Water Farm/DWC club

Whats up guys, just thought I'd show you my imaculate room before I have to dis-mantel it, ha. I'm moving in a month so all the equiptment has to be packed back up and either stored away or sold. I also got to take down all the mylar and makeshift walls, ceiling, etc.

Heres the rooms specs:
6'w X 7'l X 5'h (210sqft)
100% Sealed with plastic sheeting
100% Mylar covered
2400watts (4) 600w HPS Cooltubes
Connected to 6" Ducting
Ducting powered by (2) 310cfm Elicent 6" Inline Fans
15000btu Air Conditioner Unit
De-Humidifier
CO2 PPM Monitor/Controller
Connected to CO2 Regulator/Tank

The Main System was the GH AeroFlo 60, with 1/4hp water chiller.

Being 100% sealed the room maintained 70f degrees, 40-50% humidity, and 1800ppm of CO2.

Heres the pics, I already took the system out. Peace :smokin:

http://hygronomics.com/forum1/index.php?action=forum

Hey c.Dizz. If you want to offer your equipment for sale...You can post it at this site in the barter or co-op section. I am sure It will move if it is posted for people to see.

Thats some nice lookin equiptment for sure!!!!
Have a good one ;)

yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

someone aske dabove what I use for side lighting?...anything!
4'fluoro
cfl's
400w vertical MH
250w hps

you just have to manage, but I think about 8-12 cfl could be great, but you have to monitor your heat issues.

last night I went to the farm and it was 84degrees...but when I knelt to the floor, it was cool about high 60's lower70's below the canopy...hmmmmmmmmmmmmm new input fan is doing a good job. peace

What were the temps like before the fan and how is it set up??
Adieu

That was me asking about side lighting but wah I don't want to deal with heat issues cause with winter and this cold snap I'm already having them.....the room swings back and forth. I will keep it in mind though for future grows; i could get some of those lights that clamp on and attach them easily. :)

LW, have you looked into swamp/evaperative coolers for cooling the room over AC?? I read up on it on another board and the guy was really pushing it. They take less than half the power of an AC and cost half the price. The only thing I really wonder about is if they push the humidity up a buntch since they are water fed.
Weed Hound, what are you going to do with the summer heat?? Another thing from talking about those 600's on that other thread, if I down sized from 2K to 1200/2x600's then I would have an extra 800W's on my breaker box to run a portable AC if I couldn't get the temps down in the summer. But at this point I am thinking that the 2x600's should run cool enough to make do with some venting and a possible evapertive cooler if they are all the are cracked up to be.
Adieu

Evaporative Coolers are great if you live in dry climates. You need humidity which swamp coolers provide; And, they do a good job cooling...

BUT in humid situations...You will rot the garden. I have just recently taken a very serious look into buying a "swamper" and researched this option, but I live in a very humid climate...

So I just bought a new digital wall unit with a reversable-recyling turbo air function, and a timer...LOVE IT!...that will save me about 50-100 bucks a month I bet.

weedhound...they don't get that hot.

LW, how many BTU and watts is it? Is it just localized to your grow area? Did you instal it in an exsisting AC area or did you install it in a new area??
Adieu

has any one had any luck with a scrog set-up and the 8-bucket w/f system? or even 2 or more single bucket w/f scrog?

working with a small space but wanna go big.

thx

scrog would work great with waterfarm...

You need to make sure you have a way to flush/change out your buckets though because the screen can make it a little tricky.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by seasoned vet

has any one had any luck with a scrog set-up and the 8-bucket w/f system? or even 2 or more single bucket w/f scrog?

working with a small space but wanna go big.

thx

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hey seasoned vet ,
take a look at a thread called "lovely ladies" by justaseed . he's awful damn good at scrog , very tallented - 3yrs. practice . he gets 12 oz. out of a lil 400w. hps. using a 2 x 4 ft screen , he was talking about a 1000w. scrog .
a 1000w. waterfarm super scrog would be the shit !!!!
peace
crispi :greenthumb:

There are some of those over at IC using water farms.
Adieu

Quote:

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Originally Posted by seasoned vet

has any one had any luck with a scrog set-up and the 8-bucket w/f system? or even 2 or more single bucket w/f scrog?

working with a small space but wanna go big.

thx

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I am currently doing a scrog with 16 buckets (well actually only 12 of the buckets are screened, the other 4 are simply tied down, love experiments). Ill give you some input in a couple months. They just got the screen recently. Its not a waterfarm system but it is recirculating DWC with 5 gallon buckets. I think the waterfarm system might be to close together. Our buckets are about 21" away from eachother (center to center), the waterfarm look far far closer, but Im sure you could change that.

Hey guys, new member here. Been following the hydo threads for some time now and decided to finally post. Almost everything I've learned has come from this site. Heres what I'm working with: Cloned unknown strain in DWC Recirculating fill and partial drain that is in 2- 5 gal buckets with makeshift net pot and RIVER ROCK for my medium (was that a bad idea??). 5.5-6.0ph. 3 part GH, LK, Calmag+, SensiZym, and big bud. I am also using a stainless steel cooling coil that sits in my rez and every two hours a pump runs cold water through the coil. This means I have to keep a cold cooler on the side. This has been my most time tedious task but from what I can tell has been benifitial. It keeps my res temps 64-70. Early on I was using an aluminum coil and did not see and negative effects from using the AL in my res. but I found that AL can be corrosive so I changed it out for the SS. Thank God for winter, to keep temps cool I draw cold air in from outside. temps stay 66 at night and 75-82 at during the day. The concept I struggled with was designing a method where I could grow SCROG but at the same time allowing the buckets to be removed for cleaning without affecting the plant itself. Basically I came up with a hanging screen. The key is to have a wooden frame that the screen is attached to so that when hung from the ceiling or where ever it is rigid and can support the plant and roots. I cheated and used an old dog/baby safety gate which could have dubbed as my screen too but I also attached some chicken wire. I grow in an extra shower that is painted white and it lets me drain stuff with ease. Also, instead of growing the plant UP through the screen, (mainly because the clone grew to a foot before I decided to try scrogging it) I laid the plant over sideways on the screen and continued to tie it down with plastic zip ties. Then I used three hook screws in the top of the bucket where the net pot sits and connected those hooks to the screen so that when I unhook the potter bucket and remove it, the net pot, roots, bucket top and plant hang from the screen. Before spreading the plant sideways on the screen I topped it, waited a week+ and then FIMed it. After the plant began to grow out and cover the screen I topped it an additional 2 times followed by FIMing to reduce stretching and to thicken it up. It got so crazy with 'tops' I was crisscrossing them back over each other. While aligning and placing shoots I would from time to time break stems or pinch stems to slow certain areas of growth. NOW that I'm flowering and I can clearly see the stems and buds where breaking and pinching occurred and the stems are huge. Early on I even accidently broke the main stalk right at the base from the screen laying on the plant before it was strong enough. The result was a huge main stem. HUGE stem= better supply of nutes. After about a 2 month veg with 400w MH I started 12/12 HPS. I used some side lighting during early phases of flowering. Once she stopped stretching after going into flowering I cut all the zip ties to let the stems fully develop and to allow the plant to breath better. With criss crossing so many stems leaves were smushed together. Anyway, after they started to put on more weight I used string to lift the stems off the screen and make almost a blown of branches. This let every bud site receive more even light. I'm on day 55 of flowering. I've been off N for about 12 days now. Just high PK. I've had some sort of def. for some time now but have not been able to correct it. I think it may be root rot because my roots are pretty dark with some blacker looking areas. Starting from the center of the plant (which is the newest growth) it started to turn yellow and it moved out from there. It happened when I left for a week and the res temps went up for that week. Its so late in flowering now its too late to do anything about it. The buds are a little airy but then again it is alot of bud for one plant, plus I think I have that def. which effected the grow. With all this talk of watching Trics for prime harvest. If I look at the trics on the top of finger leaves some are amber but if I look UNDER them, some are clear, some are cloudy still with little to no amber. So basically, where am I suppose to be looking? I've been cutting off a couple little leaves near the top of the buds and looking at them with a 60X mag, the radio shak one someone posted up. (works great). Anyway, I just wanted to share my experiences. This turned out to be super long, holy sh!t. Sorry to ramble. I'm going to post some pix of my setup. Its been saying server busy for a while.

here are some recent pix. They are about done but I just dont want to do the deed before they are ready.

Welcome to Cdot. Those are some trichy buds

Very nice setup and SUPER nice buds!!!:)

You can harvest in stages, meaning finding the areas which seem to be more ripened, and for the most part, the buds which are closer to what the top of the plant would be if sitting vertical will be the most fineshed IMO.
Sounds like you have put alot of work in, and yes the week of high temps may have did you in with some root rott.
Keep on keeping on.
Adieu

Yea I was thinking about doing a staggered harvest. If I do harvest buds that look done and leave others to pick later, would I start the flush at the same time? This is my first 'official' grow so what I dont get is, will the buds continue to mature through the flush phase?

hey super big ,
budz will continue to mature , the plant is using up it's stored resources
while just getting h2o . i've got 3 blueberry that are going to be harvested sat . and i see a dif. in hairs n trichs on a straggler mongrel plant that too is only getting h2o . but will be harvested approx. a week or so later . it's turning a lighter shade of green but it's still finishing .
peace
your cuz
crispi

lol, what's official about it? :)

well, officially its my first serious grow. I've messed around before with throwing seeds in some dirt and gotten little buds off of it but I knew nothing of PH, PPM, Nutes, etc. Its official cuzzzzzz.....
What really blows is I dropped and broke my PH meter last night. Last week+ of flowering and I cant get a new one here for at least 4-5 days.

nevermind, tore it apart and soldered it back together. Its working fine now. phew...

You can buy some cheap ph test strips or ph liquid tester to keep on hand in a pinch....very cheap....at aquarium stores.

dwc club represent!

Cool room! What's the square footage of the entire room? Sure looks like a nice setup!

Whats the earliest anyone has planted a seedling inside of a WaterFarm bucket system??

Quote:

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Originally Posted by boss30349

Whats the earliest anyone has planted a seedling inside of a WaterFarm bucket system??

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I try to start beans in 2in. sq. r/w cubes n get a cpl. sets of leaves on em before putting em in farms . Week - 10 days from a bean .
peace
crispi :jointsmile:

Hello folks ,
I'm back to help continue bashin -n- crashin on all the faults we've been finding w/ the G/H Waterfarms and fixing and modifying them as we go along .

About the only thing left from G/H now w/ my w/f are the actual coloums/pressurised tubes and driprings . I went to a 3gal. bucket inside a 5gal. bucket for the added ease of spinning the plants as needed w/o having to pick them up to do it . This uses about an extra gallon of hydroton which will probably make for a larger and happier root sys. also .

I only run 4 Farms at a time w/ the big dual diaphram air pump from G/H so the valves on the manifold were hardly open at all to power driprings last grow . So we added an airline to each Farm going down the pump coloum down into the lower res. and an airstone . Now were gonna reap the benefits of both DWC and Drip systems and make that big pump work a lil harder.

Other changes in the next grow will be the addition of the LiquidKarma to Latewoods 3pt. G/H recipe . I followed his recipe to a T last grow minus the L/K <-didn't have any- and had incredible results . 3lbs. outa 4 plants . 3/4 lb. per bucket just like he said . I also got my new Limited Edition "Pampered Chef" turkey baster to measure hydro nutes . <- Thanx L/W . LOL .

Crispi ordered 3 new strains from GSA -> "The Church" , "Nexus" , "Sour N/L X Nev. Haze" anyone know anything about them ? We put together a new clone cabinet and are gonna start playing w/ it and my 250w c-13 cabinet in search of a strain w/ crazy potency before trying out the new Super / Waterfarm Hybrids . Got enough meds. for a year now anyways .

Peace all
G/B
The Crispis' :s3:

I just ordered a 8 bucket WF system to make my first attempts at hydroponics. This thread has been an amazing source of great info and I cant wait to get it going and make some of the great mods that have been shared here. I'm using Xcrispi's excellent recirculating bucket method (ordered a eco plus 396 pump - should be enough?) and Im going to snag his ideas with the shut off valves to drain the whole system to check tds/ph etc. in one bucket to keep it uniform.

Anyway, Thanks to all who have contributed here!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by doco

I just ordered a 8 bucket WF system to make my first attempts at hydroponics. This thread has been an amazing source of great info and I cant wait to get it going and make some of the great mods that have been shared here. I'm using Xcrispi's excellent recirculating bucket method (ordered a eco plus 396 pump - should be enough?) and Im going to snag his ideas with the shut off valves to drain the whole system to check tds/ph etc. in one bucket to keep it uniform.

Anyway, Thanks to all who have contributed here!!

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Hey Doco ,
Is that Eco 396 an adjustable output pump ? all i have in the lil 5 gal. controller bucket is a $7.00 via / aqua 302 . On full blast its only 120 gph w/ 12 in of head . When on full blast in 2-3 hrs time it drains the 5 gal. bucket faster than gravity can refill the controller bucket and inturn runs the pump w/ bucket dry -n- roaches the pump . I run the lil pump at 50% prob. 60 gph. w/ my sys. of 16 gallons it gets recirculated aprox. 4 times an hour .

The 1st. very important improvement is opening up all the lil poked holes in the brown netpots . i use a 3/8 drill bit . Weedhound forgot to in some of hers man and roots plug the lil pissant factory poked holes fast . The engineer at G/H needs a good kik in his jimmy for that stupid design . Eveything dripping outa the rings eventually overflows n floods your room once holes are plugged . Once this happens how do you fix it w/o killing the plant in the containers beyond me ?
good luck w/ em Doco , you can grow some amazing bushes in em
Peace
The Crispis':S5:

Thanks Xcrispi for that response - I checked and that Eco Plus pump was not adjustable so I ordered another, a Via Aqua 306 adjustable which can do 0-596 gph. The reason I wanted a little more powerful is that I will be feeding it back into the the top res and need the head to be at least 3-4 feet...hopefully I can adjust the via aqua to be a good balance. Thanks again - you probably saved me a week of headache and maybe a smoked pump! :D

Ive been thinking about the recirculation modification aspects of these waterfarms and I see some great ideas but a thought occurred to me was about the "T" s that connect the buckets together. In that configuration, maybe more water is being recirculated much more through the connecting hoses than though the buckets themselves?

The thought I had was to add another connector to the opposite side of each bucket and have the solution actual draw through the bucket on it's way down the chain to the recirculating bucket. I've attached a drawing to give a better idea. What does anyone think?

I would think that it would maintain a contestant ph and ppm through the entire system this way, whereas in the standard WF "T" system I think the water in the buckets recirculates much less often than in the hoses, since the T' feeder hosed essentially form a straight line and water travels the path of least resistance.

Am I just high???

Smart thinkin Doco ,
I thought the same thing too , i dyed the farms themselves w/ red food coloring and recirculated the system and it took 20 min. to draw all the red outa the farms and replace it w/ clear water from res.
Keep in mind the more you tie these thingz together the harder they are to rearrange n move around as the plants devolop .
also man set up entire system w/o plants or nutes n run it for a day to see if theres any probs . I dont use the top half of my controller either . The float valve lets water transfer from top to bottom so slowwwwwwwwww . be careful w/ the big pump .
Peace
your cuz
Xcrispi

Just to be on the safe side with the pumps, in addition to the bigger adjustable one, I also ordered the exact one you recommended.

I do plan on using the controller and the resevoir together....I see that BGhydro sells a 3/4" float valve...maybe that would solve the slow transfer from res to controller? Maybe even add another one so there are two valves to fill the controller??

Thanks for your help!!

doco -

like Crispi, I only use 120 gph pump for recirculating, but I'm running 12 buckets. If it's good for 4 and good for 12 it will probably be good for your 8.

With a stronger pump, you also run more of a risk with quicker water movement that the "new" water wouldn't make it into those "T's" into from the main water line. Having less GPH means less negative pressure in your connecting lines, and a higher likelihood of the contents of the bucket circulating out, IMO. I wouldn't worry about having two holes in the bucket, with just one hole my ppms and phs stay fine, especially with the $1.39 shutoff valves from the reservoir.

how big is your reservoir? can you have the 9th bucket with the pump in it at a lower height than the rest of your growing buckets? As long as you have a height difference and a good sized res, you shouldnt even need float valves or texas controllers or anything like that, at least I didn't. With 12 buckets and 6th week of bloom, you can still skip 2-3 days without topping off -- can't beat that.

It's weird that GH doesn't sell the HF with simple netpots instead of that top bucket, the more holes the better IMO, especially if you're doing a DWC hybrid.

3 gallon netpots: $3
5 gallon black buckets: $5
GH HF kit: $12

for anyone-
for 20 bux each you can DIY a HF that'll work great. All u need is a good strong air pump for about $60 that can power up to 16 farms. 8 x $20 + $60 + $10 for 1/4 inch tubing and fittings and you've got a 8 piece high performance HydroFarm for $230. For another $20-$30 you can make it recirculating. Not to mention that you can get a 50 gallon reservoir from Target for about 8 bucks, instead of the 13 gallon res that comes with the pre-packaged 8x setup. For those without a hydro store near them you can't beat the convenience of the pre-packaged deal, but DIY-ing will save you money and get you a higher-performance system in the long run. My local store will even drill all the holes for you and give you a 10% discount on everything, plus no shipping $.

these are at about 5.5 - 6th week of 12/12.

Colas the size of your arm, and growing. lol. No CO2

Great idea with the dye test Xcrispi!! I'll try it....sounds like I won't need to mess with the "T"s though...20 mins to recirculate each bucket sounds fine. I'm only going to use 4 buckets so it should be good and I'll use the Via Aqua 302 as you both suggest.

Also, elevating the buckets and the res but not the recirculating bucket also sounds like a great idea Bud Luv.

Why do so many people not choose to use the WF Res/Contoller combo??

Thanks for all the helpful advice for this hydro n00b.