2014 Undercurrent Palooza

MXW3LL

Well-Known Member
how much time do you actually spend tending to your girls? i'm scared of dwc because i'm afraid of leaving them alone for at least 12 hours a day, sometimes 24. (of course coco and rockwool is a safe bet for this amount of time.)

but seriously, how much time do your girls get a day...?
 

TheGreenHornet

Well-Known Member
dude.. let me start by clarifying that I am a complete lazy ass.
unfortunately, my girls are like, errr.. 3rd down on my list of priorities, which is why they suffered so much this past round. 1] school, 2] not getting caught 3] getting laid/ gardening 4] gardening/getting laid.. something like that.

It depends on whats going on.
-Flushing out and cleaning the reservoirs is what takes the most time, aside from construction of your RDWC system itself. I do this every 2-3 weeks (should do it once a week), and it takes about 5 hours for my flower system, and 5-6 hours for my veg totes. This is mostly because of the speed of my RO system (200gpd) which is slow. Takes 35-40 minutes to fill a 5gal jug.
-Adding nutes takes about an hour when needed. I try to check them once a day, and when they are really doing well, I need to add nutes every other day or so.
In conclusion, I spend about 10 hours a week maintaining my indoor garden when everything is working as it should.
The absolute BEST thing about RDWC dude.. the best.. is that I can leave my plants for up to a week at a time. During this time they might get low on nutes, but they recover very quickly in DWC. So if you want a garden that you can leave for days, RDWC is perfect man.
 

TheGreenHornet

Well-Known Member
hey nice grow just took a peek in was wondering how you like your ph monitor. i was thinking of buying 1 if that the on ebay.
The NutraDip trimeter is great - but it is easily affected by electronic interference. If you are running HID lights, I recommend turning them off before calibration and readings/adjustments to your RDWC. Otherwise, as I learned this grow, it will become less and less accurate over the course of your grow. One of the reasons my final pics look like shit is because my pH was at 3.5 for quite some time, I'm not actually sure how long because I only realized this upon my old trimeter breaking - I ordered a new one and noticed it freaking out during calibration, which in turn allowed me to make this discovery. So at 6 weeks of 12/12 my pH was way off, and only god knows for how long.
BlueLab makes a model called "The Guardian" that is supposed to not be affected by electronics. I have been lookin into that for a next purchase.
 

Hydroburn

Well-Known Member
I thought Extrema was pretty good man, but I have read a few complaints about hermies and low potency. I tried building an undercurrent system with those fucking uniseals but it was a huge fail... I could not stop the leaks no matter what I tried or how much money I threw at it. I was living on the top floor of an apartment at the time and could not risk a 60 gallon flood. Have you seen the spin tight bulkheads from current culture? they are pricey but sound similar to the neowashers you mentioned, and can handle 2" pvc. my first attempt at a uc build was with 3/4" vinyl tubing but my 633gph water pump was sucking the last bucket dry because the water could not flow through the tubing fast enough.

I now use a black 4x4 100 gallon res with 12 2" sites in the lid. fits perfect in my closet although I had to chisel out a new door jam and hinges and put it on backwards so it swings outward.... but no big deal. only inconvenience with the 2" net pots is the plants require support, but if i scrog or use garden wire, no worries. I put my water pump in the res flooming for 02 and it seems as good as uc but without the risk of floods. I change my res once a month and top up half way through... I think if you run a lot of water compared to the amount of plants you have, you can go longer without maintenance because it is more stable... I am lazy as fuck too and made the system because individual buckets suck when you are running 8 of those bitches. I spend about an hour working on my grow room per week... except when changing the res, that takes me one hour to drain fill and mix nutes (using tap water). anyway... not sure why I am rambling on about my shit in your thread.... juwt bored and sober. lookin good man, feel free to send that extrema my way heh...
 
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