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recirculating shallow water culture

alpo

Active member
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would this system provide the roots with enough oxygen recirculating 24/7 or does it need a timer
using clay pebbles
 
Last edited:

steamroller

Active member
Makes sense with the clay balls that the roots are exposed to O2.
But the airstone should not change you pH as I understand eitherway.
I have a different plan for my buckets. Hoping my simple mod makes them DWC so my plan was airstones.
You really may not need it, I don't know honestly. I don't think it could hurt though.
 

Moe.Red

Active member
Airstones can cause a very slight change in PH if using tap water or similar, CO2 in the water will form carbonic acid, and airstones drive that off. Once the CO2 is at equilibrium with the surrounding air, no more PH changes should happen.

If using RO or water that has been sitting out, no PH change.

I believe you will have significant salt buildup on the hydroton using this spray from the top method. There might be an algae problem too. Your nutes contain a beneficial lifeform component which means if you use that, you cannot go sterile and run H2O2 or similar to kill off the algae.

Everything being equal, I'd probably run a sterile setup with 5-10 PPM H2O2 in the water, and not use the Rhizotonic.

As far as aerating the res, do you have any idea what the water temp will become when running with the lights on?
 

Ca++

Well-known member
I say old bean, the gap in them ring emitters isn't very optimistic.

This is perhaps impossible. The chances of growing good algae are higher. I'm not sure any amount of bottled magic can help.

Water finds the easiest path. Dripping clay isn't a good idea. It's wicking ability is low. Even with the algae based capillary matting. What soak through you did get, would be a salt concern.

I would be checking diaries at this point, but personally, I don't think you will find a good outcome from this.

You could perhaps mix in coco, if you had good filtering. Then feeding would be intermittent not constant. A pump with filter on sits in the tank constantly though, it's not just the delivery pump wants one. The pots can sit on wadding for the first few weeks. To catch the initial rush of migrating coco and silt. I have run like the drawing with a wadding filled sock over the return. Just using rockwool.

I wonder how big the holes in the rings are. In reference to the pump. I know most ring builds have distribution issues, as a suitable pump isn't found on many shelves.
 

alpo

Active member
you can use any submersible pump. I am using the $20 Hydrofarm Active Aqua 250GPH and have the inline valves to control flow.
 
Will you eventually run continous flow? My friend had a very similiar set up and grew great. He had alittle bigger rain rings but same pump you have.
 

alpo

Active member
i don't think continuous flow is necessary because there are always some water at the bottom of the pots but I never tried it.
 

StickyBandit

Well-known member
I've set up something very similar yesterday after reading this. Cheers for the idea (y)
I was thinking I would run the pump 1 minute every 4 hours with perlite as the medium and a layer of clay pebbles for the base. I have canna coco for the ferts. Not sure if I should also add calmag? I guess I should since I'm using rainwater?
 

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