DWC Water Level?

[khyberkitsune]

If you're going to use the HD buckets for DWC, just buy two of them, put holes in one, fill it up with hydroton/hygromyte, slip an air line and air stone down into the bucket without holes, slip the bucket with holes into the other bucket (after a proper rinsing) and fill with about 2.5 gallons of your desired strength nute solution.

Essentially, your top bucket is your basket. Air bubbles will rise from the bottom bucket/res and aerate the root mass above, with the hydroton/hygromyte helping to further break up the bubbles and provide better oxygenation.

Be wary of pumping too much air, or else you will get spillage from between the buckets.

This is called the Krusty Bucket and you can get mad plants from this sort of setup.

[smileyface]

Cool, thanks :-) So it's ok to use then even though they're not food grade plastic?

[khyberkitsune]

Cool, thanks :-) So it's ok to use then even though they're not food grade plastic?

I've never had an issue with them, ever.

[smileyface]

Thanks again for all your help guys! My girls have been in for about a week now and doing well. The roots haven't grown into the water yet, so I've been manually spraying the hydroton with nute solution. I carefully moved some of the hydroton to check the roots and their white and pearly, and hairy :-) I kind of expected the roots to be showing out the net pot by now, but I guess I just have to be patient. The bottom of the rockwool is about 3-4 inches from the bottom of the net pot, so maybe it'll take a while. I'm already liking hydro much better than soil. A hell of a lot cleaner, looks nicer..... can't wait for the explosive growth

[tinytoon]

When you say spraying do you mean foliar feeding?? If so that isnt really going to do what you want. Either continue to hand water or have a temp drip system to water plants till roots come out of basket. once roots are out of basket you can stop the drip/hand watering.

[smileyface]

Thanks, no I've been spraying/watering the hydroton. Although in the beginning I was foliar feeding with Canna's Rhizotonic which speeds up root development.