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Snype's RDWC Construction Tutorial For 250 Watts - 7,600 Watts!
- Thread starter Snype
- Start date
For limited watts as you state, you could just run 1 bucket.
For any decent size plant you'd want at least 200 watts. For a 2x2 foot plant (4 sq ft) at 50 watts per sq ft you'd want 200 watts, a 3x3 plant (9 sq ft) you'd need about 450 watts. This also means using reflective material or Orca grow film. You gain advantage with more plants under 1 bulb (to a limit) as each bulb's lumens or PAR can hit more of each plants area or leaf mass.
itsallgoodsman
Member
pull the impeller
pull the impeller
Beo - I had the same thing happen pull the front cover off, be careful there is an o ring. Pull the impeller out, it is a magnet drive it will pop right out, make sure there is no build up. If you have high calcium this will cause it to temporarily seize, thats what it did to me using well water.
pull the impeller
Beo - I had the same thing happen pull the front cover off, be careful there is an o ring. Pull the impeller out, it is a magnet drive it will pop right out, make sure there is no build up. If you have high calcium this will cause it to temporarily seize, thats what it did to me using well water.
Give me time. As soon as I can. Its very easy though if you want to start.
Actualy i'm having a hard time getting all the pieces, here we work with mm instead of inches so most of the stuff you describe doesn't exist.
I'm modifying your setup and making it the most alike yours I can!!
I could be wrong but Home Depot might ship world wide. Once I get settled into the new house, Ill be working with grow shops in my area and I will be offering pre-built systems to cater to anyone on IC's needs. I will be building everything personally so there will be no mistakes. I can customize systems to everyones specific needs.
I'm looking to build a exact 4 bucket like yours for a friend of mine, and a custom made 1 row 3 buckets system for myself with a 250gph pump to fit 1.5mx0.5m space I got free in my tent!
The problem is the price will skyrocket if I get the stuff from the US. 60% tax rate for any imports. Building it here already costs 300-400 bucks for a 4 bucket system with a small pump (300-400ghp). No chance on getting any danners down here either!! I already mailed them twice, not a single email back yet.
btw thanks for this amazing tutorial!
I don't understand the question. "in head"?
well when calculating what sized GPH pump you need flow rate we cannot just go i need so many GPH ot want cause that GPH will not be
size of pipe length of pipe used elevated pipe ??? for instance drip irrigation going up every 5 gallon bucket for every 10 feet of pipe u lose 1 foot head etc this is important this is all new to me as i am just starting this style normally soil grower here are some links
http://www.accontrols.com/assets/docs/eng-resources/Feet Head of Water to PSI Conversion Table.pdf
http://www.thatpetplace.com/understanding-and-calculating-head-pressure-article
I posted this on page 2 of this thread. Maybe this is what you mean:
Choosing the correct Air Pump to use
From the testing that I have done I have figured out the minimum required air that you will want to use. In these calculations I’ve taken into account that depending on your environment, your water temperatures will vary. The warmer the water is, the less Dissolved Oxygen that it can hold. I make my calculation in Liters so we will think about it this way here. Each 5 Gallon bucket in the system that you choose to build, will hold a maximum of 4 Gallons of water and in terms of Liters, that would be 15 Liters. Now you want to multiply the amount of buckets that you are going to use by 15 Liters. For example if you are using the 12 plant system, then you multiply 15 Liters x 12 buckets, which would give you 180 Liters. For whatever application that you choose to use, you want to use an air pump rated at half of those liters per minute. So in a 12 plant system you want a pump rated around 90 Liters per minute. You do not have to enter the control bucket into your calculations because the waterfall that is created by the water pump going into the controller supplies all the Dissolved Oxygen that you need. If you are using more than 6 buckets, I would suggest that you spend the extra money and get the Alita brand air pumps. They really are top of the line and it is a minimum expense for what you are going to get out of your yield and product. If you want to go the cheaper route, then any air pumps rated at the calculations above will work.
Choosing the correct Water Pump to use
Personally I like the water in my system to re-circulate at least every 5 minutes. This keeps your nutrient and pH in the system consistent. Most in-line pumps in my area are rated in Gallons Per Hour so we will use Gallons in our calculations here. Each bucket in the system holds a maximum of 4 Gallons of water. So we will take that number and multiply by the number of buckets that you have. For example in a 12 plant system, we have 13 buckets of water so we multiply that by 4 Gallons per bucket and get 52 Gallons. We want the water to re-circulate at least every 5 minutes and there are 12 five-minute periods in an hour, so we multiply 52 Gallons by 12 Cycles to get 624. This means that you want an in-line water pump that is rated for at least 624 Gallons Per Hour.
choosing your water pump you only used the capacity ?? the volume from my readings your missing other Key variables like friction loss from elbows size of pipe, length all adds up to efficiency what i am saying head should be calculated into the equation if not then you can be loosing up to 30 percent or more of actual circulation so you think you are circulating so many times in a hr when your not your solutions may not be equal fluctuations in ppm
My equations work for these specific systems. You are welcome to come up with other equations for your systems. That amount of friction to me is not a big deal in my systems. If the pump is to big, the system doesn't run right with 1.5" pipes. For bigger pumps you need bigger pipes. For 5 Gallon buckets the biggest pipes that I'd personally use is 1.5". There are other members experimenting with 2" pipes in the 5 Gallon but I like 1.5". The amount of air from your air pumps is more important than the amount of circulation from any water pump, IMO.
