5 gallon dwc tomatoe cages?

Is there a such cage that will mount to my bucket cover / netpot , so when I need to access the res I can pull everything off? I'm going to grow these fairly large.

 

Unsure exactly what your looking for... for training purposes? Or your trying to remove plant from bucket to change rez?

 

Ill need some kind of support once it buds , but yes to make res changes easy. Dint know if there was somthing out there to make this easy.


Almost thinking of steping upto a 20 gallon tote so i can have 2 holes. One for plant one for acess.

 

they do have plastic tomato cones at home depot that snap on to 5 gallon buckets, but if you are going to be taking the lid off..... a tote would better especially if your going with bigger plants. you will need more than the 3gl res you create when you grow in a bucket.

 

Aha! The weak link in bucket DWC. When the plants are flowering, how do you support them AND be able to lift them off to change the res??? No can do trellis...

 

I've been wondering the same thing every time I look at the ones I have flowering. They could use some support especially when switching buckets. Keep telling myself I'm going to devise something but have been so busy it's gotten put off again and again.


I pictured taking a regular round cage, cut to height, bend the bottom legs 90 degrees outward and making a tight loop. Then either nut and bolt or screw it to the lid through the loops with stainless, or something moisture resistant, hardware.


You'd think that someone out there would have made and marketed something just for that. We few can't be the only ones with that problem.


Be Cool, CG

 

Just go by some chicken wire fence on a roll.. measure a piece length wise in order to wrap around lid ... tricky part would be securing it.. but then again once you start wearing plant through spacing the plant it self with hold it in place and still provide vertical re enforcement

 

CG thats a good idea and would work too. With stiff wire, you could even put handles on the cage itself to lift it all off.

 

Lifting it by the cage was exactly what I had pictured. I've grown shitloads in buckets with the cages set in the soil. Once the plant was cut I carried the bucket and dry soil around by the cage. But I learned to use the heavy duty ones with the stiff wire. Some have made it thru a dozen grows or more, cause the thin cheap ones didn't last long. I'd rather pay twice as much and last 5 times longer.


Be Cool, CG

 

For my big plants in DWC I do one of two things depending on how I feel that day. The first one is I cut some wire fencing (rabbit fencing), the one with the rectangular holes that get big at the top, so that it fits aroung the net pot. To secure it I drill some holes in the edge of the net pot just large enough to put some zip ties through it. I make two holes less than a half inch from each other, then I move about six- eight inches away and repeat. When done you wrap the wire around the net pot and zip tie it as you go. It won't go anywhere and you can lift the net pot up by the cage. The other method I use isn't as sturdy but is effective. They sell these round plant supports that have two circles that are held by three legs. They are too big but I bend the legs to go over the top of the net pot and again, drill some holes to put zip ties to hold the legs in place.


edit: found a pic using the fencing:

 

Thx for all the ideas guys! Couple more questions as this is my first dwc.


How tall you think I should grow the plant to get a pound. It's a good yeilder and done in 8 weeks. And will a 5 gallon bucket have the res capacity for that? I might transfer to totes if its a daily fillup. I'm thinking 1 600w per plant.

 

Well you got me there. I would say at least six feet with a lot of topping. It will have to be wide. A 5 gallon bucket would never work. I also think that a 600 would be way to small. It won't penetrate the canopy. You'll need a 1000 for that.

 

I just got the tall tomato cages and cut the vertical legs an inch from the bottom loop and drilled holes in the net lid to put the legs in and the bottom loop would sit right on the lid keeping it from going down and bending the legs on the bottom of the lid, there's no way it would go anywhere.


Ya you need a pretty big plant to get a pound, probly would have to fasten a big square of that rabbit fence to the top of the tomato cage and scrog it.

 

think about the root mass of a big plant, you have to disturb that root system every time. I have tried this method as well as few others. didn't care for it. snapping big stems that would catch on something sucked bad.


I did at one time have 5 buckets (4plants)connected with tubing. the 5th bucket was a res, ionly had to mess with the one bucket.