New Undercurrent DWC set up

[Seacowboy]

Finally finished up getting my undercurrent system put together and running.  Was a royal pain in ass getting all the PVC pipes seated correctly in the Uniseals, and there are a few leaks in a the lines between buckets.  Before taking them apart I am going to give it some time and see if all the iron in my dirty well water seals it up or if I need to use some sort of sealer.  Used a 500 gph pump with Venturi valve to add more o2 to the water with 4 other air stones spaced out through the buckets.  The control bucket is a reused 27 gal tub with 1 plant in it as I only had room for 10 buckets within the space in the shed.  There is an additional 27 gal tub for the water reservoir sitting above the rest to top off everything with a float switch in the control tub.  Have 1 fan right now with another 2 that I will mount when I get back home from work to get better air circulation inside.  Used the 400w Sunburst I had and picked up a Raptor hood, ballast and bulb off eBay for a steal to cover the majority of the plants.  Will see how it does.
 

 

[PepperDaddler]

Hi Tek.

 

[Jeff H]

Very cool and I bet the plants will love the system but that thing looks like it takes a small fortune in nutes. What does it hold? About 50-60 gallons not counting the aux rez? 

 

[Seacowboy]

The upper rez I am filling to about 20 gals, controller is at 12gals and right now the level in each bucket is I'd guess about 2.5-3 so another 25-30 for a total of about 55-60 plus whatever 16' of 1.5" PVC holds. I'm actually not running any nutes in it yet due to the slow leaks and no need to piss away that money. Once I get it leak free I'll just add nutes to the control and test it every few days to monitor/maintain nute level, but yes it does have the potential to become cost prohibitive. So far their not sucking down much at all by themselves and once all the plants have roots long enough I plqn on lowering the water levels a good bit. Saw a post last week about kelp4less and plan on trying them out for both hydro and in ground nute supplies.

Small problem with my old house and ancient wiring is that the breakers its running off of is the same for all the main lighting inside. So I have the timer set to turn the 1400 watts of lights while were asleep to keep from tripping it constantly during the day, this should also help when the temps start to really drop at night in a few weeks. See how it goes and if it is a flop it was another costly lesson and will learn from it to make adjustments for the next experiment.

 

[lock203]

Very nice job on the setup, I love the raptor 8 hood. Looking forward to seeing the progress!
 
The undercurrent setups do not require a lot of nutes, so be careful when mixing as you can't go by the label. Current Culture has made a nute line specifically for these systems (i've not used so not sure of the quality) it might be worth checking out. I've always ran Dutch Masters in mine and don't think I ever went over 700ppm in my solution at full bloom (it has been a while though).
 
I was about to transfer my seedlings into mine last week, but ended up selling the system before I got a chance to transplant. Ordered a new one today so hopefully I get it up and running by next week.

 

[Seacowboy]

Thanks lock.  Will be getting home from work next week and will be switching from the iron heavy well water without nutes (due to initial leaks) to tap water with nutes after being run through de-chlorinating filter.  Will definitely be starting out on the low side on the nutes, and will look at the stuff from Current Culture.  Will need to check the roots as my ancient wiring and fuse box in the house keeps tripping off when I run everything, so eliminating the air pumps has kept it on.  The pump I have running has a venturi valve that is putting water into the system, its a 50 gph pump so I am hoping it is keeping them oxygenated enough until I can come up with a solution for this.  Wish solar wasn't so expensive or I'd have a system installed to run my indoor grow lights, fans, pumps etc, one day.
 
After building this one for at least 75% less of the cost of the pre-made ones I am quite happy. That set up is super nice but well out of my price range. Look forward to seeing yours up and running.   

 

[bigt]

Impressive setup - nice work.