FUNDAMENTALS OF RDWC

Hi,

This is my first post

I lurked this forum a lot when I was researching DWC, since then I have figured a few things out.
The best advice I can give is learn from 'hygrohybrid' and do a version of HHT (hygrohybrid theory). Dude pulls a pound per plant easy, it's nothing to him and he teaches how to do it like a Kung Fu master.

Anyway, here are my fundamentals.

-BUILD YOUR OWN KIT.
It's like building a light saber. You will understand it if you build it.

-USE A LOT OF WATER
I would allow 60l per plant in rdwc, it acts as a massive buffer to prevent most issues with feeding.

-BLOCK ALL LIGHT TO RES, ALL OF IT, EVERY LAST DROP OF LIGHT.
This is the most important thing of all in my opinion. Use black air tubes, thick tubs, put covers on top of mesh pots, cover with whatever you can. Blankets, Mylar, cardboard.mif you have root rot, it's because of light in the tank, I almost would bet on it. Check, and check again.

-BIG AIR PUMP
The more air the better, pump as much in as you can, go crazy. There is no such thing as too many bubbles, but try to keep air pump cool.

IF THE WATER IS DIRTY, CHANGE IT.
When things are going well and everything is dialled in, you will know when to change water. And don't make it a big deal.

USE WATER PUMP TO EMPTY RES/TANKS
It's a recirculating system, I have my pump submerged in control tank, when it's time to empty I simply attach a hose pipe to pump and empty down drain. To refill, the same. Just use a hose or pump. Easy.

EC/PPM and PH
Veg, 400-600ppm. Never go over.
FLOWER 600ppm base with up to 200ppm on top of boosts etc. so no more than 800ppm. Ever...Ever.

DON'T USE H202
if your roots are slimy, poorly brown, smelly, dead, not growing etc, anything but amazing it is because you have light leaks or stupid high res temps. Block all light. Any hole for tubes, lid on properly, covered with other stuff to be sure. Mesh pots covered.... Do all this and if you need to, run H202. You should however use very small quantities of beneficial bacteria instead. I personally would get a sample size of VOODOO JUICE from eBay, de cantered from a big bottle to save spending a fortune on something you only need two or three times a cycle. Your roots should amaze you every time you see them.
Veg roots should be like rice noodles, almost identical.
Flower roots should be huge, thick chunky.... You'll see them grow and understand by the time you flower.

EXPECT MASSIVE PLANTS.
In veg you need to be monster cropping, you want at least 10 main branches. FIM, top, bend...net them ready for that scrog. It's important to have a big enough plant, or number of plants to fill a screen. They will get huge with all the airstones and tank size, and stretch insanely. Like nothing you have seen in coco. In my opinion, 2 plants should be more than enough for a 600w light and scrog. You want that horizontal growth and a low canopy. With everything even. I could talk forever about this but that's a different thread, and I'm no scrog expert. Just learn from hygrohybrid.

So, that's it.
NO LIGHT LEAK!!
A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF RECIRCULATING WATER (in flowering room)
NUTES 600ppm ph, 5.8-6.1 for most plants. Water temp 18-22c
BIG AIR PUMP
USE WATER PUMP TO EMPTY FILL RES Just smoke a joint.... Can be done in 40 mins if not tinkering.
SMALL AMOUNT OF BENEFICIAL BACTERIA.

It doesn't take long to learn, but you need to understand it.

Anyway... Good luck!

LOL I love this guy- tell us he's only researched it, but lays a big pile of dos and don'ts on us right away!

Deepwater dude, we've been there and done that. I run twice that much water per plant- and I threw away all my airpumps years ago. I don't use H2O2 at all, my roots are gorgeous and my tub covers aren't totally light proof.

Do you actively chill your RDWC water? I do, and I'm pretty sure that's why I never have root problems. Ever.

I threw out 40% of this post, I wouldn't agree with your methods sir. I hate to say it but Ttys knows what hes talking about =P

Thanks for the responses boys.

I appreciate the warm welcome being a first post and all.

'This guy' never said he only researched it, he is however aware that blatantly writing 'I grow dope' isn't essential in such a forum. I remember the days of "SWIM" and I am loosely keeping to that. It just seems logical. Furthermore I should point out, I'm not meaning to come across as a hydro or grow expert, but I do feel the method I am using is the easiest and most rewarding of any grow and I feel it is simpler than a lot of people make out.

I am down with no air pumps, I do have some pressure to my recirculating pump outlets which are aimed at the base of the mesh pots, but towards water. I wouldn't want to fully eliminate the stones myself and I wouldn't want to write 'don't use airstones' in a 'fundamentals' of HHT post, as the method uses air pumps.

I stand by the light in tub principle in regards to root rot. The most popular articles in this thread are full of misinformation and what ifs in order to combat root rot. I'm speaking from experience to beginners that if you have rot... Try eliminating the source of energy for the Pythium fungus. No light = no fungus, just botany that but well done for your healthy roots and lack of h202.

In the climate I am in, there is no need for a chiller. Ambient outdoor temp is below the min water temp and res sits on concrete basement floor. I have however used ice packs but find the water can sit at 21c just by insulation, cold floor and a set up which mimics a heat sink. (Intake air circulates around tanks in 1.2x1.2m tent cyclone style.

I feel you should both look at the HHT method a bit closer before dismissing it.

To dismiss a fellow growers 'rules' for not screwing up a rdwc, in response to poor information which I found on this very website, on the first page of this thread is a bit unsportsmanlike and I look forward to your responses.

Celsius? Meters?

I'm going back to tending .

-----------------------------

No but in all seriousness, yes the SWIM thing goes back a while and only remains on real dope forums from what Ive heard. Do we get points for response times tho?

I agree lightproof is needed. I agree with and without airstones either way its your cash. Its known 65-68 degrees Fahrenheit is the ideal water/res temp. Most important is temp simply because it'll keep anything at bay. I run beneficial bacteria that honestly boosts roots a bit more IMO than h202 and with a water chiller theres no need for h202.

Water chilling good. In winter, I used a compressorless chiller to chill my water and it replaced a 3000W unit with a 40W fan whenever the weather was cool enough. I used the heat from my standard chiller to heat my house.

This season I'm upgrading to a heat pump, which will heat my home with hot water and act as night time dehuey for my growrooms, as well as chilling during the day. It will even air condition the living spaces.

Thanks for the speedy response!

Excuse the c&m. I'm a believer in the metric system and I find a gauge of temp based on the boiling and freezing point of water more than suitable for such a task. It helps me empathise with the plant.

21c is 69f, in my defence this is lights on temp.

I think with summer on the way, a cooler res solution may be needed. I have been lucky to not really have heat issues. Also I found that as canopies grow in bloom, with the scrog and massive amount of nodes from monster crop that the plant can provide excellent shading to the below scrog net area. However it is noted I should have put more focus on the importance of maintaining low res temp.

A veg dwc bucket set up has a higher res temp, maybe 72-73f (23c)

On the next run I am fitting computer fans to the plant tanks (taking care of possible light leaks through the vent holes I make for it. This I hope will chill the aeroponic zone and the exposed roots which while aiding cooling though evaporation. I think it will be like having your head in a fan on a hot humid day. In fact, writing this makes me curious of the aeroponic gap temp, I have never considered what it runs at without this fan mod.

@ttystikk, I have actually just read about your vertical grow and heating solution. Lucky you in Colorado, congratulations! I am eternally jealous of your mountains and cannabis law.

Point taken on water temp.

I was a believer in sterile systems, and in all honesty, applied a high concentration of voodoo juice to the the root system and mesh with spray and was astounded by the difference to running h202 as a measure to prevent something that was not present. I see all these posts about brewing bennies or questions on h202 and even though I think it's useful to know about and have a bottle in for veg or transplant. Running it every few days is a chore I'm happy to replace with a few small doses of bennies and prevention measures before any sign of pythium.

The entire set up I refer to consumes less than 1200w in full swing including veg. I'm still wary of posting photos of plants but I will settle in.

Tent width is actually 120cm, few other mistakes on diagram now i look at it.

Did you use a VLSI layout design tool to make that? lol

haha, no. Was photoshop shapes...

Nice diagram!

I flirted with computing, NAND gate rings a bell from CPU circuits or am I baked?

Could say I have a 'fuzzy logic' when it comes to grow room colour schemes and design.

Deepwater600ppm said:

Thanks for the speedy response!

Excuse the c&m. I'm a believer in the metric system and I find a gauge of temp based on the boiling and freezing point of water more than suitable for such a task. It helps me empathise with the plant.

21c is 69f, in my defence this is lights on temp.

I think with summer on the way, a cooler res solution may be needed. I have been lucky to not really have heat issues. Also I found that as canopies grow in bloom, with the scrog and massive amount of nodes from monster crop that the plant can provide excellent shading to the below scrog net area. However it is noted I should have put more focus on the importance of maintaining low res temp.

A veg dwc bucket set up has a higher res temp, maybe 72-73f (23c)

On the next run I am fitting computer fans to the plant tanks (taking care of possible light leaks through the vent holes I make for it. This I hope will chill the aeroponic zone and the exposed roots which while aiding cooling though evaporation. I think it will be like having your head in a fan on a hot humid day. In fact, writing this makes me curious of the aeroponic gap temp, I have never considered what it runs at without this fan mod.

@ttystikk, I have actually just read about your vertical grow and heating solution. Lucky you in Colorado, congratulations! I am eternally jealous of your mountains and cannabis law.

Point taken on water temp.

I was a believer in sterile systems, and in all honesty, applied a high concentration of voodoo juice to the the root system and mesh with spray and was astounded by the difference to running h202 as a measure to prevent something that was not present. I see all these posts about brewing bennies or questions on h202 and even though I think it's useful to know about and have a bottle in for veg or transplant. Running it every few days is a chore I'm happy to replace with a few small doses of bennies and prevention measures before any sign of pythium.

The entire set up I refer to consumes less than 1200w in full swing including veg. I'm still wary of posting photos of plants but I will settle in.

Click to expand...

Are we such bad people now? We hold this forum down. Some of us asses, some of us angels. But we generally are quick to respond Stoner facebook.

a noobie nobody TELLING us how to grow, join a library and read a book sonny!

@vostock is clearly jealous of this simple and easy method of growing (hygrohybrid theory).... Why else dismiss these simple rules for a newb to have a successful DWC grow?

When you reply, all I care about is direct anylitical responses to what I wrote or your gram per watt score. If you are not pulling over 1gram pw, I don't value your negative patronising input, son.

@Vumar angels have the best ass!

@vostok.... not much care taken over these really, I'll be lucky to get 30oz from a 5ft space. I should give up I'm such a newb.

Week 1 of flower for 1st image, day 20 for second two.

is a nice grow...yeah I'm envious

@vostok cheers mate, I'm hoping its a good one.

I'll give you some respect now thats there proof in the pudding. I wouldnt run it the same way but I do see clear success dispite the different grow methods.

Cheer @Vumar, proof will be in GPW. I'm aiming for over 1 for the first time.

I'm 20+ harvests deep, but soil and coco and have been happy with my end result and had no intention of going hydro.

In December I read a book called 'The Martian' where this dude is growing on Mars. Potatoes but whatever.
It goes into enough detail for a grower to enjoy and have a think about. One thing that caught my attention was that as it is Mars, there is no bacteria in martian soil. He was running pure h20, essentially reverse osmosis in our world and got his nute from his own shit. Night Soil.

Anyway, this got me thinking about crops in space so I looked into what NASA get up to in sterile, zero gravity environments. Turns out they are into aeroponics, so I learned about that... This lead to DWC, then RDWC.

From then, I found this vid on youtube....
I liked his approach, and he's chill to listen to so I watched all his vids, made notes etc.
In coco, I could get about 0.4gpw in the space. I saw his weigh in at .986gpw and he wasn't happy with it... can you believe that??

So, before even running a bucket, I put 3 months worth of bedtime smoke research time, a good 150 hours+, started off some seeds in a small dwc bucket so I could put learning into practice.

I vegged for about 7 weeks, had some problems and then solved them.

I built my kit, on the right side of my grow diagram, put the fuckers in and the shit went down. Just a few weeks ago it was a level scrog, about 12inch above lids. I was expecting another 12 inch stretch and they have tripled that.

The strain is my own cross between and combination of (Royal Queen Sour Diesel x Dinafem Diesel) x (NL5 x Haze Mist)...the back right has a very stretchy, sativa-esque pheno and front left shows more NL.

I feel dwc is like black magic... I think in 10 years we will be eating dwc food.

I won't run 4 plants again, 1 is enough for this discipline, which is what HHT is about. Simple grow, huge yield, small space.

I'm glad you guys are coming around!

Peas.
Last coco. Just a little one while I was vegging the DWC. This was the Diesel x Sour Diesel... amazing difference between coco result and potential RDWC.

Getting settled in to full system. I changed quite a few things around this point to climate such as fitted a thermostat to small heater so I can maintain constant temp.


Scrogged as I normally would at this point in coco to open them up. Added small mesh to clip branches to.

Now I got this shit to deal with...
One of those good problems.