What's up?

[Xebediah]

New farmer here. I've already got one successful indoor grow with a hydroponic RDWC and one indoor/outdoor soil grow with my new greenhouse. I've just recently started a new indoor grow after rebuilding my hydroponic RDWC system. Now I'm about to dive into an outdoor organic raised bed. Also, very interested in breeding and have a lot of enthusiasm for technology and automation.

 

[Aqua Man]

New farmer here. I've already got one successful indoor grow with a hydroponic RDWC and one indoor/outdoor soil grow with my new greenhouse. I've just recently started a new indoor grow after rebuilding my hydroponic RDWC system. Now I'm about to dive into an outdoor organic raised bed. Also, very interested in breeding and have a lot of enthusiasm for technology and automation.

Welcome to the farm

 

[SwoleGrow]

New farmer here. I've already got one successful indoor grow with a hydroponic RDWC and one indoor/outdoor soil grow with my new greenhouse. I've just recently started a new indoor grow after rebuilding my hydroponic RDWC system. Now I'm about to dive into an outdoor organic raised bed. Also, very interested in breeding and have a lot of enthusiasm for technology and automation.

Welcome.
What type of rebuild did you do to your rdwc

 

[Xebediah]

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures available from my previous setup, but it was basically just four twelve gallon totes connected with two inch diameter PVC return manifold system that I put together. It was SUCH a pain to work with when I was propagating from seed because of the different phenotypes and just really made it a bigger chore to swap out the nutrient water. So, the new system is this:

And here is a picture underneath it. I'm using garden hose quick connects to connect each container so that I can easily remove it or elevate it closer to the light. You can also see the main line coming from the reservoir with the brown spaghetti lines to each container for recycled feeding.

And inside each container has a tube connected to the bulkhead fitting to drain the water from the top. This allows me to keep the containers elevated above the reservoir without the water pouring back. I've also got my air hoses and feed lines tied to the bottom to the tubes, so it feeds from the bottom and drains at the top. This also keeps the volume of water at exactly 2.5 gallons for each container. I'll add some cheese cloth to the top of the drain tubes to act as filters later on.

I am planning to add three more containers eventually. I just did six this time for the six seeds I germinated. But, now I can quickly disconnect each container and dump out the water real fast to empty out the old solution. Hopefully this makes it easier.

 

[SwoleGrow]

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures available from my previous setup, but it was basically just four twelve gallon totes connected with two inch diameter PVC return manifold system that I put together. It was SUCH a pain to work with when I was propagating from seed because of the different phenotypes and just really made it a bigger chore to swap out the nutrient water. So, the new system is this:
View attachment 1106649

And here is a picture underneath it. I'm using garden hose quick connects to connect each container so that I can easily remove it or elevate it closer to the light. You can also see the main line coming from the reservoir with the brown spaghetti lines to each container for recycled feeding.View attachment 1106650

And inside each container has a tube connected to the bulkhead fitting to drain the water from the top. This allows me to keep the containers elevated above the reservoir without the water pouring back. I've also got my air hoses and feed lines tied to the bottom to the tubes, so it feeds from the bottom and drains at the top. This also keeps the volume of water at exactly 2.5 gallons for each container. I'll add some cheese cloth to the top of the drain tubes to act as filters later on. View attachment 1106659

I am planning to add three more containers eventually. I just did six this time for the six seeds I germinated. But, now I can quickly disconnect each container and dump out the water real fast to empty out the old solution. Hopefully this makes it easier.

Nice setup! I’m always looking for ways to improve the four site I have. My 1st run with rdwc I unknowingly veg’d too long and during flower they were too tall to lift out out of the buckets. After harvest I found my problems were occurring because my roots were traveling the lines and clogging them. Knowing what I know now, I’ll definitely run rdwc again in the future, but this supersoil got me right now.

 

[Xebediah]

Nice setup! I’m always looking for ways to improve the four site I have. My 1st run with rdwc I unknowingly veg’d too long and during flower they were too tall to lift out out of the buckets. After harvest I found my problems were occurring because my roots were traveling the lines and clogging them. Knowing what I know now, I’ll definitely run rdwc again in the future, but this supersoil got me right now.

Below is a picture of my first RDWC setup that I grew out of and I was SO relieved after finishing it up so I could break this down. I'm sure I did what a lot of people did/do when they first jump into an RDWC endeavor and just watch videos about putting one together without knowing how convenient it is actually going to be to use and maintain.

The rigid pipe for the drain back to the rez was the most frustrating part, just because I couldn't move anything around to rearrange if I wanted to.

Also, draining out the water from the rez with my transfer pump would still leave several gallons inside each container that would require another small transfer pump or just bailing out by hand. Then trying to wipe down inside each tote was just an exhausting chore for each solution swap.

So the new setup is designed with the convenience in mind to remove the plant out of the container, dump the water out of the container, then wipe down and reset.

I still plan to put 3 more containers in to give me a total of 9 containers to grow RDWC from inside the 4 x 4. I figure the more main colas, the better the yield. (BTW, the power strip was not left where it's shown in this pic, it's elevated above everything else.)