thoughts on undercurrent vs multiple plants in 100 gallon res

I saw this 4' x 4' hydrofarm 100 gallon res and got to thinking.

the res is already designed to be light proof and the lid catches spills etc. can wrap it in a few layers reflectix for insulation. you could drill about a dozen 2" holes in the lid and run a sog with rooted clones... or just use a couple sites and scrog trees. I would probably drill a total of 12 holes with five 3" net pots for scrogged trees and the remaining ones 2" sog sites.

the plants would all be in 3" or 2" net pots with neoprene collars and no media in a 100 gallon dwc with a water pump flooming for aeration and water current. fully loaded each plant would get over 8 gallons of water in theory. to me this seems like all the benefits of undercurrent without a lot of the negatives. no complicated plumbing which drastically reduces the chance of floods and leaks. there can also be issues with poor water circulation in ucdwc which I don't think woud be an issue in a big res. roots might tangle but 100 gallons is a lot of space and they clog up pipes in undercurrent. the footprint is perfect also.... just wondering if it would be stable and be able to go 3-4 weeks between res changes. the main draw is I don't have much for a veg area past keeping moms rooting clones and starting seeds... so I think the res would be better for sog than uc and I don't want to convert to ebb n flo or aero or something.

although another option with the res is shallow water culture with sprayers or lpa. not sure if that would even be worth fucking with.

damn thats a big rez. How often do they suggest to drain/swap soups? I have run a 5 gal DWC for little over 2 weeks (simply adding back matching solution to cover evaporation/drinking) but with a 5gal bucket I add back a gallon a day so at my weeks end when I swap buckets I have in theory replaced all the water already anyways. I didn't have really any noticeable change doing it this way (letting it go simply adding a gallon 'ish back each day to maintain level). Only thing that worried me was build up, but when swapping buckets found out it was rather clean no slim or residue. Wonder if you could get away with running this through veg and doing 2 drains. 1 right before flower to adjust to flower nutes then one when/if you do a last week flush. ...That would be rather nice 2-3 changes for entire grow.

That's the goal man, I just want to smoke bowls and watch them grow. This is my first run with it, I just finished up 2 hempy cycles (won't be doing those again). I started with 5g DWC buckets and it was a lot of daily work; I had up to 8 buckets in veg. So I started some seeds and vegged them out in a 12 site 4 gallon cooler for about 4 weeks from sprout which included topping... and I got them in this system about a week and a half ago I think. I fucked them up with liquid karma the first time I filled the res; 12 hours later the roots were brown, so I had to drain the res, wash the roots, and fill it back up without the LK and it has been smooth sailing, but I stunted them a few days. I thought I could get away with it but as always organics in the res is a bad idea.

I plan to veg through end of year, then flip and scrog the 12/12 stretch. After stretch I will swap to bloom feed. That's the plan anyway... might end up doing a res change before then, but this water is stable as fuck. It's just veg and typically things are pretty easy breezy in veg, but over the past week the ph has stayed at 5.8... not even getting that nice little drift through the 5.6 - 6.2 range it's just sitting at 5-8. PPM was mixed at 455 and is down to 450 now. I will probably have to figure out something for res temp once it gets a little warmer.

Sannies extrema, jack, and jackberry x mad scientist freebies all fem btw.

that big you might wana look at a water cooler to pump some of that water through and back in the res

That's crazy cool man. U had the idea, and about a month later put it into action. +++ for that one bro!!!

Yea I am pretty sure I will end up having to get a water chiller, but that should be fine.

Thanks mongo, I am still interested in what people would think about this vs undercurrent but I guess if no one is doing this it is hard to compare. Kinda makes you feel sketchy when you are the only one doing something... like what am I missing that no one else is doing this and growing in a big res? How does a 100g undercurrent system compare to this? Have that tiny nagging fear in the back of your head that flower cycle is going to end up being a nightmare for some reason, but I figured fuck it I'll try it. I'm still trying to figure out my perfect setup and if everything keeps going like it has been, I will use this for many many grows.

If I could rep ya I would. It's awesome that you're thinking outside the box. Personally, I think it would be bad ass just to throw a shit load of different autos in that thing and let her rip.

Yea I like that I could easily swithc between 12 plants or just scrog a few trees. With undercurrent I would need to remove or add sites and plumbing.

Well this idea is completely different then the Under current grows so no way to really compare them. I built an under current setup and I have to say its pretty badd ass grow setup. I use 18 sites in it and finish plants just over 4 feet. The setup you got going is more like bubbleponics and your growing small plants with less involved. Both are good setup but the undercurrent setup produces much more at faster rates due to sizing really.

Malevolence said:

Yea I am pretty sure I will end up having to get a water chiller, but that should be fine.

Thanks mongo, I am still interested in what people would think about this vs undercurrent but I guess if no one is doing this it is hard to compare. Kinda makes you feel sketchy when you are the only one doing something... like what am I missing that no one else is doing this and growing in a big res? How does a 100g undercurrent system compare to this? Have that tiny nagging fear in the back of your head that flower cycle is going to end up being a nightmare for some reason, but I figured fuck it I'll try it. I'm still trying to figure out my perfect setup and if everything keeps going like it has been, I will use this for many many grows.

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Why do you need undercurrent? all that does is return your water and keep it circulating to a reservoir to clean easily and change things out. Someone out there got a nifty idea as to use undercurrent to make the water go into a waterfall and coined it. Big deal. You don't need a waterfall to get air in, just venturi the return line and done. You could even get rid of your air pumps you have now and get a ecoplus 185 that comes with a venturi outlet for free for $15 and done. Youtube venturi aquarium to understand it. It has been around for at least a century.

I'm not using air pumps but if o2 ends up being a problem I can hook it up.

Well there is no way I can veg through end of year... 5 days later and the canopy is full now... I still have 12/12 stretch to go through.

gonna be some monster ladies, call em precious

twistedwords said:

Why do you need undercurrent? all that does is return your water and keep it circulating to a reservoir to clean easily and change things out. Someone out there got a nifty idea as to use undercurrent to make the water go into a waterfall and coined it. Big deal. You don't need a waterfall to get air in, just venturi the return line and done. You could even get rid of your air pumps you have now and get a ecoplus 185 that comes with a venturi outlet for free for $15 and done. Youtube venturi aquarium to understand it. It has been around for at least a century.

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I did the buckets before and it was a pain in the ass to change 6 buckets veg and 6 in bloom. I built my own uc and will never look back! If you take a bucket, place it next to the uc and put a clone in each. The one in the uc will out-grow the one in the bucket very quickly. Its not about the waterfall etc. Its about the absolute control of water peramiters. I set my ph at 5.8 and in 4-5 days it drifted to 6.0 to 6.1 . I have yet to go over 400ppms using the uc. As for change outs, i use a transfer pump to get the water out quickly. I also have water that ready to be pumped in. I think people get discouraged from the uc cuz of the horror stories of people learning how to work the uc. I myself failed 3 times before i got it going. Once you know how to work the system, its high octane growing dude.

checkdareplay said:

I did the buckets before and it was a pain in the ass to change 6 buckets veg and 6 in bloom. I built my own uc and will never look back! If you take a bucket, place it next to the uc and put a clone in each. The one in the uc will out-grow the one in the bucket very quickly. Its not about the waterfall etc. Its about the absolute control of water peramiters. I set my ph at 5.8 and in 4-5 days it drifted to 6.0 to 6.1 . I have yet to go over 400ppms using the uc. As for change outs, i use a transfer pump to get the water out quickly. I also have water that ready to be pumped in. I think people get discouraged from the uc cuz of the horror stories of people learning how to work the uc. I myself failed 3 times before i got it going. Once you know how to work the system, its high octane growing dude.

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No undercurrent is an idea to to keep a current flowing at a raid pace throughout the system and using a waterfall on the reservoir with no drip lines. You are talking about the GH line waterfam method(which in my view is optimum and easiest to use overall). Two different methods. My suggestion to this OP since he has a tote is to just inject the tote with a water pump with the already given to you as an a attachment by the pond pump manufacturer for free and create a venturi in it, therefore no need for air pumps.

twistedwords said:

No undercurrent is an idea to to keep a current flowing at a raid pace throughout the system and using a waterfall on the reservoir with no drip lines. You are talking about the GH line waterfam method(which in my view is optimum and easiest to use overall). Two different methods. My suggestion to this OP since he has a tote is to just inject the tote with a water pump with the already given to you as an a attachment by the pond pump manufacturer for free and create a venturi in it, therefore no need for air pumps.

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I understand where you coming from, and im pretty familiar with the venturi cuz i had 2 of them in my salt water fish tank. I was just mentioning the uc ,that once mastered it will give you really good results, thats all. I think i saw mal say that he didnt have the space to run one.

Keep em green fellas
Checkdareplay

I don't have the space for it and don't want to setup the plumbing and get it water tight. How does the venturi work if you don't run an air line to it? From the pictures I saw it looks like there are air bubbles running to the nozzle. You don't have to use waterfall for undercurrent, you can also using flooming like my setup.

Malevolence said:

I don't have the space for it and don't want to setup the plumbing and get it water tight. How does the venturi work if you don't run an air line to it? From the pictures I saw it looks like there are air bubbles running to the nozzle. You don't have to use waterfall for undercurrent, you can also using flooming like my setup.

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I attached a picture