Deep water culture, also called DWC for short is probably the most popular growing system used today for growing hydroponic weed.
It was originally developed for growing water loving plants like lettuce. The plants were inserted through a Styrofoam raft and the roots were submersed in an aerated nutrient solution.
Over time it was discovered that the deep water culture system was highly adaptable and a wide range of plants could be grown using this method. The deep water culture system evolved into using buckets or totes with hydroton or rock wool filled net pots inserted into their lids. Plants are typically started in rock wool cubes or rapid rooters.
Usually water levels are kept at pot level during early seedling stages and water levels are gradually dropped as the roots elongate. As long as the water stays aerated roots can remain in it almost indefinitely.
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One of the reasons the DWC system is so widely used is its ease of set up.
A DWC bucket can be built with a 5 gallon bucket and lid from Lowes or Home Depot.
A cheap aquarium air pump and air stone will keep the nutrients aerated and moving.
All a builder needs to do is cut a hole in the bucket lid to hold the net pot and his plant, plug in the air pump and you have a DWC grow.
DWC Bucket DIY
Deep Water Culture Tips
Of course the above is an over simplification. Here are a few DWC tips to get your grow going . There are two tools you will need that are indispensable to any kind of hydroponic growing system. They are a TDS meter and a pH meter or pH test kit.
Your pH controls nutrient availability and generally 5.8 is considered the sweet spot where macro and micro nutrients are both most available. A pH range of 5 to 6 is OK but when things get higher or lower than that you are likely to experience a nutrient lock out.
Plants are all different so it is not possible to give precise nutrient levels but a TDS meter will tell you the PPM of your mix.
Seedlings can get about 300 PPM once they have true leaves. most plants will be OK if you build gradually to 1000 ppm.
Some plants are heavy feeders and can take 2-4000 PPM. Most growers will gradually increase PPM until they see slight burning on the leaf tips and then back off a bit.
Always adjust your pH after adding your nutrients. You will need pH Up and pH Down to adjust it. Generally most times you will be raising the pH and not lowering it.
Your DWC system will require water changes every week or two at most. That’s important to do!
You will also need to monitor your water temperatures. Cooler is better, 65 to 80F is ideal according to this General Hydroponics article. If temps get too warm you run a greater chance of root rot and you may need a DWC chiller to control them.
I like a temperature range of 68-72F because water holds more oxygen at those temps.
Most information advises dark or black buckets to stop algae growth. There is even an article on deep water culture on Wikipedia that advises this here.
But it’s a bad idea because dark buckets absorb heat and will raise your water temps.
High temps will cause more problems (like killing your plants) than algae ever will.
Besides if you keep your temperatures low and clean your buckets out with bleach every week you wont have a problem with algae.
If you decide to go with dark buckets you may want to spray paint them white. Also you can deal with algae by using 3% H2O2 at 2 12 tsp per gallon. The extra aeration it provides may even cause a growth spurt in your plants.
Running a single DWC bucket is fine but what if you want to run a deep water culture system with multiple buckets? The answer is recirculating deep water culture or RDWC.
In this type of system the buckets are hooked together in a series and attached to a central reservoir.
A pump circulates the water through the system and it returns to the reservoir where the cycle is repeated.
Some recirculating deep water culture systems still use air stones in each bucket, while others use them only in the reservoir.
The advantage is that you don’t have to monitor and mix nutrients for each bucket, instead you only need to check the reservoir and if properly designed you can flush and clean all your buckets from there. If only the reservoir is aerated you will have a lot less tubing to deal with too.
There are many variations on this type of system. Some incorporate a top drip feed to help young plants get off to a faster start.
In Bubbleponics aerated nutrient solution is fed to the plants. The WaterFarm also works in a similar manner. There is also a recirculating DWC system that combines ebb and flow with deep water culture.
These systems are far more complicated to build although a DIY DWC system is certainly doable. In some cases it doesn’t really save much money but some people just like building their own systems.
DIY RDWC
Whether you build your own DWC hydroponic system or not is up to you and your skill level. But either way you will enjoy higher yields and faster grow times than in soil with deep water culture.
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