DWC circulation question

agarnusa

420 Member
I have been successfully growing for a few years in square 5 gall dwc buckets. I grow at 70 degrees with success and have no issues with root rot or anything as long as I don't exceed the resulting 68-70 degree water temperature. I am thinking of adding an external mag pump similar to the Current Culture setup to circulate the water. Before I do it - does anyone know if circulating the water in my system is likely to raise or lower the water temperature. Hopefully someone has already been in my situation and tried the same thing.
 
I cant speak from experience but one way to cool water temperature is to run it outside the reservoir into a copper tubing coil with some form of direct air blowing on it.

1764396


"As mentioned before, the colder the water, the better—but roots will decrease metabolic activity below 16°C, so if you are running pure hydro, beware of that. Ideally, 18°C +/- 1°C is considered to be the sweet spot. Higher than 23°C, and you start entering root-rot danger-zone."
 
I initially moved to RDWC in the hopes it would drop water from 74-76F to ~70F to avoid buying a chiller, but it didn’t make any noticeable difference and I ended up buying a chiller. That said, there are other benefits that come from adding the control res - testing, exchanging soup, adding nutes, etc.. I like RDWC quite a bit and recommend you make the move, but it probably won’t do much in the way of WT.
 
With a RDWC you have the option of putting ziplock bags of ice in rez to cool water as well if a chiller is not in the budget just yet. Been there done that. Just dont make the mistake and put straight ice in unless you are on top of checking ppm and Ph a few times a day it will throw it off while melting hints the ziplock bags or could use ice packs.
 
With a RDWC you have the option of putting ziplock bags of ice in rez to cool water as well if a chiller is not in the budget just yet. Been there done that. Just dont make the mistake and put straight ice in unless you are on top of checking ppm and Ph a few times a day it will throw it off while melting hints the ziplock bags or could use ice packs.
Interesting topic. Heres my way around it. Using the existing pump I detoured the water out of the res and through a home made chiller utilizing a two litre bottle of ice. Nothing added to res. and easy to change. Will keep res.temps ten degrees cooler then the canopy. Three bottles will work great for lights on schedule and not needed after lights out.




 
Can do the homemade chiller but the real one would be a noise factor. I've been shooting for a water temp of 68 because as a chemist I know that is the temperature that you get the highest level of dissolved oxygen in the water but there could be other reasons that colder is better. I'll be starting over again very soon and I think I'm going to give it a shot. Thanks everyone for all the great input - now for the design phase.
 
There are plenty of ways to achieve the same thing - ice packs daily in your res - etc. The easiest and best thing that provides the best accurate results is to just buy a chiller. Forgot what brand I have but they run $300-$400, operate silently, and maintain temperature exactly. Mine paid for itself by saving time, effort, and giving me consistent no hassle yields. When choosing what brand just read reviews before you choose and make sure you have an inline filter so as not to clog and overtax the pump.
 
I tried the frozen water bottles... I went a step farther and used insulated water coolers..
 
The chiller is one of best investments I've made for my garden. You guys need to check craigslist/Ebay type stuff. My chiller was slightly used and I talked him down to $140. I wouldn't pay 400 for it but at 140 it's a great deal. Do some hunting, you'd be surprised what you find.
 
Can do the homemade chiller but the real one would be a noise factor. I've been shooting for a water temp of 68 because as a chemist I know that is the temperature that you get the highest level of dissolved oxygen in the water but there could be other reasons that colder is better. I'll be starting over again very soon and I think I'm going to give it a shot. Thanks everyone for all the great input - now for the design phase.
My chiller makes no more noise than a dorm room sized Refrigerator. The pump that runs it sits in the Rez, so I don’t feel it makes any noise issue.
 
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