Reservoir Temp

[stevenics]

Besides a chiller, How do You guys and girls that use hydro keep your water temp correct? Currently mine is between 72f and 79f, but i have to use ice cubes, nutrient solution ice cubes to be more specific, this way they are the correct ph and have all the correct nutes. It works well but is a pain in the ass to keep up with. I may give in and but a chiller if i can not figure out an easier way. Thanks!

[Graff420]

I tried a buch of ways but i had to get chiller because my water kept riseing above 80°F which gave me root rot in the begining useing a bottle of water thats was frozen kept me good along with insulating my res now my water temps stay at 63°F at all times

[GanjaGed]

Well I use Ebb&Flow so no res temp worries, lol.

In DWC I never had an issue with temp, I let it run at room temp, mid to upper 70's, with no issues.

I know people have problems with temp, but it honestly baffles me.

I would try getting a small air gap under the res and maybe direct a fan under it. Other than that, ice or a chiller seems to be the most used methods. Good luck

[Joker]

I guess I'm lucky, my tent sets on the basement floor and my temps stay mid 60's.

[alltatup]

You ARE lucky!

[ellz]

For my reservoir right now, I am using a 120mm AC powered computer fan attached to a 120mm duct that feeds into an empty net pot location. This blows cool air in the reservoir and slowly cools the temps plus it circulates the air around the roots that are above the water line. It has dropped the temps down about 3ºF but I put the fan on top of a small vortex fan and that dropped it a total of 5ºF. On my next reservoir, I am going to try a PC water cooling radiator that holds 4 120mm fans. This will fed from the water pump to the radiator, cooled by the fans and then pumped back to the drip system. I also plan on adding a bypass if it gets too cold (I live where winters can be freezing or below). You could also do a peltier cooler. There is a step-by-step build article someone made for an aquarium here: http://www.shine7.com/aquarium/chiller.htm

[Sammy]

Keeps my water temps 63 64 degrees constantly

[Sammy]

Mine came from Amazon I think I paid 130 , after the horrible experience I had with the dwc last time well worth it

[Cannabliss]

Sammy Thanks. Yea I only grow in DWC myself. Came up with a little diy "cooling system" of my own after many trials, but was just curious about this one. Never seen it before. Looks much cheaper than buying them expensive water chillers for small growers like myself.

[Graff420]

Oh yea this will cool my 5 gallons in about 5 hours and hold it at 63° all week i could probably go lower but i have my res thermostat set for 63° dont know if going anylower will help anything

[Sammy]

Peltier cooler option # 2 actually kept water temperatures down in low 50s approximately four and a half gallons

[Capncanna]

I simply have ac blowing over the air pumps and use hydro guard and great white. Lots of bubbles. I find room temp and rh are more important for me. But everyone's room is different. My res is 76 I do a res change and clean 1 x a week. Also I run drip through the entire grow. It's an art with some science . Cooler water is defiantly better . When I scale up I will invest in a large chiller but for now it's pretty easy to fix problems. Good luck

[stevenics]

Sammy what size is your reservoir

[Sammy]

About four and a half gallons

[Capncanna]

I'm running 2 5 gal grow buckets connected to 1 5 gall for nutes. They are all interconnected by 1 inch hose

[DW2]

Howdy stevenics, I use .7 L ice bottles in my reservoirs (10 gallon totes with 6 gallon fill) to keep them BELOW 70° F. I also insulate the reservoir tank with bubble wrap (large bubbles and the bubbles against the tank). When the grow room is between 80°-85° F, the bottles will keep the temperature down for 3 to 4 hours. I change them out when the temperature reaches 69.5° to 70° F. One ice bottle usually drops the temperature down by 4° to 4.5° F. I try not to allow the water temperature to get below 62° F.
Good luck with Your growing.

[Sammy]

I think don't know nothing has an air pump in a mini cooler, actually pumps cold air into the reservoir keeping it cool leave it to a stoner right 🙃

[Clampit Rivers]

I kinda do the same thing as DW2. It gets hot as hell where I live at certain times. In my DWC I use top feed at first of the grow and put 2 16 oz frozen water bottles in the rez up to 4 times a day.
When the roots hit water I turn off top feed which cools water several degrees, but still use the frozen water bottles. I like to keep water temps in the 68-72 max. plants get their nutes best between those temps.
I also wrap silver bubble insulation plus 1" pink insulation around tote.

[alltatup]

I am hydro, and I could not keep water temp correct w/out chillers. Root problems were chronic, although I managed decent harvests in spite of them. It was just too much additional stress, and it put a real damper on the joys of growing. Now I keep the two reservoirs at 68-70 degrees, andme and the plants are just CHILLIN!!!

[stevenics]

So after using nutrient solution ice cubes for a few weeks, and being as creative as possible with ways to keep my water cool, it is just to much work to keep it at the 66f that im looking for. I folded and went ahead and purchased a chiller, the active aqua 1/10 hp chiller. I also purchased the active aqua 250 gal submersible water pump. I already have like fifteen pumps, but none of them are exactly 250gph, which is what the manufacturer recommends , so for 20 extra dollars i got the pump also. came to a total of a little over 300$ but after talking to my GWE family I decided it was the most worth it way to chill the water. Thanks for all your input. does anyone have this chiller?

chiller link at amazon ----- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

pump link at amazon -----> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

check out my other posts https://forum.growweedeasy.com/forum...eds-from-a-m-s


this one will make you SMILE!!!! https://forum.growweedeasy.com/forum...1-saber-rescue

[alltatup]

I have two of them! I couldn't live without them now; the frozen bottle thing was such a pain in the ass, and the bottles melted so fast!!

I might have to upgrade to the water pump you use...

[Clampit Rivers]

alltatup, how many gallons of water are you cooling?

[alltatup]

Six gallons in the big reservoir and half that in the small reservoir. The Active Aqua 1/10 HP chiller is way overkill on the small growbox, but no one makes a smaller chiller.

[Clampit Rivers]

Alltatup, I have a 10 gallon tote with 5 gal of water. I totally think chillers are the way to fly on DWC. But like you said, on my setup a chiller was overkill. Plus everything electrical brings some degree of heat.