Dropa Dope My First Grow Journal 400 Watt RDWC 02/17/2010

Dropastone

Dropastone

Well-Known Member
For everyone that is still following along. I started my new northern lights #5 grow journal. The link can be found in my sig. Hope to see you there.

Peace.
 
I

inspired333

Member
I was just wondering how you (dropastone) actually hooked up your hoses (fill and drains) at each bucket? Did you use bulkhead fittings, or just straight gray barbed fittings glued or siliconed in? I can't see from any pictures yet. Although it looks like the fills just go right into the bucket lids without any type of fitting.

Also! -- how do the buckets fill? it seems as though if the drain line is on the bottom and the fill is on the top, the buckets would never fill up, cause as soon as the water begins to "pour" in, its immediately draining through the bottom drain. how do they fill, is it due to the water level in the res?? Thanks for any help. Great, effective looking, simple setup. I love it man.
 
Dropastone

Dropastone

Well-Known Member
Well I presume your talking about the 4 bucket system with res at the very beginning of this thread. So it's easy the res has 4 drain tubes and each drain tube leads to its own grow bucket. Now, hoses are connected with grommets and barbed connectors that you can find at your local Lowe's store. Once all are connected the water level of all the buckets will be determined by the water level in your res. Now in the res there is a submersible water pump with the flow moving up the res and attached to a 4 way splitter with a drip tube leading to each bucket and that ensures that the water will be on the move and circulating.

I don't use this setup anymore and there no reason why I wouldn't use it again, it's just that I've moved on to bigger and better things. But If theres one thing I would change, I would have an air stone in the res and one for each grow bucket because the ladies would love it.
 
I

inspired333

Member
Thank you for the (very) quick response.
I'm still reading through, at page 14 now, so I just notice what I thought was rubber grommets at the bottom (the drains) of the grow buckets.
I have a bunch of sizes of grommets, I'm just afraid a little to use them because I don't trust they'll be tight and water proof enough. Did you ever have any leaks in that system? I read you bought it off ebay - do you know if there was any silicone used with the grommets or anything?
So I guess there are barbed connectors, that run through the grommets. Any silicone used there at all?
I've been reading forums for over a year now. I loved the 'bio-bucket' tutorial. He used barbed connectors, right through the bucket sides/walls - with no grommets - and sealed them with 1) hot glue around the barbed connectors and 2) silicone on top of the hot glue! I couldn't figure out how he got such a nice clean 'bead' of hot glue to go nicely on the circumference (inside and out) of where the barbed connectors go through the wall.

Also, what I meant about your drains being on the bottom of the grow buckets was: What if your drains were up top of the grow buckets (under the fill hole level obviously) such as the 'bio-bucket' design, I wonder how that would affect anything...
I'm thinking with the design you have (drains on the bottom of the bucket) that maybe the drain rate is affected, if not regulated, by the speed (and water pressure..?) of the filling water.
I just mean, it seems like with drains at the bottom, you'd have to do some sort of calculating to make sure the buckets 1) do not overflow/drain at a proper speed (2) fill up/don't drain to fast before the buckets fill to your desired height.
What regulates the water level in the grow buckets exactly -- I know you said the res -- but is it res height? or res water level? can it be adjusted? Very interesting, I can't wrap my head around it yet. Because if the drains were at the top, I guess, you would just locate them at the maximum water level you want to achieve. No?

I'll keep reading this thread, like to see what you're rockin' now man!
Thanks again.
 
Dropastone

Dropastone

Well-Known Member
inspired333 said:
Thank you for the (very) quick response.
I'm still reading through, at page 14 now, so I just notice what I thought was rubber grommets at the bottom (the drains) of the grow buckets.
I have a bunch of sizes of grommets, I'm just afraid a little to use them because I don't trust they'll be tight and water proof enough. Did you ever have any leaks in that system? I read you bought it off ebay - do you know if there was any silicone used with the grommets or anything?
So I guess there are barbed connectors, that run through the grommets. Any silicone used there at all?
I've been reading forums for over a year now. I loved the 'bio-bucket' tutorial. He used barbed connectors, right through the bucket sides/walls - with no grommets - and sealed them with 1) hot glue around the barbed connectors and 2) silicone on top of the hot glue! I couldn't figure out how he got such a nice clean 'bead' of hot glue to go nicely on the circumference (inside and out) of where the barbed connectors go through the wall.

Also, what I meant about your drains being on the bottom of the grow buckets was: What if your drains were up top of the grow buckets (under the fill hole level obviously) such as the 'bio-bucket' design, I wonder how that would affect anything...
I'm thinking with the design you have (drains on the bottom of the bucket) that maybe the drain rate is affected, if not regulated, by the speed (and water pressure..?) of the filling water.
I just mean, it seems like with drains at the bottom, you'd have to do some sort of calculating to make sure the buckets 1) do not overflow/drain at a proper speed (2) fill up/don't drain to fast before the buckets fill to your desired height.
What regulates the water level in the grow buckets exactly -- I know you said the res -- but is it res height? or res water level? can it be adjusted? Very interesting, I can't wrap my head around it yet. Because if the drains were at the top, I guess, you would just locate them at the maximum water level you want to achieve. No?

I'll keep reading this thread, like to see what you're rockin' now man!
Thanks again.
Click to expand...
There's no need to worry about anything leaking it's a water tight fit and no silicone was ever used. Also If I knew then what I know now I would have just built that unit myself.

About the drains, You want them on the bottom because when you fill the res the water flows into the grow buckets from the bottom. Plus your grow buckets will only fill as high as the level in your res. Think of it like this. It's basically gravity feed. When the water level in the res is more than what's in your grow buckets the weight of the water in the res flows into the other buckets until they are are equally full. So the same is true when the water level goes down. When the plants use the water in the grow buckets the water level will go down equally in all the buckets until filled again to the desired level.

Man I hope your understanding this because I probably won't explain it again.

I also just want to point out that this thread was kinda of a nightmare for me. Nothing seemed to go right in flower. Since then I've learned the error of my ways and found out it was all caused from a Cal/Mag deficiency. I later moved on to soil where I had great results. I"m about finished up with my current grow and I'm thinking about going back to hydro and giving it another go with knowledge that I have now and I truly believe I'm gonna do great things with DWC in the future.

Alright I got to go but if you have anymore questions I'll answer them to the best of my ability.

Peace and happy growing.
 
I

inspired333

Member
Dropastone said:
There's no need to worry about anything leaking it's a water tight fit and no silicone was ever used. Also If I knew then what I know now I would have just built that unit myself.

About the drains, You want them on the bottom because when you fill the res the water flows into the grow buckets from the bottom. Plus your grow buckets will only fill as high as the level in your res. Think of it like this. It's basically gravity feed. When the water level in the res is more than what's in your grow buckets the weight of the water in the res flows into the other buckets until they are are equally full. So the same is true when the water level goes down. When the plants use the water in the grow buckets the water level will go down equally in all the buckets until filled again to the desired level.

Man I hope your understanding this because I probably won't explain it again.

I also just want to point out that this thread was kinda of a nightmare for me. Nothing seemed to go right in flower. Since then I've learned the error of my ways and found out it was all caused from a Cal/Mag deficiency. I later moved on to soil where I had great results. I"m about finished up with my current grow and I'm thinking about going back to hydro and giving it another go with knowledge that I have now and I truly believe I'm gonna do great things with DWC in the future.

Alright I got to go but if you have anymore questions I'll answer them to the best of my abil
Peace and happy growing.
Click to expand...
Haha - yea, I'm understanding now. Sorry to just come in and start asking questions right off the bat, without introduction or anything guys.

The way you explained about how when you fill the res (when all is empty) and it fills through the bottom of the grow buckets (the 'drains') -- makes perfect sense now. That's cool. The drain holes at the bottom only act as fill holes when you first add water to the res. Once it's running they continually drain into the res, but ONLY ass fast as the pump removes water from the res - adding it to the grow buckets. Think I got that right. Haha. I suppose you could do it either way it's just that if the drains were up top (but below the fill holes) the pump would have to pump it up and into the buckets from the start.
I like the way you had it, gravity helps, and it levels out - I get it.
Thanks for the explanation.

I might give this system a try. :mrgreen:
Sorry to hear about the flowering issues. I have some stuff called Magi-Cal (cal-mag supplement), that my grow store guy said to get cause we have lowww ppm water here. I bet that distiller you had to get took any stuff you'd actually want in the water out, and at the time, you didn't know that it may have been low in those micro-nutes. Hmm.

Time to look around the site after I go through this thread some more
Peace.
 
Dropastone

Dropastone

Well-Known Member
It's all good man and it sounds like you understand now. I don't have a problem trying to teach you something. I just would have had a problem trying to explain it again because I probably wouldn't have had the words to explain it.

Come check out my other thread located in my sig if you want to see some monster buds.;-)

Check ya later.:eyesmoke:
 
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