Need some advice on a watering system I might be inventing...

ex1stence

Member
So before I ask for any advice on this system I came up with, I should go about explaining it the best way I can. So...it's a 6-bucket, drip hydroponic-aeroponic, ebb and flow, DWC recirculating system.

A mouthful, I know.

How does a system as complex as this work, you might be asking yourself? For starters, I have a 20 gallon reservoir holding a nutrient solution and several different items; an 80 GPH pump hooked up to 1/4 inch line, a 240gph pump hooked up to a half inch line, and a 7 inch ice probe running at full capacity. These are all hooked up to various timers that go off at various times, but the 80gph is moving constantly alongside the ice probe.

The 80gph is running lines into the top of 5-gallon buckets with 6-inch-neti's, that are both part of a constant drip ring, and down into the buckets themselves where they are fed into aeroponic foggers that are constantly running in the chambers. The bottoms of the buckets have half-inch running in and out of them for both filling and draining on a gravity based ebb-and-flow table, but here is where things get weird.

I have the 240gph running on a timer, along with air stones that run into each individual bucket. Every three hours, the system floods and keeps the airstones running for an hour, after which it drains back down into the reservoir via the half inch line. The aeroponic foggers and drip continues to run, while the "ebb-and-DWC" rests, repeating 6 times throughout the day.

Before anyone cries foul, I just want to show off the merit of what this system accomplishes. Through multiple pumps, timers, separate lines, and buckets it effectively combines every type of watering system available, over the course of the day, spread evenly throughout as though it were anything else. I still haven't decided on the specific times I want to run the system (3-1, 2-2, 4-2,) or whether it might just be a little excessive overall, but I want to hear everyone's thoughts, and if maybe I just invented some new system I could take to market?

I welcome all input, but if you've come to hate on a new way of trying things, please direct it elsewhere! :)
 

Plebscrubber

Active Member
you say...

I welcome all input, but if you've come to hate on a new way of trying things, please direct it elsewhere!

Thats basically saying that you only want positive feedback...

Sorry but its a shit idea, all that extra complexity wont give your plants any better growth than a straight DWC setup...

Your just adding more things that can go wrong

Remember that there are people who have been doing this for a lot longer than us and know a lot more than us... dont try to re-invent the wheel, stick to what the pro's do
 

ex1stence

Member
Eh, wasn't the best way to phrase it but all I meant was that I was looking for input on the idea itself, but no one coming here to just say "it sucks because it sucks", thats all.
 

mrduke

Well-Known Member
to me it seem extremly excesive what you are doing is just delivering the "water" to the roots 3 different ways, with all of them over lapping each other. If I'm understanding you corectly. Seem is they would become overwatered, why not just stick with one delivery system and loose a bunch of the hassel. As far as selling a unit like this good luck people like easy thats why 90% of hydro is flood tables, they flood they drain simple and effective you cant beat that. Just some food for thought, good luck anyway
 

Serapis

Well-Known Member
That is nuts.... you are setting yourself up for failure... too many variables, too many timers.... too many things to go wrong...

If it works for you, congrats. I like trying different methods too, but not all at once.. :roll:
 

zem

Well-Known Member
sorry man, i have been lmao since i read first post, hurting my stomach now lol this is like a riddle. theres absolutely no point in trying to somehow forcefeed the plant with multiple types of feeding, actually aero is the best way for feeding but even then most people dont do it because the added benefit of doing it is not worth the extra effort needed to run it. with your "system"s you're running so much shit along with aero your oly diminishing the feeding adding complexity so many pumps more heat so many timing schedules haha sorry back to lmao
 

Stonetech

Well-Known Member
I think what people are tryin to say is that more is not always better and your better off keeping it more simple.

That being said maybe you should at least ditch 2 out of your 4 delivery systems, you would still be tryin somethin new IMO. I'm runnin a small homemade flood/drain at the moment that i adapted to also run RDWC because of my seriously low temps in the winter. With the RDWC I can keep my rootzone at acceptable temps more easily. Its my first time running RDWC, but after I get some real experience with it I have thought about mixing the two together.. If you lost the drip and fog, I'd be interested to see what your results would be from the flood/drain x RDWC.

I've been hearing great things about RDWC just seems to be really expensive to run. If you ran a RDWC that drained periodically it would cut down on some of the costs and maybe still provide some of the benefits, not sure though.

Anyways, kudos for tryin somethin new but i think you need to tone it down.
 
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