Printable View
You DO almost have it.....but the air pump is actually pulling water IN from the last w/f and gravity is pushing it back out the other side instead of the other way around
Just like in each individual w/f pod....the airline is pulling water up the column and into the drip ring from the bottom of the bucket ....the only thing missing is the drip ring itself.
okay so now once the water leaves the tube, where does it go? Is it hooked right up to the first waterfarm in each row? And if thats the case, how do you adjust PH of the water once its in circulation (for whatever reason i have problems with unstable and constantly rising PH).
wow...i get it now, I digs this! no electric pump, gravity fed, right?
whiskeytango
Exactly Stealth......the only electrical is the air pump and it's actually working on suction to draw the water in and up.....exactly the same way it does in each module.
Slothy....It comes in and up the tube and out the top (picture a drip ring at the top.) Water pops out the top and back into your rez...and the outtake line sends it to the very first waterfarm it's hooked up to by gravity from the resevoir itself just as if you were filling the entire system up through the top of the rez.
The Ph....GH always said you could control you ph and nutes from the central resevoir but anyone who uses them knows thats a bunch of bs......you have to check and adjust each pod individually or you're screwed.....BUT if the water is constantly recirculating you REALLY CAN just check and adjust the ph...in the bottom rez only instead of each individual module. You'll also have a more stable ph in general since the water is constantly remixing and circulating.
for those interested in buying this upgrade, GH will sell them directly to you if you call them (the number is on they're site). I dont think they sell to individuals often but be polite and they'll help ya out.
So did you get one Slothy?
So did you get one Slothy?
Great to have the boards back. Have to learn to type again. LOL:jointsmile::jointsmile:
BEEN SMOKING ALOT MORE.....
WH With the system what do you think if I drill a hole and put an air stone in the bottom with another pump?
OMG, Im laughing my ass off weedhound!!! I know everything your talking about, I have brain damage from what I learned from Dec till now. Really I wish I could report Im smoking the pounds I got off my first grow :yippee: so thats why I havent been around much. Nothing like that, but its better then the boring truth im just in la la land.
So I cant wait to read up what Ive missed.
Luv you ARE aware that pounds per plant is the norm.....POUNDS of plants just DRAGGING those huge arms sized branches down threatening to snap their tender little ...
oops, I'm buzzed...sorrry.....
Good to see you back; hope you are feeling good these days.
GL.....You can do that ....I never have with mine but all O2 is good O2 imo.
Make your hole for airline as high up as possible.
WH thanks for this info. I heard about this a few months back, when someone was laughed at by the "pros" for saying it's possible to set up this system without a water pump. I'm going to read this again later, and rethink an upcoming design.
Question for ya weedhound, i recieved my upgrade kit today and did a lazy job implementing it. Instead of drilling second holes in the individual WF's, I just kept the T connectors in and added T's to the end modules which go to the intake of the pumping column.
The problem is that the water flow is really slow, it just barly bubbles out of the tube and the PH is way different between the controler and WF units (the controler is 5.8, the WF's are 6.4). Is this because i didnt properly daisy chain the WF's or is this normal?
Hey slothy it's because you need to daisy chain them to make it work properly. ;)
So if i understand this right, the drip tube in the res is pulling water from the farms and putting it in the res. So does water come out of the top and overflow into the res?
YES! that's it EXACTLY hydrovisions....you truly DO have the vision for hydro! :D
this hurts my head...lol, Im gonna re-read the thread when I am sober...Whenever that happens..I am very interested..you know me and "efficient"...I eventually wanna run an entire 20 sq ft set-up solar...can ya dig it?...fuckin a I am ripped...sorry to clutter your thread with rambling WH...lol
WT
Is one regular old air pump really enough to drive all those airlift pumps?
No worries Stealth.....we all have our days :D.
Basement,
Yes and its a simple ten gallon fishtank airpump. One thing to consider is that it will circulate your solution extremely slowly so it's not as effective as a water pump set up circulating the system faster (but also much easier to run.)
I think the main advantage with the slower set up is that it CAN be run off a standard air pump and that it DOES help keeping the ppms and ph MORE stable in all the individual buckets than no recirculating system at all and checking and changing all those individual pods gets to be be a real PITA as we all know. :wtf:
The best way to think of it is this. The res is only connected to the buckets once. The supply. The drip tube that is in the rez is technically just like having it in the bucket. But instead the bucket is hooked to it remotely. therefor, the tube is the same level and water that is in the farm. Just like the bucket air diplaces the water and moves it up into the ring. But this time air displaces the water moves it up and instead of a ring it overflows into the rez. The supply of the res see the drop in water and releases more out. The tube in the controller bucket and the controller should have the same water level at all times.
WH: If i could ask you check out my thread, your opinion would be apperciated!
Sure HV, can you post a link?
And that's right.....it's like a drip ring setup the same as every other bucket. The only difference is that it pulls the water from the last bucket and into the rez. That creates a vaccum in that bucket so what happens then? It pulls it from the next bucket and so on all the way around the group and back to the rez.
Its really BRILLIANT and I THOROUGHLY applaud GH for thinking of it. :thumbsup:
If a bigger diameter cylinder is used intstead of the normal waterfarm one and a bigger air pump, would this speed the circulation of water up?
http://boards.cannabis.com/hydroponi...ggestions.html = my link
Yes we do Miss to much!!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Weedhound
:wtf::wtf:
:jointsmile::jointsmile::jointsmile:
Hydro V what I saw happen with a stronger air pump was actually that it STOPPED working.....the air pressure was too strong to let any water into the tube so it stopped pulling water altogether.
If you look into how an airlift pump works you can see why certain things happen.
Running a really massive pump on a small tube doesn't lift water because too much air will clear the pipe of water, and give the incoming air a straight shot up to the surface. It doesn't want to do any more work than necessary, so it doesn't bother to lift any water.
Think of it this way: if the air pressure is much higher than the water pressure at that depth, it will have the ability to push down harder than the water pushes up. A certain amount of that likely happens anyway or the water would try to go up the airline, but if it's too much stronger the water will have trouble getting around the air bubbles so that it can be lifted by those bubbles.
How it works:
Basically adding air to water reduces its density. When the air/water inside the lift pipe is less dense than the water outside the pipe, the water pressure at the bottom of the pipe tries to force water inward and upward to equalize the pressure. The air/water mixture literally floats on top of the denser water and thus can be raised above the surface of that water.
Conversely, things that normally float in water can actually be made to sink if enough air is forced into that water. (They've demonstrated that ships can be sunk if an underwater vent were to release sufficient quantities of gas into the water under the ship. It's one of the theories behind ships disappearing in the Bermuda Triangle.)
Point being that you've got to have the right mixture of air and water. Too much air and the water won't be able to "climb" on top of individual bubbles to be lifted up. Way too much air and the air will actually be forced downward to escape both up the pipe and out the bottom. And if you have too much water there won't be enough lifting force to make it come out the top.
Changing the diameter of the pipe (making it larger) means you need more air to lift the water, and that more water can be lifted. Bubble size also plays a role: if your bubble size is the same as the pipe's inside diameter, you'll lift water no matter what. Even at very low air pressure differentials you'll lift water, but it will go slow.
Also, regardless of the amount of air, water, or pipe size, an airlift pump can only lift water to a height of one-half the length of the submerged pipe.
The GH pumps that come with the system are only 8 Watts. I upgraded to a Pond Master and what a difference. I was constantly disconnecting and trying different setups. That may all be true with a single system but on a larger system a larger pump is a good upgrade as well as adding Air Stones, The development you see out of one plant in a month in the DWC would take 4 months in soil....Quote:
Originally Posted by basementjungle
got 3 waterfarms and its a hella work checking just three the ph ppm temp etc i heard and wanted to buy a waterfarm upgrade recirculating thing but could find much about it or if there was a cheap route maybe building one NEED HELP PLEASE
http://boards.cannabis.com/hydroponi...-dwc-club.html
if you want to go a cheap route at least it doesn't cost anything to read and learn. Anything and EVERYTHING you might want to know if in this thread.
Good luck.
Hey WH I miss our conversations:thumbsup:. I'm playing in dirt for a minute come and check me out we can talk HYDRO over their too!!!! LOL
GL420:jointsmile::jointsmile::jointsmile:
http://boards.cannabis.com/indoor-gr...ml#post1874115
I'm not sure if you're disagreeing with me here.Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenLeaf420
In a bigger system like what you're talking about it would take a lot of air pressure to interrupt the function of an airlift pump. I don't know the math, but I know it would be a lot. So yeah, you could use just about any normal air pump you find with good results.
Why does the air lift hose have to be above the water line. Wouldn't it circulate more water if it was slightly below the water line? It would also fill the pots faster when changing water.
bulkheads
1 inch pvc for draining
1/2 inch pvc for feeding
and a big ass water pump,
you need to drill bigger holes in the 1st mesh bucket, for more roots.
(just re drill the already preexisting holes bigger)
the set up they give you for the online kit isn't that great, when your recirculating water you want hugh amounts moving fast and into a water fall effect for uber DO. the kit they give you just isn't sufficent enough to do that.
Boo makes a good point......the recirculation is extremely slow with the existing kit.
HOWEVER, my personal reason for wanting to recirculate the system was for one main issue......I got damn sick of adjusting the ph on each w/f bucket individually. This does indeed solve that problem and for that alone it's worth it imho. ;)
first time here, long time on og. check the link for all the details.
http://www.generalhydroponics.com/ge...structions.pdf
thanks for all the info though.
i am running 4 systems all link together. one complete circuit. one rez out take to next intake and so on. i think the major hang up on this was visualizing it. you have the air in every bucket all ready but they are not directly hooked up the feed line. where when you mod with this, the pump on the controller is directly hooked to the intake, thus creating the same afect as in the buckets, but it actually moving the water from the line into the controller.
so in a multi w/f set up ( ie 4 rez and 32 buckets) hook them all up to each other. this way all four are working together, better regualtion. awesome idea and plan, thanks again for the post,
cheers
:rastasmoke:
And thank YOU for the link. :)
Not a problem on the link, least i can do with all this knowledge floating around in here!!!
WH what time of water regiment are u using?? (ie on/off day/night). i have a CAP extreme room controller ( C.A.P. Xtreme Greenhouse Controller - XGC-1e) and it has some adjustments but i could also us another timer for day and night?? Or do you let yours run constantly? been in cocco forever, also did an areo flow a couple time. switching to this today. building after i goto the depot. oct 1 will be veg day 1. everything is set just need to build. feel like a lil kid on xmas yet again! let me know what ya think.
nl when my plants are vegging I just use the drip rings that come with each w/f and we run it 24/0.....its ALWAYS dripping so no timer needed. The only time we run it differently is perhaps the first few days after putting in a new seedling.
We've tried some different techniques in bloom.......DWC with GOOD sized air wands and a commercial air pump that does the job extremely well and that part is standard in bloom. HOWEVER......we've run out of electrical outlets in our grow space and short of adding more and more extension cords (or getting a SAFE electrician in to add another fuse box or whatever they need to do which we haven't been able to do yet) at this point we are going back on forth on the drip ring part in flower since the rez is well oxygenated.
SO......the last few grows we have discontinued the drip ring part in bloom and gone strictly DWC BUT we think it may be part of what is affecting our poorer-than-aimed-for-yield estimates so a couple of plants we're growing right now we've deliberately (ie:another extension cord) made sure to keep the drip rings running through bloom 24/7 as well.
We're not sure if turning off the drip ring and switching to strictly DWC affects final yield but we'll get some sort of clue this go round as we have several on 24/7 drip ring AND good areation running 24/7 in their individual buckets as well.
My personal thought is the plant would grow better with constant drip ring action vs just "wicking" up needed nutes but the electrical situation has made it impossible to know for sure. ;)
Has anyone made their own pumping column? I am trying to recirculate my dwc buckets and I used this 1/2 fitting with a 1/4 nipple coming out the side kinda like a tee. I'm just having trouble getting a steady flow of water, alittle bit come out then it kinda bubbles the alittle more comes out. I was wondering what the diameter of the GH pumping colunm is? Or if anyone had any ideas. Thanks
Turbo isn't that what WH did on the 1st page of this thread..idk I might be wrong...check the 1st page out...Quote:
Originally Posted by TurboLife
It looks like she made one out of an exsiting pumping column, and added a elbow to the bottom. I had the tee laying around that I tried to make one out of but I think the bubble's might be too small for the 1/2 line, IDK, maybr it needs to be a Y shape. I just wanted to see if anyone esle had made their own, and what they used.Quote:
Originally Posted by d4twamp