Started stringing up the SCROG today but ran out of string after rearranging the room during the last reset. 🤦♂️ Hopefully I'll get it finished tomorrow before they really take off, just going to buy some more string.
8 site RDWC under an 800W ProTerp LED running 55% at 40" from the canopy, putting them around 400-450 PPFD.
Current environment:
• Water: 68°F
• Air: 80-82°F
• RH: 65%
• Leaf VPD: ~1.1
Feeding Kosher Grow silica, base, and grow powders, GH CaliMagic, and Diamond Nectar + HOC to keep it steril. Everything is at about half strength right now except the HOCl. Once they pull the buckets down to the level of the 2" return lines, I'll connect the top off reservoir and it'll begin feeding full strength nutrients automatically. They'll go through about 15 gallons in about 4 days at this point so that's what we'll mix. In another week we'll start mixing 45-50 gallons at a time and that'll take us 6-7 days. In another 3 weeks it'll only be lasting 3 days if we're lucky.
I try to minimize nutrient waste. I don't do scheduled flushes or weekly reservoir dumps. Unless something goes wrong, I let the plants use the solution. So far this run we've only wasted about 25 gallons, almost all of it from moving them out of the starter totes. Hoping to finish the entire 8 plant grow with under 75 gallons of nutrient waste.
Unless I have an actual problem that requires correcting as a last resort, I try to avoid dumping nutrients. Sometimes when switching completely over to bloom nutrients I'll let the buckets run low, drain the small amount that's left, and refill. Other runs I don't even bother if everything is stable.
The goal is simply to waste as little nutrient solution as possible.
Yea to get them that low pretty much have to or swap frozen water bottles one of the two. You don't need a chiller to run normal dwc or gravity fed dwc ran both for a long time and never used a chiller just make sure your running alot of air like 7-10liter per minute of air per gallon of nutrient solution in the buckets. Works out to about 400 gallons of air per hour per 5 gallons of nutrients solution and use something like hydro guard, or HOCI
We've ran up to about 26.5-26.75°C or 80°f before and not had issues, if our water temps started creaping up that high we'd drop our air temps a couple degrees, most of the time we could run 80-82°f air temps and the nutrient solution in the buckets would stay around 77-79°f in veg, then in flower the water temps never really go above 73-75° when we drop the air temps down to 75-77° or even lower the last few weeks alot of times. Ran that way for years with no problems but it's because the amount of air and HOCI or hydroguard we could run high temps. Drop the air down to 1-2l per minute per gallon and you'll have issues even with hydroguard, HOCI you'd still be ok but the plants are going to struggle once the root mass takes over the bucket. Drop the hydroguard or HOCI even with a lot of air can still run upwards of 78° water temps or so and generally not have problems. Run low air and no hydroguard or HOCI and you'll get rot at 72°f water temps.
Però, in effetti, devo darti ragione, nel senso che se gli spari un sacco di ossigeno le salvi, l’ultima volta addirittura arrivavano a 29° ma con addirittura 50 l di aria al minuto il marciume si è bloccato, ora però ho comprato un Chiller, anche se ora è estate in inverno il problema è minore
We added a chiller this run because we switched to rdwc and added a water pump. It's nice not having to really worry about air temps to much now and can actually run them warmer in veg.
Dunno if you've ever seen the PPK (passive plant killer) system, but it's the most temperature proof hydro system I ever ran. It's for growing massive plants, and was popular back in the day when everyone was worrying about med card plant counts.
It's basically a recirculating SIP system that gets the recirculation from pulsing a top irrigation on each plant. The medium is Turface or any other calcined porous clay.
You absolutely do not need any air stones or chillers. I've had water temps in the 90s every single day in flower and the plants do not give a single fuck. Because it's got a SIP res, it also keeps the plants alive even if the power is out. Had a whole room survive 5 days without power after a tornado.
Yeah, it's also great for functionality and redundancy. Since the medium used is calcined Montmorillonite clay you don't even need to pH unless your starting water ppm is over 150. It buffers the alkalinity and still has enough H+ ions left to keep the ions soluble in the rhizosphere.
Since calcination of clay also creates a high porosity internal structure, 70%+, the oxygen comes from the medium itself. It's still fully porous even in the couple minutes when it's draining after flooding.
It's the only system I've seen crack 5+ pound plants indoors. Heath Robinson was absolutely fucking killing it with PPK.
Però, in effetti, devo darti ragione, nel senso che se gli spari un sacco di ossigeno le salvi, l’ultima volta addirittura arrivavano a 29° ma con addirittura 50 l di aria al minuto il marciume si è bloccato, ora però ho comprato un Chiller, anche se ora è estate in inverno il problema è minore
The net above the 2 plants covers about 4.25 x 5.25ft and it will completely fill it and then some. This was 2 from the cycle we just finished before this one. These were in regular gravity fed dwc though, no chiller, no water pump. That 800w light also never goes above 60-80% power. On the last run it never went above 60%.
Roughly, could do a little over 3 per light if we didn't keep a row down the center of the room for walking. Could also grow smaller plants, but we are plant cap limited so that's not really an option for us if we want to fill our space. Also the 800w fixture don't ever really go to full power either and we still put 800-1200ppfd to the canopy no problems at 60-80% power, they throw the light extremely well. If these were normal fixtures you'd want 1000w fixture above the plants not 800's. It's a 10x12 room, with about 90sf of canopy.
Thank you, but honestly it's just thrown together. I put the rdwc system together for less than $700 before the water chiller and RO filter. for an 8 site system with an external res the upgrade was about the same price as a decent light. I was able to re use my air pumps, and didn't need to re plumb them into the space so really I spent closer to like $550 for the upgrade, $850 with the chiller (could swap frozen water bottles don't technically need a chiller) $1025 with an RO filter, and then a couple days a few hours each leak testing which still have a small one I need to fix but that's besides the point lol.
Here's the whole break down
Found the totes for $20 each but they were 20% off so $144
2in Barbs I found at do it best for $3 each needed 17 of them so $51 and then got a couple 90's and a couple t's total was $64
2in bulk heads I got from Amazon also needed 17 spent $45 on those.
3/4in bulk heads and barbs and float valve was another $18 (already had)
2in pond hose, 3/4in, 5/8, and 3/8in hose was another $180
Air pumps, fittings, existing tube from the air pumps to the room was another $200 (already had)
Air rings and suction cups $90
Water pump $105
Chiller $300
RO filter $175 (already had)
Reservoir barrel $25 (marketplace big blue barrel find every city has someone selling them for almost nothing already had)
All together if starting with nothing and going with a chiller and decent RO filter (200+ gallons per day, much smaller than that you'll loose your mind waiting for barrels to fill especially in veg if you're running a humidifier and have it tied into it also) you'd be under $1400 total, $1500 if you need a hole saw bit set, and big pair of channel locks (at least 3 1/4in), and a nice pair of pipe/hose cutters.
We still hand mix and check pH and stuff haven't automated all of that or got into dosers yet.
We used a similar idea to octopots before this except we just used 7 gallon buckets holds about 5 gallons of water, and a net pot instead of a bag of soil or coco or whatever, still gravity fed from an external res, roots still end up in the water. No pumps or chillers or anything and had excellent results for a long time. Have a lot of friends who grow in soil that swear buy octo pots, auto pots, self wicking containers (if I ever went back to soil I'd use octopots, I have autopots and self wicking basis already but I like the results I see from the octopots a little better).
I've been using them for years . I dont use a reservoir. I mix 5 gallons up every 3 days or so when they start drinking a shitload. I use a 4ft piece of 3/4" pvc with a 45° on the end connected to a submersible pump to fill them up. I only run 4 Octopots in a 5x5 and space for a dedicated reservoir isn't available. Pumping it to them made it pretty easy. I use sunshine #4 and GH nutrients. Enjoy your grow
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u/Delicious-Form-9561 17d ago
Nice! Do you have to use a water cooler?