolx]

Great thread BT - great attitude on helping peeps too.

After doing a couple of large scale soil scrogs (60+ plants) and not liking the idea of hydro at all, I have completely changed my mind after reading your thread and looking at those roots. My next grow is going to be a perpetual harvest large scale bio bucket system - well 3 systems, cos I'm sure you can't run plants in 3 diff stages on the same system .... so 3 systems x 32 plants - 2-3 wk veg, 10 wk flower, 3 mothers - 99 plants total. Couple of q's:

Re the buckets - a link I think was from you went to a shop with 5 gal light-proof buckets, and lids with net-pots already attached - only thing is they only have 6" or 10" net-pots. This is the link for the net-pots

http://www.texashydroponics.com/shop/home.php?cat=294

Now 2 things - is 10" too much cos it would limit the water circulation in a 11 1/2" wide bucket. And, one big reason not to do soil is to save dealing with dozens of bags of soil, now is that going to be replaced with dealing with dozens of bags of lava rock. (My local hydro guy at bghydro, says that peope he knows who have tried bio-bucets are always having problems, but only cos they try to reuse the lava rocks. So can you re-use them?)

 

[Guest]

coolx: i hear ya on the soil. VERY time consuming! i got like 100 plants between my to rooms (veg,flow) and i'm starting to HATE all the time i have to put in. (bout 10-15 hrs. a week) almost feels like it's not worth it!(til harvest time) so i have decided to go buckets also.i will start these as soon as i finish growing out all my beans(5 packs left) i figure after christmas. and i did some reading and i don't think you can re use lava rocks. just don't quote me on it.

 

[coolx]

hey thorodee ... yeh, with just 60 plants in 5 gal pots, I used about 15 bags of soil. But I had lots of yellowing leaves (but just the lower ones and the upper ones just next to the stem), and I'm now thinking the pots were too small, so I'd have to move up to about 10 gal pots, so with 99 plants, I'd be dealing with about 50 bags of soil! Yikes!

As for the 10" netpots, if they're that much deeper too than the 8" ones, that'd be 1.25 to the power 3 = double the lava rocks required for the 8" net-pots. Seems I'd be hauling a lot of lava around too, unless I build myself a mini-volcano in my house - not quite sure how to do that just yet .... well I think the rocks are lighter than the soil at any rate ..... The 10" net-pots are so tempting to use cos you don't have to cut the holes in the lid and attach them as they're just the one piece, but I wouldn't think there'd be enough room for good circulation in a 5 gal bucket.

Anyways, I'll wait for BT to come around and check up on his thread, if he'd be good enough to get back to me on that.

 

[coolx]

A couple of other q's for BT (or anyone who knows) as you don't check up on your thread so much these days ..... I had much better success cloning with rapid rooters than anything else, but I read that you say don't use anything organic ... so that's a no-no for the rapid rooters then? [Edit: Oops - Q answered on page 22 - I got to 21 before I posted!]

I'm only giving my plants 1' x 1' finished area to keep within my local guidelines - my aim is to top twice to get 4 colas - about how long should I veg from a rooted clone - I'm guessing 2 weeks, or is that too long? With this is 5 gal buckets way overkill, though I'd still like to use them if I change my style later?

 

[Rattrap]

Bio-buckets away! LOL
Well finally got the system all built & the system test ran all good. I think i need to slow the water turnover down a bit, its over 20 times an hr at the moment & the outlet only just keeps pace with in inlet. I'm using a 19mm inlet & a 25mm outlet & a 3900LPH pump.
Heres a quick peek.

 

[jasondanzig]

i hope i can build this

 

[BigToke]

.........I’ve only got a little bit of time so I wonted to stop in and see how everyone’s doing and WOW…..way to go bio-heads, wish I could stay longer but I cant………….Rattrap, that looks awesome bro keep up the good work everyone and I’ll stop in when I can.

 

[Smokin]

Hi Coolx,

By no means am I an expert at this and I am also in the middle of constructing a 24 bio bucket. In regards to your question on the reuse of lava rocks, you can reuse them. After your inital harvest, all you have to do is clean them up and then soak them in H202 for 24 hours and then reuse. Should be good as new. That way, you don't have to continuelly have to buy the lava rocks. Everything should be reuseable as long as you keep the system clean after each use.

In regards to the 10" net pots, I looked at them also at the Hydro store, but it looks like there is hardly any room at all. What I did was purchase the 8" net pots with the lid already molded on to the netpot. This way, I didn't have to do all the labor involved with doing 24 lids. The cost at the hydro store was only $5.00 per lid. Hope this helps.

Smokin