2 general questions

Hey all 1st dwc grow here only 2 weeks in.
Question I have is this.
Is Lifting up the net pot daily to take the ph reading a bad idea? I'm thinking constantly exposing the roots is a bad idea? Can someone please shed some light.

Second question. When the bucket becomes full of roots how do you remove the lid? Doesn't the roots get tangled in the airline? Therefore when you remove the lid you're likely going to rip some roots off?

Just trying to get my head around everything so I'm prepared for when the day comes.

Here's my ak47 at 2 weeks


Thanks for taking a look

Nope you won't hurt em popping the top of your bucket off to check ph but now you can see why a lot of growers like a central res with a recirculating bucket system. I tell my roots jokes sometimes & they don't even care. Unless you forget to put the lid back on something the roots should be fine: a few mins of exposure won't kill em. Your air hoses will become entwined in the roots just try to keep them off to one side... Pulling roots out takes a lot of doing; if you are gentle it shouldn't become an issue. Expect some smaller roots to fall off into the res- this is normal.

Thanks for the input.
Much appreciated

Run the air hose down the net pot and use a little valve a few inches above the lid to disconnect it. This allows the airstone to move with the roots. It is much easier to have a small(2") hole on edge of lid for access to testing and then there is no need to remove lid until time to change res.

Lifting the net pot everyday isnt that bad of an idea as long as your careful, you just don't want to rub the roots up against the open holes or get them tangled in the air line, like superstoner said, you can add a valve at the top or you can disconnect the air stone at the bottom of the bucket and the hose will slide right out.

Normally if your cut the hole for your net pot in the center of the lid then you can just slide the lid backwards and it will still rest on the top of the bucket while leaving almost half the bucket open to work with, if not just cut a hole in the lid that you can access without having to take the top off.