Quote Originally Posted by freewheelinfrank
I am an old dirt farmer, I only know very little about hydro, from the Forum - I recently built a 'bubble-cloner' that works perfectly, 100% clone success, so far, which has sparked my interest in your hydro-setup - question: IF the sprouts are being 'bubbled' from beneath, for air, nutes, and water, why is the top drip-ring necessary ? - will the plants be 'hydro'd' from top, AND bottom, for their entire life-span ? - sorry if this is too 'beginner' of a question :smokin:
Freewheelinfrank, thanks for your interest. As far as I know, there are only a few advantages and matter of preference depending on the options you go with. The benefits of having a top drip that I can see is for use with clones and newly rooted seedlings. This enables the nutrients to be dripped while at a young age to encourage rapid root growth to the sides and bottom. We were also not keen on the idea of having approx. 4 gallons constantly in the buckets so that the roots could make use of the DWC style. I guess in all honesty it came down what the local hydro shop had available and also the fact that the net buckets we purchased fit the 5gal buckets perfectly so there would be no modifications needed to a lid or anything of the sort. Typically, you only need a very small basket for the roots and clay pebbles if you are doing a DWC style grow only. Really it was intended to be a drip system only but the fact that the roots WILL drop down into the nutrient makes it a DWC as well. We are all about the hybrid grows =) Oh yes, to answer your question: yes, they will be fed from the top and through the bubbler for the entire life span. The roots that are present now are the whitest and healthiest I have seen in all my grows thus far. There were some issues of leaking in the beginning I dont know if you read that, but an easy solution for people intending to reproduce a similar setup should consider routing the air lines through the top and avoid drilling holes in the buckets at all costs for any reasons. Hope I answered your question.