Just upped my DWC Hydro Grow - used too big of buckets

Re: just upped my DWC hydro gro... used too big of buckets

Is it too late to transplant - maybe do a root trim and put them in eight gallon smart pots?

Wait, wait ... I just reread your post ... you haven't planted them yet?
Take the big buckets back to WalMart and go get some smart pots.

~ Auggie ~
 
Re: just upped my DWC hydro gro... used too big of buckets

I started the same way. just put the lid over the 5 gal bucket, plants are doing fine. It was pain trying to change all that water at once. plants are doing great!!!
 
Re: just upped my DWC hydro gro... used too big of buckets

Its a lot easier changing 5 gal buckets than 18 gal totes especially when you old and have back problems like me!
 
Another thing you can do is just run it at 10 gallons,... not fill it all the way. It actually is better for the roots anyway so long as you have good air stones that get the water to the roots. The roots do not want to be submerged really. Without an air stone they will choke and die in water alone. I like the idea of using a bigger tote and running it less full that way you have more roots in the air. I personally like running a much larger res with a moderate excess of water as it makes controlling ppm and pH much easier. The main thing is that the air pump and stones need to make sure and get the bubbles to the lid unless you do like I suggest later on.

I personally run a huge tank (30+ gallons 4-6 plants) but I run the water and nutes low on purpose. The nutes at 1/4 to 1/2 strength. I have a 37 gal res that I will top to almost 30 but run down to 20 before topping off again. My plants look ridiculously strong and healthy. So I am convinced that the nutes do not need to be at the max concentration. It is far better to underfeed a bit rather than overfeed for sure as long as you are checking it and monitoring the ppms and don't let it drop. The ideal thing is for the ppms not to change while the water is being absorbed and dropping in the tank. That's what I get running at half strength. With that you can just keep topping off with a 5 gallon bucket of fresh nutes with "this weeks" mix and concentration and leave it in cruise control.

Anyway the best thing I think for what you want to do would be to add some aeroponics and run the res very low instead of just quitting and going back to the bucket. If you hook up your circulating pump to some sprayers hanging a few inches under the lid then the roots the air will stay wet if you run it every few hours but mostly get oxygen which is more important. Then you can run it down to 6 - 10 gallons in the tote no problem. Aeroponics combined with DWC is a great thing. That is actually the original RDWC which has been modified to also be done with a top drip by most people nowa days.

(don't be fooled as most people use RDWC incorrectly when describing an undercurrent DWC system which is not a Recirculating system since the nutes are not reintroduced at the top aka recirculating. Undercurrent is basically just NFT on Crack. Many top drip RDWC systems looking very similar to undercurrent hence the confusion)... sorry to get so far off topic but if you just make minor modifications to your tank and make it an RDWC (aero or top drip) then you can run it low and get great results.

Tutorial - DWC vs RDWC : Abergreen, DIY Hydroponics Systems and Kits, Hydroponic lights, Envirolite

RDWC ( these guys tell you in the video they are running it only a few inches high)

Undercurrent DWC



And by the way if you really want to save some cash on nutes use Elanor's VF 11 for veg. It is dirt cheap and can be found anywhere even Walmart or Home Depot. Just add a Little cal mag and silica and you will save a mountain on nutes and be very happy. The stuff works GREAT!!! I stopped using expensive stuff through veg. I wont risk bloom on it because I want to get the best flowers I can but for veg anything else is just wasting money. Running VF11 and you can run full strength and change the res as much as you like and not break the bank.
 
hmmm, thanks for the advice! nice vids too.

I think my next upgrade will be either one of those kinds, with a control bucket/central rez kind of thing. At the moment i have 7 individual DWC buckets running, so that would mean 7 pumps to do drip irrigation from the top down like that... hm. I will have to consider modding the system I have though... Its a little bit of a pain to check each rez every time, though I have found that the PH has buffered quite nicely, and I really haven't had to add much in the way of nutes, as they are staying pretty even in that sense as well. I'm running the nutes I got, Flora Nova Grow, at about 1000 PPM, basicly 3/4ths of max. i got my largest one up to 1300 (max) and it got very slight symptoms of too much nitrogen, slightly inverse cupped leaves and dark green, so I eased back a bit to 1100 and its going crazy. I think I will let the water levels drop down a few inches at least though, and that will save several gallons.

I'll give Elanor's VF 11 a try when I run out of this stuff! I've had similar thoughts on Veg nutes, but haven't taken the plunge!
 
Veg is really about 2 things. Big root mass and large stalks (and training).

To get large stalks you need to do 2 things. Have a recirculating fan on the top of the canopy agitating the plants (which you should have anyway and add some silica / potash product.

For root mass there are a lot of things that you can do but one that most people avoid that is awesome is a little bit of the right kind of stress. My analogy would be my lawn. I have the greenest lawn in the neighbor hood and the reason is I water the least. When you water your yard often the roots never need to grow deep. When you let it dry out and then do a deep watering the grass will stretch its roots deep for that deep water creating stronger healthier more tolerant lawns. So long as bubbles can get to the basket the water level of your DWC can keep on dropping and that will promote natural root growth.


I ran VF11 solo to see what would happen (well I always add silica and bacteria and fungi). I noticed a little cal mag deficiency...VERY LITTLE after a long time in a res I was just topping off. Now I live in arguably the best water zone in America. I just measured some I have sitting in a bucket dechlorinating in the garage... it was at a ppm of about 12 no filtering (they actually used to bottle the tap water here in the 80's). So even though they say if you don't filter you don't need cal / mag I think maybe I do. Maybe it just works for you without adding Cal / Mag.

I do a lot of training so my veg time is longer. I noticed this deficiency about 1 week before I start transitioning the lights (roughly 2 weeks before flower). So in one week I was already planning to start adding the nutes I want to chemically induce flowering anyway... so what I did was a full res change. I put in some a big name brand expensive stuff for the last 2 weeks and added some extra cal / mag, silica, bacteria, fungus and enzymes like usual and a few days later I added some intense blooming nutes to induce flowering. It took 3 days for me to sex my plants. Then once I flipped into bloom I did a res change again to be strictly on bloom nutes.

Best of luck!!! And I say while you have independent buckets...do the side by side test. And even if the expensive stuff saves you 1 week in veg if it costs you $100 more it doesn't make sense for personal growers. If you are growing for profit then quick turn is the key but I grow for me and my wife. I get enough each harvest to get to the next so saving some cash is the way to go.
 
One last thing on VF11. I was very surprised at the immediate nodal density I got right away. This is a male I pulled out a while back I had just drying out so I could remove it without damaging the pot. It was in veg for about a month and all but about 1 week of that was VF11 so all of the stuff you see here was grown before I changed that out. All of the plants are like this with 2-3 nodes per inch (5 in that first inch if you look close) and those secondaries branching is very strong so the main one needed little training to even out the canopy.

male54.jpg



This was after about 2 weeks of veg and it had grown latterly faster than upward by about 2x. As in it was about 6 inches tall and 10-14 inches wide...male on bottom. (was growing from seed so I didn't know what I would get)

Jan 9th
TopView1_9.jpg


this is about 1 week or so after it took root and started growing.
Jan 3rd
Side_Cropped.jpg
 
Hi: I used 18 gal totes & used aeroponics in my 1st few grows and had my best grow with one plant in each tote. The plant will almost fill the tote with roots. I used 2 plants in each tote & although it worked I had to open drains a few times and found it works much better with 1 plant per tote.I also scrog my plants
DSC015055.JPG
This is my 1st grow using this system
I now use 28 gal totes with 10" net pods & 2 plants per tote, 2 totes in grow for a total of 4 plants to a grow. The system is RDWC & 47 gal res
DSC017777.JPG
 

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