help with sizing a reservoir for drip with coco in pots

[medmanmilan]

I'm planning on growing in a larger 8x4 flood tray and I need some help on sizing a reservoir, I read on bghydro's site I'd only need a 40 gallon rez, this seems a bit small to me, what do you guys think?

Btw the plants are going to be in 5 gallon root pots (basically cheap smart pots lol) in a 50/50 mix of perlite and coco

 

[true grit]

Interested in this as well my friend. Are you going to be recirc with the drip or drip to waste? Assuming recirc? I am looking at doing similar, but will probably use 25-40g per 4x4 but i'd be staying on top of res top offs regularly...

 

[Smokey503ski]

With Coco I have found best that feed to waste works best. You will pretty much use the same amount of nutes anyway.
What I do is run a 1/4 feed line per plant. Feed that 3 times a day for a minute each time. Now with that it is easy to see how much water you will need with your res and plant count.
You need to take the feed lines and put them in a container. Turn on the pump for a minute. Take the water that filled up the container and times it by 3. Then times that by 7 for the weeks worth of water. Then you will know how much you need per week w/o too much waste.
For my setup I use about 100 gallons a week for 36 plants in flower in 3 gallon smart pots. I also use the blue food barrels they use for food products. you can get those cheap off Craigslist.

 

[entrails]

Guys I have messed around with a lot of Resos. Keep in mind I grow in rocks so no drain to waste! You can use a much smaller reso and moniter things much closer if you a going drain to waste..

Im done with Botanicare resos. They are cheap pieces of crap. I use Active Aqua resos now for many reasons.

They are much thicker, wont deform,lined with depth markers for the amount of water you have, and the lid sits on top the correct way. The lid design alone is far better then botanicares. They also run bigger, which I like. They come in a 50 gallon size, and thats what I will use forever more per 4 by 4 flood table per 1000 watt light. Sometimes its hard for a 4 by 8 to drain fully to keep on the watch for that.

The Active Aqua 100 gallon is 53" by 53" by 13". You need way more then 40 gallon to fill up the table. You dont want the pump to not have enough water covering it!

 

[true grit]

With Coco I have found best that feed to waste works best. You will pretty much use the same amount of nutes anyway.
What I do is run a 1/4 feed line per plant. Feed that 3 times a day for a minute each time. Now with that it is easy to see how much water you will need with your res and plant count.
You need to take the feed lines and put them in a container. Turn on the pump for a minute. Take the water that filled up the container and times it by 3. Then times that by 7 for the weeks worth of water. Then you will know how much you need per week w/o too much waste.
For my setup I use about 100 gallons a week for 36 plants in flower in 3 gallon smart pots. I also use the blue food barrels they use for food products. you can get those cheap off Craigslist.

I think DWB was on the right track on my other thread with the recirc and constant drippers at low intervals. Though i had planned on drip to waste, I am really really gonna try to do a recirc.

Thanks for the suggestion on to calculate it...i take it thats on your regimen of 3 drip cycles a day? Or is that planning on one drip a day with plenty to soak and run off?

 

[entrails]

Ill get some pictures of the resos so you can see the difference.

It is very hard to stay on top of 40 gallons and under unless you live in the grow room(when you are not draining to waste)! The pumps tend to go dry, unless you use the more expensive pumps that pull water from underneath the pump and not the sides. Ive had the water run low in a 40 gallon running a 1,000 watter in a 4 by 4 so freaking fast. The extra 10 gallons of the black Active Aqua reso creates a comfort zone and stable nutes!


Crappy Botanicare reso. We filled this up and it blew out! The sides are now warped, although its hard to tell in this picture. This is/was a 40 gallon. The lid sorta clamps down over the top, except now its all warped aand wont cover anything. You can see the warping on the right side. this haoppend from just filling it up a little too much I guess.

The second reso is the thicker Active Aqua. I also have a port hole cover for that opening. The plants that you can barely see were transplanted into 9 inch square baskets, coco pots and all. Three rows of three per tray...I veg them out in 6 inch coco fiber pots then just place them into the squares and fill with more rocks for flower....you can see how the lid sits down into the reso, thus eliminating most leakage from spraying pumps or by-pass valves! 50 gallons is the way to fly (for me at least) As I mentioned before the Active Aquas have markings inside the resos20,30,40,50 gallons that are easy to see and they are also marked in liters. This is a nice touch.

 

[medmanmilan]

Thanks guys for the responses, I'm coming from dwc so I'm used to huuuge rez sizes, and I got pretty tired of paying for all those nutes, yano?

So what is the reason you guys choose to use drain to waste drip? It sounded, well, more wasteful to me lol

 

[Surfr]

I too am considering going to coco in air pots with drain to waste.. I have A LOT of research to do...

 

[leadsled]

added volume for each tray

40 gallon is enough but the shallow res (botanicare) are a pain to work with.

I run a 60 gallon res for each 4 - 4x4 trays. (30 gallons for each 4x4, only need about half that if you want small as possible) (same as 4x8) 5-7gallon pots, top drip to waste. I like these res's (cheap and durable). I also have the botanicare res for the waste. I agree they are junk. Can also easily crack.

Here is the barrel type,was originally used for food storage.

I did a step by step on how to build a irrigation setup on another forum. Could post it up here on the diy section, if it was any help.

set it up with 16 pots with one dripper or 8 puts with 32 drippers each.

60 gallons is plenty of water for a 4x8 I bet can get away with less. Kinda depends on plant count and container size. I run one res for nutes and one for r/o water. Then I can mix up a new batch and/or do a flush and have plenty to spare.

Rather than having res for the waste these are the ticket.

Auto-Drain Controller, allows you to put in a wastewater drain, any place that you would like. It consists of a controller bucket with a float switch. When the float switch detects the presence of water, it turns on the pump (not included) to pump out your water to a waste drain of your choice, even higher than the controller. You could have your run-to-waste tables drain into an ADC-1 for automated removal of waste water.

LEad

 

[DoubleDub]

Man I freakin love coco. It's super forgiving and yields like hydro.been hooked on coco for a few years now. I run a drip to waste and water three times a day with a small runoff each time. I don't let nutes go above 850. I find my girls like 450 -800 depending on size, week and strain. All I feed my girls are gh three part, quantum growth light, ro and rarely hydrogen peroxide. My nutes are usually at a 1-1-1 ratio till stretch then transition to about a 2-2-5 ratio. Each week i try to increase ppm by about 50 starting at 500. till nug production then i slowly decrease till flush.


yo lead I like the design with the rubber grommets inside the pvc to connect to the 1/4 in tubing. I thought about doing something similar myself but ended up doing this.
http://i755.invalid.com/albums/xx196/C4ked/Warehouse%20Build%20to%20day%201/DSC_1047.jpg

http://i755.invalid.com/albums/xx196/C4ked/Warehouse%20Build%20to%20day%201/DSC_1045.jpg


That auto drain thing is pretty sweet i never knew they made those. I found hauling my waste to be so annoying that i just installed sbs drain. man it makes it so much easier.

http://i755.invalid.com/albums/xx196/C4ked/more/DSC_0325.jpg

As far as res' go get the biggest one possible.. but be careful how tall your drippers are compared to the top water line of a full res. If the res fills taller than your drippers it will siphon from the res through your pump and into the bags. I use low profile norwesco tanks and that can be filled with 120 gallons.

http://i755.invalid.com/albums/xx196/C4ked/Warehouse%20Build%20to%20day%201/DSC_1028.jpg

http://i755.invalid.com/albums/xx196/C4ked/Warehouse%20Build%20to%20day%201/DSC_1031.jpg

Here they are 22 days into flower

http://i755.invalid.com/albums/xx196/C4ked/Day%2022/DSC_0273.jpg

http://i755.invalid.com/albums/xx196/C4ked/Day%2022/DSC_0281.jpg

http://i755.invalid.com/albums/xx196/C4ked/Day%2022/DSC_0244.jpg

http://i755.invalid.com/albums/xx196/C4ked/Day%2022/DSC_0295.jpg

http://i755.invalid.com/albums/xx196/C4ked/Day%2022/DSC_0270.jpg

 

[medmanmilan]

god damn I love how many helpful responses I've gotten here! I posted an exact same thread like this on rollitup, and nobody said a word! you guys are great!

but one more thing, nobody's really said why a drain to waste is better than recycling your nutes. thanks guys, you're a really big help!

 

[DoubleDub]

I think DWB was on the right track on my other thread with the recirc and constant drippers at low intervals. Though i had planned on drip to waste, I am really really gonna try to do a recirc.

Yo grit that sounds pretty legit. never heard of anyone doing that but I say go for it! Your gunna get way more use out of your nutes than most coco grows do and youll be putting way less minerals into the water supply! The only thing that you should be aware of is that coco puts off lots of dark runoff. Sometimes I've even found my runoff to actually increase in ppm :surprised I usually flush my coco before I start and even after a ridiculously long flush it still puts off slightly brown water. I use the bricked coco cause its the cheapest but other brands/types may be better for recirc. Let us know how it works im real interested.

 

[leadsled]

Hey, DoubleDub nice setup~! Good tip on the siphoning, learned that one the hard way :)

I find the grommets with 1/4 line do not get clogged up. (if you run any teas or organics make a difference.) Also the drippers allow more flow than other one I agve found.

I use a irrigation controller (rather than a timer) with hunter style valves so do not get any siphoning. I use backflow valves on rooms I setup without valves. Made that mistake before and the entire res siphoned into my tray.

What is the deal with your drains? You just use gravity or have a inline pump? What is a SGS drain?

The auto drain controller is basically a float valve (in reverse) that controls a pump. I think could make one for cheaper. Wish I saw it before I invested in a bunch of botanicare res's to catch the waste.

few more pics, plans on how it works with 2 res. Can automate feeding and flushing, can also do a water, feed, water combination. That way the prewatering wets the roots, then the food is applied then a a last bit of water to keep the lines clean and prevent any salt buildup.

few pics of the irrigation setup.

 

[motherlode]

im running a similar setup with a 40 gal res and you have to be on top of it every 2 days... Im looking into upgrading to a 70 gal

 

[Seamaiden]

I need my husband to look at all of this. We've been talking about automating my indoor girls.

 

[Dirty White Boy]

Damn yall got sum stellar grow rooms. Ive never had a problem with the ppms raising or the water changing color from the coco... well not when i use canna. Not a big fan of the bricks. You guys use a whole hell of alot more water then i do. I use one 18 gallon tub for a 4x4 or like 12 plants, and i add maybe 1-2 gallons a day. I only have to run around 650ppms, i can go a few days without adding water if im not around as long as it dosnt go over like 850ish like someone else said, then when the ppms start to drop instead of rise i go another day or two and change my rez. Stuper simple.

 

[DoubleDub]

Hey, DoubleDub nice setup~! Good tip on the siphoning, learned that one the hard way

.
haha yea siphoning was a bit of a pain in my original setup. Kinda hit me buy surprise at first. lol "what the f happened to all my water and why is it all over the floor!?"

I use a irrigation controller (rather than a timer) with hunter style valves so do not get any siphoning. I use backflow valves on rooms I setup without valves. Made that mistake before and the entire res siphoned into my tray.

I used that type of valve too but found it difficult to turn a pump on and open the valve at the same time. I then opted for a gravity feed but if there wasnt enough water in the tank and enough pressure in the line the darn thing wouldnt close. haha I ended up with more empty res'! And flooded waste res'. Damn siphon.

So far I haven't had any problems with this setup. lol im crossing my fingers

Your method is legit tho. Thats probably how it would be done in an agriculture application. Shit with that you have as tall of a tank as you want. I never did get a controller that had a pump relay tho. i remember looking into it and it getting a bit costly so I decided not to. plus I already had the wrong pumps.

What is the deal with your drains? You just use gravity or have a inline pump? What is a SGS drain?

wow I must of been stoned when I wrote that. i meant abs drains. yea its just a basic gravity drain to outside and works just like the sewer drains in a house.

lead keep us posted with pics if possible im curious how it all gets rigged up.

but one more thing, nobody's really said why a drain to waste is better than recycling your nutes. thanks guys, you're a really big help!

A drain to waste is not "better" its just easier to control the levels and concentrations of nute solution that reaches the roots. The trade off is you waste a bunch of water and you slightly pollute the water supply because dissolved minerals are difficult to filter. I drain into the dirt to minimize this. Also you end up using more nutrients than necessary.

A recirculating system is much more efficient and uses less water.

im running a similar setup with a 40 gal res and you have to be on top of it every 2 days... Im looking into upgrading to a 70 gal

yea big res' are nice.

I need my husband to look at all of this. We've been talking about automating my indoor girls.

seamaiden if you have any questions let me know. I'd be glad to help. All the initial hardwork and effort pays off. I could potentially leave my grow for 7 days without any issue.

Damn yall got sum stellar grow rooms. Ive never had a problem with the ppms raising or the water changing color from the coco... well not when i use canna. Not a big fan of the bricks. You guys use a whole hell of alot more water then i do. I use one 18 gallon tub for a 4x4 or like 12 plants, and i add maybe 1-2 gallons a day. I only have to run around 650ppms, i can go a few days without adding water if im not around as long as it dosnt go over like 850ish like someone else said, then when the ppms start to drop instead of rise i go another day or two and change my rez. Stuper simple.

sounds like you got it down! and hmm ill have to check out the canna next time. you recirc is more effeicent as far as water goes.. my system uses about 2 1/2 - 3 gallons per day per 1000 watt light.

 

[entrails]

I might need to try cocco instead of rocks!!!

Freaking impressive DoubleDub!

 

[Seamaiden]

I use my waste water, both from the RO/DI and from feeding the girls, for all my landscaping plants.

 

[leadsled]

Thanks for the feedback DoubleDub.

The 1/4 grommets are more work to setup, but the I.D. is not as restricted like the tree style. I do not see the tree style being a problem with most setups. I wanted to be able to use organic nutes (without clogging) so I went with the larger size.

Regarding the irrigation controller with pump start replay. Yeap little bit pricey, Irrigation controller is $75, pump start relay 70.00, valves around 15.00 each.

That is just for the water control, still need pumps and irrigation lines.

Ill make a another thread with pics and link it up to here. Gotta scrounge together the pics and info.