Reuse hydrophonic water

Hi,

First post here

I'm setting up 3 rdwc systems that will hold about 200 liters of water. Right now I have tap water where I have the plants, but for winter they shut of the water for 5-6 months so it wont freeze. Theres a tap outside that I can fill and carry the water 500 meters, but a; that would suck and b; some people might wonder why I am carrying all that water every week. I am looking into if its possible to reuse the water somehow?

I've found some articles about using RO systems and ozon generators with a airstone connected to it in the water. Does anyone have experience with this?

I'm thinking that I can pump the water from the res into a container when I am changing water and then rinse it between runs. Then I can carry only the extra water the plants will actually drink.

I've grown 3 runs in soil now and hydro is new to me

No input?

Doesn't sound like hydro is the way to go in the winter.

One tip, I run my nutrients for a whole cycle, then dump.

I sent an email to advanced nutrients which is the nuts I use and they said I would need to run it through at RO system to reuse the water..

Should be able to do it.. I have 3 x 200 liter tanks there so I can store quiet a bit of water and then I can carry some of it in a backpack.. I am there 3-4 times a day anyway.

Are there any guides on using the nuts for a whole cycle.. like how to top up and such? All the guides I've read says to change every 7-10 days

you'll be replacing RO filters quite frequently. that will become expensive.

How many liters do you think I can run through before I would need to change out the filter?

I see there is some local supplier of filter here that has a pretty cheap alternative.. The sediment filter can run 14000L before it needs to be changed and the carbon filter 2000L, but its not very expensive.. I already have a RO system, but I might buy some extra filter holders and filters to run it all through..

depends what your starting ppm's will be. if you are trying to filter res water of 1000ppm they won't last long versus trying to filter water that is only 200ppm.

You do realize that an RO filter wastes 2/3 of the input water.

What you could do, have the used nutrients lab tested to see what PPM is left of each nutrient including micro nutrients.

Then calculate what needs to be added to bring it back up to where it was when you started a run. There is a calculator spreadsheet in the PPM thread linked in my signature. Ill post it here too. That could help you calculate add backs.

Using dry salts you could probably get things pretty close if you did the work. Having a reference test of a starting mix would be good.

Renfro said:

What you could do, have the used nutrients lab tested to see what PPM is left of each nutrient including micro nutrients.

Then calculate what needs to be added to bring it back up to where it was when you started a run. There is a calculator spreadsheet in the PPM thread linked in my signature. Ill post it here too. That could help you calculate add backs.

Using dry salts you could probably get things pretty close if you did the work. Having a reference test of a starting mix would be good.

Click to expand...

That would work. However it’s a shit ton of work and one would need to pretty pretty advanced in mixing ( like yourself) to accomplish that successfully

Well it looks like your hauling water in the cold. lol

Why don’t you just stick to soil? Or even soilless( promix) seems like hydro is a way bigger hassle and will take the fun out of it hailing water. Or do what @Renfro said and just run a single tank and entire run and hope for the best.

Scrubbing the water with RO would work in theory but practically it will be a bitch. With holding tanks and you’ll need a separate high pressure pump. Let alone RO isn’t that efficient and you’ll loose 75% of you water to discharge and just end up purchasing filters by the box and still have to haul water anyways?

terno said:

Right now I have tap water where I have the plants, but for winter they shut of the water for 5-6 months so it wont freeze.

Click to expand...

Just have all your neighbors keep their water dripping, and tell Santa to stop shutting the stuff off!

On a serious note- where abouts (generally) are you? I've never heard of getting water turned off for 1/2 the year before. That would suck bad!

Renfro said:

One tip, I run my nutrients for a whole cycle, then dump.

Click to expand...

This is the easiest solution. I've gone two cycles using a simple formula with good tap to begin with. I think you could push it 3 cycles and get out of the winter with perhaps a little less than optimal results but compared to lugging that water, I'd do it.

Renfro: Ah no, I didn't realize that so much water is wasted. That does sounds like a lot of work and I don't think I would want to send anything to a lab around here Sounds like I'll run it with the same water for a full run.. maybe change between veg and flower.. And use Hydroguard with it as well.. the floor is pretty cold there too so I think I actually need to heat the reservoir when it gets colder.. whats your trick to keep the water fresh? H202 or bennies? (Thats the two I've read about)

ToFarGone: I allready built the rdwc system and I am just ready to plant now.

Another thing I have been thinking is too collect water from the roof.. there will be rain water and snow melting on the roof so I can collect that.. I have a 4 stage water cleaner already that has 3 filters and a UV light, but no RO membrane.. would that be enough to clean the rain/snow water?

Dougnsalem: Its a cabin that only has summer water.. gets down to -25C in the winter here.. North on another continent that I think most people on this forum is from

I've also read about changing half of the reservoir, but that was on a more general hydro site and not weed.. is that an option for weed also? I guess we're already doing that with the top off..

i used Lucas with gh so I could keep the same through the whole grow and it works fine.

I use a non recovery rockwol set up. I run 800 watts and four plants, at max I water my plants using 11 liters a day of which i have a run off of 3 liters of water. My point is each plant evaporates 2 liters per day for a total of 8 liters. So keep in mind you will need to top off the rez 2 liters for every plant every day. So if you have three plants it would work out to 6 liters of water per day more or less depending on their size. Do you really want to hike half a click with 6 kilograms or 12 pounds of water every day?

FYI one liter of water is one kilogram.

My advise buy a cheap kids swimming pool and fill it up while the water is still running.

Lol fuck it.. I am going to build my self a DIY water maker.. I have access to sea water 30 meters from the cabin.. I have been looking into making one for my sailboat anyways so might as well do it now Just have to sneak out with a hose after dark when I run it

terno said:

And use Hydroguard with it as well.. the floor is pretty cold there too so I think I actually need to heat the reservoir when it gets colder.. whats your trick to keep the water fresh? H202 or bennies? (Thats the two I've read about)

Click to expand...

Well using bennies is gonna make for a lot of dead bacteria making sludge. I would consider running sterile if possible since you wanna reuse water. I always run my flood and drain systems sterile and run the reservoir for the whole cycle. Bear in mind that with a short veg or even no veg from clones. So H2O2 or pool shock would be the way to go. You may wanna run the water through a basic sediment filter between cycles if you aren't going to start with new water, just to clean it up a little.

As to lab testing the water for nutrients, there are labs that do that for agriculture. May be something to look into in the future. If you can manipulate the existing nutrients in the used juice to bring the PPM's up to par then you could really just replace the water that is last through transpiration. Even reclaim some of that from condensate if you have dehumidifiers and AC units.