rDWC Help

Giant

Giant

Active Member
I am trying to design a reasonably simple recirculating DWC system. I had good success in hempy last time, but I want to keep moving up. So far, I have bought a 250 GPH pump, 5gal buckets with netpot lids, air pumps and stones, and all the necessary tubing and fittings.

Now I am stuck on how this is all going to work. How do I keep from overfilling/underfilling the buckets? If I have a pump that is filling the buckets, and one that is pushing the water back to the control tank, how do I keep them moving the same amount of water? If one is slightly faster than the other one, wont something eventually overflow or run dry?

Am I overthinking this? Should I just put the fill line at the top, the drain line at the bottom of the bucket, and let gravity do the res? Do I even need a pump to send the water back to the controller?
 
Giant

Giant

Active Member
I am only going to be growing 4 plants in my 4x4 tent, and I am planning on growing them out into a large SCROG for maximum yield.
 
montanamike1

montanamike1

Member
In my experience, you only need one pump in your control bucket sending water out- if everything else is properly set up, the forces of displacement will do the rest.
 
redi jedi

redi jedi

Well-Known Member
You only need one pump. You can put a valve on the discharge of the pump if you need to dial down the flow....
 
SnOoPXIV

SnOoPXIV

Active Member
if you have drain fitting at the bottom of each bucket and the controller you shouldnt have a problem gravity will balance it out. however high the water is in the controller bucket is gonna be how high it is in each bucket. And if you are worried about over filling make a overflow line at the set fill line and you should be good to go, now for under filling put a float valve in the controller bucket and attach a bigger res
Giant said:
I am trying to design a reasonably simple recirculating DWC system. I had good success in hempy last time, but I want to keep moving up. So far, I have bought a 250 GPH pump, 5gal buckets with netpot lids, air pumps and stones, and all the necessary tubing and fittings.

Now I am stuck on how this is all going to work. How do I keep from overfilling/underfilling the buckets? If I have a pump that is filling the buckets, and one that is pushing the water back to the control tank, how do I keep them moving the same amount of water? If one is slightly faster than the other one, wont something eventually overflow or run dry?

Am I overthinking this? Should I just put the fill line at the top, the drain line at the bottom of the bucket, and let gravity do the res? Do I even need a pump to send the water back to the controller?
Click to expand...
 
redi jedi

redi jedi

Well-Known Member
SnOoPXIV said:
if you have drain fitting at the bottom of each bucket and the controller you shouldnt have a problem gravity will balance it out. however high the water is in the controller bucket is gonna be how high it is in each bucket. And if you are worried about over filling make a overflow line at the set fill line and you should be good to go, now for under filling put a float valve in the controller bucket and attach a bigger res
Click to expand...
Not necessarily....since the water is only being pumped in, it can overcome the rate its draining out. Drain lines should be larger than feed lines and the level in your controller should be lower than the level in buckets. This will help the water return/drain faster as the buckets will have the taller column of water.
 
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