DoDad
Member
More watering=more oxygen in the root zone=explosive growth. I like to completely replace the rez daily with one drench to run off. I use 2 gallon buckets, so mature plants suck them dry overnight.
I have been watering 4 times a day @ 700 PPM for a couple of days now with no ill effects, so far.
Temps in my tent range from 85-95*F and I have a stiff breeze in there. I'm in 1 gallon pots and I do need to water every 24 hours or my plants start to wilt. My plants are just about 1 month old.
I am Loving this watering system. My progression went from:
Option 1. Removing all my plants from one room and hauling them to the kitchen, watering them one at a time, draining. Hauling them back to the tent.
Option 2. Then I designed a DTW. Leaving them in place and watering them everyday, let them drain to waste. Drain the runoff once every two days.
Option 3. Now, I do nothing but check PH in main res once a day and listen to the pump turn on.
I like option 3 better.
This system uses less water, less nutes by a sizable margin over DTW too. I am only recycling about 4 gallons of water for (8) 1 gallon pots. I'm figuring to change the 4 gallons once a week if the PH shifts or not.
My main technical problem this system solved was getting the res out of the tent. The temps and the light in my tent were always higher than my outside temperature and this was causing shifts in PH in just a few hours. Now that the water is stored outside the tent, in cooler temps and in the dark, my PH seems much more stable or has been for the first two days.
Also dealing with large amounts of water in such tightly enclosed area as a 2'x3' foot tent was a recipe for disaster. The floor in my tent was wet all the time raising the humidity and chance for diseases, mold on the carpet, electrocution, etc. Now it's all a sealed system and the business end of my day to day is outside the tent where I have room to maneuver. The floor of my tent is bone dry.
I originally wanted to run DWC but because my PH wasn't stable and the res temps would have been at 80-95* I didn't think that was a good option unless my goal was changing all gallons of nutes every day and root rot.
Maybe I solved the root rot issue by having the res in the hempy buckets replaced 4 times a day. I still have roots in water just like a DWC but hopefully without the headaches my personal situation presented.
Yes it's true, it took a few days and a few dollars to get this watering system online, but I think the results will be worth it both in ease of operation and growth. I can't attest to the later just yet, but the former seems quite evident.