Drain to waste deep water culture

Allright guys.
Has anyone ever tried this? I was thinking of a few different methods.

1. A bucket bubbler with a spigot in the bottom and a timer to gravity drain it once a day (say down the toilet). Then a central res set to refill the buckets an hour later.

2. A hempy bucket with a deeper res and an air stone that runs constant. Could top feed daily and let run off go down the toilet also.

3. A bucket with net pot and a constant feed over hydroton and an air stone at the bottom of the bucket. Same size drain and feed tubes both gravity, waste again down the toilet.

What's people think

Waste the entire volume of nutrients? Each day? Sounds good except for that. Why not recycle it somewhat? Just wondering.

About 15l/day. I get sick of monitoring and correcting solutions, I could set it and forget it, Which is worth more than any extra bottles of nutrients. I only use base nutrients and pk13/14, and both at low levels on the nl5xhaze which is very fussy.

I just love drain to waste growing it's been nothing but rewarding and simple and it's also really easy to fine tune the rootzzone environment, as you're giving it a fresh solution, which is whole in its nutritional value. It's also brilliant for flushing before harvest or if you make a bad mistake. It's just a lot more forgiving and less time consuming, if it costs a little bit more then so be it I can keep the run off and feed it to some garden veggies or other plant, making the expense even more worthwhile

Sounds like a waste of nutrients and water. Would you prepare 5lbs of food for a kid who only eats 1lb a day to make sure he has everything he needs, then throw out what they don't eat? If you want to go DTW do it right. Central res, pump on a timer and drip emitters in a pot(net pot with hydroton, coco, or whatever..). Plants will still get what they need and your material costs go down...still DTW, still easy for you.

WeedFreak78 said:

Sounds like a waste of nutrients and water. Would you prepare 5lbs of food for a kid who only eats 1lb a day to make sure he has everything he needs, then throw out what they don't eat? If you want to go DTW do it right. Central res, pump on a timer and drip emitters in a pot(net pot with hydroton, coco, or whatever..). Plants will still get what they need and your material costs go down...still DTW, still easy for you.

Click to expand...

Listen to this guy. Having done plenty of DTW in my time, I can vouch for his suggestions.

ttystikk said:

Listen to this guy. Having done plenty of DTW in my time, I can vouch for his suggestions.

Click to expand...

HA! and I've never done DTW..it's just such an easy concept I don't understand how it get's screwed up..lol.

WeedFreak78 said:

HA! and I've never done DTW..it's just such an easy concept I don't understand how it get's screwed up..lol.

Click to expand...

I solved the expensive nutes problem and I still hate DTW.

WeedFreak78 said:

Sounds like a waste of nutrients and water. Would you prepare 5lbs of food for a kid who only eats 1lb a day to make sure he has everything he needs, then throw out what they don't eat? If you want to go DTW do it right. Central res, pump on a timer and drip emitters in a pot(net pot with hydroton, coco, or whatever..). Plants will still get what they need and your material costs go down...still DTW, still easy for you.

Click to expand...

Done recirc didn't like the maintenance. Been doing dtw ever since then (getting good results) and Ive never really noticed any difference in nutrient waste, the volume of solution used would be exactly the same and nutrient strength would acctually be less due to plants taking nutrients more efficiently. So if anything now I've thought about it id probably use less nutrients.

ttystikk said:

I solved the expensive nutes problem and I still hate DTW.

Click to expand...

Since my earlier days I've cut my nutrient costs tenfold just by recognising that even my brand of choice (canna) try to get us to feed far too much, I've realised that most additives aren't worth the artwork on the bottle. My best results come from using 500ppm of base nutrients ontop of my tap water and for 1 week during flower use pk13/14 at 0.5ml/L. Even if it cost £30 a week it's still cheaper than the half hour a day id spend checking and possibly balancing a recirculating res.

Blue brother said:

I've realised that most additives aren't worth the artwork on the bottle.

Click to expand...

This goat approves of your conclusion.

Yeah, I'm a Dyna-Gro guy.

Dtw aero would probably be more logical but there's less room for error plus more noise and maintenance.

Sprayers block, the pumps are noisier than just an air pump alone. Plus if a water pump breaks plants die in hours whereas if an air pump breaks in a dwc system il still have the gravity timer to drain the bucket within 24 hours. I could maybe even use a solar powered air pump.

Growan said:

This goat approves of your conclusion.

Yeah, I'm a Dyna-Gro guy.

Click to expand...

I almost went with dyna gro before I bought a years supply of canna but getting it to the uk was a mission. That sure is a WHOLE food.

One water pump runs my entire RDWC. It runs continuously so it doesn't have startup cycles. No air pump at all.

Checking everything takes half an hour. One res would take thirty seconds.

ttystikk said:

One water pump runs my entire RDWC. It runs continuously so it doesn't have startup cycles. No air pump at all.

Checking everything takes half an hour. One res would take thirty seconds.

Click to expand...

Well you're obviously a much more experienced grower than me, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here lads I know everyone is successful with their own method, I'm not trying to say it would be better for u to do it this way cos I know it wouldn't, it just seems the natural route of progression for me whilst still implementing the dtw. I don't like the idea of res fluctuations that's y I use dtw, I do however love the increased everything that only dwc or aero really ever grants.

Blue brother said:

Well you're obviously a much more experienced grower than me, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here lads I know everyone is successful with their own method, I'm not trying to say it would be better for u to do it this way cos I know it wouldn't, it just seems the natural route of progression for me whilst still implementing the dtw. I don't like the idea of res fluctuations that's y I use dtw, I do however love the increased everything that only dwc or aero really ever grants.

Click to expand...

That's why I chose RDWC to begin with. Yes, it is picky about water temperatures, but once you have everything on point, it works incredibly well to grow plants fast and big!

RDWC is an improvement over simple DWC because it's one big res, meaning you check one control bucket for the whole group. Another advantage is that with the larger res size, pH and EC changes more slowly which is good for both plants and growers.

Oxygen saturation is easy to achieve and maintain, that's the answer to all kinds of airstone hype. What's essential is continuous circulation of water so there are no stagnant spots that might harbor and encourage disease.

As everyone has said it does seem like a waste of nutrients but I may be wrong. So like you measure up say 20 liters (5 gallon pail) every 24 hours and then drain it away when in fact you could keep the mix in the pail for lets say 3-4 days, and it could go longer. Not really sure how you would be using the same amount? I do hear you re keeping things fresh and at proper ratios but if you start with the proper amount it should be ok for the duration of the time between refills. I run a sprayer set up and never have to worry about sprayers clogging unless I happen to miss a small piece of plastic . Perhaps if you dont want to worry about keeping a res in check you could just do a normal top feed drain to waste and forgo the pails. I have been contemplating drain to waste (coco) as well but only due to temps here and no chiller. As ttystikk says a bigger res equals more stability. But hey kudos on thinking outside the box!

Blue brother said:

Since my earlier days I've cut my nutrient costs tenfold just by recognising that even my brand of choice (canna) try to get us to feed far too much, I've realised that most additives aren't worth the artwork on the bottle.

Click to expand...

This is why drain to waste really isn't that wasteful. Once you realize that you can/should feed far less then what is often recommended the "waste" part isn't bad. Now if someone were to feed what the manufacturer recommends you would use up quite a few nutes. Same with the additives. Most aren't worth jack... if you don't use them theres nothing to waste.

Blue brother said:

Even if it cost £30 a week it's still cheaper than the half hour a day id spend checking and possibly balancing a recirculating res.

Click to expand...

I`d have to go some to burn thru £30 quids worth of nutes a week, works out to around 12,500L.
Bottled nutes are ok if you dont use a lot, i run a lot of aero, hydro and coco for high and low value crops indoors and out and can get through 140-200L of nutes a week. I aint paying a tenner a litre for shop bought nutes. Btw, aero is very reliable if its designed correctly, my hpa setups havent missed a beat in years, they dont make any noise and i`ve never had a single nozzle clog.
If you have enough crop types that can make use of the runoff every 24hrs, i dont see why the dwc drain to waste wouldnt be viable.

I hear what all are saying re not wasteful but it inherently has to be if filling pails and dumping them.

Its only wasteful if they are dumped down the drain. Think of a nft with heavy feeders at one end with progressively lighter feeders along the length of the trough. Gear the plant type and population to utilise all of the "waste" in 24 hours, you likely wont create enough waste to supply much of a trough.
A week old recirculated res thats fed a few (mono crop) plants, having had numerous topups and ph adjustments is really only fit for dumping on a comfrey bed or lawn

Atomizer said:

I`d have to go some to burn thru £30 quids worth of nutes a week, works out to around 12,500L.
Bottled nutes are ok if you dont use a lot, i run a lot of aero, hydro and coco for high and low value crops indoors and out and can get through 140-200L of nutes a week. I aint paying a tenner a litre for shop bought nutes. Btw, aero is very reliable if its designed correctly, my hpa setups havent missed a beat in years, they dont make any noise and i`ve never had a single nozzle clog.
If you have enough crop types that can make use of the runoff every 24hrs, i dont see why the dwc drain to waste wouldnt be viable.

Click to expand...

So you're not draining to WASTE, but rather to RECYCLE- into other crops.

Look into dry nutrients, it might save you a bit; Hydro-gardens.com