Setting up Water Farm by General Hydro

[luvfriday]

Ive been hauling up filtered water to my new system for 2 days. Its the Water Farm with 8 buckets (although using on 6). I have put in 16 gallons of water. The water all drains from the reservoir to the controller below and into the buckets, the pump is working and I see all buckets are about half full of water.

Where am i supposed to put the nurtrients? In the controller or the reservior? I imagine the serservoir only needs to have fresh water? Right now at 16 gallons the reservoir ontop is empty so I am still adding water till I know the system is filled .

[Weedhound]

Hate to tell you this.....but you add the nutes before you put the water in. you'll have to take the water back out, add your nutes, adjust ph, then pour in through top of second rez (which is sitting on top of the smaller controller)....the controller being the neat thing that looks like the inside of a small toilet. (Or perhaps I have that backwards?? :eek:)

The entire system runs on gravity and with 8 buckets going it takes about...24 gals to fill and run correctly...obviously a few less with six buckets. I fill mine until the large second rez is about 1/3 full.

One other lovely tip about the waterfarms (i have many but this one you'll need)....you need to check the ph in each module seperately....they change independently of each other despite the claims that GH makes that you only have to check the larger rez.

[muddywaters]

empty the top rez then lift the controller higher then the buckets to flush all the nute into the buckets. keep a eye on the buckets so you don't overflow them.

i have all 8 hooked up and have no overflow problems but you may with only 6. if the plants don't need all the extra mix then don't even use the top rez only add it when the plants actually need it.

that should help for now, but in the long run you should look into making it recirculate the nutes by adding a pump in the controller with a manifold that pumps into the tops of the waterfarms by pushing the manifold tubes through the stones and top part into the lower rez of the farms.

[luvfriday]

Hate to tell you this.....but you add the nutes before you put the water in. you'll have to take the water back out, add your nutes, adjust ph, then pour in through top of second rez (which is sitting on top of the smaller controller)....the controller being the neat thing that looks like the inside of a small toilet. (Or perhaps I have that backwards?? :eek:)

The entire system runs on gravity and with 8 buckets going it takes about...24 gals to fill and run correctly...obviously a few less with six buckets. I fill mine until the large second rez is about 1/3 full.

One other lovely tip about the waterfarms (i have many but this one you'll need)....you need to check the ph in each module seperately....they change independently of each other despite the claims that GH makes that you only have to check the larger rez.


yes I thought it sounded to good to be true when I saw you just test the water in the controller. So I sort of had to wing this first grow, after carrying 20 full loads of equipment up 3 flights of stairs just inside my home, a plumming disaster 5 feet away from my grow room, and my cat I guess I am lucky to have even lived through the last 5 days. Im going to take this post over to the grow log then add the numbers and pics.