DIY RDWC - First Timer - Any Advice Welcome

F

FuqStiK

Active Member
bongsmilie
So I recently moved into a new house with a wonderful upstairs loft - finally an area to start a grow (Haven't done this in 15 years)
Any and all help is appreciated.

 
fragileassassin

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
Use 12s or 17s for 1 plant. 27 fits 2 nicely but is a bit overkill for a single plant.
I grow pretty big plants in my 17s and dont have issues with adventuring roots.

Connect your 3 totes on the bottom with 2" ABS/PVC and simplify your design. You dont need that much plumbing for 2 sites.
A single pipe to each tote or using a T in the middle of everything to connect them would be more than sufficient. Bulkheads arent cheap. Dont use a bunch you dont have to. Its expensive and adds unnecessary potential leaks.
pump out of your control res and back to waterfalls into each site by running the black tubing from your pump to a pvc manifold behind the 2 totes.
101478030_2626417384344855_1984962399051972608_n.jpg

@Airwalker16 do you have the build links?
Going to make that part of my upcoming post too.
 
Airwalker16

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
fragileassassin said:
Use 12s or 17s for 1 plant. 27 fits 2 nicely but is a bit overkill for a single plant.
I grow pretty big plants in my 17s and dont have issues with adventuring roots.

Connect your 3 totes on the bottom with 2" ABS/PVC and simplify your design. You dont need that much plumbing for 2 sites.
A single pipe to each tote or using a T in the middle of everything to connect them would be more than sufficient. Bulkheads arent cheap. Dont use a bunch you dont have to. Its expensive and adds unnecessary potential leaks.
pump out of your control res and back to waterfalls into each site by running the black tubing from your pump to a pvc manifold behind the 2 totes.
View attachment 4585454

@Airwalker16 do you have the build links?
Going to make that part of my upcoming post too.
Click to expand...
What do you mean build links? Also plumb it the second way. That way each tote has its own pipe to the res rather than connecting. Bit better flow. Not that it'd matter. But it's just an extra bulkhead. Its 2 elbows rather than a tee and it gives him room in front for his pump to sit nicely.
 
fragileassassin

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
Airwalker16 said:
What do you mean build links? Also plumb it the second way. That way each tote has its own pipe to the res rather than connecting. Bit better flow. Not that it'd matter. But it's just an extra bulkhead. Its 2 elbows rather than a tee and it gives him room in front for his pump to sit nicely.
Click to expand...
youre always linking a bunch of our threads figured maybe you had em saved in a document by now or something lol
 
F

FuqStiK

Active Member
fragileassassin said:
Use 12s or 17s for 1 plant. 27 fits 2 nicely but is a bit overkill for a single plant.
I grow pretty big plants in my 17s and dont have issues with adventuring roots.

Connect your 3 totes on the bottom with 2" ABS/PVC and simplify your design. You dont need that much plumbing for 2 sites.
A single pipe to each tote or using a T in the middle of everything to connect them would be more than sufficient. Bulkheads arent cheap. Dont use a bunch you dont have to. Its expensive and adds unnecessary potential leaks.
pump out of your control res and back to waterfalls into each site by running the black tubing from your pump to a pvc manifold behind the 2 totes.
View attachment 4585454

@Airwalker16 do you have the build links?
Going to make that part of my upcoming post too.
Click to expand...
Okay so I'll do 2 plants in each 27 tote. I plan on using 2" PVC all the way around. Sorry for any dumb questions, I'm really a noob with Hydroponics - I've done soil for many years, but trying to build the correct, most efficient concept is important to me. So you're saying if I do the 2nd build as suggested by @Airwalker16, should I connect the back two tubs together for better flow? or only connect them to the control and pump out the control and waterfall them back in from tubing?

As for the PVC manifold, do you happen have an example of a diy pvc manifold?
 
GBAUTO

GBAUTO

Well-Known Member
I run a 4 tote UC style system using 17 gal totes.
I don't use a control rez, just the 4 totes connected in series with a 750gph mag drive pump to dump through waterfalls to the 1st tote.
I did add a chiller this year, but if your environmentals aren't too hot it will work.
photos.app.goo.gl

New item by GBAUTO

photos.app.goo.gl photos.app.goo.gl
 
Airwalker16

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
fragileassassin said:
youre always linking a bunch of our threads figured maybe you had em saved in a document by now or something lol
Click to expand...

I GOTTA LOSE THE AIR PUMPS! HOW?! Plus my awesome mini DWC :)

That thing is way overpriced. The whole thing sits on a very simple method of splitting the water to oxygen and hydrogen. In big system I’d be worried about the hydrogen gas... I was looking around and saw 2 more very interesting thing. First one called Carmin. I don’t really get how it...
www.rollitup.org

I GOTTA LOSE THE AIR PUMPS! HOW?! Plus my awesome mini DWC :)

That's cool man. Pretty low-key. I think you'll be surprised at the pressure of mine. i can't remember now, but its some where around 5-600 gph
www.rollitup.org

70gal RDWC Waterfall update

Alright, it wasn’t the most fun I had at 3am on a Monday night, but I got it done. After the idea was planted to update my month old system to waterfalls I just had to do it ASAP. I currently have a grow on the go but I am at half capacity so it worked out. Systems is 5x25gal totes filed to...
www.rollitup.org
 
F

FuqStiK

Active Member
Airwalker16 said:

I GOTTA LOSE THE AIR PUMPS! HOW?! Plus my awesome mini DWC :)

That thing is way overpriced. The whole thing sits on a very simple method of splitting the water to oxygen and hydrogen. In big system I’d be worried about the hydrogen gas... I was looking around and saw 2 more very interesting thing. First one called Carmin. I don’t really get how it...
www.rollitup.org

I GOTTA LOSE THE AIR PUMPS! HOW?! Plus my awesome mini DWC :)

That's cool man. Pretty low-key. I think you'll be surprised at the pressure of mine. i can't remember now, but its some where around 5-600 gph
www.rollitup.org

70gal RDWC Waterfall update

Alright, it wasn’t the most fun I had at 3am on a Monday night, but I got it done. After the idea was planted to update my month old system to waterfalls I just had to do it ASAP. I currently have a grow on the go but I am at half capacity so it worked out. Systems is 5x25gal totes filed to...
www.rollitup.org
Click to expand...
Thanks for the links as well :) I was looking at the manifold in the 3rd grow and this is what I got from it... I think.

So there will just be a submersible air pump in the control that's pushing the flow one direction and then another air pump that's going to pull from the control and waterfall out into the totes themselves. What about airstones?

Tell me if I'm completely incorrect here33
rdwc.png
 
F

FuqStiK

Active Member
GBAUTO said:
I run a 4 tote UC style system using 17 gal totes.
I don't use a control rez, just the 4 totes connected in series with a 750gph mag drive pump to dump through waterfalls to the 1st tote.
I did add a chiller this year, but if your environmentals aren't too hot it will work.
photos.app.goo.gl

New item by GBAUTO

photos.app.goo.gl photos.app.goo.gl
Click to expand...
That's pretty cool. You ever done a build like this before?
 
Airwalker16

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
FuqStiK said:
Thanks for the links as well :) I was looking at the manifold in the 3rd grow and this is what I got from it... I think.

So there will just be a submersible air pump in the control that's pushing the flow one direction and then another air pump that's going to pull from the control and waterfall out into the totes themselves. What about airstones?

Tell me if I'm completely incorrect here33
View attachment 4585891
Click to expand...
NO air pumps
 
Airwalker16

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
FuqStiK said:
Thanks for the links as well :) I was looking at the manifold in the 3rd grow and this is what I got from it... I think.

So there will just be a submersible air pump in the control that's pushing the flow one direction and then another air pump that's going to pull from the control and waterfall out into the totes themselves. What about airstones?

Tell me if I'm completely incorrect here33
View attachment 4585891
Click to expand...
Wrong.
 
fragileassassin

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
FuqStiK said:
Thanks for the links as well :) I was looking at the manifold in the 3rd grow and this is what I got from it... I think.

So there will just be a submersible air pump in the control that's pushing the flow one direction and then another air pump that's going to pull from the control and waterfall out into the totes themselves. What about airstones?

Tell me if I'm completely incorrect here33
View attachment 4585891
Click to expand...
reduce to half inch or make sure you use small holes in your sites.
Take both air pumps out of the picture and replace the inline pump with like a 400gph water pump. Thats exactly how id plumb it, though you dont need the pipe connecting the two totes really. Blue line up top, yellow lines down low.
 
Airwalker16

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
Here man, I'll lay it right out for ya so there's no confusion. I personally think you should use 4 4gal square black buckets and one 8 gal ez store container for your res instead of the 3 27s but to each their own. Sometimes ed stores can be hard to find or are expensive. But any blaco container with flat sides that's roughly the same HEIGHT as the buckets with a larger holding volume will work.IMAG0756.jpg
IMAG0757.jpg
 
F

FuqStiK

Active Member
Airwalker16 said:
Wrong.
Click to expand...
Hahaha, I figured I was. No shame, I've been trying to read all of these DIY articles and watch videos, but there's so many variations of builds it gets confusing.

fragileassassin said:
reduce to half inch or make sure you use small holes in your sites.
Take both air pumps out of the picture and replace the inline pump with like a 400gph water pump. Thats exactly how id plumb it, though you dont need the pipe connecting the two totes really. Blue line up top, yellow lines down low.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the advice, I truly appreciate it :)
 
F

FuqStiK

Active Member
Airwalker16 said:
Here man, I'll lay it right out for ya so there's no confusion. I personally think you should use 4 4gal square black buckets and one 8 gal ez store container for your res instead of the 3 27s but to each their own. Sometimes ed stores can be hard to find or are expensive. But any blaco container with flat sides that's roughly the same HEIGHT as the buckets with a larger holding volume will work.View attachment 4585930
View attachment 4585931
Click to expand...
Yeah I have one too many brain cells dormant, never was great with word problems lollll. Okay, so I'm definitely taking your advice, I'm not going to use the 27 gal totes.
I'm going to get my shopping list together today :grin:bongsmilie
So the idea looks to be very similar if not identical to this:
Capture.PNG
 
Airwalker16

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
FuqStiK said:
Yeah I have one too many brain cells dormant, never was great with word problems lollll. Okay, so I'm definitely taking your advice, I'm not going to use the 27 gal totes.
I'm going to get my shopping list together today :grin:bongsmilie
So the idea looks to be very similar if not identical to this:
View attachment 4586172
Click to expand...
Holy hell man.... You just dont get it... It's literally nothing like that. That is an under current system. The only thing similar is the gravity return lines which on that build flow AWAY from the res.
 
Airwalker16

Airwalker16

Well-Known Member
GBAUTO said:
I had built an 8-bucket RDWC system a couple of years before.
After repeated leaks/clogs I ditched it for the UC style.
Very Simple.
Click to expand...
I didn't have one single leak and I even used uniseals. But they're for curved surfaces specifically. If you would have used square containers and bulkheads, you'd have had zero leaks.
 
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