VEVOR Deep Water Culture DWC system setup
VEVOR Deep Water Culture DWC system setup
This can be a Do It Yourself project, you would have to buy all the materials of course, but I built this system with a kit I got from Vevor. In this video I show you how to put the kit together, and then set it up with Celebrity tomato plants. Below are links for the products shown in this video:
Vevor link: https://s.vevor.com/bfQcc8
5% off discount code: VEVORSALE5
Hashtag : #VEVOR #vevorhydroponic
Masterblend Hydroponic Nutriets: https://amzn.to/3Mu9r9i
Disclaimer: Some of the above links are Amazon affiliate links and I receive a small commission with each sale at no extra cost to you. Thanks so much for the support.
Great info thank you
They don’t need instructions when they have you. You did an excellent job of demonstrating the system construction.
Thanks Tikki! I’ll be by in a couple of months with a knife, a jar of mayo and a salt shaker! Absolutely love real tomatoes.😅
Looks like another fun project and it seems reasonably priced.
Do you need to use a water chiller?
Nice👍 mam, good arrangements 👍🙏
Tip…..check valves can go anywhere in the line. And if the air pump is located higher than the buckets (shelf etc) than you don’t need to use check valves. Same as a fish tank.
I want to try some hydroponic tomatoes this year if I can.
DWC is VERY good if you can keep up with water changes/topup, pH, and ppm levels, and you keep enough air going to not cause anaerobic pockets. Right off the bat I can tell that you are going to have problems because that airpump is about half of what you need. Another downside is that -It gets very labor intensive when the plants get large. Just getting to the reservoir means you have to lift up the whole plant, or reach through a jungle and only have access to a little hole in the lid. Most people give up testing pH and ppms at that point, and just start topping off with nutes, and it ends up compiling into a problem. And even if you are very diligent with maintenance, you will always be chasing a pH swing…Then, if everything goes 100% perfect, things still tend to inevitably succumb to fusarium. All that, and the electrical use from running the air pumps 24/7 make it off putting for me.
My method is kind of an ebb and flow, and DWC bucket hybrid design.. It just uses 1 water pump (15 mins on every 4 hours), the only constant power usage is a hang on back aquarium filter (5 watts), and achieves more reliable, and superior results… and you have a shared reservoir to do nute changes and tests so maintenance is a breeze, and can be left alone longer. and the pH is much more stable. If things go to plan I’ll make a few videos about it as well.
1 protip recommendation I have (can’t be all doom and gloom now can we?) To help make thing easier and more productive, and to stave off the fusarium, and other molds and mildew is a beneficial bacteria inoculation with a product that contains and active culture of the bacteria "Bacillus Subtilis".. you can get this from a wide variety of sources…It is sold as "Serenade" in your garden department as an "anti fungal" 1 drop in each bucket would be enough… It can also be found in your local pharmacy as pro-biotic pills meant for human consumption.. Botanicare makes "hydroguard" that is really watered down, overpriced, but is basically the same thing. It also helps to smooth out the pH spikes.
Oh, and 1 bonus protip, the black buckets can get pretty hot, and I’ve seen people lose a bunch of plants just due to overheating before a good canopy forms… so putting something beside/over them to keep the buckets in the shade early on will really help with vigor and survival rates.
Good luck with your garden this year. I’ll definitely be watching to see how this goes. Please keep us updated on how things go… and don’t be afraid to share if things don’t go absolutely perfect… documentation of failure is just as important the eventual success.
what are your plants for trellising the tomatoes?
A tip for putting together the tubing, if you lubricate the nipples before inserting into the tubing they will slide right in, lubrication as in saliva.
Thanks!
Hi there how easy is it to add nutrients and ph test 1
Looks like fun.
Hello Tikki. I’m Anginen. Please check your email. Thank You!
What’s your plan to keep rain water out of the system and diluting your solution?
Nice set up … and priced a little better than the other system you did a video on.
Looking forward to seeing how this one pans out.
Cheers!
I bought that same system back in Feb. Back then it was only $150. I was considering buying another, but when I went back and looked at the ad it had went up $20. It was a little irritating to have to pay $20 more for something I had just purchased, so I decided to think about it. I looked at the ad like 2 or 3 days later, and it had then went up to $180. I now see it’s back down to $161 ($160.99).
I still may get another one, as the system does work great. Of course, it’s little more than buckets with water in them. Buying the complete system is much better than having to get all of the individual components to build an _identical_ system yourself, I believe. Also, as you touched on, when considering the prices of other similar systems, I think it’s worth the money.
It was a while before I had time to get everything going, but I set mine up in a 4 x 4 grow tent, and the system fits and works great. There’s not much extra room with the pump also in the tent, but there’s enough. I installed an elastic mesh trellis from the floor (edge) of the tent to the middle bar of the ceiling, and an oscillating fan, and I now have a cucumber plant going, a bush bean, a tomato (maybe 2, can’t remember right now), a green pepper, 2 or 3 hot peppers, and I forget what else. I can’t imagine the plants growing any better. I started everything from seed, in rockwool, and in the buckets. I did make sure to keep the rockwool wet until the roots touched the water in the buckets, of course.
Lastly, just for future reference, as I’ve seen other companies do it too, but in Vevor’s Amazon ad, on the images at the top, if you scroll through, one of the images (2nd. I believe) is actually a tutorial video that shows how to setup the system. It obviously won’t do you -much- any good now, however. *lol* Good job on the setup, BTW. 👍 You actually did better than I did, and I had the video! 😆 I somehow managed to cut one of the blue pipes just a little too short and had a slight leak (just drops), but it was easily resolved.
Thanks for the video. I love watching all of your grows/experiments/comparisons, etc.
I like the looks of this system!