DWC Setup and Questions

[trichtone]

Putting a call out to all you Deep Water Culture! I have a 5 bucket (4 plants and 1 reservoir) DWC system. Each bucket is 5 gals and has 2 air stones.

I am running into some issues with my setup. I noticed today that there was a significant difference in PH between the res (6.2) and plant (7.2) buckets. I have also noticed a difference in PPM (res-1300 and plant-625). I think the circulation between the buckets is poor. I am confused as to why I have the difference. I thought I remember from my chemistry class a solution in water will try to completely diffuse. The problem with my setup is that diffusion is not working. I think if I was to do it again, I would use 3/4" tubes instead of 1/2". Hopefully to increase the circulation.

I need to figure out a way to circulate the water between buckets. Any one have any suggestions? For right now i am using a 1 gallon jug filled with water and placing and removing it from the res bucket. This is causing the buckets to circulate water. I need to do this about 10 times to equalize PPM and PH. This is not a good long term solution as I should be doing this a couple of times a day.

 

[trichtone]

Hi All. I think I am going to incorporate a suggestion by slimm. I will add a pump to my reservoir bucket and run a drip line to my plant buckets. I am afraid of running the drips as a top feeder to the plants as the res bucket will be a little hot (strong on nutes). Instead will run the drips directly to the water in the plant bucket. In addition, I will stop the pump for an hour or two after I add the nutes to the res bucket to allow the nutes to stabilize. Can anyone think of any issues with this setup?

 

[Roseman]

I sincerely wish I could advise and help you, but I don't know and it sounds like you are figuring it out anyway.
Good Luck, I'll be watching.

 

[trichtone]

I sincerely wish I could advise and help you, but I don't know and it sounds like you are figuring it out anyway.
Good Luck, I'll be watching.

Thanks Roseman! I went back through your DIY for DWC and I am going to use your setup submersible pump setup. I think I am going to go with an 80GPH pump. I was thinking about going a little higher GPH, but heat in my reservior is a major concern. I am hoping the 80GPH will do the trick.

Thanks so much for the awesome tutorial you put together. It has been a tremendous help. +reps to my friend!

 

[trichtone]

I did modify my DWC setup. I added a submersible pump into the res bucket that pumps water to each plant bucket. The circular flow is working great. It takes about 10 mins to circulate the water so that pH and PPM are balanced between buckets. I like that it slowly balances the buckets. I already notice the ladies have perked up.

Picture of the submersible pump I added to the system. And yes I know what it looks like. lol, you all have dirty minds

I connected 1/4 in tubing to the setup and ran a line to each plant bucket. I stuffed the tubing through the net pot and let the water from the res flow directly to the bucket and avoiding direct contact with the roots.

 

[Vaporeyes]

Good to see its working out for you, good luck with the buckets!

 

[Roseman]

Thanks Roseman! I went back through your DIY for DWC and I am going to use your setup submersible pump setup. I think I am going to go with an 80GPH pump. I was thinking about going a little higher GPH, but heat in my reservior is a major concern. I am hoping the 80GPH will do the trick.

Thanks so much for the awesome tutorial you put together. It has been a tremendous help. +reps to my friend!

Actually, the smaller the pump, the better, you only need a trickle of water and bubbles. 80 gph is great.

 

[trichtone]

Actually, the smaller the pump, the better, you only need a trickle of water and bubbles. 80 gph is great.

Yeah, 80 GPH seems to work well. Plus I like that it produces very little heat. My reservior temps are high enough.

 

[Roseman]

I gave up growing in the summer because of heat issues in my reservoir. Over 70 degrees invites root rot.

 

[SciFi]

I have a setup similar to this but, I do high-flow in one bucket and pump to my other buckets. I haven't had any weird ppm problems in different buckets.

 

[trichtone]

I have a setup similar to this but, I do high-flow in one bucket and pump to my other buckets. I haven't had any weird ppm problems in different buckets.

Yeah...it seemed strange to me as well. But once I added the 80 GPH submersible pump into the res bucket the PPM's balanced out between the buckets. For some reason the nutes were not diffusing between the buckets. Someone made a suggestion that it was possible that the plants were drawing in nutes faster than what could be diffused. Most logical conclusion I can come to.

 

[SciFi]

That's exactly what they do. I read a whitepaper that was wrote on the maximum length for a NFT trough. I remember it was something absurd, around 18 feet. But anyways, with X amount of plants stretched over 18 feet in the trough the 1200PPM water, was ~200PPMs by the time it hit the end.

 

[AbeFroman]

Hey that kinda looks like my system. Nice Rump buckets you have there. I think you are going to find it hard to work out of your res with it located in the middle like that. Its going to be a jungle around there.

This is what I did to recirculate my bucket system. It works well. you just need another line coming out the res with a pump going to the tops of the buckets.

 

[trichtone]

Hey that kinda looks like my system. Nice Rump buckets you have there. I think you are going to find it hard to work out of your res with it located in the middle like that. Its going to be a jungle around there.

This is what I did to recirculate my bucket system. It works well. you just need another line coming out the res with a pump going to the tops of the buckets.

Nice setup. Thanks for the suggestion. That is something that I will have to consider. I am really loving the rump buckets. I had some leak problems, but I think I got the all resolved.