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BigTokes ~ "How-To" Of The Bio-Buckets 101
- Thread starter BigToke
- Start date
3BM
Member
DAMN BT posts again!! Welcome back brother. Its nice to have the master back. Many here have endeavored to continue on with this method, and props to all who chimed in over these many months.
I studied both BT and Daltron (not to mention Rattrap, GAM, etc) extensively and spent about a year planning my settup. It took about 5 months to get the kinks worked out but I am proud to have a 5600w 24 bucket settup running as we speak. I cut my bucket count in half to reduce plant numbers, and hope to veg a bit longer to compensate. I also use organic nutes ala Daltron. I wonder, have I hurt my system by reducing the habitat for BBs (half the buckets means half the rocks right)? So far the pH stabilizes at 7.3 (same as tap), the girls looked fine for the first week but have started to yellow in the new growth. Are they showing pH issues because of an insufficient colony of BBs? I was under the impression that the BBs would allow for a pH in this range, am I wrong?
I followed the build exactly in all other respects, and even used 5" net pots instead of 4" to expand colony size. I have a 50 gal res and a dual 12" waterfall and have maxed out DO on my meter. Just wondering if BT or any other with some experience could offer some guidance here. Sorry no pics right now.
Im keeping the faith and adding no pH down to the system. Roots look healthy white and a chiller keeps things around 64F. Tap water is 200ppm @ 7.3, I added about 125ppm of grow and LK (following Daltron here). They still grow daily, but have slowed and yellowed recently. Should I chuck the organics as they arent buffering my solution enough? What do you guys think?
I studied both BT and Daltron (not to mention Rattrap, GAM, etc) extensively and spent about a year planning my settup. It took about 5 months to get the kinks worked out but I am proud to have a 5600w 24 bucket settup running as we speak. I cut my bucket count in half to reduce plant numbers, and hope to veg a bit longer to compensate. I also use organic nutes ala Daltron. I wonder, have I hurt my system by reducing the habitat for BBs (half the buckets means half the rocks right)? So far the pH stabilizes at 7.3 (same as tap), the girls looked fine for the first week but have started to yellow in the new growth. Are they showing pH issues because of an insufficient colony of BBs? I was under the impression that the BBs would allow for a pH in this range, am I wrong?
I followed the build exactly in all other respects, and even used 5" net pots instead of 4" to expand colony size. I have a 50 gal res and a dual 12" waterfall and have maxed out DO on my meter. Just wondering if BT or any other with some experience could offer some guidance here. Sorry no pics right now.
Im keeping the faith and adding no pH down to the system. Roots look healthy white and a chiller keeps things around 64F. Tap water is 200ppm @ 7.3, I added about 125ppm of grow and LK (following Daltron here). They still grow daily, but have slowed and yellowed recently. Should I chuck the organics as they arent buffering my solution enough? What do you guys think?
Hu$tle Tree$
Member
Sup 3BM,
Welcome to the wonderful and (oftentimes) frustrating world of the bio-buckets!! First and foremost good luck, bio-buckets are a bit unforgiving and the fact that Big-Toke was able to thrive with the system was a testimate to his skills as a grower and his wealth of knowledge. Honestly there have been very few successful bio systems documented (when compared to DWC, E&F, Coir etc) its a seriously tough system to master. As far as your problems go, its tough to say without any pics but is sounds like your plants may actually need more food....how tall are they?? 125ppms of nutes is pretty low considering the fact that they are sittin under 5600 watts. As far as the ph goes I was never comfortable enough to let my ph drift up to the 7's, I used RO water and kept my ph in the 5-6 range but maybe BT will chime in there.
If you don't mind i'd like to share a few tips I've learned first hand. I was running a 24 bucket setup myself up until a month ago, everything was looking great through veg but as soon as I hit flowering I was attacked by a terrible case of brown algae (for the 2nd time). I'm pretty sure it was due to the addition of organics to the system plus the fact that there were some light leaks where the drain hose from the bucket enters the pvc. Make sure you light proof everything!! Its been said here before but its honestly crucial if you want to avoid any root issues. Algae and bad bacteria love organics as well, keep a keen eye on your roots!! Brown algae in particular needs silicon so you want to ensure that you don't add any additional silicon to the rez. In fact I think one of the reason there were so many algae issues with BB's is due to the fact that lava rock will leach silicon into the nutrient solution. Aside from that its tough to say if your bio-field is gonna be good enough to keep the everything running smoothly, you may want to consider adding a biological aquarium filter to ensure your system is adequately colonized. Check out some aquarium and ponds sites for examples....
Hope this helps!!!
H$T$
Welcome to the wonderful and (oftentimes) frustrating world of the bio-buckets!! First and foremost good luck, bio-buckets are a bit unforgiving and the fact that Big-Toke was able to thrive with the system was a testimate to his skills as a grower and his wealth of knowledge. Honestly there have been very few successful bio systems documented (when compared to DWC, E&F, Coir etc) its a seriously tough system to master. As far as your problems go, its tough to say without any pics but is sounds like your plants may actually need more food....how tall are they?? 125ppms of nutes is pretty low considering the fact that they are sittin under 5600 watts. As far as the ph goes I was never comfortable enough to let my ph drift up to the 7's, I used RO water and kept my ph in the 5-6 range but maybe BT will chime in there.
If you don't mind i'd like to share a few tips I've learned first hand. I was running a 24 bucket setup myself up until a month ago, everything was looking great through veg but as soon as I hit flowering I was attacked by a terrible case of brown algae (for the 2nd time). I'm pretty sure it was due to the addition of organics to the system plus the fact that there were some light leaks where the drain hose from the bucket enters the pvc. Make sure you light proof everything!! Its been said here before but its honestly crucial if you want to avoid any root issues. Algae and bad bacteria love organics as well, keep a keen eye on your roots!! Brown algae in particular needs silicon so you want to ensure that you don't add any additional silicon to the rez. In fact I think one of the reason there were so many algae issues with BB's is due to the fact that lava rock will leach silicon into the nutrient solution. Aside from that its tough to say if your bio-field is gonna be good enough to keep the everything running smoothly, you may want to consider adding a biological aquarium filter to ensure your system is adequately colonized. Check out some aquarium and ponds sites for examples....
Hope this helps!!!
H$T$
daltron
Member
3BM-Setting pH
3BM-Setting pH
Hello Daltron Jr. here,
as some of you may or may not know my dad past on a while back. After I found out he was giving most of his grow to a local cancer club to help those going though radiation treatment, I decided to follow in his footsteps.
I've not read all of his posting's, just to damn hard to do. It was just last week that I found his secret email account and learned of this site. wow my old man could really keep a secret.
3BM I know my dad would be proud of you! Keep up the good work and don't lose the faith.
Anyway I learned to grow from dad's diary, in his book he states that at the start up is the only time he set's the pH to 6.0 after that he lets the BB's do the rest of the work. So if I were you I would set the pH to 6.0 now, then let it go from there. That's what I've been doing and it is working just fine.
I think you have plenty of rocks for your system and kudo's on the chiller, dad was a strong believer in temp. control, he states in his book that the BB's will help if the res temp goes up to 70f or higher but your best results will be around 64 - 65 f. good luck with the grow and hope this helps
don't send me any PM's for some reason I can't get into the PM box to answer the current PM's or send any knew PM's, I know it worked for dad because I see he has 18 Pm's in his account. again good luck
Daltron Jr.
PS. Hello BT dad spoke/wrote highly of you, it was hard to impress him and even hard to get on his good side and stay there, you did all 3!! just wanted to say hello and let you that the wayward son is carrying on.
3BM-Setting pH
3BM said:
Hello Daltron Jr. here,
as some of you may or may not know my dad past on a while back. After I found out he was giving most of his grow to a local cancer club to help those going though radiation treatment, I decided to follow in his footsteps.
I've not read all of his posting's, just to damn hard to do. It was just last week that I found his secret email account and learned of this site. wow my old man could really keep a secret.
3BM I know my dad would be proud of you! Keep up the good work and don't lose the faith.
Anyway I learned to grow from dad's diary, in his book he states that at the start up is the only time he set's the pH to 6.0 after that he lets the BB's do the rest of the work. So if I were you I would set the pH to 6.0 now, then let it go from there. That's what I've been doing and it is working just fine.
I think you have plenty of rocks for your system and kudo's on the chiller, dad was a strong believer in temp. control, he states in his book that the BB's will help if the res temp goes up to 70f or higher but your best results will be around 64 - 65 f. good luck with the grow and hope this helps
don't send me any PM's for some reason I can't get into the PM box to answer the current PM's or send any knew PM's, I know it worked for dad because I see he has 18 Pm's in his account. again good luck
Daltron Jr.
PS. Hello BT dad spoke/wrote highly of you, it was hard to impress him and even hard to get on his good side and stay there, you did all 3!! just wanted to say hello and let you that the wayward son is carrying on.
3BM
Member
Wow buddy welcome to IC! Thanks for the input. I cant tell you how wonderful it is to hear from you. I truly appreciate all the work your dad did, and hope to honor his legacy (as I know many others do). Man its just great to have you around brother!
Answer me this: whats your water like? I ask only to get a standard of comparison. Thanks for the kind words, and I will take your advice and keep faith as my ally.
Answer me this: whats your water like? I ask only to get a standard of comparison. Thanks for the kind words, and I will take your advice and keep faith as my ally.
Opt1c's Bio-Bunker
Opt1c's Bio-Bunker
So the bio-buckets were what originally drew me to this site. This is my first hydro system and after lots of bud, sweat, and beers its finally come together... my very own bio-bunker. It is a 10 bucket system under 1800watts in a 10x3 box. I framed up the box with 2x4's and black/white poly. Lights are housed in radiant hinged 6" air cooled reflectors, powered by lumatek 600watt ballasts, and cooled by a 6" vortex fan. The box itself is cooled by a 4" vortex on the exhaust end feeding into a carbon filter and another 4" vortex with a hepa filter strapped to it on the intake side. There are also two oscillating wall mounted fans on the inside for circulation.
My buckets are almost exactly like bigtoke's but i messed up and put the supply elbows on the buckets backwards. I'm using a trashcan for the reservoir and a 1800gph pump to power the buckets.
Despite messing up on the supply elbows the roots don't seem to mind. Also i transplanted clones from an ez-cloner straight into the buckets... they chilled in their neoprene collars for a few days but after that the roots in the lava rocks were enough to support the plants.
The plants are purple kush btw... if you have any question feel free to ask. I'm still learning. On that note does anyone ever add Canna's PK 13/14 to their buckets or any other additives like floranectar, floralicious, etc??
-opt1c
Opt1c's Bio-Bunker
So the bio-buckets were what originally drew me to this site. This is my first hydro system and after lots of bud, sweat, and beers its finally come together... my very own bio-bunker. It is a 10 bucket system under 1800watts in a 10x3 box. I framed up the box with 2x4's and black/white poly. Lights are housed in radiant hinged 6" air cooled reflectors, powered by lumatek 600watt ballasts, and cooled by a 6" vortex fan. The box itself is cooled by a 4" vortex on the exhaust end feeding into a carbon filter and another 4" vortex with a hepa filter strapped to it on the intake side. There are also two oscillating wall mounted fans on the inside for circulation.
My buckets are almost exactly like bigtoke's but i messed up and put the supply elbows on the buckets backwards. I'm using a trashcan for the reservoir and a 1800gph pump to power the buckets.
Despite messing up on the supply elbows the roots don't seem to mind. Also i transplanted clones from an ez-cloner straight into the buckets... they chilled in their neoprene collars for a few days but after that the roots in the lava rocks were enough to support the plants.
The plants are purple kush btw... if you have any question feel free to ask. I'm still learning. On that note does anyone ever add Canna's PK 13/14 to their buckets or any other additives like floranectar, floralicious, etc??
-opt1c
Hu$tle Tree$
Member
Great Job Opt1c!!!
Plants look amazing!!! The work and planning you put into the room has obviously paid off!!! I'd probably try to stay away from any organic additives like floralicious in the bio-buckets, for some reason they seem to do more harm than good, plus they stain your roots a bit and yours look perfect!! PK 13/14 should be cool to use...
One thing I would definitely advise is to try to light proof everything.....I'd cover the your bucket lids with poly and possibly cover up the PVC return line as well. You want to maintain that nice clean healthy root zone that you have right now, light leaks can cause all sorts of nasty problems especially in bio-buckets. Aside from that everything looks perfect....are you using GH nutes?? Also it looks like you're running MH conversion bulbs?? How do you like them so far....I was gonna pick up a few but they're pricey and don't put out as many lumens as I'd like....
Keep up the good work and keep the pics comming...not too many bio threads left
H$T$
Plants look amazing!!! The work and planning you put into the room has obviously paid off!!! I'd probably try to stay away from any organic additives like floralicious in the bio-buckets, for some reason they seem to do more harm than good, plus they stain your roots a bit and yours look perfect!! PK 13/14 should be cool to use...
One thing I would definitely advise is to try to light proof everything.....I'd cover the your bucket lids with poly and possibly cover up the PVC return line as well. You want to maintain that nice clean healthy root zone that you have right now, light leaks can cause all sorts of nasty problems especially in bio-buckets. Aside from that everything looks perfect....are you using GH nutes?? Also it looks like you're running MH conversion bulbs?? How do you like them so far....I was gonna pick up a few but they're pricey and don't put out as many lumens as I'd like....
Keep up the good work and keep the pics comming...not too many bio threads left
H$T$
H$T$ - Yup... using the GH 3 part series and nothing else so far... i can bump the ec up to 2.6 and its down to 1.8 in 5 days... the plants are raging... i've never seen a purple kush plant get so big so fast... started with the 3-2-1 and now i'm using the 1-2-3 mix and plants look great. I'm using ushio bulbs... they put out more lumens than the hortilux ones and are of higher quality construction. I've switched to the HPS bulbs for flowering though.
3BM - The water is from a drip line running under my house and attached to a faucet out in the back... tap water is 140ppm ala eutech... the line plugs into a GH float valve in the reservoir and keeps everything topped off... with buckets i'm running a little under 65gals total... the pic of the roots above was taken 5 days into flowering.
3BM - The water is from a drip line running under my house and attached to a faucet out in the back... tap water is 140ppm ala eutech... the line plugs into a GH float valve in the reservoir and keeps everything topped off... with buckets i'm running a little under 65gals total... the pic of the roots above was taken 5 days into flowering.
7 out the tap but the buckets run a constant 6 although it can creep up if the nutes get too diluted... i've ran it with really high nute concentrations, 2.5-2.7 ec, with no ill effects so i can extend the time between adding without the ec getting too low although i check it once a day.
BudGood2006
Member
Nice job opt1c. Your room and plants look great! You really should start a thread following your grow, I know I want to watch. 
Some happy plants:
Bio-Buckets are awesome!
Some happy plants:
Bio-Buckets are awesome!
D
Dissect
BigToke - First off great thread! I've read and re-read the entire setup of your BioBuckets and I have to say they are quite impressive. Only on my second grow now, but will definitely be giving the buckets a run the next time around. I'd IM you but I don't have enough posts yet, and I have a question for you regarding one of the pictures in your gallery. Do you have the excel document of your grow chart/log or know of where to find one? I've tried searching here but came up short - and i'm not proficient with excel. I suppose I could sit down and RTFM for excel, but there aren't enough hours in the day. Any help on this or a finger pointing in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. I look forward to keeping up with your future grows. Thanks, peace.
Rattrap
Member
Hey guys, i've been bio-bucketing for a while now & i've been thinking of using jiffy (lil coco/peat disks) for rooting cuttings instead of rockwool cubes.
Has anybody else used them?
Some of my concerns are;
/Jiffy pots are able to hold more water than rockwool cubes so a too wet enviroment round the base of the stem might be a problem. That can probably be avoided by just setting the jiffy pots higher in the red lava rocks.
/When the plants get bigger they will split apart the jiffy pots potentially spilling coco/peat into the system. This might not actually be a problem if the coco/peat stays in the red lava.
Any thoughts would be greatly apreceated.
Has anybody else used them?
Some of my concerns are;
/Jiffy pots are able to hold more water than rockwool cubes so a too wet enviroment round the base of the stem might be a problem. That can probably be avoided by just setting the jiffy pots higher in the red lava rocks.
/When the plants get bigger they will split apart the jiffy pots potentially spilling coco/peat into the system. This might not actually be a problem if the coco/peat stays in the red lava.
Any thoughts would be greatly apreceated.
Rattrap
Member
Hey smoke,
The main reason for going from a 1 1/4" main line to a lesser size line into the buckets (1/2" for me) is that it pretty much garantees that u'll have an even flow into all the buckets. With 3/4 down to 1/2" you might have a problem getting a good flow into all your buckets unless u have taps on all the 1/2" lines to regulate flow - what u'll prob find without taps is that the buckets closer to the pump will get shit loads of flow & the rear 1's will get not enough.
Hope this helps mate.
The main reason for going from a 1 1/4" main line to a lesser size line into the buckets (1/2" for me) is that it pretty much garantees that u'll have an even flow into all the buckets. With 3/4 down to 1/2" you might have a problem getting a good flow into all your buckets unless u have taps on all the 1/2" lines to regulate flow - what u'll prob find without taps is that the buckets closer to the pump will get shit loads of flow & the rear 1's will get not enough.
Hope this helps mate.
raygun
Active member
Rattrap- why not clone in perlite or loose coco put in to those 6-8 pack plastic plant things you see at the nursary? I have had great sucess using both of those for rooting clones. All you need to do after they root is dunk the new roots in a cup of water a few times to get rid of the perlite or coco and drop the clone in the lava rocks. I also use to just clone in a bubbling tub with no medium what so ever.
