Water Level in DWC?

yeah, cyclonite is right. DWC on its own having your roots submerged completely is abselutly ok and is what your supposed to do, ppl are going to be getting confused right about now. if you under stand how dwc works and how your mediums works, you shouldnt have any problems.

I am using a top feed drip on a timer water levels are about 4" below the bottom of the net pot I have a substantial root mass dangling in the water and quite a bit hanging out the sides and the bottom of the net pot that are not emersed. My question is do I still need to feed from the top with the timer?

Peace :stoned:

danlboy nice grow is that lsting i see?

no, but your going to want to put some airstones in the water or else your looking at root rot. u could also time less between drip feedings, i used to do the same thing but it works out alot better having a seperate res.

I have 3 airstones pimpin right now I think I am good there. Thanks for the input I will just keep it on the timer.

Peace

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Originally Posted by JackdaWack

i dont mean to come of harsh or nuttin just makin sure the community understands what to do in the situation, if your roots are rotton there is no difference if you cut them there already gone, so it has helped in your case, i thought u were just hackin them up to fit in the pot, maybe it just worked out that way. But yeah the only problem with the net pots in the water is, that when starting from clone or seed and using a rapid rooter or rock wool, they retain alot fo water and being that they are sitting in the water they may be drentched 24/7 if the roots have no hit the aerated water and are still sitting in the rockwool or rapidrooter they will show signs of lack of oxygen becuase the medium is so wet it wont alow air in. all u need is the popping bubbles on the netpot and it keeps them nice and damp plus it premotes the roots to grow out and down, instead of making a giant cramped ball in the netpot

Bubblers are great for clonign to becuase the popping bubbles premote root growth.

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Thats cool, I want to get to the bottom of making DWC work also. At the moment I'm getting very uneven performance. I'll review all variables.

The only explanation I can really think of for the massive growth spurt, followed by what was obviously oxygen deprivation at the root zone, must indeed, despite my belive that water temp couldnâ??t change so quickly, be water temp razing! All that nice cold tap water that held o2 brilliantly, just must have warmed up (it's my current theory), cheers for suggesting it! Well, I canâ??t think of a good and cheap system that would solve that problem; there is a product called oxy-plus, that's meant to increase water o2 levels. By the way, thereâ??s a little info on DWC at this link:

Top Tips - The Aero Podâ?¢ Professional Deep Water Culture aka The Bubbler

Itâ??s pretty well illustrated. Itâ??s identical to my setup, although, I didnâ??t buy from there.

danlboy do you have any photos of your finished crop?

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Originally Posted by Opie Yutts

You want your roots as dry as possible without hurting the plant. The plant loves to get oxygen through it's root system, and it's harder to do if the roots are covered in liquid. The best case scenario would be to keep lowering the nute level as the roots grow longer, but keep wetting the roots intermitently so they don't ever dry out completely. To protect from power outages, I aim to have a least a couple of inches of roots in the solution at all times. Otherwise I would aim to keep none of my roots in the solution. I have a way to vary the level of nutes as the plants grow, but I keep spraying the entire root system about every 10 minutes.

I hope that gives you some ideas.

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A couple of crops back I became overly lazy :-( and neglected my plants. My largest would consume about 5 gallons every six days to the point where one day I found the roots sitting in 2 inches of water. Now yes the nutrient solution was extremely concentrated!!! But I never forgot how explosive her growth became at that moment... I then resumed responsibility and started filling them up properly using a powerful air-pump. After I started filling to the top - the growth slowed down.

Although she was a producer - I now understand WHY she exploded "ROOTS WERE IN A MOIST ENVIRONMENT WITHOUT BEING OVER-SATURATED!" Wonderful thread my friend... Excellent post this is: Now I truly understand the KBS system and leaving the water level low with super oxygenation. My only problem is that without a controller - individual buckets at a low depth will consume my rational mind with pH imbalances. I need to make a controller or I will be going crazy once they really start to feed.

YOU GUYS ARE BOMB!!!!!!!!!! THANKYOU for helping me help myself... :-)

When I am just starting clones and have no roots I use a flood and drain with air stones filling the water to the bottom of the rockwool enough roots are exposed through the net pot. I use the 6" net pots in 3 gal buckets, the rockwool is 1/2" from even with the top. Once the roots are established I lower the water level till it is ~1" below the net pot. Once I move them to the flowering station (5 gal buckets), the water is ~7" in the bucket which I think leaves 2-3" between the pot and water. Both systems use a pondmaster pump that puts out a lot of air. I dont know if this is the best, but I have had good results with this system. My yeilds have been pretty good with some very large nugs, some nugs are as big as 90g wet 21g dry. I usually see about 2oz a plant in a relative small space (3'x5'), I am looking to expand my room and add another 600 digital for a total of 1800.