sD's 6 bucket recirc. DWC White Rhino / Orange Crush

Ok everyone...ever since OG shutdown, this is my new home, so I'm going to start a thread that I had at OG from the beginning...Hope everyone joins along for the fun!

Here's my current setup:
Veg room - [3'wx2'lx3'h]
* 150w Growlux
* 70w MH
Flower room - [4.5'wx4.5'lx8'h]
* 1000w Hortilux HPS
Ventalation - 465cfm Dayton Blower aircooling the lights and the room

The past 6 months I've been running 10gal tubblers and a few 5gal buckets....Well, once you get enough of those into the room, they are pretty hard to maintain by themselves as things like PH and Nute/Water levels were different in every bucket, everytime. This was hurting my results, so I decided to go with a 6 bucket recirculating Deep Water Culture setup. Since I already had the DWC down to a pretty good science, all I needed was learn how to make a recirculating system like the WaterFarm systems. In the end, it was very easy and is a very good setup in my opinion for people who need to not have to worry about there plants for a week to ten days at a time. Now, I'll run you through a quick breifing of how this system is setup and works, of course with full pictures.

The idea behind the entire system is fairly simple. You have as many buckets as you want to run plants in, plus one extra that will be outside the room as the controller. If all of these are connected, at the bottom of the buckets mind you, then the water level set in the controller bucket will be the same height that is maintained in every other connected bucket. That solves the water level issues....then if put a water pump in the controller bucket and have it go through 1/4inch feed lines to every other bucket, then you have a recirculating setup...so if PH and nutes are maintained in the controller, they will be the same in every other bucket as well! Now the only thing left to do is to add a toilet float valve to the controller bucket, which is hooked up to a gravity fed 20gal topup reservoir, which is set to keep the water/nute level in the controller bucket to the exact height you want it. Now add airstones to each bucket in your room and woila.....I know that was kinda straight forward, but you will see from the pictures how everything is hooked up....
So here's before and after photos, then I'll get to building the system...

Looking good skunky. Keep posting those pictures. Be safe.

Very tragic to hear about overgrow and heaven's gate. All that research gone from the message boards. I'm glad I had a chance to read them before they were attacked. I copied some stuff, but not all. What a waste.

Even though people aren't posting, we're here to support you. Keep up the good work.

hey Gen! Yeah, it is a tragedy. Luckily, I had just started my thread there and wasn't very far in, so I'm looking forward to getting it going. You're right about it being a waste of good material. There was years and years of research on that site....it made me the person I am today, which I am sincerely greatful. Anyway, let's get on with it!
-sD

OK, here are the materials you will need (all stuff can be obtained at Lowes or HomeDepot except water pump and airpumps/airstones, which can be found at any pet supply store, i.e. PetSmart):
1. # of buckets you are going to run (wee will use 6 for now)
2. 50 ft. vinyl 1/2inch tubing, BLACK (can be bigger, but everything must match)
3. 10 - 1/2" (inside diameter) grommets (always want more than exact on hand)
4. 10 - 1/2" barbs
5. 10 - 1/2" T's
6. 2 - 1/2" shutoff valves
7. 50 ft. green/black 1/4" drip line
8. 10 - 1/4" barbs
9. 10 - 1/4 " drippers 0-10 gph
10. 3 1/2" net pots
11. red lava rock
12. 250 gph waterpump (29.99 petsmart)
13. 6 airpumps, 6 inch airstones to match

** I forgot to mention that you will need a drill and a 1/2" wood hole drill bit **

Step 1: You want to drill 1/2 inch holes (about 1 and 1/2 inches from the bottom) in all your buckets you are going to run. Now I chose to run a 18gal rubbermaid container as my controller, just giving me more space to work around, plus the water level doesn't drop as fast. Now, there are 2 ways we can set this up...I have my setup as 1 out of the controller to a loop around the 6 buckets. This makes for slow draining/filling when changing the nutes/water. Next time I will do it this way: make as many holes in the controller res. that match the number of buckets you are going to run. That way they fill/drain individually, thus being quicker...but for all intensive purposes, my setup works great and gives me the option of having a shutoff valve at the controller res. where it connects to the 1/2" drain line for easy res. changes.
See Pics.

Step 2: You want to insert rubber grommets wherever you drilled holes. You will also have to insert a 1/2" barb in each grommet so half is on the inside and half on the outside to connect to line. This must be watertight, so make sure you only drill 1/2 inch holes. It will be a very tight fit if you did everything correctly...use some oil to make the barbs slide it a bit easier.

Step 3: Cut all your 1/2" line to match how you will have your setup...don't put together yet!

Step 4: Now that you have all your line cut, you are ready to start a try run...Make sure your grow room is clean and ready to go otherwise. I like to keep my control res. outside the grow room, because it's very important to keep the nute temps from 68-78 degrees...anything higher and you're gonna have a problem with algea and other unpleasent things. Go ahead and setup all your buckets and your control res where they will be for the entire flowering period. I forgot to mention that if you have the stiff black feed line that is for sprinklers like I used you will probably have to heat it up to get it to slip over the barbs/T's easily. Use boiling water and that should do the trick. No connect all your lines together once your sure you have everything in it's final location. You can take it apart, but I would just recommend replacing the tubing ever 2 or 3 times since it's so cheap.

Step 5: Now assuming you checked each bucket prior to setting them up for leaks!!! we can continue.....fill the controller res. up with reg. tap water...It should fill every bucket in your room...fill till every bucket is at the height you prefer (about 1 inch below the netpots is default) Let it sit and see if there are anymore leaks. If there are leaks, goto Lowes and get the leak fix tape stuff, it works well.

Step 6: Take a hit...chill out, think about the future!

Step 7: Hook up your airpumps. I use the walmart kind for 60 gallon tanks...they have 2 nosels and I use 1 airstone per bucket, 1 per nosel. Make sure they are in order and everthing is working properly with your lines. I have added a 12" airstone to my controller res. for added O2, but that is optional.

Step 8: Ok, now that you have everything in order, there is one last thing we need to do...hook up the water pump. So you put the water pump into the control res. I had a lot of issues with the 1/4" barbs leaking, so this is my genious way of fixing this issue. Refer to pics. You get a 10ft. line of clear or black vinyl tubing from Lowes/HD. cut a piece about 3 feet long....buy a 1/2" endcap and connect the cap to one end of the vinyl and the other end to the out on your water pump. (In my case 250gph from Petsmart - more than enough for 6 bucket system, probably overkill) Then use a 16penny nail and make as many holes as buckets near the end cap...insert the 1/4" barbs into these holes...now cut your 1/4" spaghetti tubing line to length from each of these barbs to each bucket....that way if the cap and barbs leak, they are still over the control res to leak back into, no harm done. then connect your 1/4" lines to the barbs and the other end to the drippers you bought earlier...and put each one in a bucket...I just rest the lid on the airline and dripline. I have it set at a pretty good flow coming out and the level is consistant in each bucket to a 1/16"! If everything is working right, you now have you system completely recirculating! Take a breath and give yourself a pat on the back....

Step 9: Last Step....you need to hook up the toilet float valve in the controller res. and attach it to a hose connected to an ELEVATED auto-topper res. (In my case another 18gal) - Set the level and you're good to go...Add your nutes, check your ph and tds/ec water temp and your good to add plants!



-----Now to the good stuff! White Rhino / Orange Crush / HashPlant #10
:thumbsup:

-P.S. - I change the nutes/water in the entire system ever 7-10 days depending by switching the hose connected to the pump and just pumping it all to my bathtub...then i re-fill and yada yada...and bam! consistency like you've never seen before! I also check the PH everyday, which seems to go from 5.3 to 5.8/5.9 in one day, which is good, that means they are eating, but you need to set the ph in the auto-topper res. to about 5.1/5.2 to accomadate this swing....plus i auto top with half strength lucas veg nute formula...i use lucas veg nute formula for flower and 1/2 veg for veg...works just as good and conserves nutes.

Reg lucas formula is GH Micro/Bloom: VEG 5ml/10ml
BLOOM 8ml/16ml
(where 5ml = 1 teaspoon)

** Ok, now we can move on....