Do you change your Water?

Hi,

im new to Hydro. I wanted to give it a try before I got back to coco or soil. My problem is with Water. Do you have to change it ever 1-2 weeks? Seems like a waste of water to me plus its so hard with my back.

Also If you dont change the water how do you check the nutrients levels to make sure your not over/underfeeding. is there a tool to test this?

Thanks

Maybe you can get away without replacing the water, but it seems risky. When you change it, you get rid of any nasties that might be growing in the water.

You can't measure exactly how many of which nutrient is in the water, but get an EC meter, which measures electrical conductivity to know how much salts have been dissolved. Lots of info on this around.

As far as draining, I did my first couple fills manually but then realized I already had all these pumps. So I just pump through a 30' hose and drain into the bathtub. Just be careful, these little pumps can't move water very far vertically, so you probably won't be able to go up stairs.

I have 4ft diamater plants. I pretty much gave up lifting them after week 3 flowering!

https://www.rollitup.org/t/2000w-monster-size-lst-northern-lights-dwc-mix-of-hps-led.836693/

It's good to remove the crap at the bottom of the res ever now and then, but I've gone a month without changing before and just topped up with plain water for the flush, no problems.

IF i change every month

BUT you are only topping off cause the plants drink up the whole rez, so I wait til the rez is low and refill. simple..

i have only changed mine 2-3 times in 8-10 weeks.. i have a 55 gal. i have no Issues whassoever no what someone says.. LOL

This is what Lucas has to say:

"It is not necessary to dump your reservoir with the correct addback strategy. Using a little simple math and his trusty TDS/EC monitor, the gardener can greatly reduce the waste involved in pouring nutrients down the drain."

http://www.asklucas.com/LucasFormula-Addback.html

Larger the reservoir the longer you can run it generally. Just use an EC and pH meter to determine addbacks.

I've large reservoirs that run 90+ days on flood n drain tables. I've DWC systems with 20 gallons per plant that gets changed weekly (massive 2+ pound plants). I've moms in 5 gallon bucket dwc that need changed every 3 days (massive 5 foot clone machines), will eventually change this to the 20 gal...

Your plants will tell you if your short on something.

IME a Flood & Drain system will go longer between res changes than a DWC rig. So system has a role in this equation.

All my systems have a dump valve to a floor drain.

Hmmm didn't realize so many people did this maybe I will start experimenting

I am using 5 gallon DWC, usually just put a clean bucket next to the one I am draining, transfer the top, then filling with fresh water and putting in my nutes. It is a little work, but not really hard. Besides, I can get a good look at the roots and such. Small grow, 9 plants in flower, 9 in grow, so it only takes an hour or two. The old buckets then get poured into a big container and drained

FUCK NO if it ain't dirty and no problems with the plant then save the Nutes you're going to waste dumping perfectly good water

Think about who recommends a res change every week the nutrient companies and hydro stores that all want you to use more nutrients and alot more money growing a Fucking weed that grows outside for free