I have a 10 gallon DWC system I just bought and the company said i put 10 gallons of water in and the nutrients and then empty it after 7-10 days and put fresh water and nutes in. My question is, I have read on here where peole top off there tanks with fresh phed water like once a day to lower the ppm and also because the plants drink the water and it evaporates. The company said that was not nessacary. What do most people with DWC systems do?

Does anybody else use a DWC system and Do you top it off with regular water? or how is it supposed to be done?

Well thats what external reservoirs are for, to keep pumping in fresh water/nutes. You dont want to have to change the water in the aqauriums that often, would disturb the plants.

After reservoir runs dry, clean it out and put freshly mixed nutes/water in it. Make sure neither water in aquarium or reservoir is touched by light so you dont end up with algae.

I don't think the above guy is talking about DWC since bubblers don't use external reservoirs.

Here's what I do with a similar setup. Keep in mind I'm a newb and still learning but so far so good with excellent results thusfar in the last 6 weeks. I use GH nutes and the new lucas formula.

I use four 12.5 gallon rubbermaid tubs, each housing 3 plants for a total of 12. I have each plant in a 5" net cup, and a 5" round airstone under every plant. To make the nutrient solution, I put in 9 gallons of wal-mart distilled water in the tub. I then add 45 mL (5 mL/gal) of Micro, stir, then add 90 mL (10 mL/gal) of Bloom, stir, then add 9 mL of Superthrive, stir, 75 mL of Hygrozyme, stir, a pinch of roots oreganum XL, stir, then 6.5 mL of pH up, stir, and my pH and ppm come out to 5.6 and 610. My pH is constantly becoming more basic, and about once a day the pH goes over 6.0 and I'll adjust it back down to 5.5.

I started off thinking that weekly changes were the way to go but after researching I decided that it's not necessary to change the water that frequently (at least not for the early veg stage I'm in) and I now completely dump out the nute solution every 14 days and start over.

I top off with distilled water only, and adjust the pH as needed when I do so. I don't add nutes in between the 14 days unless total ppm goes below 500 in which case I usually toss in a few mL of Superthrive. When I didn't have roots coming through the net cups, I added a gallon of water every time the water level dropped below the bottom of the net cups. Now that there's lots of dangling roots I plan on letting them drink up and will add 2 gal of water once they've drank 2 gal to encourage further root growth.

Hope that helps.

Sounds like you are getting a good start in your DWC grow.
Got any pictures or a growlog?

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I could be wrong, thats what my friend calls his setup lol. I dont do hydro.

The why do you hang out in the hydro forum giving bogus advice?

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GROWFAQ

It appears SOME people do use external reservoirs. But I do apologize for trying to help.

Thanks for that info..that did help alot

i always top off with nuted water works good only if you are using well balanced nutes

i like general Hydroponics flora series


you need a ppm meter that will tell to put more nutes in if the ppms are dropping over a 24 - 48 hour period or if the ppm level is rising after 24 - 48 hours then u have too much in there

if the ppm level stays the same after a 24 - 48 hour period then u got the magic amount of nutes in there

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