Waterfarm recirculating reservoir and scrog screen add on

Dr Fish said:
Waterfarm owners all seem to have the same complaints... It's such a pain to fill and drain and daily maintain........ This will help with that by having a controller and add back reservoir which will let you drain/fill, as needed, every 7-10 days....
Waterfarms are a great option for those who want a high yield hydro for one plant... This thread will show a major change in how a regular WF can be modified to circulate a reservoir with no other pump.... It uses only the drip ring pumping column to do the job..
How is this possible you ask?? Simple, it's done adding a standing column of water to the Waterfarm ... That column of water is connected to, and draws water from, the controller... The drip ring now goes in this column of water... When the drip ring pumps water out of the water column , it refills by gravity from the controller.. Gravity now returns water pumped into the WF from the water column, back to the controller by the way of a return line... That return line is connected to the waterfarms old sight/drain barb... A sight drain tube is added to the controller for a daily ppm/ph and water level check... Same old waterfarm type system, with a major twist....
A bonus is that the more waterfarms used, the faster the water moves.... Eight WFs setup this way will move water 7 times faster than a GH waterfarm recirculating kit... Each pumping column doing it's part to move the water along... I would up the size of the reservoir and up the feed/return to 3/4" for multiple WFs....
The add back reservoir and controller are 5 gal buckets.. In use, the controller is set a little lower so most of the 5 gals is used for solution....... About 7+ gal total in the WF and controller.. a 5gal add back reservoir should get a grow through a week.. I've got a bunch more pics of other mods to upload.... I probably missed something important, but this will get the thread started....
All the parts, except the 1/2" grommets and 1/2" barbs can be bought at Home Depot

1 13/16 spade bit for all the holes except the the hole for the float valve.... drill very slow with this bit, and level... it cuts fast...
2 - 5gal lids I got the white lids and sprayed black..
4 - 2.5 in cut off sprinkler risers
4 - rainbird 1/2 inch threaded barbs [Rain-Bird barbs fit 1/2" tubing better than the other 1/2"barb they carry]
1 -18" piece thin wall pvc [to be cut for the water column]
1 -1/2" threaded to 3/4" slip 90*ell [for water column.].
1 pack of hose washers... I like the red ones best, but the black o-rings work... It's best to pre streach the red ones over the riser threads several times... it serves to make them a little bigger and they fit better..
1 float valve and the hardware to mount it in the controller..
Teflon tape, three turns all threads..
A sight tube and the grommet for a 90* barb to mount on the controller for the daily ppm/ph sample and water level check......

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I know this is a dumb one, but I need troubleshooting assistance. It's just not dripping. Not the way it ought to be. I've blown into the pumping column manually, and cut the tube down by half, and I've tried changing my res just to see. Nothin. Nadda. I can't get another pump atm. The one they gave me still seems to work fine, just don't know if she's strong enough. Thoughts? Anything helps lol
 
You being a new Waterfarmer, i need to know how much water do you think the drip ring should be dripping.. Even the small air pump that comes with a single waterfarm should be enough.. You do realize a GH drip ring only moves about 5-6 gals an hour.. It's nothing compared to what even a small electric water pump can deliver.. That said, a WF gets all the dissolved oxygen it needs from water being pumped over the hydroton.. At least a 120 gal. a day.. The hydroton is the air/water interface that delivers the DO to the water.. Waterfarms don't need extra air stones to deliver DO to the plant.. Read my mixed hydro thread..
 
Hey @Dr Fish .

Are you still using the Waterfarms? I have four of them and thinking about making them recirculating in the near future. Or a bigger res for every WF on their own (ditch the bottom of the WF and replace it with a bigger tote). I'm located in Europe and GHE products are T.A here nowadays. Do you think their controller is worth the money or should I diy something? It's around 150€ here.
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I have read your threads many times in the past 5 years or so. You having 315w CMH lights, Waterfarms and Floranova only have brought me to your threads over and over again. Thank you for them.
 
From what I gather GH has stopped making and selling water farms.. The GH WF controller pulls water through as many WFs as you have set up.. The GH pumping column is in the controller to move the water.. The only way you can move water with an air pump is with a pumping column. The GH controller will not change the water in each WF and refill with fresh water from the reservoir at the same time.. The only way to change the water in all the WFs is to have each WF move its own water with the dripring in each WF.. Ea WF, set up as I have, will move 120 gal a day to and from the reservoir.. 4 WFs moving their own water will move almost 500 gallon a day.. My WFs are connected to the reservoir, not to each other.. This controller seems to be the same as GH WF controller and reservoir. Sure like to see a pic of the inside of it.. They're not likely to show that, to many DIY growers would use the idea to make their own bucket setups. Until I can see it setup, I can't understand how it works..
 
Dr Fish said:
From what I gather GH has stopped making and selling water farms..
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So it seems, a quick search taught me that Scotts bought GH in 2014, and they gave GH Europe 5 years time to use their license, and now GHE transformed to TA. I just bought TA Novamax Bloom (counterpart to Floranova) and it looks totally different than the GH Floranova Bloom bottle I had previously. Lighter brown and not so thick. Haven't compared the ingredients yet.

Dr Fish said:
The GH pumping column is in the controller to move the water.. The only way you can move water with an air pump is with a pumping column. The GH controller will not change the water in each WF and refill with fresh water from the reservoir at the same time.. The only way to change the water in all the WFs is to have each WF move its own water with the dripring in each WF.. Ea WF, set up as I have, will move 120 gal a day to and from the reservoir.. 4 WFs moving their own water will move almost 500 gallon a day.. My WFs are connected to the reservoir, not to each other..
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Did I understand correctly?
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You need to return the water drawn from the reservoir.. Each WF is also connected to the reservoir with a return line.. With 2 WFs a common return line works fine.. With 4 WFs each 2 WFs can use a common return line.. Two separate common lines.. You need to understand that the dripring pulls the water into the WF from the reservoir. That water needs to return to the reservoir.. That's what creates the circulation, thanks to gravity. The water column the dripring sits in is higher than the water level in the system.... This new controllers only job is to keep the water level consistent. It won't create a recirculating system... It's meant for a system that uses an electric water pump..
The return line is attached to the WF at the old site tube hole Its not used. You can add a new site tube if you want... . Check out the pimp thread and the LED thread.. The controller is the main reservoir and the feedback reservoir sits atop it.. There is a float in the reservoir that maintains the water level in the system....
 
Dr Fish said:
You need to return the water drawn from the reservoir.. Each WF is also connected to the reservoir with a return line.. With 2 WFs a common return line works fine.. With 4 WFs each 2 WFs can use a common return line.. Two separate common lines.. You need to understand that the dripring pulls the water into the WF from the reservoir. That water needs to return to the reservoir.. That's what creates the circulation, thanks to gravity. The water column the dripring sits in is higher than the water level in the system.... This new controllers only job is to keep the water level consistent. It won't create a recirculating system... It's meant for a system that uses an electric water pump..
The return line is attached to the WF at the old site tube hole Its not used. You can add a new site tube if you want... . Check out the pimp thread and the LED thread.. The controller is the main reservoir and the feedback reservoir sits atop it.. There is a float in the reservoir that maintains the water level in the system....
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Thanks. Now I get it.

I emailed TA asking if their Cultimate is the same as GH waterfarm and they said yes. I also got the instruction manual for the controller. Ask and you shall receive I guess. They were happy to give it and were apologizing it wasn't openly available.

tacultimate.png
 
Them saying it's the same as the one from GH isn't true, simply because it does not have a separate return line.. The GH reservoir/controller actually circulates the water through as many WFs that are connected to it.. This controller only maintains the water level in the system.. It does not move the water from the reservoir.. You need to have a pump to move the water to make the system recirculate. That's about all I can say in comparing the two.. All I've done is remove a heat adding pump from the RCDW equation. And increase the rate of circulation from the reservoir to 5 gal an hour for each WF.
 
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