do any of you guys do large scale dwc??? 20+ buckets at a time

budherder

budherder

Active Member
i tried doing 48 bubble buckets at one time. it was a disaster. biggest problem was that the massive air pump i used would pump hot air into the buckets and that caused root slime. there is no way to cool 48 individual buckets when growing in that style.
i then decided i needed to connect them all to a central rez to cool the nute solution. i ended up building a 48 site ebb and flow bucket system. the roots dangle in the air under the net pots. i have to use 2 controllers and 2 55 gallon rezs connected via bulkhead and tubing. with 1 controller it took over an hour to fill all the buckets. it uses a lot of water in this system but i dont need to change my rez for 3 weeks.

anyone else use a similar system? i just wanted to see how other do large scale dwc. ill probabaly convert to drip next round for veg, but ill keep the system as it is in flower, so the roots can get massive and will have maximum air and water delivery.
 

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dtischerd

Well-Known Member
honestly bro..with no i'll regards to you,but i think your nuts!

having that many plant as close together is asking for trouble(especially if your doing DWC),and if your doing ebb and flow your in the wrong section.

like many others before me have said..keep it green,and smoke what ya got.
 
J

jpill

Well-Known Member
That shit looks good but you need more light. Stop fucking around and get more watts in there and space those plant out.

You got any more pics? What does your res look like ? how is your tubing connected ?
 
budherder

budherder

Active Member
to the comments about spacing: this is only the veg room. ive got a flowering room 4 times bigger with 8 1000w hps' with extra large hoods.

to the comments about lighting: this pic is older. ive got 3 600w hps over them now. 16 plants per light when im running all 48. im doing 44 at the moment.

the res's are 2 55 gallon water barrels linked together by 1 inch tubing thru bulkheads and valves. the tubing is set up with 6 buckets per line and each controller filling 4 rows or 24 buckets. ill post some more pics later. thanks for the props dudes!
 
budherder

budherder

Active Member
never mind about the dft. yeah its kinda like that. its more of a deep water ebb and flow system. the only downfall i can see (aside from your normal aeroponic downfalls) is the amount of water required, but at the sAME time i can probably go a month with out changing nutes.
 
BigBuddahCheese

BigBuddahCheese

New Member
budherder said:
what sucks about it?
Click to expand...
The work mostly I think he said, my 12 individual buckets are sometimes more work then I like. I do like individual plant needs are met in individuals and I can run staggered harvests with different ppm ranges as well, so main res. kinda sucks for me. I don't mind the work as I am a perfectionist and go for quality over quantity like most the posters here.
 
budherder

budherder

Active Member
i make it a point to clean all 40+ buckets, rez's and tubing every 2 to 4 weeks depending. it takes me close to 5 hours to do it but thats pretty much all i have to do besides putting water in it once a week or so. i can pretty much sit back and relax and watch these things grow most the time. i dont find it to be that much work. once this system is multiplied by 4, then that will be a lot of work, but so so worth it!! i also have 40+ plants in 3 gallon grow bags filled with 50/50 coco/perlite that i hand water and those require way more work to run. im moving and lifting pots everyday to see who needs fed. its kinda a bitch to keep track of... i need a system. but this is my last run with any kind of medium. id much rather work 1 full day every few weeks then a few hours every day. either way i dont really mind cuz this is all i do. i used to grow under 4 600s and use fox farm. now i use that many lights in veg! im rocking 8 1000's for flower. cant wait to get these buckets under those bad boys! gotta wait to clear the coco first tho. my veggies will be huge by then! 6 more weeks!
 
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onthedl0008

Well-Known Member
Yea man i just built a simple inline rdwc ive got 3 of them now because like Buddah i plan on dedicateing certain strains to different feeds ill tell u tho putting them on one main res is the shit once u see how they like to feed.. Man im glad i got rid of the coco so much work man all im doing now is biweekly res changes nothing but a breeze topoff when needed make ur adjustements and bam..
My rigs only set up to do 4 monsters at a time tho.
 
IN33DW33D

IN33DW33D

Active Member
I would suggest you doing RDWC or Undercurrent if going big like that. The only reason I'm not right now is because I do it perpetually, but even so I am probably still going to rig shit up..

It's easier now it's just like a routine. Dump a gallon of water in each one a day and I'm done. Would be alot better to do it to 4 res's than 50... LOL
 
lvtokerr

lvtokerr

Active Member
i thought keeping track of feeding two separate buckets was too much work. it would be a huge pain in the ass to pH every bucket. its so nice having all the buckets plumbed. i only have to check one res now.
 
budherder

budherder

Active Member
lvtokerr said:
i thought keeping track of feeding two separate buckets was too much work. it would be a huge pain in the ass to pH every bucket. its so nice having all the buckets plumbed. i only have to check one res now.
Click to expand...

ya man, i originally had them all set up as individual bubble buckets!bad idea. i thought id just clean a few buckets a day to maintain it all but that didnt work out for shit. i had water temp issues the first week and decided to plumb it all together so i could chill the water. the end result was a flood and drain aero bucket system, essentially.
i like the design of my set up because it gives me tons of root space,and eliminates sprayers and drip emitters. the only con is the amount of water it takes to fill 48 5 gallon buckets, especially during the first few weeks. the pro of that is i can go without a res change for a month, which is how long i veg. i may add a drip system to it in the future, just because the roots go for an hour between floods, no harm from that , but maybe with added drippers the growth could be even better.
 
budherder

budherder

Active Member
i guess all id need to do to make my system a rdwc is to add air stones to it. which i have, since they were previously bub ble buckets. i think ill do that. hopefully it wont effect my water temps to much. im having a problem keeping the temps under 70 and my chiller is running constantly. worst case i remove the stones so no biggie.
 
budherder

budherder

Active Member
i added air stones and plumed my buckets like a rdwc system. makes much more sense to have the water recirc instead of flood and drain. best part, i didnt have to buy a thing.
 
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