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

[BudGood2006]

bookerbeam, welcome to IC. Sounds like you'll have a nice little system, Rattrap is spot-on about the res temps being a problem if it's in your actual grow area. I designed my Bio-Bucket area so there is a 8'x4' grow area for the buckets, and a area off the side behind a wall where the res was situated. I used a powerful Honeywell fan to blow through a filter directly on top of the waterfall area, and maintained res temps of 67-69 degrees, with an occasional spike to 73-75 on a hot day. I should mention that my area was done in a basement, where it is naturally cooler. Try looking through my construction thread, you might get some ideas, any questions, post em, I'll help you to the best of my ability. Other than that, you may need a chiller.

As far as the fiberglass tubs, I wasn't able to find them at either home depot or lowes in my area either. I used a large rubbermaid tub, works good and allows for a 1 foot waterfall with the lid closed (the air is blown in through the top of the lid). If you have taller ceilings, you can use a Brute trashcan for your res, you'll just have to elevate your growing area to allow the water to flow back to the res correctly. Hope that helps!

 

[Guest]

Here is what I found works good to cut down on heat:

-cover pipes, buckets, and reservoir with foil to reflect heat. Stick the foil on with aluminium (foil) tape. Black pipes/buckets attract lots of heat.
-Use a powerfull fan blowing in the res, this will bring the temp down by many degrees. I used a small but powerfull blower from an electronics component store. I cut a hole in the res lid and screwed it on light tight. No fan blowing air out is necessary if you have enough air blowing in.
-Bury your res in the ground, this keeps it cool and at a stable temperature lights on or off. If I wasn't able to bury the res I would insulate it with the stuff they use to insulate hot water tanks. It could even be used on the buckets. Also there is insulation made for piping, I would use that too if necessary.

I don't use a water chiller, my reservoir is in my room and the temps are stable at 68 degrees.

Cheers,

Mr. G

 

[razerfish]

A few questions about the design

A few questions about the design

What happens if the roots clog the drain outlet? Does it flood the bucket? I can't always be home every day and sometimes need to be away a few days at a time. I can't have the whole room flooded when I come back. How is this prevented?

Also, must the return and supply lines be on the opposite sides? This makes the system seem so fixed and rigid. Can't they be on the same side?

The PVC pipe return. What's it supported by? Can it lay on the ground? The photos show it propped up, but I wouldn't be able to do that. The buckets would be sitting on the ground. What happens if something jostles the pipe? Massive overflows? What prevents that?

Last, I'm not sure where the dissolved oxygen is generated. Is it it from the resorvoir when the water is returned (i.e., waterfall effect) or when it is delivered to the bucket (slight splashing effect).

I like the idea of buckets, but still not sure why they are better than ebb and flow with, say, very big pots and a root matt at the bottom.

Thanks.

 

[Rattrap]

hey razerfish,
If u go with the recomended 32mm or 1 1/4" outlet then u won't have any root cloging problems. Its just a matter of clearing any tendrils that grow into the outlet from the outlet. I clear mine out every couple of weeks. not that they are blocking the outlet at all but i figure that if they stay there too long they might fatten up enough to cause problems. i was getting more roots in the outlet when the plants were first spreading out their roots, when all the roots were big long tendrills. Once the roots bushed out i hardly get any roots in the outlet at all. With the 32mm outlet its not a problem in the slightest, just an ocaisional maintance thing.

with the inlet & outlet on opersate sides u're pretty much garanteed to get a fairly good distrubution of nutes throughout the bucket. When the plants are well established u're gonna have a nice bucket full of roots with not much room for straight water flow. I would imagine that if u had the inlet & outlet on the same side then u would get a much poorer nute distrubution & might even get 'dead' spots. With them on operesate sides the fresh nutes coming in need to make their way all the way thru your giant mass of roots before the nutes empty back out, therefore much less chance of getting dead spots. I'm not sure y u would want to be moving the buckets around much once they are established anyways. The top of the bucket can be easily rotated, in fact thats a good way of clearing the roots from the outlet - just rotate the top.

I'm a bit ashamed of the way i've got my main drain pipe supported but hell it works for now.....
I've got my drain pipe suspended from the handles of the buckets by garden twisty ties. The pipe isn't really carrying much weight so the twisty ties are doing fine for now. The weight of the full buckets holds up the drain pipe. U probably could lie it on the ground with the far end proped up a little as long as u have sufficiant height at the end for the waterfall effect.
If something jossles your outlet enough for it to come out of place then yep u're gonna get 1 hell of a flood. your pump will drain your res into your grow room till it can't pump any more water then it'll prob burn out from running dry. But what would jossle it? I'm the only 1 who goes in my room plus the drain pipe is running down the center of the grow area, in between 2 rows of plants & not easy to get to now that the plants are well established plus its held in place fairly well. Every 2nd day i take the top off my res to check TDS & PH which means i also slightly jossle 1 end of the drain pipe yet without any problems. Its just a mater of assembling the system right.

The dissolved oxygen is generated by the waterfall effect. In my setup the inlet is just touching the top of the water in the bucket so theres no splashing at all in the buckets. I've never grown ebb n flow before so i can't say why the BB are better or even if they are better. But i can tell u that the BB system is by far the easiest, most reliable, trouble free system that i have ever used or even read about. It truely is the ducks nuts. lol.

I hope all this answers your questions. Have fun!

 

[Guest]

I have been studying all the Bio-bucket threads and I went out and picked up the parts for my own set-up today. I got everything I needed at my local Hydro shop and OSH. My only question is this, what kind of lava rock should I use? OSH didnt carry any and the fish store around the corner from my house had like 30 kinds, every size, color, texture you could think of. I went in there and asked for a big bag of lava rock and he looked at me like I was crazy. He didnt speak English very well, so I think we were just on two different pages. I tried to decipher for myself with no luck, so I thought I would ask you guys.

Here is my second question. My friend gave me a C.A.P. Controler for an ebb and flow system/bucket system in exchange for some debt, but I have no idea how to use it and I was wondering if you guys think it could be used in a Bio-bucket type system. If you look on their website, the set-up that they use it with seems some-what similar to the bio-bucket system.

Here is a picture of the controller I am talking about

http://www.randmsupply.com/Images/Ebb-&-Grow-12-Bucket-500.jpg

Any help would be appreciated. thanks dj.highst

 

[Rattrap]

DJ, i used the black lava rock or pummice stone & its working fine. I chose the black because i couldn't find any of the resomended red pummice that BT recomends. My black pummice stones are BBQ heat rocks that i washed really well before use.

 

[Jesusbuiltmygro]

let me explain

let me explain

Rattrap: you didn't understand my post. The multiflow bucket is quite interesting actually and does have advantages over the BB non of which are simplicity, but more importantly the point of my post was to help people who are building bio buckets to simplify their design. You don't have to like it, but rubber grometts are quite superior. Especially when you start to consider that you can simply pull the drain and supply pipes through the rubber grommet for disassembly. The fact that it's much cleaner and less work are just extra bonuses.

It's sad that I bother to explain an improvement to the drain assembly in Big Tokes how to and all I get are skeptics. Think about it before you post, rubber grometts are way better than any type of glue. Also adding a air stone to each bucket is a worth the almost no work and money it costs to buy the pump, airline and airstone. For all those people who may or may not have the proper amount of dissolved oxygen and/or battling high rez temps the most overlooked solution is adding airstones right there at the root zone instead of rely completely on the waterfall effect.

I personally have put lavastone at the bottom of my waterfall in a net pot and I think it has a nice filtering effect and added bacteria surface area. Plus I didnt feel like getting 8 inch net pots so I juse reused my 6 inchers.

I like the multiflow design also and while it may not be as safe as bio buckets I think it likely provided more air to the root zone and almost certainly could be made to perform better than bio buckets in high temp situations since it's more a flood and drain system than a DWC system. It uses 2 pumps I think, not three, but certainly there is a greater chance for flooding which turned me off the design. Though there could be a decent SWC style compromise in such a design or a redesigned biobucket.

There is nothing magic about biobucket system. Most hydro systems one way or another have benefical bacteria so technically a multiflow system such as the example on HG is also going to benefit from bacteria colonies just as all soil grows benefit from beneficial bacteria. Bio buckets are nothing more than recirculating DWC. The only real difference is that the lava stone provides more surface area for the bacteria. I don't beleive the assumption that clay pellets are immune to bacteria clonies but rather that they provide less surface area. Lava stone also provides some level of aeration as you can hear the air exchange when you dump water on a pile of dry lava stones.

If you've done much hydro you'll find that the principles of bio buckets are for the most part already at work in all types of hyro and a well balanced DWC system also does not need rez changes because of proper water cycle management and plant to rez proportion. Many people make the mistake of using too large a container, ignoring water temps and not light proofing in standard DWC and this is why they have to flush so often not because bacteria does not exist in other hydro systems. I like the simplicity and saftey of bio buckets as being less prone to leaks and able to survive pump failures, but in the end they are just recirculating DWC.

Big Tokes strategy of letting the water develop bacterial colonies before going live should be applied to all hydro styles that don't use anti-bacteria or anti-fungal chemicals. The biggest advantage I have from bio buckets isn't flushing or extra growth because quite honestly I get that in most any hydro system. I simply like being able to manage the plants from a single rez with the least failure prone design. The overflow style drains are truly the real genius of hurtbacks design. Thats what allows them to be less leak prone and allows survivability in case of pump failure. Adding air stones only helps this by ensuring that if you leave for a couple days your plants don't sit in low oxygen condition if your pump fails plus it definitely helps resist higher temps which even in bio bucket will lead to root rot. This is why Big Toke eventually added a rez chiller I assume.

However the key here is that there is no reason in the world to use any type of clue or cement. It is just bad design to use glue to leak proof a non jointed connection that is why you don't find this senario in the world of professional plumbing. If a case exists where you must put a drain through container you are supposed to use putty or wax and form a bead around the area and then use a nut to clamp the fitting down tightly. That or a rubber gromett are the only truly good designs for reliably leak proof containers. Glue joints may last for month or years, but they are more prone to leaking.. peroid. It's really just common sense I thought you guys would be happy to see the improvement in design, but as usual I just get BS.

You know when hurtback designed the bio buckets all he got was ridicule and BS from posters whos first reaction was to reject change. I beleive Big Toke has better outlined the true advantages of bio buckets which are how they work with proper water magnement and only with proper water management not because of bacteria that only forms on porous rock. No offense guys but that just doesn't make enough sense. In nature plants commonly use hydroponic techniques to grow along rivers yet river rocks are anything but porous. Fish tanks use those smooth stones in the bottom to harbour beneficial bacteria also which do provide the exact same functions of breaking down organic matter. It's all just about surface area and the proper water conditions IMO. An equal surface area of clay balls will harbour just as much bacteria as an equal surface area of lava rock, it just the lava rock will take up less space because its porous, but lava rock is not inert so bio buckets could really use a better standard medium, though you gotta love the price and availability of lava rock.

if you don't feel like putting a drain on your bio buckets like so many people don't you can purchase an electric kerosone pump for 10 dollars which while not the fastest thing on the planet is a hell a lot easier than say bailing the system out.

I personally use aluminium sided tape to light proof my buckets. I clean and requires no drying time and I can never seem to find black buckets.

One thing about the multi flow bucket that I did especially like is how the guy would put smaller 3 gallon buckets inside the 5 gallon buckets which let him more easily remove the plants or even reduce the need for net pots. I also think growing style that give roots proper medium rather than letting them hang are superior because thats how roots are meant to work. In typical DWC you develop a rootball which is unhealthy for plants. Roots like bacteria rely on surface area to uptake nutrient. Tangled roots have less surface area and containers with medium supported far more lateral root growth.

I'd be interested in seing some the performance of a medium filled bio bucket vs a water filled bio bucket though I doubt the difference would be all the signigicant unless your grow super trees which will have enough time to take advantage of all that extra root space. In some ways the multiflow system in that other design may have an advantage as far as providing more support for lateral growth, but I do agree the extra pump and the potential to leave the buckets dry during a pump failure are massive liabilities.

You'll notice aeroponics have the same problem in which roots cannot really grow laterally because they have no medium to support them. Buckets are so skinny they don't allow much lateral root growth in proportion to the size of the medium filled net pot, but I'd pick a taller container over a wider one if I had to anyway. The larger the net pot the more it mimicks lateral root growth but once in the water the roots don't really have the support to grow sideways but rather they are support by the stem or the net pot. This is even more true for me since I have 6 inch pots.

 

[Hu$tle Tree$]

Co-sign

 

[Guest]

Easy drain

Easy drain

Jesusbuiltmygro, I concur with all that you said. But still BT's design is the best hydro system design I have seen of yet. For the glue/grommet thing, grommets are definately better. The only down part is they may be hard to find if one doesn't want to order online. Do you know where I can find them? I've used silicone and hot glue in the past and it didn't work for me. The glue I used for the last 6 years is callled plumbing Goop, it works really good, takes a beating, and I never had a leak. And it's made exactly for this purpose, as a half ass solution that works great. The grommets however are reusable and that is very good for mofifying the system. Plus Goop smells super toxic, but that goes away once it's dried properly.

I also didn't go for BT's drain design since I would need to elevate my buckets even further, have more risk of leaks, create a mini dead spot, need a more complex support to hold my buckets up, and also pay the price for each drain and valve. I found a very effective cheap way to drain all buckets very quickly. I cut myself small pieces of piping, the same I used for the water input to each bucket, and installed one inside each bucket to the water supply. This way the water is supplied to the bottom of the bucket. I installed a check valve at the pump to insure there will be no back flow siphoning happening when the pump is shut off. I clean the check valve in
between batches to insure proper functionning. You could simply buy a new check valve per batch if you want to be safe, they are only $10. Now when I wish to drain my buckets here is what I do:

1- Smoke a big fat spliff and get ready for the show.
2- close 3/4 of all bucket water supply ball valves.
3- turn off pump
4- disconnect pump and "check valve" from the water supply pipe (now the water from the buckets with an open valve will start to siphon back to the res)
5- quickly connect the pump to an extra hose to discard the water to a house waste drain and start the pump.
6- before the buckets with open valves are empty, open more valves. You should keep one open just a tad until the end so the flow never stops, if all the buckets that have an open valve empty, the siphoning will stop and you
will have to start over.
7- open all valves a few at a time at a rate where the pump draining can keep up with the backflow so that your res doesn't overflow.
8- You will hear the buckets empty one by one by hearing a gurgling sound (like when sucking the bottom of a glass with a straw. It's exciting to watch.
9- turn off pump once the res is empty.
10- smoke another one for a hard job well done.

This method is very quick, as quick as your pump can handle, and it demands zero effort...just good timming. You can also do the plumping with extra ball valves and a drain connector so you do not even need to touch the pump. This method is great also if you chose not to put a drain and suddenly need to drain your system. Simply add a small piece of tubbing to each bucket and you are good to go.

Note: I do not hold any responsibility for the proper functioning of your check valve durring power outages.

Mr G

 

[Rattrap]

It's sad that I bother to explain an improvement to the drain assembly in Big Tokes how to and all I get are skeptics. Think about it before you post, rubber grometts are way better than any type of glue.

Dude, relax, take a deep breath & chill. No one was paying u out or rubbishing your opinions. The only reason i think the BB system is superior over the multi-flow system was as is said in my post that the BB are heaps simpler & for the average stoner like me thats always a good thing.

Rubber grommets are defenately much better than glue, i used them on my 19mm inlet & 13mm drain plugs. I would have much prefered to also use them on the 32mm outlet but i couldn't find any grommets that size. Adding air pumps can't be anything but good, theres no such thing as too much air in your water, also with an airstone at the bottom of each bucket u're gonna get better mixing of the incoming water thru the bucket

I haven't read anyone here giving u BS & i never caught hurtbacks origional thread.
Much of want u said is true & is valuable info. Where BB are superior is their simplicity to maintain & clean up after harvest & ease to setup from scratch again. My last grow i used 30L pots filled with medium, damn they weight heaps. I'd much rather have to move empty buckets with just a net pot in the top than a whole bucket of medium.
BB are IMO perfect for simple stoners - simple to setup & maintain & they have awsome growth rates.

Each to their own hey.

 

[BigToke]

Rattrap ~ thanks for keeping my thread peaceful and that goes for all that contribute to this thread, even thou I’m not hear as much as I would like to be I am in spirit thou…….

JBMG ~ if you think that you’ve maid improvements of any kind to this system then please start your own thread but please don’t start anything in my thread “have respect and respect will be given”

 

[critical diesel]

Hey bigtoke,

I was curious to know if you think using a ph/tds monitor & controller would be a bad or good idea? I have the bluelab meastro....

thanks

 

[Guest]

I just spent days reading all the BT how to threads. I would gladly buy the DVD your planning on marketing.

I would like to build this system, What pump size will I need for 16 buckets? What about feeder line size?

I wish I didnt have to ask But I read and re read and out of all the bucket numbers you sized for I didnt see the sizing for 16. or I missed it....

I apreciate the work you do for this community. Thank you

 

[ViktorVaughn]

New BioBucket Setup!

New BioBucket Setup!

Here are photos of a biobucket assembly in process. The system has six buckets and follows BT's instructions nearly to a T. These will sit under a 600W lumatek ballast using an agrosun red reflector bulb. The plant stock will be white widow and sage & sour (3/3). If more photos come my way I will post.
Till then,
Vik

 

[papayaking420]

nice

nice

lots of time invested plumbing skills looks great

 

[smokiejo]

hey bigtoke looks like a great system i like how its almost maintenance free.i have been growing in a soilless mix sunshine mix i think in 4 gallon pots i average about 4 0z per plant with tons of maintence im going to switch over to hydro using your system.ive read this thread and started on one of your other ones im working with an area 7x12x6.5 high verticaly challeged space how many buckets do you think i can put in here?and i would asume yeild would increase in this system rather than in soilless ive been using?

 

[hesreally420]

i have a grow room of 12 x 39 ft whats the maximum ammount of buckets i would be able 2 have?and also whats the maximum ammount of wattage could i be able 2 use in my unfinished basement without anything being noticed by the electric company?thanks guys

 

[BigToke]

V.V ~ nice very nice

 

[Guest]

im doing a 12'x9' area w/ 16 buckets. (12 gallon res) the formula for the res size is in this thread! i will be running 4x600w hps. 4 plants per 600watter.
with a 12 x 39 area you could do 60+ buckets. you would prob. need upward of 10,000watts for a super effective grow.that would be a HUGE electric bill!
but in my experience, as long as you pay the bill on time, nobody will care.
remember, everybody only cares about your money in the long run!

 

[Rattrap]

I must have missed the res size calculating formula when i was reading thru, can someone point me in the direction of it? thanks.