So just a pump for draining? How does the res know when to put water in? How does the water get from the res to the control bucket? And will there always be liquid in the plant buckets? It will just re circulate?
So I guess I understand Tue drain now but need to understand how the auto top off works. Thanks a bunch yall.
Auto top off in RDWC can work in a few different ways, but the basic concept is here: .....| ....\|/...........RES ___|__.........______ |...\/.|.........|........| |-----|~~~>|-\.....| |......|.........|------| |......|<~~~|pump..| _____.........._______ Water pumping into the bottom of however many buckets you want keeps them filled. Water drains passively out of the tube on the top set at the level you want it to be and drops into the lower level in the main reservoir. Gravity FTW. The periods are place holders to get the picture to look right, the squiggly lines are tubing, the dashes are water levels. This method doesn't require a control tub and only takes one pump if it's powerful enough for the number of buckets, length of tubing, height adjustments, etc, but it requires a fairly large reservoir. Wider ones work better, since the water level in the res has to be lower than the level of the water outtake hole in the individual buckets. Otherwise you'll just get either unhappy roots or (if the setup is poorly designed or the outtakes are clogged or too small) a very soggy floor. You can also flip the pump setup around too. I just preferred doing it this way because I liked having a very high rate of exchange. Seemed to get a lot more precipitating nutrients if I did it the way they're describing. But if that's not a problem for you then yeah, just try the test they're giving you. It's similar to an individual bucket E&F concept except without the Ebb. Btw Chriscrete, what's wrong with HTG? I bought a couple 600s from there and the lights both burned out pretty fast but they honored the warranty and sent me replacements quicklike... not great quality but pretty good customer service was my impression.
No but if you do this "test" you'll understand the concept. Once you do that, imagine instead of pumping the water into the sewer, you are pumping "from" the control bucket "into" the other 4 grow buckets. As the "control bucket's" water level tries to fall it will "pull" water from the other buckets back into the "control bucket".....just like how it did when you drained the system for the "test"...(when the water starts to drop in the bucket with the pump...it "pulled" the water from the other buckets) Thus the recirculation because this happens many times an hour...the control bucket is pumping it's water into the top of the "grow buckets" and at the same time "pulling" water from the bottom of the "grow buckets" back into the "control bucket" Trust me, if you fill all you buckets and pump out of one, they all will drop in water level...it's the same concept..except you pumping the water back into buckets instead of draining the system.
they're IN STORE service is garbage, the HTG chain has been linked to local situations in Cranberry area where shoppers have gotten the majority of hurt, then theres the fires that they're ballasts create......and if your whatever burns to the ground, the HTG brand lights and NOT UL listed, i saw some stoner punk in a back office type room making and soldering said ballasts with my own eyes....i asked what he was doing and the counter guy said "repair work".......to me that means IF they can fix it they will and not send out my $400 light to hydrofarm instead....so i get a stoner kid fix on my product???!!!! Fuck that and fuck them...... Let alone the 2 times i pulled out of their parking lot and got pulled over by Cranberry police, asking what i was doing in there in the midst of getting BS reasons why i was pulled over................and theres MANY more reports of that happeneing to other people who have gone there, its common talk in local shos around here NEED I SAY MORE?????? I think it was Res or AJ who had an HTG ballast almost burn down their house just last year...... Also, they badmouth all the other shops and will say or do anything to keep customers from shoping there.......ive had them do it to me to attemptt to kep my business FUCK HTG, DO NOT BUY FROM THEM!
Unfortunately, yes I went to HTG in cranberry, wasn't to pleased with the service. I was trying to tell him what I wanted to do and then he told me this method was way better and to forgot about RDWC. Fuck them. You guys rock. I'ma do somemore testing tonight, I think I actually got the concept down now. Thanks a ton again!
Lemme guess, you talked to Shaun.....the tall fuckbag of an arrogant assholy-ness........aka the guy who burnt down a 30,000sq ft bldg cuz of his ballasts,
Not me on the burned ballast. LEO got all my HTG gear (small blessings), except for a crummy hood methinks:icon_scratch: There be better places to get your gear IMHO. If you want to buy your fittings locally and the hydro shop doesn't stock the threaded bulkhead style you can find them for rain barrels at most garden centers.
I'm adding the pump in the control bucket now to a 3/4" ebb and flow fitting, to the outside of the control bucket. I'm gonna hook the 3/4" lines individually to each bucket and make a hole in the 3/4" hosing to fit the 1/4" barb fittings, I bought, to hook 1/4 air lines as the real feed lines. So it will top feed and have the air intake hole directly under the feed line. Question is will my system still recurciulate since I have each bucket connected individually since they all hook directly to the control bucket? All the other RDWC systems have all the buckets connected in rows, mine have individual drain lines. And do I want to focus the aeriation on the res or the control bucket? I've seen people put the pump on the outsdie, I don't understand that shit yet. Will it still work properly? BTW the pump is a 450GPH pump I ordered off Amazon, think that will suffice? Or go bigger? BTW: These little fittings and shit cost alot of money when your buying like 10 at a time and shit. I got 180$ in hoses and fitting only. I had everything else, except the smaller 290GPH pump. I'm very happy I got that big ass air pump (450GPH) . It pumps 20x as much air as the walmart branded ones.
you need to get a few Y's and an elbow (L) and a drain cap or be able to crimp the feed line shut somehow Your pump cant choose which hole to push thru and how evenly it needs to push so you must run it inside of 1 line for flow and 1 line for feed the ONLY thing the pump is doing is pumping your water thru the feed hole in the control bucket ...which should be about 3 inches above the bottom hole which is used to return water back to the pump by way of G-R-A-V-I-T-Y:roffl:......as the pump sucks the water from the control bucket and pushes it thru the feed line....the control bucket replenishes itself via GRAVITY from the grow buckets, thru the line and out the feed barbs,thru the line and into the bucket GET IT?????
ok, looked at the pics....DITCH the cat shit container and go get a black or dark blue 28 or bigger GALLON size tote container, good one is the TUFFbox from LOWES, you can stand on the lid, its super strong when u put lots of water weight in it You only need 2 holes.........1 low as possible for the water to travel back to the control tub and 1 above the lower hole for the feed line to go into, your 3/4 line should fit perfectly INSIDE the feed line tub fitting.....take like a foot or so of tubing, sung it onto the pump fitting and gently weasel it into the 3/4 hole on the feed fitting, thats where and how your pump is guna work to feed the buckets Good luck man, i used to rockout 10oz plants in RDWC but i got slime one day and it killed me, tables are way healthier IMO (for me atleast)
Ya, I def got it now bud. Ty so much for your help. At this point not ditching the control bucket, to mch more work if i did. So basically the answer to my questions is yes? It will work with individual drain lines? And do I aeriate the res or the control bucket?
Still not answering my question? :wtf?: Will the system still re-circulate even with individual return lines? (3/4") Feed lines are now 1/2" into a 90 degree barb pointing down into the bucket. I have a 1/4 straight barbed valve for the airline directly above the feed barb. I really think I got this down now. :bong-2::roffl::roffl: Another important question: Anyone please. Will it harm my nutrient solution if it comes into contact with the GE Silicion I used the make extra seals and shit in the res and the control bucket? Cause if so I'm fucked. :BangHead::BangHead::BangHead: I'll post alot of cool pics tonight with the full setup. Unfortunatley, I don't think my Nebula is gonna make it, i'll tell the story about it later. And I just popped an auto flower (Auto Cheese) to run an expirement with just the 240W LED. I want to see the results, and I only have it in a 2 gallon contaner with an individual air stone and it's own air pump. I'll post some pics later guys/gals! xD So siked right now! asssit:
Ur not even close...cuz if you WERE dude, you'd be barfing your bullshit "intellect" all over this site and dancing around why your business platform&products put safe people in harms way But if you are, we need to hookup ASAP........cuz then i can legit beat the fuck outa you for giggle purposes and mass satisfaction for all my growers at arms....fuckin homo:thumbs-up::goodjob::-welcome-::roffl::roffl::roffl::roffl::roffl::roffl::roffl::roffl:
