DWC and deal with res temps - purchase chiller - or top drip and lose 13" of height?

[nxumdon]

Hi
If given a grow space of 72"high x 24"deep x 30" wide, under two advanced led xte200 lights, which would be the best option, DWC (3 buckets, 2 grow and 1 res) and purchase a chiller to manage the res temps or top drip (2x5gal air-pots resting on top of 15"high 30 gallon res tote) and lose 13" or so to the need for the grow pots to sit on top of the res. I've done the math with either solution and with DWC I'd end up with 51" of vertical grow space (bottom of my LEDs to the tops of the DWC buckets), but it would be more costly($500 for a chiller +hydro to run chiller)...where top drip would result in 38" of vertical grow space (bottom of LEDs to the tops of the airpots resting on top of res tote).

I plan on doing a scrog grow and thus am not sure if the extra space gained by going DWC would be worth the cost...

Cheers for any advice

 

[JimmyV]

Re: DWC and deal with res temps (purchase chiller) or top drip and lose 13" of height

Nxumdon,

Hey for this info you have to name your first plant after me! Don't do either of your choices!! Dwc is all I do. Scratch the chiller and the other option you talked about. Go to Wal-Mart or a store like that. Find you some plastic or rubber dish pans. Place your dwc buckets one each inside the dish pan. Then get a total of 4 bottles of water for each plant. You'll need to double the 4 bottles to 8 so you'll be able to swap out the bottles daily with fresh frozen bottles. So for each plant you'll need 8 bottles of water total. Freeze all the bottles of water. Each day you'll place 4 frozen bottles of water into the dish pan resting up against your bucket! Then to insulate the frozen water to make them stay frozen longer cover the bottles with a towel or a rag. Don't place the frozen bottles inside your bucket as the roots will stick it. Also don't place ice inside your buckets as it will through off your ph as even the best ice isn't that clean! The frozen bottles of water will keep your dwc a cool 68 to 70 degrees which is all you need. I've never ever had any issue with root rot by doing it this way. Also I use only nutrients from Canna. They sell Cannazym which you can put into your buckets to make certain you'll never have any type of root issues. It will actually eat all the dead roots and turn them into sugar which plants love! Ok that helps solve that heat issue!

Now, use one pump per bucket and use at least 2 stones in each bucket. You'll need the extra stones to help get as much oxygen to your roots as possible. By using a pump that has 4 outlets on each one you'll be able to pump out a good amount of air to your stones. But remember at least 2 stones per bucket with one pump per bucket. This way if you have to add another stone you'll already be all set with the pump. For the outlets you'll not be using at the beginning just cut a piece of your pump tubing and insert it into the outlet on the pump. Put a piece of paper towel down the tubing and then cap it off with masking tape. That will force the pump into increasing the amount of air its pumping out to the 2 stones that you'll be using at first.

As you already know the air pumps aren't that expensive and the stones of course are cheap! If you can you'll want to place the air pumps away from the plants and if you will be using a tent or the space like you talked about, place the pumps as far as away from the buckets as you can. Those air pumps are more than capable of producing temps at 100 degrees! By doing your set up like I've described you'll save all that money! Plus you wont have to worry about the height either! Also, you'll be saving big bucks by not having to run those high watt chillers! So, that first plant will be called either, "little Jimmy" or "JimmyV" whichever sounds better to you works for me! Well, keep us posted on whats going on, take care!!

 

[nxumdon]

Re: DWC and deal with res temps (purchase chiller) or top drip and lose 13" of height

Nxumdon,

Hey for this info you have to name your first plant after me! ....... Also, you'll be saving big bucks by not having to run those high watt chillers! So, that first plant will be called either, "little Jimmy" or "JimmyV" whichever sounds better to you works for me! Well, keep us posted on whats going on, take care!!

Hehehe, thanks for the great info and I will surely be posting a log on here once things get going and I think we'll go with little jymmy as the first plant name

So you are saying go DWC with two grow buckets and a single res bucket, but put each grow bucket into a small tub, and then put four frozen bottles into each tub as well, rather than putting the frozen bottles into the res bucket itself, or along side the res bucket...what is the reason for that? Can you not just cool the main res bucket in the same way with a single tub and the same four bottles?

Cheers

 

[Dr Fish]

Re: DWC and deal with res temps - purchase chiller - or top drip and lose 13" of heig

I ran frozen water bottles in a rdwc, they did get me through the summer... The frozen jugs went into the reservoir and needed changing every 8 hours... Using frozen water bottles did convince me to buy a chiller... though they worked, I'll not do that again, such a pia to keep up with... The water did always stay below 70*f... i used an insulated igloo water cooler set up as a waterfarm, and that helped a lot...

 

[nxumdon]

Re: DWC and deal with res temps - purchase chiller - or top drip and lose 13" of heig

I ran frozen water bottles in a rdwc, they did get me through the summer... The frozen jugs went into the reservoir and needed changing every 8 hours... Using frozen water bottles did convince me to buy a chiller... though they worked, I'll not do that again, such a pia to keep up with... The water did always stay below 70*f... i used an insulated igloo water cooler set up as a waterfarm, and that helped a lot...

Yea, I'm thinking I might as well invest in a chiller up front...not sure if I need a full blown stand alone chiller, or if a peltier cooler type device/iceprobe would be enough for the small res (10gallon). I think a 1/15HP stand-alone would be more than enough, yeah?

 

[Dr Fish]

Re: DWC and deal with res temps - purchase chiller - or top drip and lose 13" of heig

This thread uses an ice probe for cooling First Grow - Casey Jones - DWC - SCROG - Ice Probe Thermoelectric Chiller.. I bought a 1/10 hp chiller for $325 shipped... Plan on running 3 water farms next grow with an insulated reservoir... I've modified my waterfarms so each one pumps it's own water from the reservoir with no electric pump to move the water......

 

[JimmyV]

Re: DWC and deal with res temps - purchase chiller - or top drip and lose 13" of heig

Well for what its worth, I had no problem only placing the frozen bottles of water around the bucket with the plant in it. I've never really thought it to be a pain its just one more small step to take daily. Also the reason for placing the bottles around each bucket is for the fact they stay cool for 24hrs, or at least mine always do. The inside of the bucket runs 69 to 70 which is fine. So one round of bottles a day and then it saves you the money. Or if youre just wanting to go for it now then go for it! I'd rather spend my money on something that I cant fix or remedy myself, like better lights or even better nutrients. But when it comes to something as simple as keeping water cool, its a no brainer to not spend my money on something like that when there are simple solutions. I cant build led lights nor can I produce my own nutrients. So to each his own, I was just offering up what ive alwasy done which has always worked for me. Good luck!

 

[nxumdon]

Re: DWC and deal with res temps - purchase chiller - or top drip and lose 13" of heig

This thread uses an ice probe for cooling First Grow - Casey Jones - DWC - SCROG - Ice Probe Thermoelectric Chiller.. I bought a 1/10 hp chiller for $325 shipped... Plan on running 3 water farms next grow with an insulated reservoir... I've modified my waterfarms so each one pumps it's own water from the reservoir with no electric pump to move the water......

I'm going to have to do some research on how a small chiller compares to the iceprobe, power usage wise... thanks for that link

 

[nxumdon]

Re: DWC and deal with res temps - purchase chiller - or top drip and lose 13" of heig

Well for what its worth, I had no problem only placing the frozen bottles of water around the bucket with the plant in it. I've never really thought it to be a pain its just one more small step to take daily. Also the reason for placing the bottles around each bucket is for the fact they stay cool for 24hrs, or at least mine always do. The inside of the bucket runs 69 to 70 which is fine. So one round of bottles a day and then it saves you the money. Or if youre just wanting to go for it now then go for it! I'd rather spend my money on something that I cant fix or remedy myself, like better lights or even better nutrients. But when it comes to something as simple as keeping water cool, its a no brainer to not spend my money on something like that when there are simple solutions. I cant build led lights nor can I produce my own nutrients. So to each his own, I was just offering up what ive alwasy done which has always worked for me. Good luck!

The advice is greatly appreciated, just trying to work out all my options and their pros/cons...being a first grow, trying to keep the margin of error down to a minimum. Might end up just going a low tech top drip a la Capn S tyle...seems to avoid any of the res temp issues and will allow me to run a cycle and monitor the res temp to see just how much cooling, if any, would be needed over the course of a grow

 

[Dr Fish]

Re: DWC and deal with res temps - purchase chiller - or top drip and lose 13" of heig

Nxum, I too am interested in knowing what an ice probe can really do... An ice probe is about 50Watts..... In that thread the OP said he took his off the timer, and overnight and it brought the single bucket down into the 50s*f... You'll need to circulate the water from a reservoir, an electric pump adds a lot of heat to the reservoir.... Air pump driven systems, like a Waterfarm drip system, don't have that problem... It really depends on the temps where you live.... location, location, location... I grew for a long time using coco/perlite... It got me through the long hot days of summer.. Hempy buckets may be a good choice for your first grow...
JV
Living only 55 miles from Death Valley I deal with a lot more heat than the average bear... Keeping water cool here is not that simple... Don't get your knickers in a bunch just because someone doesn't agree with you...

 

[nxumdon]

Re: DWC and deal with res temps - purchase chiller - or top drip and lose 13" of heig

Nxum, I too am interested in knowing what an ice probe can really do... An ice probe is about 50Watts..... In that thread the OP said he took his off the timer, and overnight and it brought the single bucket down into the 50s*f... You'll need to circulate the water from a reservoir, an electric pump adds a lot of heat to the reservoir.... Air pump driven systems, like a Waterfarm drip system, don't have that problem... It really depends on the temps where you live.... location, location, location... I grew for a long time using coco/perlite... It got me through the long hot days of summer.. Hempy buckets may be a good choice for your first grow...
JV
Living only 55 miles from Death Valley I deal with a lot more heat than the average bear... Keeping water cool here is not that simple... Don't get your knickers in a bunch just because someone doesn't agree with you...

Nothing has been excluded yet, simply trying to make the best use of the given space and limited experience...any and all advice is greatly appreciated This grow is in a new place and how the temps will be in the next four to six months is uncertain...not having to worry about res temps while learning everything else will probably be a blessing. The grow will never be larger than it currently is, so odds are something like an iceprobe would work for the small res size (5-10gal)

Now just a matter of deciding to run the duct muffler or not, we'll see once the hyper fan 8" arrives this week