# Dwc



## Puffin Afatty (Nov 20, 2008)

_Howdy Hydro Folks :ciao:_

_:farm: Finally, I've decided, after 18 years of doing it the same way [flood and drain] to switch My grow to DWC _

_I have read about it, helped others set it UP, kept a couple Moms in it, even did a cloner once, but never used one as my primary grow thru harvest and would appreciate the advice of experienced users :hubba: _

_Any tips or tricks  _


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## canibanol cannonball (Nov 20, 2008)

???


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## The Hemp Goddess (Nov 20, 2008)

Puffin Afatty said:
			
		

> _Howdy Hydro Folks :ciao:_
> 
> _:farm: Finally, I've decided, after 18 years of doing it the same way [flood and drain] to switch My grow to DWC _
> 
> ...



Well, as you know, I am a dedicated DWC grower (it is just so easy), and, ohhhh, I have so many questions.  I'm curious what motivated your switch.  What kind of set up are you looking at?  How many plants you going to do?


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## Lastritez (Nov 20, 2008)

I'm using DWC, and from the reading I have done I personally think its the best way to go for small time personal grows. Its not expensive to put together, and if you make a mistake with your nutes, you just empty the res and start again, no need to flush.

Not sure what you mean by tips, but I can tell you how I will do it, if thats any help?

I use 4 x 20 gallon buckets, each plant sits in a net pot with clay beads. I have a good sized air stone in each bucket connected to a fairly powerfull air pump, generates planty of air into the water, help keeps the nutes mixed, and get food to the roots as they grow. With the old small pump I was using the water wasn't aggitated enough and you could see the nutes collecting on the bottom, I will still check this every day, when I do my checks, and I got a simple hand whisk to help mix it all back up again, but with the new powerfull air pump, the tests I have done look much better.

I start off with the water just below the level of the pot, and as the roots develop and grow I lower the amount of water, till the bucket is about 1/4 - 1/3 full, and keep it there. I don't use the 'recomended' dose of nutes, but start at about 30% and slowly work up, watching the plants for any signs of over or underfeeding, and adjust my feed as needed. Keep my PH balanced and checked once or twice a day, at lights on and lights off, to measure any drastic daily swings in PH. Check the PH of you feed AFTER you have put the nutes in, as this can sometimes affect it.

Get at PPM (parts per million) pen, and check your water (if possible use distilled or RO (reverse osmosis) water, distilled water is very expensive where I am, but you can pick up and RO machine pretty cheap from fleebay, these types of water are 'pure' so have little or no crap in them, water straight from the tap is full of crap, and also chlorine and other stuff the water companies put into it, if you are unable to use these types, then at least make sure you let you water stand for 24 hours to remove the chlorine) I am not exactly sure what the recommended PPM is, but the info is on the site somewhere, so a bit of digging should find it, or no doubt someone will reply with that info, but I think the less crap disolved into it, the better, rain water is aparently very good, but don;t use rain water that has been collected through the guttering after is drained off your roof.

Make sure your buckets are light proof, any light getting into your bucket can cause algae and other nasty stuff to start to grow inside, and thats not good. I use black buckets, and black airline, and I seal the hole where the airline enters to amke sure no light gets in. You can also get some covers to go around the base of the plant and cover the top of the pot, but I don't use them, and not had a problem with light getting in through the pot of beads.

Some people will change the water once a week or every 10 days, some don't, I personally don't, but monitor and top up when needed, from what I can tell there are 2 schools of thought on water changing, neither is wrong, personal choice IMO.

The bets tip I can give is daily monitoring and inspection of the plants, roots and water. I trick I have learnt is to take a photo when the lights come on of the plants and the root balls, and then take another just before the lights go out, I can then view them on my PC, and spot any changes in growth as well as any changes is problems. I keep all the photo's so I can also look at them at week start and week end, and month start and month end. I keep all the photos on a CD/RW or DVD/RW so that the images are not kept on my PC and I can hide the disc almost anywhere. I also keep a diary of what I have done, when I have done it, and how much I did, makes looking back much easier, I can see where I went wrong or right and adjust as needed.

I shall be starting my first grow, in my new grow room, in a few weeks (hopefully), as I am still learning alot (thanks to all the info from the guys and girls on MP), so my grow journal will be on here, and I will be filling that with everything I am doing, so feel free to watch that and the replies I get telling me where I am going wrong and right.

and I thought it was gogin to be as simple as putting a few plants under a special light hahahahahahah


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## Puffin Afatty (Nov 20, 2008)

*
I am switching because I think the DWC is the best way to provide nutes to your plants, I mean, 24/0, you cant get better than that, eh :aok:
:farm: Here's my plan--I'll take the old res, put the lid on it and cut some holes [4-6] for the net pots, I'll add an air pump and airstone to add air to res, when clones root, I'll put them into netpots, surround with hygroton, put netpots into lid, so the roots can touch the nutes and grow down into res

I'm using GH Flora Series 3-part, at about 800-1000 ppm and a ph of 5.6-5.8

I'll be lst'ing the plants to increase canopy and regenerating at least 2x

I use co2 at 1500ppm w/constant ventilation, 400w hps and the temps run 65-85*


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## andy52 (Nov 20, 2008)

nobody can give you any advice you don't already know my friend,lol


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## Lastritez (Nov 20, 2008)

well I am no expert but it looks ok to me, just make sure you have a good strong air pump to mix and keep the feed well mixed. I know someone who put a water pump into his res to help there, works great with the airstones, he uses one large res with a cover on it, and not buckets like I do. Once your roots are getting to the feed, lower the level of the feed, I bring mine down from about 1/4 - 1/3 full.


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## Puffin Afatty (Nov 20, 2008)

*I just like to hear other Folks ideas sometime, eh Andy :aok:

I cant possibly know everything, just most of the salient points :rofl:

:watchplant: BTW, I snipped 8 clones this afternoon from my SnowWhite, dipped em into my 25 yr old rootone powder, popped em into pre-soaked ph adjusted rockwool and set the cubes into the hygroton set-UP with SnowWhite.  Pump is running for 15 minutes every hour, light is hanging about 20 inches above em 
*


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## andy52 (Nov 20, 2008)

puffin one day soon when we get legal here in our beautiful state,i would love to meet you.you are the master and i would love to burn one with ya and just sit down and question you.be well my friend.


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## IRISH (Nov 25, 2008)

hey PA. whats goin on? been a while. .
i'm switching over from soil to dwc myself. i'll be doing my new set up in the next few weeks. i got a question for all. do you think it would be more feasible to have one rez , or multiple? ( 1 plant- 1 rez ; or more than one plant-in one rez)?
all plants may not like the same ppm. some may need more nutes, some less. with persay , 4 plants in one rez, this would'nt be possible. just my thoughts. any input?
i'm gonna do up multiples, therefore i can do more than 1 given strain.
good luck PA on the switch over...bb...


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## Dexter (Nov 26, 2008)

Too easy for you my friend, I doubt you will have any problems.. maybe a little more time on your hands 
Dex  

...so whats the plan? How many plants? recirc etc?  Keen to see, as I got to do a little expanding.


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## andy52 (Nov 26, 2008)

banjo,if i was you i would start with the 5 gal buckets 1st.get a feel for it and then do it however you wish.like i told you,just let me know when you are ready and i will help you any time


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## The Hemp Goddess (Nov 26, 2008)

I agree with Andy.  Unless you have a large grow, I think that individual 5 gal buckets is the way to go also.


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## Puffin Afatty (Nov 26, 2008)

*I am only using the one 400w HPS with a growing diameter of 40-44 inches, and I think it would be harder to fit the buckets in versus the single 20 gallon rubbermaid tub, however, if you think moving the plants around, maybe a light mover would suffice :hubba:*


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