Direct cold water feed to control bucket RDWC

Hi, im new to these forums.

Does anybody see a problem with connecting the float valve in my control bucket directly to a self peircing tap on the cold water pipe in my loft.

Effectively my system will constantly add back water to the control bucket, and this is also where I will add back nutes. The system is RDWC with 4-6 buckets and 600w in a 1mtrx1mtr area Loft grow.

Any forseeable issues ?

Only 1 issue. Ph I am willing to bet the water coming out of your tap is nit at the desired Ph level.

If it were my investment I would absolutely have a reverse osmosis filter on the feed line from the cold water pipe. Lots of nasty stuff to clog up your root system coming straight out of the pipe.

G.J. Stoner said:

If it were my investment I would absolutely have a reverse osmosis filter on the feed line from the cold water pipe. Lots of nasty stuff to clog up your root system coming straight out of the pipe.

Click to expand...

It's a mains water pipe, the same water that we drink from the kitchen tap.

As far as I know, the natural ph of the water will drop as you add nutes. By adding back water to the resevoir via the control bucket it should help keep the PH and EC more stable.

Apparently using RO water makes your water less stable?

How would I calculate 3 part nutes with add back? or would I do it by taking EC measurements?

Ideally I want to only change out the water once during flip to 12/12. I hope that I can just add back nutes for the rest of the time.

The idea was formed from the BioBuckets thread over on ICMAG.

Am I doing this the wrong way?

Im under the impression that PH actually drops in DWC, so by having automatic topping off from tap would make it stable? Water is quite hard so PH likely to be around 6-7 then adding nutes will bring it down?

Hard water has more buffering built in?

Also with it being in the loft, carrying water is a big issue and height is restricted. I plan to SCROG the hell out of it with an air cooled 600w hps for flower, running a 600w MH for a few weeks before switch to 12/12.

Please advise me, this is a first grow.

The answer to your question is YES but only if it goes through a Reverse Osmosis filter first. Yes the PH is higher, my city water runs around 8 but the water you loose out of the reservoir is mostly due to evaporation. With this the reservoir becomes more potent with nutes and the PH will drop. By adding water directly from the source through an RO filter it will bring it back up. Instead of you adding PH up every 3 to 5 days like you're probably doing now.

Trust me I have been doing this for over a year and it works well. Make sure to keep checking it because it will slowly come out of its range but not near as fast as adding PH balanced water to top it off. I agree every two weeks to change the water is far too much I do 4 - 6 weeks and haven't had any problems.

If you don't use a RO filter then the water won't be distilled and the chlorine or whatever you use to soften or clean your water will get through and become harmful to the plants. If you don't have the money just put the float in a separate bucket and let it sit for 3 days before you use and it will distill itself. It will be a pain because you will have to still do the dirty work.

Hope it helps,

Smoke

Hi SirSmokeAlot419, thanks for your input everything is appreciated.

The one reason I ask is because I basicly want to create Bio-Buckets but with an air pump to buckets and res instead of a water fall to oxygenate the nute solution.

I don't know if you have ever read up on the Bio-buckets, but the guys who grow like this just add back hard tap water for extra stability in the system.

The only manual maintenance is to add back nutes. No water change outs at all in some cases. They use lava rocks so that benificial bacterium can grow inside the system, and the plants that result are very productive indeed.

It seems different people all use different techniques and it gets quite confusing.