70's natureboy
Well-Known Member
There are loud air pumps and quiet pumps so it's personal preference on the noise level.
New to growing and thinking of going DWC? Don't
- Thread starter DaFreak
- Start date
Is that what your ego requires of you? To believe somebody failed because you don’t get it? I was extremely successful in all forms of hydro I’ve grown. Using my 20 years knowledge to share with new growers so they learn that dwc is really just a hobby and preference that has zero advantage over drain to waste.
I think you mean you use a cooler to keep your temps within range, hence no root rot. Like what I’ve been saying. All that wasted electricity that could be used for growing bud wasted on keeping water the right temp. But maybe you do mean you use a heater and your water and room never get too hot. Nice problem to have.
There are loud and less loud. There is no such thing as a silent pump and air bubbles. Some people don’t mind the sound.
Keesje
Well-Known Member
I think that every system has it's advantages and disadvantages.
Besides that there is also things that someone will call 'negative' but which are of no worry to others.
If you live in apartment a noisy pump sucks. But if you grow in a shed somewhere remote, who cares.
So it is useless to discus what is the best system.
On a side note: Sometimes people say that there system is better because...
And then they come up with an argument that is total nonsense because they don't understand physics or biology.
This was not the case here, but just saying.
Besides that there is also things that someone will call 'negative' but which are of no worry to others.
If you live in apartment a noisy pump sucks. But if you grow in a shed somewhere remote, who cares.
So it is useless to discus what is the best system.
On a side note: Sometimes people say that there system is better because...
And then they come up with an argument that is total nonsense because they don't understand physics or biology.
This was not the case here, but just saying.
Keesje
Well-Known Member
DTW is a wide variety.
Besides that, you are missing my point, I think.
If I say that the chances of water leaking from a DWC set up are almost non-existing, then you can say "O, yes it can" or "that is not an advantage." Advantage is not an objective fact. It is personal (lots of times; not always)
Besides that, you are missing my point, I think.
If I say that the chances of water leaking from a DWC set up are almost non-existing, then you can say "O, yes it can" or "that is not an advantage." Advantage is not an objective fact. It is personal (lots of times; not always)
OK, everything dialed in with no problems that many people actually do have with dwc, but lets say no problems, there are still no advantages. In all seriousness the only one is that you use less nutrients in dwc over the course of a grow. I guess you could call that an advantage. The algae Blum runs from South America to Africa this year because of nutrient run-off, so in DWC you are adding a little less nutrient waste to the worlds ocean.
But the reason I give this advice is not for the people who have never had root rot, or the people who have never had a pump fail, it's for the collective sum and the fact is that DWC is prone to those problems. What good does it do for some guy to say, "I've never had root rot in dwc" when he lives in a place where his temps don't get too high? Are these and every pot forum out there for the past 20 so years not filled with people who have had root rot? Do they not sell shit to put in your Rez to battle it? These are facts.
I will share why DWC was right for me at the time. I needed a style where I did not have to dispose of medium because it was too much of a security risk, hence DWC was the choice. Aeroponic, Hi-volume RDWC with water falls where also my choices. I nailed them all. Made so much stupid money, for real. But now I live in a place where it's legal and I can throw my medium out in the trash. It's a no brainer.
But the reason I give this advice is not for the people who have never had root rot, or the people who have never had a pump fail, it's for the collective sum and the fact is that DWC is prone to those problems. What good does it do for some guy to say, "I've never had root rot in dwc" when he lives in a place where his temps don't get too high? Are these and every pot forum out there for the past 20 so years not filled with people who have had root rot? Do they not sell shit to put in your Rez to battle it? These are facts.
I will share why DWC was right for me at the time. I needed a style where I did not have to dispose of medium because it was too much of a security risk, hence DWC was the choice. Aeroponic, Hi-volume RDWC with water falls where also my choices. I nailed them all. Made so much stupid money, for real. But now I live in a place where it's legal and I can throw my medium out in the trash. It's a no brainer.
rkymtnman
Well-Known Member
i've never done pro mix but i'd love to see your rootball in a 5 gal bucket of it compared to a rootball in a 5 gal dwc.
botany fact: larger root mass, larger fruit mass.
Again the only way I really know how to compare is with GPW. It's on par with any style. Once dialed in I have never seen a difference between any style.
Pro-mix has blown me away, it's insanely easy. under 1000watts I have to feed every 4 days.
But I mean ask yourself this, if DWC did in fact give you more yield then why are all the major grow ops out there not using it? And don't go find me a few DWC ops, we live in the real world, 99% of the large grow ops are DTW. Don't you think these guys know what they are doing?
Pro-mix has blown me away, it's insanely easy. under 1000watts I have to feed every 4 days.
But I mean ask yourself this, if DWC did in fact give you more yield then why are all the major grow ops out there not using it? And don't go find me a few DWC ops, we live in the real world, 99% of the large grow ops are DTW. Don't you think these guys know what they are doing?
rkymtnman
Well-Known Member
not if you look at commercial grows doing SWC lettuce rafts or even hydro tomatoes. nobody does that in promix. and especially not in DTW. way too much waste financially. and they grow exponentially larger scale than cannabis grows.
Keesje
Well-Known Member
DWC like it is seen on this forum (a container with airbubbles) or SWC (if it stand for Shallow Water Culture with airstones at least) I have seen used in a commercial greenhouse.
A few bassins of 10 ft x 30 ft and 1.5 ft deep. Tubes on the bottom with small holes where air comes out. They were growing leeks. They grew it this way not because it was easier, but because their main market was Japan and if you export to Japan and there is just the slightest grain of soil in the roots, your whole shipment will be rejected.
But that was the only greenhouse with hydro that I have seen that uses classical SWC. I guess it is way to complicated, too much risk for failure and not effective enough for commercial growers.
Lettuce and herbs (in general: plants that are small and do not weigh a lot) on hydro are mostly grown on some kind of NFT or on rafts in bassins. There is a pump in the bassin that they turn on every half hour or hour. it mixes nutrients up and agitates the water slightly.
Tomatoes are mostly grown in rockwool slabs.
Eb & flow is another hydro system that you see widely used.
Growing with hydro is still a small part in the commercial growing world. It is expensive to build and to maintain.
Slabs are used mostly and just soil.
Reasons for that are simplicity and low costs.
You do see hydro, and even more and more every year, but still mostly in the smaller greenhouses (up to half an acre)
I visited one really large greenhouse that grow lettuce on NFT. Looked like a factory. The guys told me that it also comes with the problems of a factory. Sometimes the 'chain' stops because of some failure.
A few bassins of 10 ft x 30 ft and 1.5 ft deep. Tubes on the bottom with small holes where air comes out. They were growing leeks. They grew it this way not because it was easier, but because their main market was Japan and if you export to Japan and there is just the slightest grain of soil in the roots, your whole shipment will be rejected.
But that was the only greenhouse with hydro that I have seen that uses classical SWC. I guess it is way to complicated, too much risk for failure and not effective enough for commercial growers.
Lettuce and herbs (in general: plants that are small and do not weigh a lot) on hydro are mostly grown on some kind of NFT or on rafts in bassins. There is a pump in the bassin that they turn on every half hour or hour. it mixes nutrients up and agitates the water slightly.
Tomatoes are mostly grown in rockwool slabs.
Eb & flow is another hydro system that you see widely used.
Growing with hydro is still a small part in the commercial growing world. It is expensive to build and to maintain.
Slabs are used mostly and just soil.
Reasons for that are simplicity and low costs.
You do see hydro, and even more and more every year, but still mostly in the smaller greenhouses (up to half an acre)
I visited one really large greenhouse that grow lettuce on NFT. Looked like a factory. The guys told me that it also comes with the problems of a factory. Sometimes the 'chain' stops because of some failure.
Keesje
Well-Known Member
Advantages and disadvantages can have to do with many thing:
- Wishes or demands of the customers.
- the scale of your growth. Small scale DWC is easy. Large scale much harder.
- Legal issues: Carrying large bags of soil up your apartment is hard without being watched by neighbours.
- The time you can spend on things.
- What materials are available near where you live.
- how big do you want your plants to grow. Large plants on many types of hydro are not easy to handle.
And there are probably more.
It all depends on needs, experience, what gives you peace of mind, how technical are you and do you enjoy technics, circumstances, legal issues and God knows what more.
SWIM had to dismantle a grow one day and SWIM just had less then a week.
Getting rid of 400 x 18 liter pots of soil/cocos was not an easy task.
With hydro it would have been a much easier job. But this was a disadvantage only for SWIM in his circumstances: A densely populated area where growing was illegal.
Would it have been in a remote area the old soil could just have gone out in the woods and benefit the plants there
But building a large room with hydro (with the equivalent to 400 x 18 liter pots) would be a pain in the ass.
- Wishes or demands of the customers.
- the scale of your growth. Small scale DWC is easy. Large scale much harder.
- Legal issues: Carrying large bags of soil up your apartment is hard without being watched by neighbours.
- The time you can spend on things.
- What materials are available near where you live.
- how big do you want your plants to grow. Large plants on many types of hydro are not easy to handle.
And there are probably more.
It all depends on needs, experience, what gives you peace of mind, how technical are you and do you enjoy technics, circumstances, legal issues and God knows what more.
SWIM had to dismantle a grow one day and SWIM just had less then a week.
Getting rid of 400 x 18 liter pots of soil/cocos was not an easy task.
With hydro it would have been a much easier job. But this was a disadvantage only for SWIM in his circumstances: A densely populated area where growing was illegal.
Would it have been in a remote area the old soil could just have gone out in the woods and benefit the plants there
But building a large room with hydro (with the equivalent to 400 x 18 liter pots) would be a pain in the ass.
Keesje
Well-Known Member
What is the difference between 'normal' DWC and your SWC?
yummy fur
Well-Known Member
In a normal DWC the basic set up is a small net pot suspended over the reservoir where the roots drop a little way before hitting the water. So the root are in the 'deep water'. There are of course variations but the basic premise does not take into account root health other than to try and prevent problems that occur like root suffocation, so air stones are added etc.
With a SWC the basic set up is a fairly *large* clay pebble substrate. This on its own would be enough to support the plant however the roots are allowed to come out of this substrate into a second Shallow pool of nutrient maybe an inch deep, plus there is an extra air gap between the bottom of the main substrate. So what happens is that the second set of roots sit in the shallow pool and then they grow into the air space and form a very springy mass. So there's two root system. In this set up there are no problems to 'solve'.
I have designed a system using $6 reversible tubs, a single 8W pump a foot of tubing and four sticks for the net. With the SWC it's All About The Roots. DWC is broken and things like air stones are meant to fix what is broken. Then there is the whole package to consider. I have designed this for a small grower who wants no problems and easy care. It is not a commercial set up although the principles are the same.
Funnily enough I saw some great research a couple of days ago which seems to support my own thinking that there are deeper mysteries waiting to be uncovered in the roots. https://phys.org/news/2019-07-lateral-root.html
For example my three in a pot grow, all three strains flowered in sync with each other the whole way through. This led me to guess that this behaviour is hormone driven and the roots are the key. But these are just my further explorations for the more immediate problems of the novice grower everything else is taken care of like for example nutrient problems. They do not exist in this set up. Let me repeat that, they do not exist. I have never used any cal mag or other additives other than what is already contained in the GH three part.
I built the square tub as a proof of concept but it seems to be working even better than my round tubs in some ways. I like my round tubs so I can turn them easier but after seeing my orange bud go off I'm going to do more testing in it.
Check out this White Widow, it's actually driving me fucking crazy, it's an auto and it's over 10 weeks old and it's been flipping to flowing for the past three weeks. I have defoliated and pruned the fuck out of it
by the way all my plants are autos. Here's my current Orange Bud Auto almost ready next to the same beens in the square tub 
as you can see even the two in the square tub are quite different from each other as well. This leads me to the conclusion that phenotype alone is responsible for more than what people think. Which reminds me this system has such good root control that doing two or more plants in a pot is a piece of piss.Here's the Orange Bud Cola...
i would seriously look up krusty bucket if you are interested in something like he’s describing, which really isn’t standard swc. And that orange bud looks burned and unhealthy, your others look much healthier. Again you’ve proven any form of hydro produces, like I’ve been saying all along.
2 root systems? Jesus Christ, now you’re just making up shit. It’s the same root system guy.
2 root systems? Jesus Christ, now you’re just making up shit. It’s the same root system guy.
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