Building a DWC

  • Thread starter Kamatari
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Kamatari

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Hey guys,

I'm moving away from growing in soil to hopefully reap the benifits of hydroponics. Now due to the size of the grow box i'm using i'm going to have to build a small DWC which should be fine as im wanting to keep the plants small anyway.

Now the thing im needing some help/feedback is keeping the tank filled with water, Now while im about i'm going to be able to keep it all sorted but as i go away nearly every other week for up to 7days i won't be able to keep it topped up.
With my soil grows i have an automatic watering system that comes on every 12 or 24 hours and can specify how much water it lets out, Could this be of any use?

Cheers for any help!
 
L

Lost

2,969
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You cannot do DWC while being away for 7 days at a time. It is too fast of a system and things go bad very very fast. I would consider a coco drain to waste with a pump and a 55 gallon barrel to dispense nutes fo say a minute every day via bubblers.. Or soil with some for of auto watering system for when you are gone.

Actually I do not want to say it cannot be done, but you are going to run into problems in my experience. good luck :)
 
D

dj trichome

Guest
lost is right 4 or 5 days and im running home!
how ever you can run a [texas control bucket ]
basically a res tht will gravity feed into your main tank
by using a toilet tank float type valve to regulate it as it vaps off!
by either using fresh water in the reserve or make sure the mix is all one mix!mixing two different batches of food isnt recommended.
 
T

thefabman

Premium Member
Supporter
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From my experience 7 days is about all i can get safely depending on strain. The thing that will save you is dialing in the strain and rez size. To get 7 days my rez is 20gal min per plant. You could use your auto watering system to top off the water every other day with a few gallons.
 
K

Kamatari

13
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how long could you possibly leave it for? i suppose whatever system i choose, hydro or soil im going to run into some problems, like i said, ive got an automatic watering system hooked up to my plants at the moment but its not brilliant, just about does the job for while im away, when im back though i give them all a nice hand watering.

the idea of a bubbler/dwc is very appealing to me at the moment but its just keeping the water sorted, if i did dwc, the tank would be changed etc on the day that i went and then changed again the day i came back.

just after trying a new system instead of growing in soil :)
 
L

Lost

2,969
38
how long could you possibly leave it for? i suppose whatever system i choose, hydro or soil im going to run into some problems, like i said, ive got an automatic watering system hooked up to my plants at the moment but its not brilliant, just about does the job for while im away, when im back though i give them all a nice hand watering.

the idea of a bubbler/dwc is very appealing to me at the moment but its just keeping the water sorted, if i did dwc, the tank would be changed etc on the day that i went and then changed again the day i came back.

just after trying a new system instead of growing in soil :)

I would give a single plant a try in a 27 gallon dwc. I have done it before and because you are using about 20 gallons it stays stableish.. :)

Check out the first few pages of this thread to see what I mean..
 
K

Kamatari

13
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would creating a "wilma system" be a good possible step? so have the pots on top of the res but a water pump that drips the water into the pots and then back into the res?

EDIT: i should have realized that the wilma system is just a dripper which might actually work for what i want as its effectively the same as my watering system atm
 
S

ShorelineTex

213
0
how long could you possibly leave it for? i suppose whatever system i choose, hydro or soil im going to run into some problems, like i said, ive got an automatic watering system hooked up to my plants at the moment but its not brilliant, just about does the job for while im away, when im back though i give them all a nice hand watering.

the idea of a bubbler/dwc is very appealing to me at the moment but its just keeping the water sorted, if i did dwc, the tank would be changed etc on the day that i went and then changed again the day i came back.

just after trying a new system instead of growing in soil :)

You can get away with 4-5 days on small SoG plants in soil between waterings most of the time until about the last 3 weeks or so when they get really thirsty.

Soil gets a bad rap...yeah, you don't have the ability to fine tune as quickly, but if you get really, really good with a single strain and fine-tune your mix and timing, you can really have some amazing results.
 
opt1c

opt1c

330
28
float valve to 55gal drum and you should be fine with water for 7 days. Even better is a float valve hooked up to an ro unit.
 
J

Jalisco Kid

Guest
With digital cameras,solenoids,auto doses you could be gone a long time it depends on how much money you have. JK
 
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