New to RDWC. 4 plant with reservoir setup

Indoor Growing Hydroponics
#1

After several years of growing in coco and having good success, I’ve decided to go full hydro. most of the issues I had with my coco grows revolved around watering routines or lack thereof in some situations. My understanding of these DWC systems is that you can often go a week without intervention if necessary to no detriment so I’m giving it a go.

In the past, I’ve got my water to the right ph and the bottled it then mixed in nutes as I use it. Five gallons at a time. Now I’m going to have to mix somewhere around 20-25 gallons to start, but how do I add nutes from there? Everything I’ve read says that I will need less nutes, but mixing nutes into 25 gallons of water circulating between 5 containers seems like it will take a lot.

Also, if there are any recommended books on the subject, I’d love to hear what they are.

Any help or advice you can offer to ease my worried mind is appreciated.

SkyDog

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#2

How large is the rez. Your maintenance time will depend on its size

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#3

The reservoir is 5 gallons. (Shown at bottom of image)

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#4

Tubing and rez are both too small. Would highly reccom nd a large hdx tote as your rez.

To get those high maintenance times you need experience. RDWC is not as forgiving as Coco.

It’s a steep learning curve but totally worth it once you have everything dialed.

Keep a good shop vac around for the inevitable.

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#5

Undercurrent style with 2" bulkhead fittings and get a 20 gallon reservoir and you’re good to go as long as your water pump is on point GPH wise.

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#6

I’m going to add a 17-20 gallon reservoir with a float to replenish the 5 gallon inline reservoir with the pump in it. Going to get first run going with system as is and can add the replenish reservoir as soon as it arrives. Adding a second 20 gallon res as a drain in case I need to drain and refill.

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#7

I pre mix my nutes in another 5 gallon bucket. When I’m done I just dump them in. Everything is obviously going to have to be on the same type of feed so try to keep your strains close in that department. Don’t go trying to grow anything that might need something different then what your giving them.
During veg I might have to mess with my water twice. During flower on the other hand they will suck up water/nutes about a gallon a day per plant. But that still has got to beat coco. Check your PH everyday to every other day.
What are planning on running?

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#8

I’ve got two mother plants that I’m going to pull my clones from. both are Miss Money Penney crosses I’ve grown before in coco. I’ve been running Fox Farms nutes with good results so will stick with that for now. I normally run about 50-75% of recommended dose.

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#9

I run mine at 50 or less. Right now my EC is successfully at 1.7. I’m not even going to touch on my autos. Still trying to figure them out.
It’s good that they are something you are familiar with. Keep every low and work your way up. You could mix a batch at 50% then water it down from there to get to the EC you want. Then when you top off it can be stronger till you get to where your comfortable.

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#10

Looking for recommendations on LED VS. MH/HPS for this grow?

I have a 600W Kind LED and a 600W MH/HPS light.