4 x 8 12 Site RDWC Help

3x4 or 2x6

  • 3x4

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • 2x6

    Votes: 1 100.0%
  • Total voters
    1
L

lovenchemp

New Member
Alright So this is my first ever post to a cannabis forum So bare with me please. So I have a 4x8 tent with 2 315 cmh I was gonna do a 12 site rdwc . I was either thinking by doing them in 3 rows with 4 5 gallon buckets per row and keeping my rez in side the tent or just doing 2 rows of 6 and moving my rez outside the tent. I wanna do a sog And veg my plants shorter So that i can harvest more frequently and train them so that i can fill the room up completely. I was thinking of going witha 50 gallon rez so that i wouldn't have to change it out every other day and im using 2 in pvc pipe connecting my buckets I bought a 2600 gph water pump and a 1750 gph air pump with 12 outlets that will be going for an air stone per bucket and then have another pump with 2 air stones in the rez. I uploaded a little sketch of the 2 rows of 6 concept that I was thinking If you have anything you think I should do to be more successful please dont be afraid to reply and if you have any questions Id love to answer them but please forgive my horrible spelling and grammer and hopefully my posts gets better and better!
 

Attachments

myke

myke

Well-Known Member
Welcome,do a little more reading around here lots of good info.
Not sure why you have a 2600 gph pump? You have a hot tub in there lol.jk. Sea of green means many plants all tight together. With 5 gallon pails your gonna have a mess of drain lines etc.
Res has to be outside of tent.
So with a pump that big you won’t need air stones. Read up on waterfalls.or exchange it for something around 2-300 gph. Then run your air
Your one air pump will run enough no need for another for the res. Air pump goes out side the tent. Run a manifold around the outside say 1/2” hose the. Tap in with 1/4 hose to the buckets. Much cleaner. Anyway. Good luck
 
myke

myke

Well-Known Member
Also to add. If sog was what you wanted I’d go with 8-10” pipe. Less is more.
 
Magicole

Magicole

Member
First off I would run the 2 x 6 if you’re stuck on doing 12 sites, really I would do a 2 x 4 so each plant has a 2 x 2 area. Not only will you have a little bit more area to work underneath the plants but because you’re using 5 gallon buckets you can get your plants a little bit larger. And again if you’re stuck on the 12 sites you could really even use 3 gallon buckets if not 2 gallon. You did good with the air pump and an air stone per pot plus one in your reservoir would be perfect. Your water pump I feel is a little oversized I would go for 750 to 1000gph. Plus by sizing down your pump you will not have to worry about 2 inch piping being too small. In contrary of the last answer, because you have an oversized water pump does not mean you don’t need an air pump. Continuing on water temperature is crucial when it comes to Deepwater culture if you do not have a water chiller I would invest. Not only will your water pump slowly heat the water up but if your room temps are anywhere in the 75 to 85 range your water will be too hot. One last thing is if you have the ability to I would put another CMH in the center this is not need be but advised and will help with the overall yield of the space it may decrease gram per watt but you’ll have better quality. Now with all this being said I am under the impression that you were not using the reservoir as your control bucket if you do so you will overflow your buckets inside your tent. You need to have a control bucket that is the same size to keep water level the same across the board, then have a float valve in the control bucket that is connected to the reservoir separate from the system. If any of this is confusing look up the schematics to the current cultures systems.
 
myke

myke

Well-Known Member
its rdwc,what the hell r u talking about?float valve??
simple hydro.
wow!read up on waterfalls.
 
Magicole

Magicole

Member
There is a large difference between recirculating Deepwater culture and drip systems/ waterfalls. In Deepwater culture there is no media for your plants to grow and it’s just water and drip systems you can use things such as Expanded clay Rockwool coco soil so on and so forth depending if you want recirculating or drain to waste.
 
myke

myke

Well-Known Member
So with a 2600 gph pump into 12 sites thats 200 ish ea!You would need 3/4 hose for that and some bigass return lines.Even if you bled off half that flow in the rez thats still 100gph per site.That would make one heck of a waterfall/spray.So why would you need an air pump?
 
Magicole

Magicole

Member
Okay, I see what your saying now and you could run it that way but I would be concerned with overspray. Looking at his blueprints again I fully understand. he doesn’t need lines to all pot just needs to pull water from the last 2 buckets and pump it to the Control bucket. Then the water will use the 2in pipes to flow back to the last buckets. In this case he would need air stones. If he way spraying the water he could probably get away with not using air pump, I would because I’m an overkill type of person. Here’s a good picture didn’t read site just like the diagram. https://images.app.goo.gl/Ri8m2e9YRLbxxVmW7
 
myke

myke

Well-Known Member
I guess Im old school,that link shows some different ways.Scratching my head on most of them.Why have such big bulkheads and water flow?IME roots will just want to go in the drains.
Simple 1 1/4 flex hose for drains linked back to the rez is more flexable.Pails can be pushed together until plants grow then spread apart,small flow feed lines so your just moving the water back to the res to cool down.Water level kept high in the bucket so air is always hitting the net pot,this keeps roots away from drains.
Cant see any of these other systems being any better just more complicated.
 
L

lovenchemp

New Member
Magicole said:
First off I would run the 2 x 6 if you’re stuck on doing 12 sites, really I would do a 2 x 4 so each plant has a 2 x 2 area. Not only will you have a little bit more area to work underneath the plants but because you’re using 5 gallon buckets you can get your plants a little bit larger. And again if you’re stuck on the 12 sites you could really even use 3 gallon buckets if not 2 gallon. You did good with the air pump and an air stone per pot plus one in your reservoir would be perfect. Your water pump I feel is a little oversized I would go for 750 to 1000gph. Plus by sizing down your pump you will not have to worry about 2 inch piping being too small. In contrary of the last answer, because you have an oversized water pump does not mean you don’t need an air pump. Continuing on water temperature is crucial when it comes to Deepwater culture if you do not have a water chiller I would invest. Not only will your water pump slowly heat the water up but if your room temps are anywhere in the 75 to 85 range your water will be too hot. One last thing is if you have the ability to I would put another CMH in the center this is not need be but advised and will help with the overall yield of the space it may decrease gram per watt but you’ll have better quality. Now with all this being said I am under the impression that you were not using the reservoir as your control bucket if you do so you will overflow your buckets inside your tent. You need to have a control bucket that is the same size to keep water level the same across the board, then have a float valve in the control bucket that is connected to the reservoir separate from the system. If any of this is confusing look up the schematics to the current cultures systems.
Click to expand...
I just though if i did 12 sites that I would be able to veg less i was gonna train them so i can get more colas so i can completly fill the whole room. How much longer do you think that i would have to veg if i did a 2x4 instead of 2 x6 Im super confused on what a control bucket is i get it controls the high of the water but i dont understand why i can just fill a 40 gallon rez up high enough for it to level out everything else out Im tight with money right now so i cant afford a chiller at the moment ive been looking at setting a float valve but how to i mix nutrients do i fill the seperate rez up with nutes or do i put nutes in the control bucket and then have ph water in the other rez
 
Magicole

Magicole

Member
Just read the whole thing before thinking it will make much more sense, hopefully!

For the purposes of clarification the fill res would not be circulating water through your system and be separated just to keep the water level topped off in the main system using a float valve. The “res” would be like what’s your wanting to do, hooking it up the the whole rigmarole.

So you would run 1/2 Nutrients in your fill res. If you keep your “res” at the same water level as the rest of the pots you’ll be fine, you’ll just need to babysit more to make sure the water level doesn’t drop too much. When I think of reservoir my mind automatically goes to a cylindrical shaped like a drum, my bad. If your “res” is like a tray, low and wide then you could hold more water and your system would be less demanding as far as work and Monitoring it. I would assume it would be a daily thing when it comes to checking water level. If you use fill res with a float you could go days without having to think about it.

A control bucket is a bucket that you have your equipment in like water pumps, but the main reason is so you can check water level in pots, ph and ppm without having to move plants. If you use a “res” than that would be a sort of control bucket.

As far as saving time, I don’t know if you have any experience with most hydroponic systems but they grow an exponential rate so if I had to guess you would save maybe a week most by using the 2 extra pots. At least my plants were slow going then hit 2ish weeks into veg then just took off. No matter what if you’ve only grown in soil, you’ll be blown away!
 
myke

myke

Well-Known Member
More mature plants just seam to do better taste better.I scrogg 2~3 plnts in a 5.5x5.5 room and its full.
 
L

lovenchemp

New Member
Is there a video about float vaulves ? This is my 3rd time growing but i did dwc last time wanna do rdwc so its less up keep.
 
myke

myke

Well-Known Member
I played with float valves years or um a decade ago. Unless you have a floor drain to contain floods.which I’ll bet you don’t. Just go with a bigger 100 L plus res and your good. I can go away for a week no problems.
The KISS principle applies here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top