How To: DWC

Originally Posted by dantesinferno

Hi, I'm in the 1st week of my DWC flowering stage and am using Ionic Bloom and Koolbloom nutes, and I was wonder (as I did earlier in chat) should I use full nutes or go 3/4 there recommended strength on the bottle.

Preferably follow the full feeding chart instead of what just one bottle reads.. Do a google search with your nute brand and feeding chart.

Also if you had 2+ weeks of veg you should be able to do full strength with additives, if not then you might want to dose down.

I am fixing to ask a newbtastic question. How many times do you drop your water level to 1/2" below the roots? I obsess on details and this is one nobody seems to elaborate on other that "they grow... drop it and inch". At what point to you let your roots grow into the water? Trying to figure all this madness out before I get going. I'm going to run DWC right from the get go. I'm going to practice on a tomato and a pepper plant in my grow setup before I sprout my Snow White though.

Have any of you ever used a wood air diffuser instead of a standard aquarium stone? The use them in salt water aquarium air driven protein skimmers. They produce super fine bubbles. Tons more bubble/water interface. I have a ton of these type "air stones" and am thinking about putting them to use.

Also, I am contemplating a way to rig a airlift tube up to the top of my net cups to water from the top down as well. Set on a timer to kick on for 30 minutes twice per light period. I am going to be using coco nuggets as a medium and from what I gather it next to impossible to over water them. Sort of a top feed/ D2W recirc sort of setup.

Originally Posted by WyoGrow

I am fixing to ask a newbtastic question. How many times do you drop your water level to 1/2" below the roots? I obsess on details and this is one nobody seems to elaborate on other that "they grow... drop it and inch". At what point to you let your roots grow into the water? Trying to figure all this madness out before I get going. I'm going to run DWC right from the get go. I'm going to practice on a tomato and a pepper plant in my grow setup before I sprout my Snow White though.

Have any of you ever used a wood air diffuser instead of a standard aquarium stone? The use them in salt water aquarium air driven protein skimmers. They produce super fine bubbles. Tons more bubble/water interface. I have a ton of these type "air stones" and am thinking about putting them to use.

Also, I am contemplating a way to rig a airlift tube up to the top of my net cups to water from the top down as well. Set on a timer to kick on for 30 minutes twice per light period. I am going to be using coco nuggets as a medium and from what I gather it next to impossible to over water them. Sort of a top feed/ D2W recirc sort of setup.

If you look at one of my posts a page or 2 back, I got a pretty solid explanation about raising/lowering the water level to help establish root systems. That was from a rep working for Current Culture, one of the major undercurrent system manufacturers. The reason I put off building my undercurrent is the complexity that goes into them is pretty extensive, so their words shouldn't just be taken with a grain of salt, IMO.

The only problem I see with different stones, and I've gotten into a huge argument on this forum about this before, is that smaller bubbles are NOT beneficial in DWC systems. The higher resistance will decrease total airflow, and I assure you (the thread I was arguing in was an experiment that proved this, even though the OP was denying it) that unless you are running a very shallow system with a high surface area, there was no need for micropore diffusers. The extra surface area makes no difference, it allows for a faster rate of dissolution but doesn't change the solubility, meaning it doesn't dissolve oxygen into the already-saturated water, and in fact ends up allowing less undissolved oxygen to pass over the root systems. The difference between solubility and rate of dissolution is what prevents micropores from benefiting us. In dwc, DO is not your only goal. After it maxes out around 8-9ppm, you can continue to add airflow and see benefits, even though the dissolved oxygen doesn't increase because its saturated. But more air is always good. So I'm not a fan of micropore diffusers, but I have no clue about the whole wood thing.

The same quote I mentioned for the water level was actually a response in regards to drippers, mostly for the purpose of establishing root systems, but it applies anyway. I just harvested a bunch of Tahoe OG's from some waterfarms that I modified, and to be honest I turned the drip ring off for half the plants when I put them into flower. No difference after a week or so, I ended up turning them all off.

Just had a good wake and bake, let me know if my ramblings are confusing.

OK.. I'll look again. Sometimes I get lazy on long threads and just glance at comments until a key word catches my attention and then read more deliberately. I really do try to look for the answers to my questions first to avoid asking the same question for the billionth time.

Is the goal of the airstone as much about water movement as it is O2 saturation? If that's the case then bigger bubbles definitely move more water. From what I gather the rule of thumb is move as much air as you can w/o tearing the roots up. May have to run a side by side grow of clones off the same mother to see if there is a noticeable difference. I've been keeping aquariums since childhood. Even made supplemental income breeding fancy guppies... don't laugh. I have oodles of air equipment, stones, pumps.... miles of tubing. Just going to use up what I have.

No worries, I'm the same way. I just didnt feel like looking back and reposting the same info twice.

Yes, to an extent more water movement is good. Hence undercurrent systems' efficacy. But in those, a water pump is used to move and aerate, airstones are added to provide oxygen well beyond DO limits. In traditional dwc, more water movement is good, but bigger bubbles only make it appear that there is more movement, because they cause more disturbance when they break the surface with larger force. In reality, the actual movement within the solution below the surface will be fairly similar between big/small bubbles. More airflow total obvious is what will change it.

Though, from what I understand, many of the microdiffusers actually cause the bubbles to converge into larger ones, negating their purpose and compounding their weaknesses. I cant remember the name of the term though.

Either way, just make sure you have powerful enough pumps and you should have no problems. IMO minimum airflow should be 5lpm/gal. So a 5gal bucket with 4gal of solution should have >20lpm. More is definitely better here.

Drop the water level after you don't need to top feed, maybe every couple of weeks in veg the first month

[QUOTE=mike91sr;7528615 Either way, just make sure you have powerful enough pumps and you should have no problems. IMO minimum airflow should be 5lpm/gal. So a 5gal bucket with 4gal of solution should have >20lpm. More is definitely better here.[/QUOTE]

So if I have a 60L/m pump, can I run 8-10 DWC buckets with decent airflow?

Void, you're the man! Lots of great info in here. Mad props ma dude