Thought I’d share my own little technique on here since this topic is becoming pretty informative concerning ways of lowering ones reservoir temps. I provided a pic to help with my explanation.
Anyway, it’s basically a shallow reservoir with just water and a couple of those blue ice blocks. Then you place your growing buckets into the water reservoir (bottom left pic). For some reason those last much, much longer than just frozen water bottles. I use two to three of those ice blocks and it keeps my temps down in the low to mid 60’s for a good 12 hours (at least for me). I change them as needed. So whatever temps are in the water reservoir, those same temps will be in the nutrient reservoir. This way I don’t have to be adding ice blocks directly into the nutrient reservoir and disturbing the root system, etc. Afterward you can cover the water reservoir with black/white poly material so light won’t enter and keep the temps cooler, longer. The top left pic is when I was growing pepper plants a while back. It has three 2-gal buckets underneath the poly material, but can fit four. Top right pic shows a Carolina Reaper pepper plant I grew in a 5-gal bucket using same technique. Bottom right pic shows the root system of the Reaper plant. No issues, no root rot, just happy, white roots. Water chillers did cross my mind, but my budget doesn’t allow and I just want to use less electrical devices as possible. It has been working for me for years without any issues. Water reservoir can be any size, but I recommend the short shallow ones. Even a smaller, shallow one that can just barely handle a 5-gallon bucket and a couple of ice blocks will work fine too. Hope this helps give someone some ideas for a cheaper way of lowering their reservoir temps.
Anyway, it’s basically a shallow reservoir with just water and a couple of those blue ice blocks. Then you place your growing buckets into the water reservoir (bottom left pic). For some reason those last much, much longer than just frozen water bottles. I use two to three of those ice blocks and it keeps my temps down in the low to mid 60’s for a good 12 hours (at least for me). I change them as needed. So whatever temps are in the water reservoir, those same temps will be in the nutrient reservoir. This way I don’t have to be adding ice blocks directly into the nutrient reservoir and disturbing the root system, etc. Afterward you can cover the water reservoir with black/white poly material so light won’t enter and keep the temps cooler, longer. The top left pic is when I was growing pepper plants a while back. It has three 2-gal buckets underneath the poly material, but can fit four. Top right pic shows a Carolina Reaper pepper plant I grew in a 5-gal bucket using same technique. Bottom right pic shows the root system of the Reaper plant. No issues, no root rot, just happy, white roots. Water chillers did cross my mind, but my budget doesn’t allow and I just want to use less electrical devices as possible. It has been working for me for years without any issues. Water reservoir can be any size, but I recommend the short shallow ones. Even a smaller, shallow one that can just barely handle a 5-gallon bucket and a couple of ice blocks will work fine too. Hope this helps give someone some ideas for a cheaper way of lowering their reservoir temps.
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