Drain to Waste vs Recirculating nutrient solution

[@maxpouser]

Awesome video, just discovered this channel, hope the best!

[@everennui1]

I have a 5 gallon bucket in my room with 3 plants and I fill it once a week with my runoff. It's not, "drain to waste" hydroponics, but I get runoff every time I feed. Some of the recirculated tables I've seen have 40L reservoirs. That's twice as much water each week that's being used.

[@myklnelson]

larger containers hold more water. recirculating systems mean that wasn't is held rather than lost, so the only water leaving the system is via evapotranspiration and plant uptake.

[@vernonpeterson3323]

Excellent video. What you covered is the foundational elements of both systems but not the data needed to determine which system to use. Let me give you a real world example of drain to waste. Actually, the application is a back-yard gatdener one. For the last 6 years I have been using a dutch bucket drain to waste system to grow tomatoe, cucumbers and peppers with great success and low budget. In 5 gallon buckets i have 60 percent perlite and forty percent vermiculite. The vermiculite holds the nutrient solution longer. I pump solution, during the middle of the growing season, twice per day for 30 minutes through 4 gpm nozzles for each bucket with cheap low pressure pump. The buckets have a 1 inch hole two inch up from the bottom for drainage. I doubt there is more than 2 to 4 percent waste. My yields are very good. Others that i know using a recirculating method are feeding 3 times for one hour. My costs and water usage are less.

[@myklnelson]

Thank you for your contribution!

[@andrewislas7742]

Thank you for this video. Makes lots on sense. It comes down to the time you will have to make a choice on these two

[@myklnelson]

glad it helped =]

[@dfurry100]

Nice!

[@atomizer2665]

I agree with most of the points you made. I have to disagree with the blanket statement that recirculating is more water and nutrient efficient vs drain to waste as it is also dependent on the system. Running an NFT system drain to waste would be very inefficient, but a genuine aeroponic system that delivers just slightly more than the plants need at that moment is considerably more efficient than the recirculating option. A benefit of drain to waste you didnt mention is the ability to monitor the water and nutrient uptake in real time which isnt as easy with a recirculating reservoir. If the nutrient`s elemental content is fixed you can compare the inlet and outlet ppm difference which can be used to optimize nutrient strength for best efficiency. The same can be done with water uptake, if you know how much is delivered to the plants and how much is sent to the drain you can make adjustments. Most folks wont realise that plants uptake water and nutrients at different rates throughout the day and night. If you take hourly measurements you will see the water uptake increasing and nutrient uptake decreasing in a linear fashion as light intensity and temperature increases. If the system allows you to tailor the water and nutrient delivery to meet the plant needs in real time, you`ll find drain to waste considerably more efficient than recirculating. As an aside, nutrient formulations for recirculating and drain to waste are different because a recirculed nutrient must have buffering agents to maintain a stable PH. Adding ph up or ph down affects the elemental balance of the nutrient, so even if the ph is good the elemental makeup could be adrift. The run off PH is a good indicator of nutrient uptake, for example, nitrate uptake is reflected by a rise in PH, potassium uptake is reflected by a drop in PH. Fast growing crops can make recirculating reservoirs harder to manage. In the case of tomatoes, they will strip large amounts of potassium from the nutrient solution prior to flowering. In a drain to waste system this event can be seen by a sharp drop in outlet PH. The problem in a recirculating system is you may not be aware a lot of the potassium in the solution has been removed by the plants. The PH drop is less pronounced in a recirculating reservoir but in any case most folks would likely just add potassium hydroxide (PH up) to raise the PH when they should replace the reservoir to correct the elemental imbalance.

[@myklnelson]

Thanks for your comment. You're right, drain-to-waste offers a great opportunity to really monitor and dial in your nutrient use.

[@whatilearnttoday5295]

The world being described here is a magical model without half the detail. "Waste" doesn't mean "Down the drain" it means "Fed into some other system for more revenue from same nutrients"

[@leeadickes7235]

Keep the water level as low as possible in the bucket for the recirculation system. Top feed 24/7 with a good flow. Use a float valve to add from a primary rez to the lower rez. use the smallest submersible pump to ariate primary rez. Have to completely drain whole system once a week. Run nutes at half strength. No air pumps. Hydroton and 12" netpots. Set it and forget it up to 6 days or depending on size of the primary rez.

[@myklnelson]

great points, thank you!

[@atomizer2665]

@@myklnelson A smaller volume of recirculated nutrient will become unbalanced that much sooner..Maintaining PH is also more difficult with the smaller volume. Feeding half strength nutrient is one way to mitigate this potential issue but its at the expense of the plants. They will not be receiving the optimal elemental makeup or the optimal nutrient strength.

[@cjgamer2140]

Can you explain why no air pumps?

[@leeadickes7235]

@@cjgamer2140 you don't need them.

[@leeadickes7235]

@cjgamer2140 roots are not submerged. It's more like a nft set up in buckets. Top feed acts as a waterfall. I like to have a chiller in the loop and have that return waterfall into the resivior. Got to cool the fact you have pond pumps in the rez.

[@somedude8theweb]

Excellent video, very balanced perspective. One kind of off topic question - since you are standing behind that board, are you writing backwards?

[@myklnelson]

Hi somedude =] So I'm writing it like normal. I'm actually left-handed so if you look, the video shows me writing with my right! The camera actually records it reversed, and we flip the video in post. If you're interested in learning more, check out some videos about 'light boards' and you should grok it pretty quick!

[@anthonyjones9165]

Do you have a Recirculating system you would recommend for newbies to hydroponic growing. I have been a soil man for years but would like to get into hydro

[@myklnelson]

anything you've got handy! one or two containers with fitted lids, a pump, nutrients, plants, net cups, hole-drill for said cups. and you're off and growing!

[@doveseye.4666]

So if I use a buffered nutrient than drain to waste is best from your video here?

[@myklnelson]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'buffered'. but, there's no 'best' I don't think, just different options depending on your circumstances and preferences.

[@doveseye.4666]

@@myklnelson the. PH is buffered so never have to PH or flush, like Mantis Buffered Nutrients.