1 Gallon dwc, first grow without soil

I'm not sure if this is deep water culture, shallow water culture, kratky, or something else I've got (2) 1 Gallon plastic Mason jars, 2 air stones and pump, and jacks 321.
Didn't want to drop a whole lot of money, but I've always thought it would be cool to try a non soil grow. Picked up a Grey 10 gallon storage tote, to keep light out of my jars, and to have somewhere to put a frozen bottle to try to keep the reservoirs cool. Might grab a cheap fabric cooler, and set the jars in it, with a frozen bottle. Probably have one laying around here somewhere.
Here is the initial setup, minus air hoses. Gonna put the holes for them right about where I want the max fill level to be (an inch below the bottom of the net cup), so I can just unscrew the top, dump the jar, and not have an air line to fiddle with.



Anyone that has run anything similar have any advice? I searched through forums, found a guy growing in a jar, but his plants turned out male so he scrapped the grow I believe. Any glaring problems you see with my setup? I'm looking forward to a new challenge.
From what I have been reading, I'm going to be topping these off quite a bit. I did pick up a middle of the road pen and some calibration fluid. Im planning to swap the reservoirs once a week with fresh nutrients. My well water comes out at 425ppms. Sounds a little high to me, I'm guessing calcium. Lots of limestone in my part of the country, clogs my shower and sink faucets up every few months.


I've got a couple fem Doughlato seeds from Archive I'm gonna grow. Not trying to grow monsters, just want to try something new to me. Thanks for any advice

I don't use jars. Why would you limit the root zone so drastically? Big roots, big fruits (well,flowers). You will also play Hell trying to get your Ph to stabilize. Through the transition and flowering my girls drink 1/2 to a gallon daily . you are going to have to be constantly checking your water levels in those jars.

I don't have a lot of extra room in my tent. Ive got a couple sip containers that take up most of the space. I wanted something with a small footprint. I figure small containers will give me smaller plants. Wanted to try dwc with a minimal investment, and minimum space. Tote is 14"x21", fits nice and snug in the corner.
I was wondering how big an issue ph will be with such small containers.

WARNING: Small footprint does not always mean small plant. My girl Cookie up there is in about the same size tote. You've got the jars so that will have an impact.Yours is what, 10 gallons? Her tote is 7.5 gallon and she has 4 gallons of water/solution. I did veg her for almost 8 weeks, I had to wait for one to finish up after her initial 4weeks.

You're exactly right, it's a 10 gallon tote. A good friend of mine across the country does dwc. He told me I should plan on getting them bigger reservoirs before flowering them. I reckon I can use this 10 gallon tote as a reservoir when I flip?
Another reason for such small reservoirs, was I just bought a "sample" pack of Jack's. Just enough to make 26 gallons. I thought if I had say a 5 gallon reservoir, I wouldn't have enough to make a full run. I just didn't want to have lbs of a fertilizer ill probably never use laying around. I live in a tiny house, and every sq ft is already filled with my junk I might be crazy, 26 gallons of fert may be enough, since I start the first few weeks at 1/4 strength and work up from there. I just have zero experience in this setup, and didn't want to come up short a few weeks from harvest.
Thanks for the info and pictures, I appreciate it! My seeds should break ground in the next day or two, and I'll get this party started

If you want to see how Cookie grew so far here's the link
The contest is over and no I didn't win. But almost daily documentation for a while. Dropped off after the contest ended.

Nice grow!! How much of a pain was dealing with the 2 gallon res, before you switched to 4?

So much easier with 4 gallons. Set her Ph and, after a few weeks of daily checking, have learned that they do pretty good with a variable water level. Everyone says you have to keep the water an inch below your net pot, not in my experience.

Good to know, thanks for the info Definitely gonna be a learning curve, but there is a lot of knowledge around here

I've got some Ful-Power. Could I utilize that to help stabilize my ph between res changes?

I predict total and quick failure.

GrassBurner said:

I've got some Ful-Power. Could I utilize that to help stabilize my ph between res changes?

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Never used it, don't know anything about it.

Fulvic and Humic acid are pretty similar, both help with nutrients uptake. Fulvic I'd small enough to travel through the plant, but humic isnt. No actual nutrients, but I'm thinking it might slightly drop the ph, after the plants begin taking in nutrients and the ph rises.

i'm trying 1 plant in a 12qt dwc. so far so good. drain to waste with one feed per day at 0.8EC

rkymtnman said:

i'm trying 1 plant in a 12qt dwc. so far so good. drain to waste with one feed per day at 0.8EC

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How are you both DWC and DTW?

Johiem said:

How are you both DWC and DTW?

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Made a drain at the 2 gal level. Feed until u get some runoff.

So, you are running a 2 gallon DWC that you fill daily. I guess that your over-fill hole might qualify it as DTW. One other possibility, are you running a dual root zone? Is that what I'm missing?

Johiem said:

So, you are running a 2 gallon DWC that you fill daily. I guess that your over-fill hole might qualify it as DTW. One other possibility, are you running a dual root zone? Is that what I'm missing?

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it's a 12 qt container but i made the drain (blue sight tube) cut down to the 2 gal level. out the top of the drain and away she goes. never have to mess with pH or EC again. 1 feed a day to slight runoff.

Still can't wrap my mind around it, but that's ok. As long as it's working for you that's what matters.

My 2 beans for the dwc popped in their jiffy pucks. I have read that some people just put the jiffy puck in their net pot. Yall have any experience with this?