vaccuum to drain individual DWC buckets instead of drilling holes (on the CHEAP)

jeffort

Active Member
Backgound/Problem:

I have 10 individual DWC bubble buckets. I say individual because they have no holes or tubes connecting to eachother or another res.
In order to change res, I imagined rotating 5 gallon pales by preparing a res in a spare pale, and just picking the lid and plant off the current res onto the new one.
It's generally working out pretty epically but proves very difficult in order to change the res!
The problem is that my plants are starting to get huge. Obviously this is actually for very obvious reasons a good thing other than having to move them.
I chose that I did not want to implement drains because of the risk of leaks, ability to clean the buckets between grows, and the added cost *Edit: And to not sacrifice any vertical space at all.

So,

Solution:
in order to change out the res, I decided to rig up a home made wet vacuum. Using a household non-wet vac, non-destructively.

Materials:

- household vacuum with hose attachment
- 5 gallon pale and lid, with thick walls preferably
- knife
- smooth garden hose. although flexible is nice I used something with a thicker wall due to vacuum... honestly due to that's what i had on hand :)

Instructions:

- Ok this is really simple. Why do I make everything out to be a project?

- Cut holes big enough in the lid for the vacuum hose, and the garden hose, so that there is minimal air leakage and to keep the hoses in tight.

- Cut a small pressure release hole somewhere else in the lid to minimize stress on the vacuum and prevent the bucket from IMPLODING. (This happened with a Home Depot bucket)

- Stuff ur hose in the hole... (uh huhuhhuhuh uhuhuh huhh)

- Stuff the hose down one bubble bucket at a time and turn on the vac! It sucks all the water dry then you can just fill it with new solution.

- Wash your hands
 
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