My growing experience in deep water culture.

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Mospeada

Mospeada

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@Mospeada What are your pipe diameters? I think I see many people using 1'' or even 1.5'' for pump-out-containers-in pipes and 3/4'' for containers-out-pump-in. I was thinking having everything 3/4'' but I just don't know. I am not a plumber and I have a hard time finding a good general resource on the net for deciding suitable pipes for arbitrary water installation safe for this one (here) which must be overkill compared to just some good experience based heuristics. Oh by the way I have my three danner 700 GPH coming in soon. They come with 1/2'' FPT pump-in and 1/2'' MPT pump-out which I find a bit small for any application of that capacity.

PS I was also thinking to maybe use flexibel pipes or even hoses for the connections including valves. For easy maintenance of containers or slightly rearranging the floor plan of the containers.
The pipes between each tub is 3". I don't use a strong pump, it usually takes an hour after I add nutes for the ppm to stabilise. The roots also have heaps of space so I haven't come across the roots clogging the pipes in between the tubs. The piping that leads to the res container is 1", this seems enough so that the pump doesn't drain the res level lower than the rest of the tubs. The return lines are 3/4" pipes, this is where the pressure is highest so going thick pipes isn't necessary. I aimed to make the system as even as I could. Ideally the system would be better if the intake and return lines lead to the tubs directly but I was short on space hence the design I went with. I kinda went by trial and error and so far this is the best design I've come up with. The next idea I'm thinking of going is reducing the height but creating a full 8 foot x 4 foot bed and ditching majority of the plumbing. Not sure what you would call that system, still circulating but in one pot.
 
king_of_nothing

king_of_nothing

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I kinda went by trial and error and so far this is the best design I've come up with. The next idea I'm thinking of going is reducing the height but creating a full 8 foot x 4 foot bed and ditching majority of the plumbing. Not sure what you would call that system, still circulating but in one pot.

@Mospeada you read my mind or I am reading yours. Because this is actually what I was thinking and why I liked your set up in the first place. Why this problematic business of having just one container per plant. Hey this guy groups multiple plants per container. That looks smart.

And seriously, this week I was thinking the same thing: instead of all these containers that have 'complicated' plumbing in between that are sucking energy out my pumps, causing assymetries in the water pressure, water hazard risks on the joints, etc. why not somehow create or buy one single low container with a lot of surface. But not sure where to get those or how to build them DIY. Thing is that I already have my containers. So one big container for everything is going to be v 2.0 for me. SoI'll hope you beat me to it.

@BillFarthing thanks for the advice. So you are also on the 3'' for pump-in pipes.

I'll keep that root clogging issue in mind.
 
Mospeada

Mospeada

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Day 28F. The ppm dropped down to 800 after three weeks on the same feed. At this point I'm guessing as to what is left. I assume that the macro nutrients are still in good supply, a few ppm is enough for the plants to function normally, however I do keep an iron supplement on hand and I also add nickel. Still to be safe I added 50ppm of micro then 150ppm of PK in the form of 1 part MAP, 1 part MPK and two parts potassium sulphate. Lastly I'll load up to 1200 ppm of cal/mag.
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Mospeada

Mospeada

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Day 13 of veg. Things are going well. When the roots set in a few days after potting I started blasting them with everything. Lights were lowered and set to full, nutes dialled in at the max I go at 1200ppm.
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Can barely see where it was topped, I may have partly fimmed some too.
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Sometimes I still get surprised by how fast it grows, especially the roots. 90% of this wasn't there last week.
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king_of_nothing

king_of_nothing

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@Mospeada Bit of a noob question but after transplanting your cuttings to you net pots. Do you transplant again to bigger net pots in a later stage? Or do you stick to one size after that? I hear most people saying that the bigger the better. It offers stability. I have big containers so I can fit whatever there.
 
UK420Show

UK420Show

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@Mospeada Bit of a noob question but after transplanting your cuttings to you net pots. Do you transplant again to bigger net pots in a later stage? Or do you stick to one size after that? I hear most people saying that the bigger the better. It offers stability. I have big containers so I can fit whatever there.

Erm I have never had any problems to be honest. I only use the same you are I think around 4 or 5 inch pots. I mean the netting pot in dwc is only going to house the stem and top of the root system. so if you don't intend on growing a plant with a stem larger than say 5 inches with well would take a long time lol a problem you may run into is the roots breaking the pots they all ways do :)
 
tsukiman13

tsukiman13

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Wow! How does your root looks so clean and white? I could never get that.
 
Mospeada

Mospeada

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Wow! How does your root looks so clean and white? I could never get that.
Normally they're stained from the fulvic and kelp but I've been cutting back on that. This chiller set at 19c makes a huge difference.
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My mother plants aren't cooled and I don't use hydroguard or bleach. Just checked on the Pink Kush and whadda yah know...root rot lol.
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Hosed it off with tap water, it won't like the chlorine but neither would the pythium.
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Did a fresh bucket up and will see how it goes. I let the temps get too high as I was trying to get the humidity up. Should be fine but will check it more often. Best thing about dwc hydro is how quick you can fix things like this by putting the roots in fresh solution.
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UK420Show

UK420Show

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Ahh yes from what I can tell roots discolour over time :) They go from bright white to a slightly yellow colour. Mos is right this is alot to do with your temperature of your water or medium in our case that along with the amount of oxygenation in the medium this will promote healthy root growth. anywhere between 19-21 is usually the best. LED lights help alot along with choosing sensible colour for your pots. LED lights help because there is no indirect heating of anything in the lights path. for example if you run a hps light you will find that will warm anything that's put beneath it. LED grow lights do not do this hence you have more success keep the water temperature down. There are also a myriad of tips and tricks online to lower the temperature of the water. You need black or white pots I would choose black though it absorbs heat it will only absorb direct heat. not heat from led lights. You also have to be careful with what nutes you are using if they stain your water a certain colour they will stain the roots too. You could certainly get that kind of healthy roots all you need to do is use colder water and maybe look at getting a better air pump for the pot :) Personally I have 4 air pumps in my set up and counting if you put a fair amount of air in the bucket the top half when full it will kind of mist on the surface which can help stimulate root growth in the early stages of seedling also helps keep the beads moist without having a top feeder. Hope this helps and sorry for butting in there still working out this site lol
 
Mospeada

Mospeada

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Day 31F and the garden is hitting it's stride into swell. Not much to report. Topped up the system and the ppm is back down to 800. I haven't dosed up on cal/mag for a couple of weeks so will take the ppm up to 1000 with that. That may be the final time I add cal/mag as from week 7 onwards I usually just top up with tap water only.
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Green Gelato's
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Bruce Banger's
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Mospeada

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Day 17 of veg. Foliared with chitosan and triacotanol on day 13, then pruned them back so they're ready for scrogging by the end of the week.
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Can't grow without cooling, will look into some kind of bleaching agent for hot grows. In the meantime I've put the pink Kush in the main system. I don't normally res change but will clean it out after this mom bounces back.
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Mospeada

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Day 34F. Did a massive defol which I really should have done sooner. Humidity was getting too high at 75+. It's getting sloppy, waiting on new netting to arrive. The Banner's seem to have suffered from the high humidity the most with underdeveloped buds. Hopefully after a month they'll be looking a lot better.
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Mospeada

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Day 41 of flower. The banners look like a write off from the poor environment I mentioned earlier.
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The Gelato's bounced back well but the late defol has resulted in the sugar leaves growing out. Turning out to be a really sloppy grow.
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king_of_nothing

king_of_nothing

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So for my first attempt to grow Amnesia in RDWC. I am going from clone -veg- flower in effectively 50L per plant set up. Since it is Amnesia I am expecting to end up with pretty tall plants. What do you suggest for the size of the net pots? I have often read that it actually doesn't matter that much in dwc. So normal 5 inch diamter pots are fine. Any special opinion on that?
 
Mospeada

Mospeada

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So for my first attempt to grow Amnesia in RDWC. I am going from clone -veg- flower in effectively 50L per plant set up. Since it is Amnesia I am expecting to end up with pretty tall plants. What do you suggest for the size of the net pots? I have often read that it actually doesn't matter that much in dwc. So normal 5 inch diamter pots are fine. Any special opinion on that?
Honestly I haven't found the net pot size to have any effect. I was tempted to go to smaller pots so insane amount of hole cutting I do will be easier but just for consistency I've stuck with 140mm pots.
 
Mospeada

Mospeada

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Day 25 of veg. A lot will be happening real fast real soon. Will do a final defol/prune before flipping in three days. Going to use the cuttings for a fresh batch of clones. The Pink Kush mother I'm keeping in the system to flower.
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Haven't touched the pink Kush at all in regards defol/pruning. Was waiting for it to bounce back after a bad case of root disease.
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Mospeada

Mospeada

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Made up a 45 unit to replace the tubs I was using to clone with. Was a mess of a job but turned out okay.
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