RDWC water change question.

splifjoint

splifjoint

Member
I am running 4 buckets connected by pvc, water chiller pump ect... during my water changes I have been putting my babies in seperate buckets with water, then I pump the old water out of the system, after pumping I am still left with a couple of inches of water because of the level of my pvc pipe so I take my wet'dry vac and vacum the rest out of all four buckets as well as the control bucket, then I take a paper towl and wipe each bucket out. Then I return my babies to the system add new filtered water, Heisnburg tea, nutes ect...

My question is now that I am flowering and my babies are HUGE and awkward I am not going to take the chance of moving them to seperate buckets for weekly water changes and risk damaging my babies and thier flowers, plus I've added a pvc frame for my flowers to lean on so now its even more difficult.

How have others who have run this system or similar situations overcome this? Or am I doing too much in my water change? Should I just pump out as much water as I can then refill and keep it moving? thanks for any and all replies
 
Beezcheeze

Beezcheeze

Well-Known Member
splifjoint said:
I am running 4 buckets connected by pvc, water chiller pump ect... during my water changes I have been putting my babies in seperate buckets with water, then I pump the old water out of the system, after pumping I am still left with a couple of inches of water because of the level of my pvc pipe so I take my wet'dry vac and vacum the rest out of all four buckets as well as the control bucket, then I take a paper towl and wipe each bucket out. Then I return my babies to the system add new filtered water, Heisnburg tea, nutes ect...

My question is now that I am flowering and my babies are HUGE and awkward I am not going to take the chance of moving them to seperate buckets for weekly water changes and risk damaging my babies and thier flowers, plus I've added a pvc frame for my flowers to lean on so now its even more difficult.

How have others who have run this system or similar situations overcome this? Or am I doing too much in my water change? Should I just pump out as much water as I can then refill and keep it moving? thanks for any and all replies
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Hey there I have a similar problem that I know I'll run into here soon when I get things going. Mine an undercurrent system and Im putting a tee coming off the 3/4" pvc from the water pump output. Attach 2 shut off valves one in line to the resevoir and one off of the tee. Then attach a piece of 3/4" tubing to thag for your drain pipe. You'll shut off the valve that leads to the resevoir only allowing the water through your drain pipe. When your water level in your system starts to get close to as empty as you can get it then pour some clean water into the res to flush out the rest of the nutes. When it comes out clean your done. Then fill up with water and add your nutes
 
cbdprospector

cbdprospector

Active Member
What I've been doing my undercurrent setup is connect a hose to the output side of the res and pump out the solution. I then flush with RO and pump it out, and fill it up again with fresh RO. I always get a 0 ppm reading and don't move my gals at all.
 
blackforest

blackforest

Well-Known Member
splifjoint said:
I am running 4 buckets connected by pvc, water chiller pump ect... during my water changes I have been putting my babies in seperate buckets with water, then I pump the old water out of the system, after pumping I am still left with a couple of inches of water because of the level of my pvc pipe so I take my wet'dry vac and vacum the rest out of all four buckets as well as the control bucket, then I take a paper towl and wipe each bucket out. Then I return my babies to the system add new filtered water, Heisnburg tea, nutes ect...

My question is now that I am flowering and my babies are HUGE and awkward I am not going to take the chance of moving them to seperate buckets for weekly water changes and risk damaging my babies and thier flowers, plus I've added a pvc frame for my flowers to lean on so now its even more difficult.

How have others who have run this system or similar situations overcome this? Or am I doing too much in my water change? Should I just pump out as much water as I can then refill and keep it moving? thanks for any and all replies
Click to expand...
I simply pumped out as much as I could then filled it back up. I only shop vac the everything out after the cycle for cleaning. I just left the ladies in their pots while changing out the water. I don't know why you would need to suck out every last bit between water changes, a little tiny bit left over is no big deal imo.

image pumping out the water. Normally it would be pumping back into this bucket, but I just take that 90 deg elbow and hook it up to another hose going to the floor drain.
IMG_2609.jpg
 
Beezcheeze

Beezcheeze

Well-Known Member
I agree. Usin. An extra 25 gallons of water to flush mine out might be worse than leaving some of the nutrient behind when changing nutes.
 
hbbum

hbbum

Well-Known Member
I also just run a few gallons of straight water through after dumping the old and leave the plants in. I wait until the PPM of the rinse water is under 50PPM then add in my new water/nutrients. This could take quite a bit of time during the end since the drain back to the rez would get much slower when the roots filled up the bottom of the buckets, I would spend over an hour swapping out the res.

Wasn't a huge problem, but I have since moved to ebb and flow which drains everything out to the res, so I do not need to do this anymore. My rez swaps now take less than 15 minutes
 
gand3r

gand3r

Active Member
Ideally removing the entire volume of water is the best method. This is not however always necessary, removing as much as 75% of the water would be sufficient. I

Removing the entire system content is more important if you are running into problems, such as pythium. I would then empty and flush the system then wipe down.
 
TheChemist77

TheChemist77

Well-Known Member
off topic a bit but in my constantly resirculating system, durring flower my plants are taking up over a gallon per day..i have a 30 gallon res..do i really need to change the entire res? if im adding 5 gallons of fresh nutes to the res every 3-4 days why change all the res at all? with the adding of fresh nutes and the plants taking up so much, the water in the res is actually allreplaced in 2 weeks just topping off..my ph and ppm are always good so cant i just change it all and clean after esch harvest rather than every week or 2?
 
gand3r

gand3r

Active Member
Thechemist77,

In your situation i would suggest the only time you will need to drain and change the res is if you are getting a nutrient lockout. The reason why this can happen is because you are unable to determine exactly what nutrients your plants are taking. So over time of adding back your feed you can get a buildup of a certain element which can then cause some issues.....

I would continue with your method but take this into account if any signs of deficiencies occur and when adding a mix of additives.
 
TheChemist77

TheChemist77

Well-Known Member
gand3r said:
Thechemist77,

In your situation i would suggest the only time you will need to drain and change the res is if you are getting a nutrient lockout. The reason why this can happen is because you are unable to determine exactly what nutrients your plants are taking. So over time of adding back your feed you can get a buildup of a certain element which can then cause some issues.....

I would continue with your method but take this into account if any signs of deficiencies occur and when adding a mix of additives.
Click to expand...
thanks
 
Launchpad_Mcquack

Launchpad_Mcquack

Well-Known Member
TheChemist77 said:
off topic a bit but in my constantly resirculating system, durring flower my plants are taking up over a gallon per day..i have a 30 gallon res..do i really need to change the entire res? if im adding 5 gallons of fresh nutes to the res every 3-4 days why change all the res at all? with the adding of fresh nutes and the plants taking up so much, the water in the res is actually allreplaced in 2 weeks just topping off..my ph and ppm are always good so cant i just change it all and clean after esch harvest rather than every week or 2?
Click to expand...
Did you try this? If so, what was your results? I'm in 22 gal Undercurrent system and adding bout 3 gal a day of RO water. I'm at a similar crossroad as you on flushing. Just seems like a waste of water to flush so often..

Sorry to open old thread. :blsmoke:
 
Launchpad_Mcquack

Launchpad_Mcquack

Well-Known Member
splifjoint said:
My question is now that I am flowering and my babies are HUGE and awkward I am not going to take the chance of moving them to seperate buckets for weekly water changes and risk damaging my babies and thier flowers, plus I've added a pvc frame for my flowers to lean on so now its even more difficult.

How have others who have run this system or similar situations overcome this? Or am I doing too much in my water change? Should I just pump out as much water as I can then refill and keep it moving? thanks for any and all replies
Click to expand...
Hey OP, I use the pump in my system to drain to a tote. Once it's to low for the pump, dry vac the rest. When I refil with RO water (6 ppm), I usually have 80-100 ppm left over. Due to scrog and tent, I can't access the last bucket to drain. I don't feel with rdwc or undercurrent system needs to worry about residual as much..Being constantly topping off, new nutes and flushing every 7 day. My 2c.
 
TheChemist77

TheChemist77

Well-Known Member
Launchpad_Mcquack said:
Did you try this? If so, what was your results? I'm in 22 gal Undercurrent system and adding bout 3 gal a day of RO water. I'm at a similar crossroad as you on flushing. Just seems like a waste of water to flush so often..

Sorry to open old thread. :blsmoke:
Click to expand...
yes, i started only cleaning my res once 3 days before harvest to dump nutes and fill with water pluss gh kleen..other than that i fill the rez at start, then just add 5 gallons every other day with nutes till 3 days till harvest, flush 3 days then clean it out and fill it for the next run.. no complications, no nute burn or deficiencies...i always used to clean it every 2 weeks but now just at the beginning and end..its been working just fine, i give nutes all the way up to 3 days till harvest n flush 3 days and buds burn n taste perfect...
 
hbbum

hbbum

Well-Known Member
I've got a 20gal res and do a full rez swap a week after I flip the lights, half way through flowering and about a week before harvest. Other than that, I just do top offs as needed as long and my PPM and PH is staying in range.

I have not had any problems going this route, though I have heard it argued that your output would be better with a full swap every two weeks. For me is a ebb and flow grow with distilled water.
 
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