URDWC DIY first time advice needed

[Up_in_smoke]

Hi all

I've been away for a little while off growing due to needing to shut down for a bit.
Anyway, starting up again and want to do Hydro this time given HighFlyer's latest effort and pulling it off nicely, it seems like the best way to go.

So him and my old man have been discussing systems lately and think they have what I need so I wanted to run it by everyone and get the advice I need in order to make sure I don't fuck it up.



The above attachment shows the basic plan. Now I was hoping to get that design perfected here and all my questions that the two muppets that told me the system can't answer namely my old man and HighFlyer, lol.

Firstly, they reckon one submersible pump will be enough to do everything, I'm a little skeptical this is the case.
The pump in question I am not sure how many litres per hours it is but apparently its got an 8 way manifold on it so the idea is, 4 branches to feed the 4 pots drip rings, 2 to pump back into the brain pot and 2 to pump back into the res to supposedely oxygenate the system although I personally think this won't be enough and an air pump and stone will be needed to fully oxygenate. The other concern I have on this, if those two lines in each are enough to oxygenate, is this gonna be too much flow for the drip rings? How much flow is too much for those? Is it ok to have drip rings on 24/7 or should the be on like 15mins every hour or something? I am clueless when it comes to Hydro so really need help on this sort of thing.

The other problem I worry about is due to the position of the connecting pipes, when the system is drained, it will leave a bit of nute solution in each pot, how can I overcome this issue or is it nothing to worry about, just empty the remaining water with a jug as best as possible?

How often are you supposed to drain and refill the system? How exactly does the whole nutes, ec, ph, measuring adjusting and draining exactly work? I'm a soil grower, I get the idea with hydro, but I'm not sure on the specifics regarding all that and these two plonkers aint got a clue, lol, although HighFlyer has just pulled off a pretty nice first effort in dwc.

Do I need a water heater/thermostat in the system from like an aquarium? What temp should the nute solution be? Is one heater in the brain pot enough to keep the whole system at the right temp?
I take it all containers and pipework need to be black to reduce algae growth?

Being soil pipe is being used to connect the systems, do I need to worry about roots clogging this up at all and reducing the flow? How big exactly do I need to have my pots, I was thinking about 5 gallon? (thats roughly 25 litre aint it?)
How big do I need my brain pot? How big do I need my res? How long will my res solution last before needing to be refilled?

I want to start off the plants vegging in my veg room still and transfer them over to this system so my plan was to start em vegging in rockwool or similar and veg em for about 2 weeks in net pots in some form of small tray or system that can keep em fine on a much smaller scale so that when they are ready to flip (not gonna flip em very big as the whole urdwc part should create monsters anyway right? so I've been led to believe) I can simply take the net pot into my flower room and dunk it into my fixed system.

I think that just about covers my queries, I appreciate its a rather large post and covers quite a bit, I'll be asking you all to feckin grow em for me next, lol.
Thanks in advance guys, hoping for a wonderful outcome and I know you can help me make it happen.

Happy farming

[Hannibal]

Hi fella have a look through my thread I'm where HFFH has got alot of his information and if he's only using one pump he's not looked in recently. My system now has three pumps which aren't absolutly neccessary but it does improve it alot. I'm only at the begining of things myself but I am ahead of you so my thread is a good place to start as it will answer alot of your questions.

Regards GG

[old skool toker]

yeah hydro is the way mate........one pump is enough,but you dont want a submersible one as this will cause heat issue,s,the airstones are not defo needed,but i personaly do use a 90 ltr per min airpump,people will mention flooming instead but thats what my airstones are doing anyway(agitate the water surface)noise is a issue tho.your system will need to run 24/7 with no exeptions.the pipes are the same as mine and you,ll need a battery powered fish tank syphon to get in the pots.you,ll need to keep the nutes at around 18c,with a heater in the cold and a chiller or frozen pop bottles of water in the heat.the water needs replacing regulary,this differs between peoples grows and nutes they use ect.the roots can be stopped by a gauze over the soil pipe.you wont be able to transfer the rockwool cube and flip straight away as you,ll need to grow out the root system first,the top always mirrors the bottom.ie the roots will slow for the canopy to get bigger and visa versa the canopy will slow at first to alllow the roots to catch up........dont worry about turn around as theese will yield well enough mate.the nutes will need a meter like min(in my diary)....my water pump pumps 1000 ltr a min i,d personaly go one higher to be safe with 4 buckets.....oh the brain should be the same size as the growing pots.hope this helps,i aint an expert as you,ll see from the diary but if i can help anymore just let me know..........consider making waterfarms instead,if you look at my set up,the pipes on the floor are a fucking nusiance lol....but above all enjoy the journey and the best of luck up in........

[Hannibal]

Thats a much better answer Old Skool Toker the use of airstones is key to the number of pumps. When you are using flumes to generate oxygen they require more flow thats why in my system I am using 3 pumps a 3000ltr for the main circulation and resevior flume and two 1000ltr pumps to produce the flumes in the pots. you could do away with the two flum pumps if you down the air route. Which is a whole different topic as to which supposed to work better. Pretty much everthing else has been covered by Old skool toker, other than that have a look at some more threads to get some more ideas.

[DrGreen]

waterfall in the res then each feed line waterfalls in, loads od DO there m8 i use only a 4000lph on my system lol nothin els better thn any airstone i used read my sigs good luck

110mm soil pipe = no leak/block, but i use 110mm threaded connectors too they never come off lol, £13 each tho lol

[Up_in_smoke]

Hi fella have a look through my thread I'm where HFFH has got alot of his information and if he's only using one pump he's not looked in recently. My system now has three pumps which aren't absolutly neccessary but it does improve it alot. I'm only at the begining of things myself but I am ahead of you so my thread is a good place to start as it will answer alot of your questions.

Regards GG

Nice one mate.
Yeah I spoke to HFFH earlier today, I got it wrong, he did mention more pumps, my dad had the idea of one pump but my dad isn't a grower, he's a DIY god and can do plumbing and stuff so I was skeptical. I'll be happy to enlighten him.

[Up_in_smoke]

yeah hydro is the way mate........one pump is enough,but you dont want a submersible one as this will cause heat issue,s,the airstones are not defo needed,but i personaly do use a 90 ltr per min airpump,people will mention flooming instead but thats what my airstones are doing anyway(agitate the water surface)noise is a issue tho.your system will need to run 24/7 with no exeptions.the pipes are the same as mine and you,ll need a battery powered fish tank syphon to get in the pots.you,ll need to keep the nutes at around 18c,with a heater in the cold and a chiller or frozen pop bottles of water in the heat.the water needs replacing regulary,this differs between peoples grows and nutes they use ect.the roots can be stopped by a gauze over the soil pipe.you wont be able to transfer the rockwool cube and flip straight away as you,ll need to grow out the root system first,the top always mirrors the bottom.ie the roots will slow for the canopy to get bigger and visa versa the canopy will slow at first to alllow the roots to catch up........dont worry about turn around as theese will yield well enough mate.the nutes will need a meter like min(in my diary)....my water pump pumps 1000 ltr a min i,d personaly go one higher to be safe with 4 buckets.....oh the brain should be the same size as the growing pots.hope this helps,i aint an expert as you,ll see from the diary but if i can help anymore just let me know..........consider making waterfarms instead,if you look at my set up,the pipes on the floor are a fucking nusiance lol....but above all enjoy the journey and the best of luck up in........

Cool, great response OST, thanks dude. Yeah, glad to be moving over to Hydro seeing how good it can go with my own eyes.
Right, no submersible, ok, I'll find out what they've already bought cause they mentioned today its something like 1200ltr/h, no idea on submersible or not but my old man led me to believe it was.
Airstones not needed, ok, this sounds cool, I've heard about this waterfall effect supposedely being better than an airstone, my worry is like you say, noise. Obviously with my loft setup its all enclosed and so shouldn't be a huge deal, but I'm concerned it may be noticable so gonna see how it goes at the mo. Are airstones quieter? I mean airpumps in general have a dull hum to them so that makes that method instantly have some noise.

24/7 should be no problem, I always run my fans 24/7 and in fact used to veg on 24's so used to running full time. I keep house visitors to an absoloute minimum. Fish tank syphon, so thats for removing the remaining water on draining I take it? Nice, will look into that.

18c should be achievable constantly I think, I don't think I should need a chiller, well I hope not anyway, my room intakes from my bedroom and my house is kept constantly around 22c, my general lights off temp is around 18c and lights on 25c so I would expect the water to just need a heater. Is a bog standard fish tank heater/thermostat suitable? And do I have one for the brain pot and one for the res?

I'll be using Hesi's full range of Hydro nutes, when you say regularly, what, once every few days? once a week? once a fortnight?

Gauze, check, great idea, I had thought of that but wasn't sure if the roots still got through the gauze. My old man just said, I doubt they'll block em up, that answer aint really suitable in my book, I like definites, not maybes.

Sorry, I think you slightly misunderstood me on the bringing them on scenario, what I meant was, can I get them on from cuttings or whatever in rockwool, pot them up into their net pots and put them in a temporary smaller system until about 2-3 weeks veg as from what I've read, I think this is right, you flip about when the roots hit the DWC water? So a smaller bucket shouldn't make any difference right? Also as the plants are only small, they can be a lot closer together (as my veg room is half the size of my flower room so I couldn't fit an exact replica of the system in that room). Then just lift the net pot out the small system and put it in the flower room in the main system.

As for meters, I've got an HM digital ph Meter and was gonna buy an HM digital EC meter next week. They good enough? Or am I gonna need one of these truncheons or something?

I take it you meant 1000ltr an hour for your pump? If so thats cool, thats just under the one we've got

I thought the brain had to be the same size, for some reason my old man was gonna do it bigger, I did think it was a bit weird.

As for waterfarms instead, I mean this is the basic idea aint it?, its just more fixed due to the soil pipes? But I'm cool with that, in my loft room, it makes perfect sense and should be easy enough to get in and about to do what I need to do. Its about 1.5m2 so I'm hoping it will be ok

Last thing again, just how much noise is this exactly gonna make? I'm not in a tent remember so a bit is ok, my filter noise for example is nothing to worry about at all.

[old skool toker]

sounds good mate,the noise from the airstones is quite bad to be honest mate,flooming would be quieter as gg says rightly so,you,d need another pump for this.....the idea of fluming is to point the water(being pumped)towards the top of the water,this agitates the water surface and create,s dissolved oxygen,now imo my over the top air bubbles do exactly the same,albiet with alot more noise.......i,m not in a loft,but if i was i could,nt dream of this current set up (noise wise)if you wasnt going to do airstones or floom then you would need a seperate 4 dripper system(a tenner on ebay)with pump and water fall into the pots as well as the waterfall in the res from the 1200ltph pump you have.........temps are alot harder to keep down than i imagined so just bare that in mindv is all i say.............never used hessi but their all the same shit in differant bottles..........a smaller system would work with the same size net pots thats for sure(just transplanting to new home)ie a tote with lid............as gg says just check out everyones sytems ie.long john silver,sqydro,marleynme,gunit,jimmy420,pothead1,fo rest not too mention many more.heath robinson is all the inspiration you,ll need......gg above has a good system on the go and some monsters in em............you,ve probaly seen woody,s dwc group knocking about,what he dont know about dwc wise aint worth bothering with lol,he,s busy ish but always comes on daily to answer any quieries............my help is only researched from theese guys,and the only differance between me and you is mine is built and running,i,m tottaly clueless tbh apart from the advice i get on here lol........you certainley seem to be going in the right direction tho mate.....

[old skool toker]

yeah just a fishtank heater in the brainpot will do.......300 watt min i recon will do it(for colder times)and yeah your meters are fine,i only mentioned my trimeter as if you had none already it wouldnt be a bad buy for 69 quid.have a look at root tea,s and emzyme,s as i did,nt till too late and have brownish roots.....must add this route with diy is fun and very effective but its cost me alot more cash than i originaly thought lol,mrs ost is gonna chop my bollox off when she see,s this weeks card bills...oooppppsss

[HighFlyerFlyingHigh]

I thought I'd chuck my 2bits worth in as Ive got him most of the parts to get going already,

you have 4x 30L autopots
1700lph new jet pump for return line (circulate the water around the system)
400lph submersible pump with 8way irragation kit for your feed lines, ( this will slightly heat your water but its tiny and by the time it pumps water around the system, fresh water will be circulating through your brain pot and cool the pump down, plus this pump will only be on for 15mins every 2/3 hours so nothing to worry about with your room temps!)
32mm pipework and connectors, (maybe use gauze but not sure how will restrict the flow, might be worth checking it every few days to be safe

I recommend using vitalinks range of nutes as their bio pac and plus use live beneficial bacteria (will make your roots turn brown and make you worry but they worked well for me).

I want to get away from airstones as they vibrate like fuck and a big air pump is really loud, mine is on par with a 6" ruck fan bloody "super silent hailea my ass" You could if you like just for extra piece of mind buy small airstones and run from small individual airpumps cus their alot quieter and youl be getting the bubbles in there for extra DO.

I havent got you a brain pot so you can get same size if you like, mines bigger as will be topping up my brain by hand as I cannot be arsed with plumbing up the res to the brain as the plumbing is starting to wind me up abit now and as soon as the system is together its going straight on.

I would change your water every 10days to 2weeks from advice I have had from woody and other experienced dwc guys, some people have gone a whole cycle without changing their water and produced good crops but to be safe I would do it weekly as thats what I did, it only takes half an hour to drain and refill and if you have a tap and waste pipe installed upto your loft itl be a piece of piss.

This should clarify exactly whats being used and things youll need to do to maintain &run the system & put your mind to rest abit mate, anything else dude write it on here cus I wanna get away from talking on the phone