Missing the obvious? Why is a reservoir needed? If no space.

We are planning to use 3 x Ikea Sockerbit totes instead of 5 x 5 gallon pails so they will be about 15 gallons each.
One question came up, is there anything preventing from having smaller plants / herbs in the "reservoir" unit? (from where water is pumped to waterfall the others)

All we see was the ease to add nutrients without having to lift large plants.

Most benefits in standard design was to have it outside the grow room for temperature control and having a larger water volume (why not go 55 gallon!)

-That defeats the whole purpose of having a res imo. If youre that worried about getting all the plants you can in add more sites.

-This will become more obvious once you get to that stage yourself. Its not bad when theyre little, but unless you plan to grow some half assed tiny plants it does get difficult and annoying to get into the site when they grow up especially as the start putting on bulk on the top. Do you want to be banging around the tops of your plants and damaging your nice top buds or branches bending over in half maybe even snapping off? Opening sites and exposing roots to light daily or more often for ppm/ph checks also makes you much more likely to get algae growth you dont want.

-You dont want your control res under your lights and in the warmer temps if you have room. Usually the space outside is a few degrees cooler than inside the tent (nearly 10F in my space), keeping the res out there make it act as bit of a radiator and is just another step in helping with temp control. Space vs water volume gained on the size of the tote. The outside res stays the same water level as the rest of it unless you do a very specific build. Adding a bigger outside res will only add a few more gallons.

A lot of us use these Home Depot totes as theyre easy to get for most ppl in NA. The one you mentioned has a 15x20x11 ¾ option. Thats the only size I see that id use. Its pretty close to the 17 gal totes I use.

I use a big 55 gallon tote because it fit well in my space and I use half of it to chill my veg system if I run both at the same time. Its completely unnecessary and ive thought about changing it for a smaller one many times. As it stands it works and I dont have a reason to spend money on it so ive left it there.

Are these HDX storage containers durable enough to half fill with Hydroponics nutrient reservoir. I am trying to expand my Gh Power Growers RDWC for going away for a week with big plants... I noticed some of them containers have raised bottoms and wasn't sure how that might deform after filling with Water. I was planing on double-ing them up for security

plumsmooth said:

Are these HDX storage containers durable enough to half fill with Hydroponics nutrient reservoir. I am trying to expand my Gh Power Growers RDWC for going away for a week with big plants... I noticed some of them containers have raised bottoms and wasn't sure how that might deform after filling with Water. I was planing on double-ing them up for security

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The 17gal bins work great no issues at all. I use them for my UC set up

Only problem i see the roots would go in the pump.or takeover the whole reservor. What i did, but i did only a small bucket. Drill a hole on the end of your bucket big enough for your instruments and to refil water.works great

amneziaHaze said:

Only problem i see the roots would go in the pump.or takeover the whole reservor. What i did, but i did only a small bucket. Drill a hole on the end of your bucket big enough for your instruments and to refil water.works great

Click to expand...

I was kinda worried about that too so what I did is after week 4 I switch the pump from one outlet side to the other every week and so far I've never had a roots clogging the water flow or any water leveling issues with the other bins. Plus I have a mesh screen covering my pump just in case.

It's also helpful if they are connected well enough for drain out and water changes since you don't have to try to prop the lids with plants and big roots and try to get all the water out. I have one of the 55 gallon totes for a topoff like above and it'll hold 34 gallons or so. I did put a truck cargo strap around it to help with deformation, it does get a little bulgy when full up. Put a drain that gets it down to about 3 gallons. It feeds a more normal size res tied to the system. Having a control res and a top off makes the whole system hum so much easier. Think about the size of your res though, if you make it connected and huge, every single full water swap will take that full amount to change. Also new weeks mix needs to happen too. If you have 30 gallons across the 3 and added a tied in 50 gallon control res you now need to make/manage 80 gallons of fresh nute water just for a flush, plus enough to run thru the plants drinking so what, 100gallons mixable container and enough storage to have all that fresh RO ready to go. If you had a 10 gal control then you are at 40 gallons and suddenly a 55gallon barrel of RO becomes more usable. Also more water in the system, more nutes total used and more $ that you will send down the drain on changeout. Built tiered sort of stands for all the stuff so it can all gravity feed from RO barrel to topoff res to res/system.