Pump size for RDWC (water and air)

[Tank333]

So, I've tried looking around via the search, but I'm not finding anything relevant to what I'm looking for...

I'm building a 10 site RDWC for my flower room. I'm using five of the large black and yellow Tuff Boxes from Casa DePot, with two plants on each. I'll be using an extra 5-gallon bucket as a headbucket. 1" bulkheads and black tubing to connect them all.

I'm not sure what size of a pump I should get. I know I want a magnetic drive pump, right? How many GPH should it be pushing?

What about my air pump? I have two little ones right now I use for my ACT, but I don't use one in my Flo-N-Gro...

Thanks in advance!

 

[Mr.Sputnik]

I am doing a 9 plant plus control bucket system (10 totes total) and I am using a danner mag drive 1800 pump (1800 gpm). If you are putting air stones into each container I would recommend the danner AP-100 (150 lpm). I run an ecoplus commercial air 7 (200 lpm) but it's LOUD and wish I would have gone with the danner AP-100.

For a system that is half the size of mine I would just cut those figures in half and you will be fine. I recall doing an extensive amount of research on my setup and the danner mag drive water pumps and AP series air pumps are what you want. Somewhere around 800-1000 gpm water pump and 80-100 lpm air pump should suffice for your system.

Make sure to put a clean out inline before your water pump. There is a screen used for a kitchen sink drain you can find at HD (it's the largest in a 3 pack of different screen sizes) that will fit in between the joints of 4" piping you'll want to use to catch pieces of hydroton. Anything smaller cloggs up. I used adapters to go from 3/4" pvc to 4" with a 4" cleanout you can unscrew from the top and get your hand in there then back down to 3/4" and into my mag drive pump.

 

[HottyToddy]

I am doing a 9 plant plus control bucket system (10 totes total) and I am using a danner mag drive 1800 pump (1800 gpm). If you are putting air stones into each container I would recommend the danner AP-100 (150 lpm). I run an ecoplus commercial air 7 (200 lpm) but it's LOUD and wish I would have gone with the danner AP-100.

For a system that is half the size of mine I would just cut those figures in half and you will be fine. I recall doing an extensive amount of research on my setup and the danner mag drive water pumps and AP series air pumps are what you want. Somewhere around 800-1000 gpm water pump and 80-100 lpm air pump should suffice for your system.

Make sure to put a clean out inline before your water pump. There is a screen used for a kitchen sink drain you can find at HD (it's the largest in a 3 pack of different screen sizes) that will fit in between the joints of 4" piping you'll want to use to catch pieces of hydroton. Anything smaller cloggs up. I used adapters to go from 3/4" pvc to 4" with a 4" cleanout you can unscrew from the top and get your hand in there then back down to 3/4" and into my mag drive pump.

I'm very curious to know more about your 4" clean out hole modification using a sink drain from HD. I'll be using 1" flexible PVC for plumbing the bottom of my buckets & 3/4" vinyl tubing water falling into the top of each of my four 5 gallon buckets. I'll be using a Danner 900 to pull fom my epicenter and supply each plant site vs. the CCH2O design of pulling from the tail buckets returning to the epicenter. Makes more sense to me to aerate the plant sites instead of the epicenter with a water fall. I'm concerned with clogs, as I'm only using 1" plumbing on the bottom. However, I'm pulling from my epicenter so there will be no hydroton there. Should I still worry about clogging of roots & debris?

Thanks!

 

[tweedy]

I've always leaned towards not running an air pump and using waterfalls (or my version of them) to boost D.O.

However, if you are dead set on running one I am aim for about a watt a gallon, so depending on your total res space (I doubt you are filling those totes to the brim so they will likely have 12.5 gallons in each and the two head buckets at about 4 gallons a piece) you would like likely shoot for an 80 watt air pump or a relatively close size. But again, I barely run them if I am rdwc, just get enough water flowing and it should not be an issue if the water is proper temp. Your mileage may vary but I have been fine.

As far as the gph for water pump, look up Heath Robinson systems (just type his name and trees). He and Billy Liar recommend running about 250 gph per each site. So you would be better off over sizing it to deal with the friction losses on all of your plumbing and go with something along 1200 GPH.

Again, what works for me might not be your best answer but these are my experiences and they have held up pretty well.

 

[CannaTech]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but I feel its important to keep relative information together rather than having 100 posts of partial info.

I am doing a 9 plant plus control bucket system (10 totes total) and I am using a danner mag drive 1800 pump (1800 gpm). If you are putting air stones into each container I would recommend the danner AP-100 (150 lpm). I run an ecoplus commercial air 7 (200 lpm) but it's LOUD and wish I would have gone with the danner AP-100.

For a system that is half the size of mine I would just cut those figures in half and you will be fine. I recall doing an extensive amount of research on my setup and the danner mag drive water pumps and AP series air pumps are what you want. Somewhere around 800-1000 gpm water pump and 80-100 lpm air pump should suffice for your system.

Make sure to put a clean out inline before your water pump. There is a screen used for a kitchen sink drain you can find at HD (it's the largest in a 3 pack of different screen sizes) that will fit in between the joints of 4" piping you'll want to use to catch pieces of hydroton. Anything smaller cloggs up. I used adapters to go from 3/4" pvc to 4" with a 4" cleanout you can unscrew from the top and get your hand in there then back down to 3/4" and into my mag drive pump.

Mr.Sputnik, How many stones do you run per bucket off of your AP-100?

I am building a 6K 9 site with Res (~140 Gallons total (10 Per tote and 50 gallon Res)) I am aiming for 4 4x2" stones in each. with a smaller air pump in the res. (20 Lpm)

I am going to run 2" circulate with "maybe" a 3/4 or 1" return powered by a 1800GPH Jebao inline.

The Res is outside the room and not in any direct light. All totes will be masked in reflective material, and I am hoping that I can get away without a Chiller.

Do you run a chiller?

Thanks for the info. and again sorry for the re-birthing.

 

[CannaTech]

I cannot edit my post and I have a feeling someone is going to say he said he did not use a Ap-100, I meant to ask about his commercial 7 Not the Ap-100. Although it has been a year since this was posted, maybe you have picked on up in the mean time and can still weigh in on the AP-100 :P. Just wanted to keep some greenie from coming in here and saying something stupid.

 

[Mr.Sputnik]

Screw that com7 noise, get an ap-100. Definitely going to need a chiller too. Your system will crash if temps get over low 70's. I use one 8" round air stone per container and one in the control for a total of 10 stones. Make a microbe tea and add it to the root zone and rez 2x a week. Easy recipe is 1tbsp per gallon molasses, 1 handful earth worm castings per gallon, and innoculate with 1tbsp per 5 gallons of bacteria. I use hybrix molasses and I have to add 2.5ml per gallon of up or else ph is under 4, no good so test your ph before you inocculate. I like mycogrow from fungiperfecti for bacteria. Run the chiller inline when you get one so you only need one pump and it cools better that way. I got an ecoplus commercial 1hp and it works good enough, make sure to put the chiller out of the room as it's like an AC unit and will need to be ventilated.

 

[Mr.Sputnik]

Forgot to mention you need to aerate the tea in a bucket with an airstone. 2-3 days in cool temps is good brew time. Or make a vortex brewer, I saw a cool small one made from a plastic water dispenser jug on the forum if you search vortex brewer.

 

[Mr.Sputnik]

The ap-100 has a manifold with like 20 sites on it, you could run a 20+ site system with one easily.

 

[Mr.Sputnik]

Filter the damn ewc out of the tea after you brew it and before it goes in the rez, I use a 400 micron bucket strainer but a paint strainer bag from home depot will work too.

 

[CannaTech]

Filter the damn ewc out of the tea after you brew it and before it goes in the rez, I use a 400 micron bucket strainer but a paint strainer bag from home depot will work too.

Mr.Sputnik,
Is Your RDWC system piped like the one I have laid out here? 2" to a 3/4" Reduction just prior to the pump Or does it have a full 2" loop to red with a additional 3/4" off of a T controlling flow?

 

[DrFever]

This is what i use to calculate proper GPH as well as Liters per minute there has been tons of threads through out the years but many people tend to forget about actual head pressure, size of pipe friction loss 90 degree all these effect flow rates and Hydro static pressure etc. cause many tend to forget water density into the equation :)
If you would like real time figures Actual circulation times you can pm me with details etc i can run it into my program ,
Second most important thing growers tend to realize is when they come up with the GPH they go out and buy that size pump,,,,.
when dealing with bigger pumps your wattage , efficiency and some other factors should come to mind
for instance that pump is your HEART with out it your DEAD so when deciding one should look at efficiency and of course BACK UP
With this said how i like to run things is use 2 water pumps and NON submersible cause them pumps will bring up water temps specially moving volume they heat up rather fast and most importantly i can shut down a pump for service and still have other one online
So here is a quick way to figure out water pump needed here is a example

Six site 5 gallon modules with 30 gallon res tank each module will have 4 gallons in each 6 x 4 = 24 gallons + 30 gallon res tank total volume = 54 gallons having fast circulation times = better ph and nutrient consistency through your system so aim for 4 - 5 mins to recirculate i will use 4 mins re circ time there are 15 4 mins every hr so we go 54 x 15 that is how many times it will re circ on a hr water pumps a GPH so we get 810 GPH that is the water pump size you need,,,,, Remember for every foot of piping there is restriction loss so its safe to actually add 10 percent correction factor but remember more pipe bends in the line add and things should be perfect for you so 810 GPH + 10 % = 810 x .10 = 84 GPH + 810 = 894 GPH pump that you want round it up if you have to 900 :)
Here is online friction loss cal might come in handy if your really determined to dial everything
http://www.freecalc.com/fricfram.htm

when choosing a AIR PUMP this comes in liters now so convert 54 gallons your total volume flipped to liters is
204 .4 round it up to 205 liters now divide that by 2 remember what ever you come up with round it always up
so 205 LPM divide by 2 = 102.5 so either find a Air pump 105 LPM or 110 LPM

hope this helps Cheers

 

[Mr.Sputnik]

Mine isn't a loopty loop, the tees are in the middle of the rows and sttart the 3/4"tee line from the rear and go to the pump after merging into a single 3/4"