HELP! LEAKING!

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Distortionist

Well-Known Member
Fuck guys, I am having a terrible week with life and it is topped up today. I was doing my water change and I installed my flush thing, and I seem to have broken a seal and it is leaking. I can't stop it. I tried everything. My silicone is all dry, I tried to coat it all with PVC glue but its still leaking. What do I do? I am crushed! I really don't want to harvest it, things were going so well. I can't even remove the bucket, the roots just pick up the outer bucket with it.

Please give me a bright idea. I am completely crushed :(
 

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D

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
A friend is going to come and help in the morning, I don't know what to do. I wrapped it in a towel and ill check if i can go to sleep like that. If not I will have to drain it and just deal with it tomorrow. They can hold down the bottom bucket while i lift the top I guess, if I damage roots its better than leaking and harvesting. If i get the bucket out, I may be able to tighten the bulkhead. If that stops the leak, at least ill get a week or two if the roots start to rot.

Is that a good idea? My only other option is harvest I think.
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
Distortionist said:
A friend is going to come and help in the morning, I don't know what to do. I wrapped it in a towel and ill check if i can go to sleep like that. If not I will have to drain it and just deal with it tomorrow. They can hold down the bottom bucket while i lift the top I guess, if I damage roots its better than leaking and harvesting. If i get the bucket out, I may be able to tighten the bulkhead. If that stops the leak, at least ill get a week or two if the roots start to rot.

Is that a good idea? My only other option is harvest I think.
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If you can empty the rez and then dry the bulkhead parts and re-silicone you should be OK. Don't worry about a bunch of roots getting torn up. The plant won't even notice.

How bad is the leak? Any way to catch the lost nutes then just add it back to the tank? That's why I like doing DWC in Rubbermaid tubs. No holes below the waterline so never worries about leaks.

You didn't post a pic of the whole system so that's about all I got.

Good luck!

:peace:
 
D

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
I can catch the water. The roots are so grown in I can't remove the bucket with the plant out of its res. The whole bucket lifts! A friend is coming to help but its not looking good. I have towels wrapped around it I couldn't deal with it last night. I get up every 3 hours ro check. If I harvest I'm getting new damn buckets. Or a ready made system because I'm fed up. They are too small for what I am doing apparently. Here are some pics of my setup. I'm miserable. What bad luck.
 

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D

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
Man I'm half tempted to run the last 4 weeks with towels around my bucket im so crushed. I feel like even forcing the buckets out of each other will do so much root damage. I think they grew through and around everything in there. I really feel like ill be down to run it leaking and do damage control every day or just harvest early. Its just starting week 5 flower.
 
OldMedUser

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
I doesn't sound like the leak's too terrible so if you could just wring out a towel every day you should be able to limp her thru to the end. Use a large pot tray to wring it out in then put it back. It sux but it would suck more to lose a lot of yield and quality to an early harvest.

Might be better to just limp it along than risk messing with the system at this point.

You might want to think of running a single, tall RubberMaid tub next time. You can easily run one to more than a dozen plants in one to fill that space nicely. No fittings to leak and just use a $10 drill pump to suck the nutes out if and when you change the nutes. I've done a few DWC ScroGs so have had lots of practise. You put an extra 2" or so hole in the lid to get water in and out and take samples/add nutes to bump up or maintain the ppm.

12hole.jpg

Holes for the airlines or chiller lines can go anywhere almost down to that lip using 5 or 6" net pots. Up to that lip is the full lne with mine and that's 50L using the tall tubs. I did a double wrap of duct tape on one to see if it kept it from bulging so much but didn't really help. I've never had one burst tho after around 50 grows. The shorter tubs hold 35L and the lids are the same size so I'd veg in the smaller tub then prep a tall one with bloom nutes and just lift the lid with plants off and drop it on the bigger tub. For a ScroG you just start in the bigger tub to the end. Running a sterile grow before I made a DIY chiller kept the airstones clean for the whole grow. 2 - 12" ones laid in the bottom grooves really nice.

airlineholes.jpg

Roots.jpg

Single plant ScroG.

1plantScroG.jpg

Lots of fun! :D

:peace:
 
D

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
That is how I started, I had a single bucket no res, but I ran into root rot. I am trying to grow organic, its a tough grow but if I get it right it would be worth it. This grow looks fabulous, look at the plants, its the best grow i have ever achieved. I know organic is a bad idea in DWC, I am trying to figure it all out. So anyway I plumed a res and chiller, and then i plumed another bucket because to fill out my tent better the second grow, the first one the plant grew too big and roots clogged everything. So I upgraded the problematic part which was the gravity feed in from the res. It is still too big and my pipes may be too small that suck water to the pump, they started clogging this time. I need more buckets and smaller plants or just a bigger buckets for my 2 plants. I have seen some nice big strong tubs with good lids that support weight of a pot and plant on here, but none of our stores have them. I will try to find something on amazon for next grow. These are 4 or 5 gallon buckets, I am thinking i need 10 gallon buckets. I won't mind one huge tub with 4 pots. I just need to find what to get. I suck at plumbing and never did any of it before this so I am sure I am to blame.

I don't know if I can limp through this grow, ill try, but in the few hours trying to deal with this leak keeping the res empty, the god damn roots grew into and clogged my 1.5" gravity feed pipe... I can't believe it. I put a snake through and jesus its all white roots growing in trying to get water, its nuts.

I think I am screwed this grow. I will limp it through as long as I can but it is an uphill battle from now on lol. Ill be lucky if it lasts a week. Maybe if I am able to remove the bucket I could clear that. Ill find out when my friend comes later.

What a beautiful plant, I wish I could see it through to the end. Here are pics of it. I am gutted.

I will try to use your idea with a big tub if I can find one, ill use 4 plants. I would still want to plumb my res in but it is much less plumbing and with one big strong container plumbing will be easy. Those soft rubber maid tubs were hell to plumb they kept leaking, I really had to load it up with silicone, there is too much flex. I think I know exactly why my bucket is leaking, I spun the tube the wrong way trying to take it off to put my flush out gizmo, and I think it loosened the nut inside.
 

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Bosgrower

Bosgrower

Well-Known Member
It looks like part of your problem is the plumbing itself. The drain tubing is stressing the grommet/ silicone seal. Try putting in some 90 degree elbows instead of bending the tubing against another bucket.
Won’t fix your leak but it may help prevent another one.
 
D

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
Bosgrower said:
It looks like part of your problem is the plumbing itself. The drain tubing is stressing the grommet/ silicone seal. Try putting in some 90 degree elbows instead of bending the tubing against another bucket.
Won’t fix your leak but it may help prevent another one.
Click to expand...
It was a T there. I installed that gizmo yesterday to use it to flush roots out of the pipes. The leak sprung trying to get the old pipe off. I twisted it and it loosened the nut inside the bulkhead. I propped it the way it is so it pushes down to slow the leak while I tried to patch it up. It didn't work. I was using one buckets weight and the hose to push on the fitting. It worked but only a little.

I do agree my pipework is miserable. I suck at this but I'm getting better. Third time is a charm??

I need to find a good big strong tub with thick walls and a thick lid. 4 pots. Something a bit higher and more and about 4 or 4 times the volume of these little buckets.

For now I'm going to just keep switching towels till the pipes are completely clogged. Then I'll risk forcing the plant out of the bucket to fix the leak and clear the clogs. I feel like the damage will cause root rot, but it will buy me more time. I need 4 weeks. Even if I get 2 more ill be happy. Make this last a week, pull the bucket out and try to make it last a week. If I clean up really well ill probably get away with it. If not oh well. These 2 weeks gained would be very valuable. Even if rot starts, ill flush it with h202 and just leave water in there, h202 will kill rot and water will flush the plant and also not help the rot.
 
D

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
So since its a small leak, do you guys think the organic crap will clog it up? My roots clog up 1.5 inch pipes, think they can clog up a tiny hole? It hurts seeing all my expensive sucked into a towel. Is there a chance goo will clog it?
 
thenasty1

thenasty1

Well-Known Member
epoxy putty might work. it can set under water and its safe for aquarium use. youll probably have to scrape the other stuff off of your bucket to get it on there, and it will be a bitch to remove, but it could limp you through this run. it can be found in the plumbing section of home depot/lowes/whatever
 
Merkn4aSquirtn

Merkn4aSquirtn

Well-Known Member
Waterproofer for 4+ years here.
I was thinking maybe some flex seal spray (a lot)
Elastomeric coating or caulk would probably work until you could get something more sturdier for next go.

You’d want to drain that res so no water can leak, dry the area real good.
(I’d use some heavy duty elastomeric caulking) let dry for 10-15 mins.. (longer is better but you have to worry about those roots too)
 
D

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
thenasty1 said:
epoxy putty might work. it can set under water and its safe for aquarium use. youll probably have to scrape the other stuff off of your bucket to get it on there, and it will be a bitch to remove, but it could limp you through this run. it can be found in the plumbing section of home depot/lowes/whatever
Click to expand...
I'll try this is leaking and driving me mad.
 
D

Distortionist

Well-Known Member
Merkn4aSquirtn said:
Waterproofer for 4+ years here.
I was thinking maybe some flex seal spray (a lot)
Elastomeric coating or caulk would probably work until you could get something more sturdier for next go.

You’d want to drain that res so no water can leak, dry the area real good.
(I’d use some heavy duty elastomeric caulking) let dry for 10-15 mins.. (longer is better but you have to worry about those roots too)
Click to expand...
Yes the roots are an issue too and I can't expose them without damage. I'll try draining and sealing again first. I'll limp through as long as I can. It soaked 2 bath towels so far. I'll mess with it when lights are back on.
 
thenasty1

thenasty1

Well-Known Member
Mak'er Grow said:
I wonder how that flex seal tape or paint would work in this situation...it seals even in wet conditions I think the advertisements say...just a thought.
Good luck and happy growin'. :P
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flex seal failed me recently. wouldnt contain anything, just moved the point where the water was coming from. turned out the bulkhead just needed to be tightened
that reminds me. @Distortionist did you try tightening your bulkhead?
 
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