Supercharged RDWC v1.0

[il19z8rn4li1]

Hi BA,
Not the waterfall in the res, I meant the waterfall in the bucket from the feed elbow. From your pic, the surface agitation appears weak. I think you can get a stronger churning of the water if the water shoots out of the elbow faster and if you can drop the water level by lowering the drains. A higher and stronger waterfall will make a big difference. I think this can be done by replacing the 3/4" feed elbow with a 1/2" elbow. You'd only need a 3/4" to 1/2" coupling attached to the 1/2" feed elbow. In addition, you can use a 1/4" top hat grommet to tap into the 3/4" half of the reducing coupling. That would provide feed to the top of the hydroton. Please consider making this mod as this could fix a glaring weakness in your current setup. I think the top hat will work because the pressure will be higher within the 3/4" part of the feed manifold and the 1/4" line will be much shorter than before.

I would listen to Pete :-D He speaks truth here... so you pretty much got 2 people agreeing that WATER FALL IS VERY IMPORTANT and MOVING WATER goes hand in hand with HEALTHY PLANTS.

I would suggest doing as he suggests as well ;-)
You want that shit to be like a bubble bath of MIXING CHURNING water of goodness hehe.

If not...then the only other way is if you have a very large turn over rate... and a giant waterfall into the RES from the drains.

 

[petemoss]

Something is wrong with the last post in this thread. il19..'s last post, made at 8:13 AM is not showing up. I wonder if this post will show...

Seems OK now...

What I wanted to add is this: Looking at BA's picture above, I understand why he is hesitating to lower the drains. That would involve re-doing his new "warrior head" res so that the drain pipe will slope down to the res. BattleAxe has been great in making last minute changes and hunting down parts and I cannot fault him for wanting to go with what he has built and get on with his grow. The construction of this RDWC was a lot more complicated than I had imagined, mainly because you need plenty of vertical space. First, you need at least 6-7 inches for an effective waterfall in the bucket. Then another 3-4 inches for the drain piping to slope down to the res. Finally, another 7-8 inches of res water depth. To create the vertical space this system requires, you would have to either sink the res into the floor or raise the buckets. Say, BA could you go to Home Depot and rent a jackhammer? LOL just kidding.. Actually, raising the buckets 5-6 inches wouldn't be that hard. You could do it with some bricks and long boards supporting the buckets.

Eventually you will need to make a topping res to maintain the depth of water in your main res. In flower, a large plant can drink over a gal per day and you will grow tired of topping off your res every day. A topping res is very easy to make with 1/4" tubing and a float valve (preferably a plastic float valve) in the main res and a side table to elevate the topping res. An alternative to a topping res is to hook up the float valve to a saddle valve tapping into a cold water pipe - the same way an ice maker gets water. Then you will have a truly low maintenance RDWC setup with no air pumps, airstones or manual topping off. Just add nutes once a week.

 

[petemoss]

I would listen to Pete :-D He speaks truth here... so you pretty much got 2 people agreeing that WATER FALL IS VERY IMPORTANT and MOVING WATER goes hand in hand with HEALTHY PLANTS.

I would suggest doing as he suggests as well ;-)
You want that shit to be like a bubble bath of MIXING CHURNING water of goodness hehe.

If not...then the only other way is if you have a very large turn over rate... and a giant waterfall into the RES from the drains.

Yeah, il19z8rn4li1, that's what I'm talking about!

 

[BattleAxe]

Sorry for the absence guys. Were hosting a xmas party here this year. Been busy with a deadline at work and prepping for the party. I had to step back from this project as I was starting to dream about turnover rates, aeration and waterfalls.

My decorative contribution to our tree:

I see what your saying my friend :-D but with cooled hoods(i have them soon and I hate them) but you lose about 10% of the light power.


by no means was i implying that you should change out lamps,
I was just suggesting that you could look into later in the future, maybe when your ready to redesign or make a new system.

I just find that you can utilize the same amount of primary light with 600s as you can 1000s in turn using less power, making less heat :-D

I see what you are saying and I do agree that it is all about efficiency. Knowing what I know now, I think I would have purchased a 600W setup.

That explains it! Sorry I word things poorly sometimes. Thanks

NP, I misunderstood your question initially.

Hi BA,
Not the waterfall in the res, I meant the waterfall in the bucket from the feed elbow. From your pic, the surface agitation appears weak. I think you can get a stronger churning of the water if the water shoots out of the elbow faster and if you can drop the water level by lowering the drains. A higher and stronger waterfall will make a big difference. I think this can be done by replacing the 3/4" feed elbow with a 1/2" elbow. You'd only need a 3/4" to 1/2" coupling attached to the 1/2" feed elbow. In addition, you can use a 1/4" top hat grommet to tap into the 3/4" half of the reducing coupling. That would provide feed to the top of the hydroton. Please consider making this mod as this could fix a glaring weakness in your current setup. I think the top hat will work because the pressure will be higher within the 3/4" part of the feed manifold and the 1/4" line will be much shorter than before.

Good point Pete. I made a HD run yesterday on my way home and picked up some 3/4" - 1/2" street elbows that I plan to use when I put this thing back together again.

Niice Thread.. I love this flood of usefull information..
Subbed

Thanks for looking in, glad you are finding it to be useful.

I would listen to Pete :-D He speaks truth here... so you pretty much got 2 people agreeing that WATER FALL IS VERY IMPORTANT and MOVING WATER goes hand in hand with HEALTHY PLANTS.

I would suggest doing as he suggests as well ;-)
You want that shit to be like a bubble bath of MIXING CHURNING water of goodness hehe.

If not...then the only other way is if you have a very large turn over rate... and a giant waterfall into the RES from the drains.

Agreed, I'm not one to argue with PM, I just thought that the surface agitation and waterfalls would be sufficient. The pump has a huge turnover rate right now:

6 buckets - approx 10 Gl
1 res - approx 5 Gl
pump- 1200 gph

= 18 water exchanges/hr

I do see the benefit of making the proposed mods, just dreading going over this thing again.

If I have learned one thing, it is better to do it right the first time, vs going back over x amount of times to make it right. So I am, at the moment, gathering parts to make some more mods.

Something is wrong with the last post in this thread. il19..'s last post, made at 8:13 AM is not showing up. I wonder if this post will show...

Seems OK now...

What I wanted to add is this: Looking at BA's picture above, I understand why he is hesitating to lower the drains. That would involve re-doing his new "warrior head" res so that the drain pipe will slope down to the res. BattleAxe has been great in making last minute changes and hunting down parts and I cannot fault him for wanting to go with what he has built and get on with his grow. The construction of this RDWC was a lot more complicated than I had imagined, mainly because you need plenty of vertical space. First, you need at least 6-7 inches for an effective waterfall in the bucket. Then another 3-4 inches for the drain piping to slope down to the res. Finally, another 7-8 inches of res water depth. To create the vertical space this system requires, you would have to either sink the res into the floor or raise the buckets. Say, BA could you go to Home Depot and rent a jackhammer? LOL just kidding.. Actually, raising the buckets 5-6 inches wouldn't be that hard. You could do it with some bricks and long boards supporting the buckets.

Eventually you will need to make a topping res to maintain the depth of water in your main res. In flower, a large plant can drink over a gal per day and you will grow tired of topping off your res every day. A topping res is very easy to make with 1/4" tubing and a float valve (preferably a plastic float valve) in the main res and a side table to elevate the topping res. An alternative to a topping res is to hook up the float valve to a saddle valve tapping into a cold water pipe - the same way an ice maker gets water. Then you will have a truly low maintenance RDWC setup with no air pumps, airstones or manual topping off. Just add nutes once a week.

I'm not opposed to changing it up, I don't necessarily want to but I know there are some more benefits to be had. Here are some pics:



The first is the inner bucket squeezed into the lid, I test fitted all of them and they all fit, so there is one less item to tackle. The second is the new, proposed water line, that is 2" above the bottom of the inner bucket. (it's the black sharpie dot.) Not that I am disagreeing but looking at this, there is only going to be about 1.5 - 2" difference. You think it will make that much of a difference?

Also, with the new sunken buckets, the drip lines work perfect

Yeah, il19z8rn4li1, that's what I'm talking about!

Nice pic.

 

[BattleAxe]

Something is wrong with the last post in this thread. il19..'s last post, made at 8:13 AM is not showing up. I wonder if this post will show...

Seems OK now...

What I wanted to add is this: Looking at BA's picture above, I understand why he is hesitating to lower the drains. That would involve re-doing his new "warrior head" res so that the drain pipe will slope down to the res. BattleAxe has been great in making last minute changes and hunting down parts and I cannot fault him for wanting to go with what he has built and get on with his grow. The construction of this RDWC was a lot more complicated than I had imagined, mainly because you need plenty of vertical space. First, you need at least 6-7 inches for an effective waterfall in the bucket. Then another 3-4 inches for the drain piping to slope down to the res. Finally, another 7-8 inches of res water depth. To create the vertical space this system requires, you would have to either sink the res into the floor or raise the buckets. Say, BA could you go to Home Depot and rent a jackhammer? LOL just kidding.. Actually, raising the buckets 5-6 inches wouldn't be that hard. You could do it with some bricks and long boards supporting the buckets.

Eventually you will need to make a topping res to maintain the depth of water in your main res. In flower, a large plant can drink over a gal per day and you will grow tired of topping off your res every day. A topping res is very easy to make with 1/4" tubing and a float valve (preferably a plastic float valve) in the main res and a side table to elevate the topping res. An alternative to a topping res is to hook up the float valve to a saddle valve tapping into a cold water pipe - the same way an ice maker gets water. Then you will have a truly low maintenance RDWC setup with no air pumps, airstones or manual topping off. Just add nutes once a week.

Good idea with the platforms for the buckets. I think I may end up doing that, in order to get a better waterfall. I am going to have to revamp the res a bit, probably have to order a new bucket to butcher. I wish baytec didn't take so damn long to ship. I'm thinking that if I were to raise the buckets so that the waterfall came in through the top of the res lid, that I could get away with just the one bucket as the water line will allow for about 10Gl of water. If not, I can always plumb another res to the existing res as you described.

list of items to tackle:

-platform for buckets
-order 2 more buckets (1 spare) I might even just go with one of the kitty litter buckets, anyone know who makes the square pails?
-purchase more vinyl hose to accomodate new bucket heights.
-new sump pump hose

It doesn't look like this thing is going to get off the ground until the new year....

Thanks everyone for all your insight and suggestions.

Back to the lab

 

[petemoss]

...

I do see the benefit of making the proposed mods, just dreading going over this thing again.

If I have learned one thing, it is better to do it right the first time, vs going back over x amount of times to make it right. So I am, at the moment, gathering parts to make some more mods.



I'm not opposed to changing it up, I don't necessarily want to but I know there are some more benefits to be had. Here are some pics:
...

The first is the inner bucket squeezed into the lid, I test fitted all of them and they all fit, so there is one less item to tackle. The second is the new, proposed water line, that is 2" above the bottom of the inner bucket. (it's the black sharpie dot.) Not that I am disagreeing but looking at this, there is only going to be about 1.5 - 2" difference. You think it will make that much of a difference?

Also, with the new sunken buckets, the drip lines work perfect,,,

Hi BA,
Only 1.5"-2" difference? I'm surprised, because you estimated the water level was originally 6"-7" up on the inner pail. I think it's best to check each bucket and drill the new drains so that you get a consistent 2" water level up from the bottom of the inner pail. The main benefit will be to give you a taller waterfall near the root ball.

Great that the drip lines now work, but they may stop after you raise the buckets. Then you may need to relocate the top hat grommets to the fat half of the reducer. With a much shorter 1/4" tube, the top drip will surely work at any height.

Have a Merry Xmas! I have to get out of town soon to spend the weekend with family and will check in when I return.

 

[BattleAxe]

Hi BA,
Only 1.5"-2" difference? I'm surprised, because you estimated the water level was originally 6"-7" up on the inner pail. I think it's best to check each bucket and drill the new drains so that you get a consistent 2" water level up from the bottom of the inner pail. The main benefit will be to give you a taller waterfall near the root ball.

Great that the drip lines now work, but they may stop after you raise the buckets. Then you may need to relocate the top hat grommets to the fat half of the reducer. With a much shorter 1/4" tube, the top drip will surely work at any height.

Have a Merry Xmas! I have to get out of town soon to spend the weekend with family and will check in when I return.

Merry Christmas bud and safe travels!

 

[petemoss]

Hi BA,
That was a nice break. How are those clones doing? One thing I forgot to mention is the height of your SCROG screen, which you said was 12" above the top of the bucket. That seems a bit too high to me, as I'm used to a lower screen- about 7". What you want is for the clone to grow straight up to the screen and through it so you can tie the shoot to the screen or top the clone (cut its head off!). Then you let the shoots grow horizontally and spread out to fill out the screen with bud sites. The sooner you get the clone to grow straight up to the screen, the better. So I'd recommend lowering the screen to about 8-9". I learned this from a fellow named Iguana many years ago who did the first SCROG I had seen. Iguana (or pH) drew a diagram to explain his technique. I'll try to find it....

 

[BattleAxe]

Hi BA,
That was a nice break. How are those clones doing? One thing I forgot to mention is the height of your SCROG screen, which you said was 12" above the top of the bucket. That seems a bit too high to me, as I'm used to a lower screen- about 7". What you want is for the clone to grow straight up to the screen and through it so you can tie the shoot to the screen or top the clone (cut its head off!). Then you let the shoots grow horizontally and spread out to fill out the screen with bud sites. The sooner you get the clone to grow straight up to the screen, the better. So I'd recommend lowering the screen to about 8-9". I learned this from a fellow named Iguana many years ago who did the first SCROG I had seen. Iguana (or pH) drew a diagram to explain his technique. I'll try to find it....

Hi Pete and HNY bud. Never heard of 7-8" for a scrog, only 11-12" so thanks for that insight. The clones are dead. I had to remove them from the system while making the latest mods and neglected them while they were back in the propogation dome to the point the RW dried out, they shriveled and died. I know it was a bonehead move that could have been prevented but shit happens. Just glad it wasn't a very expensive mistake.

So I took a bunch of cuts last night from this big girl
and now just waiting for them to root to start anew. I have been toying with the idea of splitting this bitch down the middle to fit under the scrog or just lettting her stand up and flowering it in the prototype. What would you guys do with it?

Made some more changes to the setup...



As you can see, I have raised the buckets with 5 gl buckets atop some cedar boards. I reworked the manifold using poly tubing and I added a 32 Gl rubbermaid brute res. Now I don't have to worry about overflowing should the pump die and I shouldn't need to top up as often. The pic doesn't show the true waterline in the res, It was still being filled while the pic was taken but there is a 12" waterfall in the res. At that height waterfall the res contains approx 20 Gl of water which I am hoping should get me through the better part of a week.

 

[il19z8rn4li1]

damn battle lol

you sure did increase your sizes... those the same buckets you were using before?
Or did I read correct and saw you had to buy new ones?


How big are those white buckets?
They look to me about 10 gallons or a bit more,
and around what 19 inches high?

Those suckers look to be PERFECT for a organic hydro setup hehe
Once you perfect RDWC you should join me in the organic hydro world :-D
hehe talking about explosive growth rates, WHOA lol

Very nice indeed, you should have NO PROBLEM with having happen plants
in that water. hehe


if you dont mind me recommending something, you might already be doing this
but since your cuttings are not going to be ready for at least a week, fill up your
system to its designed lvls... add in your flower nutes accordingly.
Check your ppms and ph.. adjust accordingly... check again and make note.

Now,,, during the week the water lvl will drop from evaping a little bit, so
naturally your pH will decrease since the more concentrated salts/nutes now.
So all youll have to do is top off the system to its designed lvl with LOW LOW LOW
ppm water, i use rain water since its HIGH pH to bring the lvls back to normal.

Let it run for the whole week, this will build up a nice beneficial bacteria
colony within your water solution. I like to put rocks in the bottoms of all my buckets
and the res for homes for the bene's.

This will save you time and effect of having to check the water chem WHILE
plants are in the system, which you dont want to have to do that much since
the plants dont like quick changes. Just my opinion here hehe :-D

Cheers friend.

 

[BattleAxe]

damn battle lol

you sure did increase your sizes... those the same buckets you were using before?
Or did I read correct and saw you had to buy new ones?


How big are those white buckets?
They look to me about 10 gallons or a bit more,
and around what 19 inches high?

Those suckers look to be PERFECT for a organic hydro setup hehe
Once you perfect RDWC you should join me in the organic hydro world :-D
hehe talking about explosive growth rates, WHOA lol

Very nice indeed, you should have NO PROBLEM with having happen plants
in that water. hehe


if you dont mind me recommending something, you might already be doing this
but since your cuttings are not going to be ready for at least a week, fill up your
system to its designed lvls... add in your flower nutes accordingly.
Check your ppms and ph.. adjust accordingly... check again and make note.

Now,,, during the week the water lvl will drop from evaping a little bit, so
naturally your pH will decrease since the more concentrated salts/nutes now.
So all youll have to do is top off the system to its designed lvl with LOW LOW LOW
ppm water, i use rain water since its HIGH pH to bring the lvls back to normal.

Let it run for the whole week, this will build up a nice beneficial bacteria
colony within your water solution. I like to put rocks in the bottoms of all my buckets
and the res for homes for the bene's.

This will save you time and effect of having to check the water chem WHILE
plants are in the system, which you dont want to have to do that much since
the plants dont like quick changes. Just my opinion here hehe :-D

Cheers friend.

Those are the same buckets, they are 13 Gl full and about 19" tall. I eliminated the PVC manifold and swapped it for poly tubing. I swapped out the res for a 32 Gl res that will prevent overflowing, should the pump fail or in the event of an outage, the buckets still hold about 2 Gl each above the water line. 2x6=12 gl. As long as I only keep 20 Gl max in the res, I shouldn't overflow.

Good advice on allowing the bennies build up. I sorted all the water chem a few days ago so now just waiting for clones to root. Thanks for looking in bud.

 

[BattleAxe]

Those suckers look to be PERFECT for a organic hydro setup hehe
Once you perfect RDWC you should join me in the organic hydro world :-D
hehe talking about explosive growth rates, WHOA lol

I forgot to mention that I have been looking into organic hydro lately. Got any good links to how to get started? I just started a worm bin in prep for the upcoming OD season.

 

[il19z8rn4li1]

as far as i know, just go to the organic hydro section in this forum.

I did a google search but there really isnt much on it, ran into a few
people that have tried it but failed to keep a balance. A lot of people
talk shit about it, saying that its no better then chem hydro... i beg the
100% differ. I feel you can get 2x the growth rate with ORGANIC HYDRO
compared to Organic Soil(I find organic soil and chem hydro are about
same speed, a GOOD organic soil grow mind you hehe)

 

[petemoss]

Hi BA,
Sorry to hear about the clones that dried out. Good job on raising your buckets to get a 12" waterfall in the res. Don't worry about the res overflowing. If your pump dies, water will only siphon back to the res a little bit until the water level is below the drain opening. I think your soft tubing will be better for a small six-bucket setup because it will allow you to move the plants a bit. I noticed that you put the chiller pump into the res. Any particular reason? Also, does the top drip still work?

 

[cocktail frank]

great thread and nice read!
good + vibes in this thread

could those inner buckets be replaced with netpots if need be?
assuming some1 didnt have spare waterfarms laying around.

i will read and study, but i might pick your brains at some point.
knowledge is power and ima tyrant!

 

[petemoss]

great thread and nice read!
good + vibes in this thread

could those inner buckets be replaced with netpots if need be?
assuming some1 didnt have spare waterfarms laying around.

...

Sure, Frank, you could use a netpot for the inner container. But then you'd have an ordinary bio-bucket. I grew that way with six-inch netpots but noticed that other bio-bucket growers were getting better yields and larger plants with eight-inch and ten-inch netpots. It seemed that more space for the upper roots resulted in bigger plants. Heath Robinson grew gigantic plants using a four-gallon inner pot with holes on the bottom only.

Paul Wright in his book "Organic Hydroponics" explains "In nature, the approximate top 1/3 of most plant’s roots are specialized for nutrient uptake, while the lower 2/3 of the roots are specialized for water uptake. The organic "dual root" growing system enhances the natural specialization of the root systems to maximize their dual nutrient and water uptake abilities." I believe that using a large inner pot will encourage the plant to develop more upper air roots. The inner pot can be square or round as long as it has at least 3-4 gal volume.
EDIT: Heath was using a very large outer container and BattleAxe is using a 13 gal outer. In a normal five-gal bucket, you'd only need a two gallon inner.

 

[cocktail frank]

cool pete, thanks.

so essentially, i could use a 5 gallon pail, cut the lid and insert a 2 gallon pail and i'm gold.
(not totally gold, more steps involved, but u get my point)
i'm guessing the square pots r easier to use due to sealing the bulkheads on a flat surface compared to a round one.

 

[BattleAxe]

Hi BA,
Sorry to hear about the clones that dried out. Good job on raising your buckets to get a 12" waterfall in the res. Don't worry about the res overflowing. If your pump dies, water will only siphon back to the res a little bit until the water level is below the drain opening. I think your soft tubing will be better for a small six-bucket setup because it will allow you to move the plants a bit. I noticed that you put the chiller pump into the res. Any particular reason? Also, does the top drip still work?

Shit happens.

I won't overflow now. Using the smaller res, I wasn't able to keep enough water in the res that didn't require a daily or every other day top up without overflowing.The res was near capacity and the overflow from buckets after shutting down pump would spill over the top. With this big res, even if the pump dies, there is enough space to hold the 15 Gl or so that would overflow into the res, if that makes sense.

The new res being a round face, bulkheads wouldn't work. I just decided to let my chiller do the work and battle the heat of the pumps. Having the penetrations low in the res is a huge PITA, especially when it comes time to move or do maintenance on anything attached to the pumps. It's so much easier with the pumps in the res.

No dice on the drips, I tried multiple ways but couldn't get any of the mods to work. Your last drawing simulates BL's setup with the PVC and would probably work but given the change to the poly, I think I am just gonna forego the drip lines on this setup. The pic doesn't really show it but there is acutally alot of DO near what will be the root zone in the inners. There is a fair amount of bubbles right where the feed comes in. I plan to plant the clones in this sweet spot. If my thinking is correct, it should just act as a big ass bubbler. We can dream up and test other ways for the drip on the next version.

Some other changes were in order as you can see. I incorporated your original design for the drains and penetrated the res with the 4" ABS drain. Having the drains converge into the lid made it hard to open up the res.It's supported once at the res and again at the end of the setup via a hook in a ceiling rafter. The hooks are rated at 150 lbs ea and I have estimated the amount of water to be in the drain at any given time to be >8 Gl. The same rafter(s) have supported a 6' banana bag with no issue for the better part of a year that sees constant abuse, much more stress than the drain would be adding.

great thread and nice read!
good + vibes in this thread

could those inner buckets be replaced with netpots if need be?
assuming some1 didnt have spare waterfarms laying around.

i will read and study, but i might pick your brains at some point.
knowledge is power and ima tyrant!

Thanks for looking in CF.

Please feel free to fire off questions in here. That's what the thread is for.

You hit it on the head. I started this project off with a WF but ended up scrapping it after PM sold me on the advantages of a top drain system. The WF was already plumbed for bottom drains so it wouldn't work. Tried to re-sell but got no action so now I have a WF minus 6 inner buckets.

You bring up a good point about the inners. I think the next version will do away with these inners and employ 8-10" netpots the type that fit over 5 Gl buckets. They are easier to come by and still allow for the two types of roots that PM speaks of.

 

[cocktail frank]

clean build and changes.
i would put a cap on the other end of that pvc drain pipe.
i know its pitched downhill and it would be almost a 0% water would come that far up the pipe.
but why risk it?
few dollars and a lil glue will tidy that up for ya.
K+

 

[BattleAxe]

clean build and changes.
i would put a cap on the other end of that pvc drain pipe.
i know its pitched downhill and it would be almost a 0% water would come that far up the pipe.
but why risk it?
few dollars and a lil glue will tidy that up for ya.
K+

Thanks for the rep! Great minds think alike. I picked up a jim plug from the hardware spot today omw home from work. It's basically a rubber cap that slips on the end and tightens down with a clamp. I'll post a pic once installed.