hydroponic Extremely Easy Hydroponic How To

Matt50680 · Jan 7, 2012

Hey everyone, I wanted to share my Saturday morning project with you. As some of you have read, I have gotten into hydroponics and found out actually just how simple it is to do a DWC system (deep water culture). I now have 6 DWC systems going, each was easy and has gotten progressively cheaper than the previous, so here we go, please bare with me, there are alot of pictures, but it should be easy enough for ANYONE to follow and have success with it.

Materials:
2 output aquarium pump
10 foot of aquarium air line
2 line t's
2 anti flowback valves
4 1" air stones
4 Maxwell House coffee plastic cans
4 3" net pots
4 rockwool cubes
1 litre of hydroton - rinsed
Hydroponic nutrients (for this setup we are using Quick Grow 10-5-10)

Make sure you rinse your hydroton good, if not your solution will get funky red looking and possibly clog your air stones. I used a $2 sweater bag I got at Dollar General, dumped hydroton into it and ran water over it until it flowed clean.

The plan, 4 Maxwell House plastic coffee cans, washed out and bleached to sanitize...

Take your 3" net pot and place it upside down on the lid, draw around it with a sharpie and make a pilot hole for your scissors...

Cut slowly and carefully, it is alot easier to make 2-3 cuts than it is to put the material back...

Test fit...

Final fit is good, the net sits flush...

Select your victims, I mean soon to be huge happy plants, in this case we are going to take 4 Numex Twilights that have been growing in soil for about a month now. You can of course start your seeds in the rockwool and skip the next few steps if you wish...

Remove from planter/cup and gently knock off soil from roots...

Dip the roots into a pail of clean water and gently move around to try to get as much of the soil off as possible...

This is how clean I got them, it will be hard to get off all the soil, so just until the majority is off should be ok...

To Be Continued...

AtomicCobraPeppers · Jan 7, 2012

kool!

Matt50680 · Jan 7, 2012

While you are cleaning your roots and all, soak your rockwool cubes in PH adjusted water, warm preferably. I set PH to approximately 5.5 by using 1 gallon of water and 3 ounces of lemon juice...

Carefully open the rockwool cube up and place the seedling in the center, roots hanging below a little (dont squeeze the rockwool very hard)...

Now place the rockwool cube into a 3" net pot...

And carefully surround with hydroton, using the smaller pellets in the bag will make it a little easier so you dont damage the seedling and then place in the lid...

Now you need an air supply. I got this little 2 output pump from Walmart for $10 and it came with 2 oneway valves to prevent flowback in the event of a power interuption...

Make sure you mount it higher than the water level if possible for extra protection...

Now you need some lines and airstones. I used 1" air stones and used 5 minute epoxy to stick them to the bottom of the Maxwell House cans...

Using a pair of line T's I made a 2 output pump into a 4 output...

For this size system, it should work well. Run your lines and fill your cans with 1/2 strength solution, adjust to 5.5-6.5ish PH and plug your pump in...

And its just that simple, for some recycled material and around $25 I have a 4 site hydroponic system that is running nicely. I will update their growth in my grow log as they get huge. Plus now these plstic cans wont end up in the landfill, youre welcome mother nature. They are in my main grow box, so they will be on a 16-8 light cycle...

Kappy · Jan 7, 2012

Great write up Matt! What a simple way to do hydro! And I'm really glad to see some use out of those coffee cans ^^ I'll definitely be trying something like this out in the near future

Can't wait to see updates on how the hydro plants are doing!

megahurts · Jan 9, 2012

Do you really need to use the anti-drainback valves even if you mount the air pump higher than the water level? How could it draw water?

MHz

I'm wondering if the drainback valves were designed because people usually have the air pump in the aquarium stand bottom (well below the fish tank) and if they were a necessary item, they'd be built into the pump. I just worry about electricity and water like everyone else.

Thanks
MHz

The other reason I ask is because it may put extra stress on the pump and wear it out faster.

Matt50680 · Jan 9, 2012

I removed the valves after thinking about it for awhile, you bring up a good point and I think the valves are more "idiot safety valves" than anything else. I left the pump mounted where it was and moved the cans to the bottom shelf of the grow chamber because the solution was getting heated up through heatsoak from the light on the level below them.

chinamon · Jan 9, 2012

my very first hydro garden was DWC. it was a great learning experience but was a pain in the butt in regards to maintenance because i had to drain and fill fresh nutes every week. if you have only one or two plants then its not much of a problem but it is very time consuming when you have a few plants.

i now run a top-feed drip system with hydroton for four plants under a 400watt lumatek ballast and i will never go back to DWC. i am in the process of setting up for my second grow (trinidad scorpion butch t). this summer i will be trying a rockwool slab (top feed drip) system in my backyard.

S.S.Tupperware · Jan 9, 2012

Be ready to step it up.... you will out grow that soon. I did a 2 gallon, and it would be half way empty in 2 days and the Ph was outta control.

frosty · Jan 10, 2012

S.S.Tupperware said:
Be ready to step it up.... you will out grow that soon. I did a 2 gallon, and it would be half way empty in 2 days and the Ph was outta control.

I was going to make a similar comment. It would be a great way to get indoor starts.

I do wonder how big you could get just by adding a drip to the system and a resevoir. In other words some sort of recirculating system.

souf · Jan 10, 2012

nice job! i think im going to give hydro growing a shot this year

Matt50680 · Jan 10, 2012

S.S.Tupperware said:
Be ready to step it up.... you will out grow that soon. I did a 2 gallon, and it would be half way empty in 2 days and the Ph was outta control.

Yeah, thats why I choose the Numex Twilight peppers, the plants dont get very big, supposed to be under 2 foot tall, we will see though. On a side note, the lemon juice worked good to adjust the PH but it is causing a gel to grow around the net pots, it rinses off, but I am worried about it plugging the air stones so I need to get an alternative adjuster.

Walka · Jan 10, 2012

Is rockwool required for DWC? or can the plant sit just in the hydroton? I ask this because i didnt think about that before and my plant is just sitting hte hydroton, would it be better in rockwool?

Matt50680 · Jan 10, 2012

I have a larger/older scorpion plant that I went from soil to hydro with and I just rinsed the roots off and put them on the bottom of the net and filled in around with hydroton. I think if you tried starting a seed in hydroton it would get lost.

Guillo1 · Jan 10, 2012

I'm no expert for sure but from what I have read and what a friend has told me about hydro these are some of the problems i see with your set up. Like others have mention you will get some big pH swings with that small amount of water. My friend told me that when he had some big mature plants that they would consume like 1 gal of water a day. The 1" airstones you are using are gonna get clogged up right away. my friend recommends using some made out of ceramic and not stone. The last thing is that your gonna need more airpumps to give the plants sufficient oxygen. I'm going to try hydro for my 1st time also so we shall see how it goes. Good luck Matt

AlphaHydroponics · Jan 10, 2012

Nice job Matt!

megahurts · Jan 10, 2012

LOL, I added a single valve to mine. Two into one. After checking the pressure on 6 or so feet of hose, it doesnt seem like it would matter too much. I still dont know if you need them if the pump is above the water table. The only scenerio that could be tested is if you had two outlet to one hose and one of those came off causing a water draw effect, but then again, I dont think the pressure would make it down the line. I would also consider getting the cheap silicone black opaque tubing from your local pet store. It doesnt kink, is more flexible, and doesnt allow light to penetrate through the hole into the resevoir. Also, pick the stones that produce small bubbles. It should work the best and they're cheap.

RW is not required, but it makes a great dense medium for root foundations of small plants. Make sure to sterilize it with some boiling water. Many of them will grow out of the rockwook anwayway. If its in the hydroton, then I wouldnt disturb it again. Once capilary roots stick to the surface of the hydroton, you dont want to go ripping them out of the womb again. It should happen relatively fast. The pH swings are going to hapen for many reasons. The temperature of the water will affect the soluable nutrient levels too. I'd wrap your containers in some sort of thin reflective insulation and use foil on the lids since it reflects all heat back up, and provides a fool proof light barrier. Also, consider removing the reflective barrier you have up to the lid. This will prevent radiated heat from being transmitted to the sides of the pots. You want to reflect out of the res, not into it. This is not proven, just my theories and opinions, I dont have much for experience, but since my problem with my bhuts earlier, I've been doing some research before I embarq on the next venture. I have been nursing a weather battered plant back to health so that I can take cuttings from it and do this same kind of setup. Its just not ready for prime time yet.

MHz

smokemaster · Jan 10, 2012

This is a 35+ yr old hydro setup that only holds 1 gal. of water in the bottom tray that the grow container sits in.

It sucks up an easy 2 gal. of water a day.
As soon as the pods are all ripe it needs a new home.
Anyone in the Los Angeles ,Ca. area can E mail me about adopting the plant,not the garden.

It's in vermiculite that is so overgrown with roots it's a brick.
I think you could just pull the whole thing up in one piece and put it in a tote and make a bigger hydro setup like this one.
It runs on an air pump like the aquarium filters do.
Air sucks up water around a tube with holes in it around the plant.
Next time I'll use a mix of either Hydroton or Gravel and vermiculite.

http://s403.photobuc...nt=IM004901.jpg

http://s403.photobuc...nt=IM004900.jpg

http://s403.photobuc...nt=IM004898.jpg

http://s403.photobuc...nt=IM004897.jpg

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plant has 40 or so pods on it now.
It's a 7 Pot SR ,LT.Green strain.
It's the 3rd or 4rth generation of from isolated seeds.Pods were much more dimpled in soil for some reason.
They go from light green to yellow green to orange to bright red.

If I put more LEDs on the ceiling I'm sure it would be a much less spread out plant but it's already big enough-too big.
I'm about done with it as soon as the pods ripen.
Would be very easy to make a new home for it and pretty cheep too.
Similar to the above but with a tube for bringing water up to the media.

I hate tossing a perfectly good plant out.
It's growing new branches everywhere right now and still budding.
Seed was planted in the vermiculite on Sept. 23rd.

wildfirefighter · Jan 11, 2012

Awesome i love it!...a few years back ive had sucess with your same set up except all pots were suspended over one large reserve...power would supply a pump once an hour to feed the plants via feed tubes. with that 400w hps is a good start

Matt50680 · Jan 28, 2012

So it has been 3 weeks to the day and here is a growth update. Everybody is still growing and happy. I was growing 2 of them on X-Nutrients solution and 2 of them on Advanced Nutrients Jungle Juice, I mixed both at the label recommended dosage. The root difference is amazing to me...
X-Nutrients...

Advanced Nutrients Jungle Juice...

I am now out of the sample of X-Nutrients so I will stop using it and switch the 2 X-Nutrients plants over when I change the solution next weekend. I have the better part of a quart of the AN Jungle Juice left. It is a better price compaired to what it would cost me for the same amount of X-Nutrients.

benzo · Jan 28, 2012

cool DIY DWC you have there mate. You should try General Hydroponics 3 part Flora series instead of the Jungle Juice. I will try find the link but GH is actually stronger then Advanced so thats why Advanced seems cheap coz its watered down. Heres the profile comparison, don't understand why Advanced put shit on GH yet they reverse engineer their formula. Can't seem to put the pic in for some reason