Going to try DWC, and I have a couple of questions.

Hey RIU, I'm going to be trying a plant in a DWC set up in a 5 gallon bucket. I have botanicare pure blend for veg and bloom, and calmag. My biggest concern is with cleaning/changing of the res and bucket. How exactly do I go about cleaning it or changing the water? I know I need to take the plant out of the water, and probably into another bucket, but what should that bucket contain? Sorry if its a stupid question, just cant find anything really definitive online.

I use this system in my 5ft tent due to height restrictions, otherwise an outboard recirculating rez is best

An empty bucket works fine as long as you don't forget to put it back in the fresh nutes

It is easier to check pH/ppms and adjust as needed

I also get vastly superior results with outboard rez

PetFlora said:

I use this system in my 5ft tent due to height restrictions, otherwise an outboard recirculating rez is best

An empty bucket works fine as long as you don't forget to put it back in the fresh nutes

It is easier to check pH/ppms and adjust as needed

I also get vastly superior results with outboard rez

Click to expand...

can you give me any information, or a source with some on this outboard res, and how I can make it happen

It's a RDWC and not needed for 1 plant.
Just take another bucket, mix up nutes PH and transfer plant over.

Thanks for the replies, and for simplicity I think I'll just do what hydrogreen suggested, and have a second bucket rigged, so I can fill it with nute water and just move the plant over and clean the old bucket.

Thats' the easiest way for just a cpl plants.
You can even do 24 hrs ahead of time. That will give ur PH time to stabalize before you change over.

Alright thanks. This is my first time trying hydro, and im currently in the middle of flowering my first soil grow, vegging my second grow, and wanting to try putting a clone in DWC. I ordered an EC meter and pH meter (I have the drop test, but this'll be easier), and I have pH down. What kind of ppms should I keep the res at for a young clone? I seem to see that 600-800 is the sweet spot for a lot of people for veg.

Id start around 2 to 300 ppm til it establishes a root system.
You dont want the netpot touching the water. You want to have level where the popping bubbles keep netpot wet. As the roots grow u can lower water level.

hydrogreen65 said:

Id start around 2 to 300 ppm til it establishes a root system.
You dont want the netpot touching the water. You want to have level where the popping bubbles keep netpot wet. As the roots grow u can lower water level.

Click to expand...

Thanks for all your help. Ill keep all this in mind when I get my stuff. Already ordered it, just waiting now.

On this topic... I just won a current culture under current UC4 system.... 4x8gal beast w/ that 5th res. bucket.

So once I have this thing going, and get some clones in her and veg'd up nice.... and want to switch it to flowering.....

I mean thats a LOT of water.... my RO filter will spit out the blood of the lambs of ancient egypt sooner than refill.... what, 40gallons?

How long do I have before my roots freak out? Am I pretty well screwed w/o having a large capacity water res, at least for this purpose? (Or at least 20-25gal worth)

Am I gonna wanna clean the buckets out between cycles, or just drain, n maybe rinse?

I've only ever done single bucket DWC's and that was a couple years ago, and most were disastrous... So I been rocking dirt since.... But I can't just NOT use a free $900 hydro system!

Also... is the water chiller required? I'm kinda wondering if freezing a few bottles of water n tossing them in the res bucket might work..... I'm a month from our firstborn, my wifey will cut me if I drop $300+ on a water chiller, lol.