Coco watering - run to waste rigs discussion

[DomoArigato]

I'll take a short stab at this as I have a currently running high freq fertigate DTW setup. As barney said, equal length tubing gives you same water to each site.

As B1unt poses a very realistic problem, what if one plant it more thirsty than another? Well, I have two plants and one is surely more thirsty than the other. As for right now, I have yet to do much about it aside from increasing time for each feed. Yes, this wastes water.. This said, I have a floraflex bubbler head with 8 outputs. Each of my plants gets two outputs and the other 4 are looped into each other. The official solution would be to install floraflex limiters in there for the plant that is less thirsty. An easier solution might be to give the thirsty plant 4 feed lines and the less thirsty plant 2 feed lines. You smell what I'm spraying?

-Domo

[B1unt]

I'll take a short stab at this as I have a currently running high freq fertigate DTW setup. As barney said, equal length tubing gives you same water to each site.

As B1unt poses a very realistic problem, what if one plant it more thirsty than another? Well, I have two plants and one is surely more thirsty than the other. As for right now, I have yet to do much about it aside from increasing time for each feed. Yes, this wastes water.. This said, I have a floraflex bubbler head with 8 outputs. Each of my plants gets two outputs and the other 4 are looped into each other. The official solution would be to install floraflex limiters in there for the plant that is less thirsty. An easier solution might be to give the thirsty plant 4 feed lines and the less thirsty plant 2 feed lines. You smell what I'm spraying?

-Domo

Assuming all the run off is collected in one container, how are you going to tell if one is thirstier than the others? Before it wilts or the EC spikes in the media, etc).

[Farmer Geddon]

All grow systems have their pros and cons. dtw is noted for it's simplicity and reliability. It is not noted for its economy. Whatever having adequate runoff costs, that's the price of reliability and simplicity. To make sure all plants get as much feed as they need, give all of them plenty enough. As long as there is drainage, there's no overwatering with coco.

It comes down to time vs money. You can make the extra effort hand feeding so that the runoff is always 10%. Or you can automate and feed all of them extra volume which will increase the growing cost by a few pennies a gram.

[DomoArigato]

Assuming all the run off is collected in one container, how are you going to tell if one is thirstier than the others? Before it wilts or the EC spikes in the media, etc).

There are equal length drybacks between fertigation events. After a fertigation, I can clearly see one plant give more runoff than the other. Additionally, the plant that gives less runoff takes longer for runoff to occur. Exact same 3gal smart pots, same fill/pack 70/30 coco/perlite, same amount of water/nutes, same sprout date, different plants (indica/sativa). In my mind, I could be wrong, but one pot is dryer due to the uptake of the plant (so happens to be my bigger/fuller plant), thus she is more thirsty.

Just bouncing logic around, so not a declaration by any means. There could be a variable at play that I have not considered.

As Farmer said, and as I am realizing more and more, DTW is not economical compared to some other methods. However from what I have come to learn from experiences DTW growers, it can be comprable to other hydroponics systems. This is with fine tuning and "just enough" runoff. With this comes more monitoring of said runoff to ensure that you are in spec with optimal conditions. I have just giving them more water than they need to ensure a good flush and lower the maintenance, but this comes at a cost of 20gal of water a week at this point with them being in flowering and all.. I estimate that I am getting 5-6 gallons of runoff a week. My dehumidifier drains into the same bin as my waste nutrients, so it skews things a bit and calculations are not exact. But there abouts.. I will probably tighten things up a bit next go round, but for now running with it for the sake of simplicity..

-Domo

[barney_b]

That would be awesome can you do a video walk through of your setup?


I'm running a prototype setup at the moment but I'm not sure how to share video anonymously.

Cheers

[NZ_]

Cheers

Dude honestly that setup is pretty cool! and it has given me a lot of things to consider, but what happens if there is a blockage in your runoff drains?

What is the blue plastic box and the pipe coming out the top?

What kind of pump do you have?

Can you do a low down vid showing underneath and how all that works?

What do you do with the run off?

[Flimzy]

I modded my aquafarms last year to drip feed from the res, it was done using a pond pump and a 10 output manifold with individual taps from eBay £13. All lines exact length and run a cheap fan controller to control the output of the water (run into measuring jug for 60 seconds x that by 60 and that gives you your ml per hour) you could run this off a smart plug to control the feeding times and activate it as and when you want remotely.

This is the link to my old diary but you should see the idea there

First time Lumatek Zeus pro 600w - modded aquafarms RDWC
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink/top...ink_source=app


Flimzy

Check out my diary! - https://www.thctalk.com/cannabis-for...d.php?t=192457

AlienPro-ZeusPro-BudboxPro

[Flimzy]

I found a photo for you, I used 2 one for water and one for air. But same rules applied on equal length pipe.




Flimzy

Check out my diary! - https://www.thctalk.com/cannabis-for...d.php?t=192457

AlienPro-ZeusPro-BudboxPro

[NZ_]

I modded my aquafarms last year to drip feed from the res, it was done using a pond pump and a 10 output manifold with individual taps from eBay £13. All lines exact length and run a cheap fan controller to control the output of the water (run into measuring jug for 60 seconds x that by 60 and that gives you your ml per hour) you could run this off a smart plug to control the feeding times and activate it as and when you want remotely.

This is the link to my old diary but you should see the idea there

First time Lumatek Zeus pro 600w - modded aquafarms RDWC
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink/top...ink_source=app


Flimzy

Check out my diary! - https://www.thctalk.com/cannabis-for...d.php?t=192457

AlienPro-ZeusPro-BudboxPro

What happens when the water level goes down and your head pressure decreases? Won't that change the flow rate? Like if your res is full, it will flow faster than if its half full?

[NZ_]

I found a photo for you, I used 2 one for water and one for air. But same rules applied on equal length pipe.




Flimzy

Check out my diary! - https://www.thctalk.com/cannabis-for...d.php?t=192457

AlienPro-ZeusPro-BudboxPro

Oh wow that some serious stoner engineering!

Where is that manifold from?