New setup tips and tricks RDWC

[Back Room Farmer]

Ok, so I have gotten mass amounts of help from several of you on here and I am super happy to have found this forum. that being said,
1. I am setting up a 2-3 bucket RDWC system, was recommended 2 bucket for a 4x4 space does anyone think I can get away with 3?
2. I am re-purposing my original 4 hydroponic DWC buckets. so max would be 3 pots and 1 res all 15 liters each. Is it enough or should I make a larger res?
3. Having trouble finding an inline water pump but can find submersibles everywhere. If I run a normal 35L aquarium water chiller should I run that independent of the system (so 2 pumps one for circ and one for chiller) or run the 35L chiller inline? Will it push enough volume?
4. I plan to use 2" pipe I assume that is big enough. Can I run screens on the bucket side to keep roots out?

As you can probably tell I want to do it right from the start as my first grow has been a huuuuuuuge learning curve.

Thanks in advance all!

[TTL]

bbbb, Nanook, or Hydro can help you more, but I’d say run two buckets in there. You’re definitely going to want a bigger res and honestly probably bigger buckets for your plants. It says 15L comes out to just under 4 US gallons and that seems pretty small. Submersible pumps are fine. Most don’t do inline. You’ll need two pumps like you said. One for the chiller and one for the system. 2” pipe is big enough and you can put screen or gauze or something to keep the roots out. One of the more knowledgeable guys will pop in when they wakeup over there I’m sure. Best of luck!

[Back Room Farmer]

Ok great getting things together. THey are 5 gallon buckets but I want to keep a "moist" zone from bottom of the net pot right? so maybe 4.5 ghallons when just under net pot.

[TTL]

Ok great getting things together. THey are 5 gallon buckets but I want to keep a "moist" zone from bottom of the net pot right? so maybe 4.5 ghallons when just under net pot.

Ohhhhh, ok. Five gallon pots will definitely work, but if you can get some bigger ones it wouldn’t hurt. To my understanding, bigger bucket means you can have a bigger plant a little easier and keep your numbers a little more stable. But, like I said, bbbb and those guys are the ones to get the final answer from. IKEA has nice totes for this if you have access. Most big hardware chains do as well.

[Back Room Farmer]

lol I am in the philippines brother. It is a struggle to find anything here.

[Norseman]

Another way to avoid roots getting into the pipes is to change the direction water being pumped once in a while and also to not having the pump running 24/7

[Back Room Farmer]

Another way to avoid roots getting into the pipes is to change the direction water being pumped once in a while and also to not having the pump running 24/7

Will be using an immersed pump and smaller inlet then outlet fed from the top. But I found cool screens I can put on the outflow pipes.

[Back Room Farmer]

So one 5 gal res and 2x5 gal pots. enough? 15 gal setup, well 13.5

[Back Room Farmer]

So one 5 gal res and 2x5 gal pots. enough? 15 gal setup, well 13.5

only other way I can think to up the res is do a double res using 2x 5 gal as res to feed 2x 5 gal pots

[Back Room Farmer]

the chiller I am looking at can handle 180 liters an hour so about 54 gal an hour if I run return bucket to pump to outflow bucket through chiller to pots in an 18 gal system thats 3 full changes cycles an hour. is that enough?