Planning my new grow and I’m thinking I want to go with a single bucket RDWC. I only need one grow bucket but I would like to recirculate to keep all the water the same so I can test and tweek in the res rather than mess withe the grow bucket. In the past I only used Water Farms which employed a gravity fed reservoir so I’m not very familiar with water pumps and corresponding plumbing. My questions:
What size pump is good for a 5 gal grow bucket and 10 gal res? What about brand?
I’ve read that the drain pipe should be larger than the supply pipe. How much so? If I use 1/2" supply, what size drain?
Would it be better to put the pump on a timer and only recirculate every few hours or leave on 24/7?
I have an old Water Farm drip ring that I thought about using. If I have that and a bubbler in the grow bucket does that impact question 3?
Get as big as you can get, but if you are running only one bucket, why not make a bucket DWC? Easiest DWC ever to make, just put that pump to the bottom of the bucket, add water, nutes,a lid with a hole for a netpot with the plant, and you’re done?
I have no idea, but if you have ½ supply maybe just go 1" drain?
I have only done 13 years of hydro growing so I might not be the right guy to answer this but I’ve had best results by running the pumps 24/7 (and I’ve pretty much tried everything else, but not RDWC so I am just assuming. Might be terribly wrong.)
I am not quite sure do I understand this question, but I can say that fuck 'em airpumps. Water pumps all the way. Once you go DWC you’ll never even look to the general direction of airpumps again!
I was considering RDWC so I wouldn’t have to mess with the plant bucket to check the nutes or top off. I was hoping to have a reservoir and with the re circulation the water would be the same in both and I could do all the altering in the res rather than the grow bucket.
My question #4 was that if I were to use both an air stone and a drip ring, woudl that affect whether or not I should run the water pump 24/7 or cycle it. I though traditional DWC always had an air stone in the bottom and consequently used and air pump. Are you proposing just re circulating the water and not using an air stone?
First - I have never done hydro, so take anything I say with that in mind, but I have done a ton of reading recently.
Here are my takes on this.
Its not that critical.
Almost any system will work just fine and produce very good results - IF - you do ALL the other things correctly - proper nute levels, proper PH, proper lights, proper temps, etc.
People get good results with hempy buckets, water farms, DWC, RDWC, NFT, aeroponics, E/F, etc etc. Those techniques range from zero circulation to lots of circulation, and from lots of water to almost zero water, and from lots of extra aeration to zero extra aeration.
The only time pipe sizes matter when your talking intake vrs out flow is when your depending on gravity to return the water to the holding tank. In that case, you need the outflow to be at least as fast as the inflow from the pump. Its not a linear relationship though, so you cant just say use twice the size of drain. A hi power pump will require a much larger drain size than a low powered pump. The length of the return and any elbows, etc will also effect the rate of flow.
Not serious at all. Just trying to understand why you said that since you didn’t explain. I’m not “worrying” about an optimum set up at all. I’m just trying to deduce if there’s any potential issues or benefits. No need to be so defensive.
I wasn’t trying to be defensive so my apologies if I came off that way.
The way I see it, you’ve got a constant supply of oxygen to the roots with an air stone. As the levels in your bucket/res drop, the pump floods the roots with fresh oxygenated nutrients like in a flood and drain/nft/ebb and flow system. This cycle will make sure the roots never completely dry out thus promoting a high rate of growth and plenty of oxygen.
I hope this makes more sense and gives you a better idea of why I sarcastically said you’d thank me later, I keep forgetting to use the italics lol.
Either way, I ran dwc with a remote res like you were describing and it worked out good, I feel like if I would have had a pump on a cycle timer I could have gotten even better results too.
@anon32470837 - Thanks for the feedback. I am also wondering about things like: Would running the water pump intermittently rather than constantly help keep water temps down or not make a difference? Do the pumps last longer if left on continuously?
I can easily out grow my smoking requirements so I am not looking to optimize yields or anything. I just want to do what’s best to create a stable, reliable and easy to maintain growing environment.
Simple answer - yes. Running a pump full time will heat up your water, the larger the volume of water the longer it would take but eventually it will transfer heat from the pump into your res.
Cheaper pumps will last longer with less duty cycle. Heat is what Kills them. If you have a high quality pump they won’t mind the 100% duty cycle but most of the pumps out there aren’t rated for that.
Actually, aquarium pumps, and pond pumps etc, are rated for a 100% duty cycle . We (hydro weed people) are pretty much the only odd balls who cycle them on/off - and yes, its mainly due to heating of the rez water.
I personally dont think a huge pump will benefit you much at all over a small pump, and it will heat the water less. If you completely exchange the water in your 10 gal rez a few times a day, things will stay super well mixed. Thats especially true if you also have an airstone in the DWC bucket or the rez.
If you dont use an air stone, I would try to get extra aeration some other way - either a ‘water fall’ where the water returns or at some point in the cycle, or at a minimum, make sure the surface ‘roils’. Its primarily the rapid exchange of surface area water that helps aeration - not so much the bubbles.
The other thing with larger pumps is the need for larger return pipes. If you just have gravity returning the water - as you would in any open system - the pressure forcing the water out of the DWC bucket and back to the rez, is based on the height of the water in the DWC bucket. With a hi pressure/volume pump, you may have a hard time getting large enough pipes to handle the return flow. You might have to raise the DWC bucket up on a pedestal to get enough return flow.
While it’s true that aquarium pumps are made to work continuously, it’s also true that low cost ones if kept on 24/7 will die after 5/7 months while cycling them they will last 1+ year…
Just my 2 cents
Ds
