PaulG said:
Very pro-looking hydro set-up and nice grow log.
Liking your informative explanations.
Thank you.
I've been away doing upgrades to my system. Since I was cleaning it and had it empty, I did a few things I have been wanting to do.
The first is I was going to experiment with the waterfall technique to add O2 to the water. I've always used air stones in the past. I decided to add the air stones in addition to the waterfall so that it won't be a problem.
The second is I wanted a fail safe in the event of roots clogging a drain, A lot of people run a screen of some sort, but roots will clog just about anything, so I put in an overflow. Every time I check the reservoir, which is at least once a day I can glance at the overflow pipe and nothing should be coming out of it. If there is water coming out of it, it means I have a clog, or the beginning of a clog and that bucket's drain is being bypassed, instead of flooding and pumping basically the entire system on the floor.
Normally the reservoir returns should look like this.
I had to test it, so I used a 100% clog for the test and let it run.
In no time it had filled up and began to bypass instead of flood.
Water coming out of the small pipe tells me that I have a clog, and I can start looking for it to unclog it (cut roots back).
Now I can sleep at night not having to worry about it. I have to prep the water and let everything stabilize before adding plants.
