Waterfarm Mods & Tips

Hello all you stoners and growers at RIU! Like the title says this is to help Waterfarmers. All these Mods and Tips can easily be found online but in different places. This thread is to compile all known Mods and Tips, as well as new ones from you, the growers. Feel free to share your experiences and knowledge. I would like particularly for someone to post pics of a recirculating/chiller system, It would be extremly helpful and would probably earn some Rep


Mod
We all know about drilling holes for better root growth and drainage.

Factory holes...


After Drilling more and bigger holes....


Sorry for the blurrrr, but you get the point.....



Adding an airstone is also a common Mod. Here i installed an airhose below where the bottom of the growing chamber sits and above the water level. You can see in pen where each line is marked. I have had no problems with air flow and installed 4" airstones. Disk airstones are whats most recommended.





Adding shut-off valves should be a top priority, especially between the res and controller unit. When you go to pour water in the res to mix nutes, the water will just fill the controller unit.Pretty lame. Having a shut-off valve between the two allows you to mix the nutes and adjust ph if nessasary before releasing the solution the the controller unit. I also installed shut-off valves from the controller unit to the buckets, and on each individual bucket. It makes for ALOT easier maintence.




Tips

Salt build-up is common and more than likely will happen. Taking preventive maintence is key. Remove the rings and rinse with hot water once a week, you'll be glad you did.




I have twice in the past 5 weeks came across this problem. There would be no water coming from the drip ring, this was due to some kind of build-up on the air hose at the bottom of the bucket. It is a pain in the ass to try to remove the pumping column with a huge plant in the way but it has to be done. Once the column was removed the problem was identified, some kind of build-up in the air hose. If anyone has any experience combating this problem I would love to hear it.

PUMPING COLUMN



Gunky buid-up in airhose....


Good to go after rinsing with hot water.....



Well I hope this helps someone, feel free to ask questions if you want. If anyone has pics of a recirculating/chiller set-up please post, I would be much appreciated!!

hey Caddy
to combat salt buildup in your system and medium try this

whad up d4? thanks man, have you used this stuff before? seems like it's perfect for aero/drip systems.

Yup, we ran it in a ebb n flow setup from day one to harvest...One plant came out early to give some room to the remaining clones.. the 1st one harvested didn't even get flushed out, but still tasted great no left over nutes was tasted or noticed..it burned to gray ash didn't charcoal up... then flushed the remaining ones with clearex for a week didn't notice much of a difference in the two, so maybe the stuff does what it say's BTW the whole House and Garden nutrient line was used for that grow as per H&G's feeding schedule...

later, D

is the stuff super concentrated? how much per gallon us the recommended amount? thanks man

caddyluck said:

is the stuff super concentrated? how much per gallon us the recommended amount? thanks man

Click to expand...

Per gallon on the drip clean is 0.4 ml's, a little goes along way

D

nice, thanks again !!!

Caddy, if you do go w/ the drip clean make sure you don't introduce it into your feeding schedule while the plants are already growing, it will release all the built up salts in the plant, and whats locked into the medium, making the soil or what ever your growing in toxic to your plants root systems...

It's better used from the beginning of the grow as preventative maintenance

D

cool. I am using General Hydroponics Flora series, think it's cool to use with that?

Probably Ok to use..Just check the ph and ppms of the nute for a while to make sure it stays stable as I don't have experience w/ GH products I can't say for sure...

D

Every one I know that use the W/F buckets have a problem w/ the PH and PPM's of the nutes staying stable, this can be fixed by using 3/4" ebb & flow outlets and 3/4" tubing to daisy chain each W/F to a reservoir recirculating it 24/7, this modification has been the one they have been most pleased with the results... just my $.02...
later, D

I hav'nt had any problem with ph or ppm, I only have 3 waterfarms hooked up though. Hopefully someone will post pics of a recirculating system.

I'm in the process of getting things together to build a recirc. DWC w/ 10 gallon grow cells... I'm talkin tree pots I've seen people use 20 gallon buckets and grow 4 plants that produced 12 L-bo's

Here are some pix of his op

those are clones by the way

fuck!!! nice, those things are beautiful

I didn't grow these I got the pix from a grower on another site

D

i have w/f and if the nutes goes down then they need more ? do you want to keep putting more in until its stable ? i started out with 250 ppm and now its at 110 . The plants are about 2 weeks old. I added nutes about 4 days ago.

This was advice I got from NewGrowth-- NewGrowth's Marijuana Growing Profile, A good way to see if your plants are utilizing the nutes is to monitor your PPM level ever day or so.
Here are some general rules:
1.Water level drops PPM goes up: Drop your nutrient strength in relationship to the PPM rise.
2. Water level drops PPM stays the same: You may be able to fine tune you nutrient strength, if growth is vigorous leave it alone.
3. Water level drops PPM drops: Raise you nutrient strength in relationship too PPM drop.
Like I said these are only general rules always monitor your plants growth and look for tell tale signs of nutrient burn like deep green fan leaves and yellow leaf tips. Nutrient deficient plats will usually yellow from the bottom up. Keep a journal,this will help you fine tune, waste less nutrients and improve your grow next time around.

Alright thats awesome!!! Thanks...ok what about leafs twisting????

KIRKLAND, could be unstable genetics what strain...

D