DWC, how to effectively bubble?

[zem]

i have this tray it's 2.5'x3' i'm doing a SOG in it so i have 5 outlets bubbling around but still i couldnt get all this surface area covered with bubbles, i also have a pump constantly recirculating,
my question is: do the bubbles have to be misting each and every netpot directly? i'm finding too much trouble acheiving that. i've always heard how a pump airs even better than a bubbler but never could figure how a small submersible pump could get the roots suspended in air above the water misted? i currently kept the water level touching the netpots gona wait for more root growth before i lower water level because when i tried lowering water, waited some time then lifted netpots, some were getting dry and plants werent liking it. please give me some input on these little details like how you place airstones how much of surface area i need covered with bubbles and when you lower the water level... thanks

 

[entropy82]

i've never worried about getting bubbles on the plants roots. whats important is to aerate the water, allowing the plant to take up dissolved oxygen (DO). Err more on the high side than less. but also note that if you don't take care, this can cause certain nutes to fall out of solution and support the growth of unwanted organisms as well. that's why i change my rez once a week, keep it clean, and don't allow light to get to the water. Higher DO levels allow the plant to grow faster all said and done.

Don't get aeroponics and dwc mixed. i had the same problem with the roots/water level that you have the first time i tried dwc. i started using primeagra (hydroton-like but better quality...not a rep here) which when wet wicks water (say that 5 times fast) the whole way up through the root zone.

cheers.

 

[DonJones]

ZEM,

I'm no expert as you know but I've always heard that you could even have the solution nearly touching the lid w/o bubbles so long as you had highly oxygenated solution reaching the roots. So far as I know, if the roots are wet with highly oxygenated solution, they can be submerged, so If you can keep the solution oxygenated, don't worry about the bubbles splashing on the pots, just keep the solution level high enough to keep the pots dampened all the time.

Great smoking.

 

[entropy82]

i concur. theres more than one way to skin a cat. just have to find what works for you.

 

[zem]

well i always thought so but i see a BIG difference between roots in a bubbler and roots in ebb and flow, it's my 4th run dwc already, before that i used to do ebb&flow and i still have actual pots with stems and roots in them since my last run in them and tehyr really fillin up these pots. i'm givin dwc one more shot doing this seriously, bubblers are bubbling that water like crazy and i'm hoping for the best, so far it seems ok, plants are getting green but i always managed to make em green but its my yield that went down due to smaller root mass, i am trying to keep roots suspended in the air s much as i can, now i leveled water just below netpots gona check on them in couple of hours, thanks for the input cheers

 

[entropy82]

are you keeping the roots of your dwc in the air as much as possible? if so i would think that would have quite a big negative affect on growth. the roots are going to have a hard time getting nutes from the air.

Also, is the size of your pots for dwc to small and limiting growth? when i look at how to increase yields i always examine what would be the limiting factor and how can i can improve.

what do you use in your netpots?

 

[zem]

netpots are tiny and i mean like 2" diameter filled with good small sized growrocks.

 

[entropy82]

imho, i would just fill the water to near the top of the pots. i would also put them in a much bigger pot. i hate repotting bc of the stress it does to the plant. if you repot with more grow rock consider repotting underwater. basically pour in your new grow rocks in the larger pot with the 2" while its underwater. this will cut down on the damage done to the root hairs from the impact of the new rocks. the root hair a so essential to oxygen absorption and nute uptake and are all too often overlooked.

 

[RUDEBWOY]

I use DWC and i actually use a submersable pond water pump that has an air intake as well on it .. i have the pump shooting straight up outta my solution and hitting the bottom of my lid on my resivour ...the air intake line i have attached to the top side of my lid which in turn attaches to the water out line on the pump ... The main rootball is fully in the solution ... I use 4" green plastic pots that i just drilled extra holes in the bottom of so that the roots are just coming out the bottom of the pots instead of the net pots where the roots come out from all angles ...I like this better because the roots reach the resivour faster ... Hope this helps out a little ... You can check my current grow out here :hxxp://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49793

change the xx to tt ...

EZ&SAFE

 

[zem]

:rofl: dude you can post direct links within MP, thts a very nice grow you got ther thanks for the input

I use DWC and i actually use a submersable pond water pump that has an air intake as well on it .. i have the pump shooting straight up outta my solution and hitting the bottom of my lid on my resivour ...the air intake line i have attached to the top side of my lid which in turn attaches to the water out line on the pump ... The main rootball is fully in the solution ... I use 4" green plastic pots that i just drilled extra holes in the bottom of so that the roots are just coming out the bottom of the pots instead of the net pots where the roots come out from all angles ...I like this better because the roots reach the resivour faster ... Hope this helps out a little ... You can check my current grow out here :hxxp://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49793

change the xx to tt ...

EZ&SAFE

 

[loolagigi]

let me say, i understand adequate, "<---spelling...lol" bubbles are good. i have also read that too many can be bad as water can spash out of bucket...now i have caught myself using the little 2$ for 2 per pack blue airstones, and had to change them for not working anymore at times. never phased plants. dwc has to be the most forgiving hydro setup, due to the fact the roots are "airated" 24/7 in most cases. growing soil, and then watching your dwc grow....youll never go back. its like the HULK! night and day diff. i know im just rambling now, so ill shut up. by the way,,,,the way i do dwc is with no water pumps, air pumps only. i also use 5 gallon net pots. easy to remove from buckets with large plant contained. loola

 

[zem]

ok so i'm planning on purchasing many airpumps and i'm thinking of getting the lower pressure single outlet ones in big number, i can get them for very cheap and i was thinking that my trays are only 6-8" deep so i dont want high pressure but i need to cover surface area and i thought that if i get them in big number then one breaking wouldnt be such a big problem and it is prectical to have each with its airstone however i will have to be hanging like 6-8 pumps per tray and i have 3 trays i need to bubble that is like 20 airpupms :holysheep: i can get one for 5$ maybe i can bargain for a price for a bulk or even find the importer and claim to be a shop and get them at wholesale price these things suck only like 1.5-2watts each lol it sounds abit crazy to me the number of pumps what do you guys think?

 

[Growdude]

however i will have to be hanging like 6-8 pumps per tray and i have 3 trays i need to bubble that is like 20 airpupms :holysheep:

There is no way you need that many air pumps.

Here is the one I use for 8 waterfarm units.

hxxp://www.hydrofarm.com/pb_detail.php?itemid=575

 

[ArtVandolay]

I'm probably 6 months - 1 year from trying dwc but I'm doing a lot of reading and asking of questions. I use one of these in my boat bait well and it works great. It's a little steep at $54, though you can get them cheaper if you look around. What do you guys and girls think?

hXXp://keepalive.net/portable.htm

 

[DonJones]

ZEM,

I probably don't understand what you're trying to do, but based on my understanding, here is my best advice. The emphasis is not intended to do anything except draw attention to the information.

You haven't answered yet about how close to the lid you keep your level, so I'm going to repeat this -- In DWC the only reason for an air stone is to increase the dissolved oxygen in the solution, NOT to moisten the roots. Keep the roots as deep in the solution as you can, because that is where the nutrients and dissolved oxygen is --NOT in the air.

You will probably never make it work like an aeroponics system with just bubbles. If you want to keep the post out of the water, even after the roots grow down into the solution, then you need to use a pressure pump and either misters or sprinklers to spray the solution on the pots.

I hope this helps because you have something so simple we are all missing it going on because DWC is a no brainer. We tend to complicate it some times when we are trying to answer questions. It is very simple and basic, keep the solution as oxygenated as possible ( a circulating pump that does NOT introduce air through a venturi or spray the solution through the air in a fine mist or let it splash off of something will NOT oxygenate the solution) and keep the roots wet all the time by submerging the pots/root balls as deep as practical into the solution.

That is DWC, anything else we do is a hybrid system and either we use it as DWC and supplement it with aero or drip or we use it as the other half of the hybrid and supplement that with DWC.

I hope this helps because I know you are getting frustrated. Another thought is, if ebb and flow or flood and drain works for you, then maybe you should just forget DWC, or at least scale the DWC back to an experimental level (a single container with one or two plants) until you catch the hang of it and in the meantime grow your main crop in ebb and flow. That way you won't be as frustrated with low yield/quality but will still be learning the DWC way too. You may never get the results you want with DWC, even though others do. If not there is NOTHING wrong with ebb & flow.

Great smoking.

 

[zem]

Don, it is true i am not getting the same results i used to in ebb&flow and this is my 4th run DWC now! i think that submerging the roots completely was one factor that contributed to lowering that, dissolved oxygen is not enough, the roots need to get some air, that is what i read and what most people who do dwc say, that i need to keep water below my netpots, and to do that without bubbles directly misting my roots is causing them to dry so that is why i concluded that i need airstones all over the surface. it is true i am getting frustrated after many superb grows i used to harvest, now i harvest small grows that dont last me for the next harvest and i'm buying weed, thats not why i invested in growing, so i seriously need to get my yield back up. there is nothing wrong in ebb&flow except if you were doing sog like me, emptying cleaning and refilling all these buckets of growrock is equivalent to the labor put in trimming your harvest, too much work thats the ONLY reason i decided to switch, i still have this huge pile of growrocks being unused i would really hate to have to go back to it now after ive tried and learned and invested so much effort in dwc, i am overkilling with bubbles i dont care, i mean whats the bubbler price or cost compared to buying weed? 5$ and 2watts power thats nothing! i wana do it so bad, actually i am liking my current grow it seems this will be ok better than the past dwc's i ran not sure if it could be compared to my old ebb&flow grows i really hope so! thanks alot again Don cheers

 

[monkeybusiness]

I'm probably 6 months - 1 year from trying dwc but I'm doing a lot of reading and asking of questions. I use one of these in my boat bait well and it works great. It's a little steep at $54, though you can get them cheaper if you look around. What do you guys and girls think?

hXXp://keepalive.net/portable.htm

Wow Art, that thing looks powerful. If you're thinking of putting that in a DWC 5 gallon bucket, my guess is it would be too violent of a motion for the roots. Just a guess though..

 

[bizzy323]

i can imagine the problem you having. I had the same problem before with dwc i until i add a drip system to it so i would have my drip system going until my roots were long enough in the water than i turn the drip system off and have my bubbler going for rest of grow.

 

[dragracer]

I don't have a lot of experience, being on my first DWC, but when I started mine the water level was halfway up the net pot until roots were showing. Ever since then about an inch below the net pot, I run a large air pump and stone and have had pretty good results...Good luck!

 

[zem]

hey guys! i got this today electromagnetic air compressor 30L/min 20watt the shop claimed that i can even bubble 12 airstones with it easily. i paid 40$ for it, do you think its good price?