Hydro West AquaBuckets 5 Gallon 4 Site Deep Water Culture Hydroponic System with Mixing Cell and 200 Mesh Filter

I bought this a few years ago to be my first attempt at DWC, and have had some experience with it now. I am by no means an expert in DWC and am learning along the way.The buckets are sturdy, and everything is well made. All buckets had holes pre-drilled for the connections, and the fittings all have rubber grommets and washers for leak protection. I took the extra step of using teflon tape for any connections. All buckets are made of thick, black plastic, and have tight lids. The master bucket lid is solid, the other four lids have built-in net pots for your plants, which you'll fill with the medium of your choice (I use clay pellets/rocks). I had no problems with algae, or light leaks of any kind, although I made sure the clay pellets filled up any holes in the net pots to keep the buckets completely dark inside. Instructions were sparse, but provided, although mainly just pictures and arrows; it took me a few minutes to figure out how it all fit together. Do a pre-fit, pre-run before you acutally put any plants in it!The master bucket can be used to do water changes, refills, and for mixing nutes; it has a drain valve to drain the entire system, although I've yet to use it as I prefer my hand-held, battery-operated water pump for that purpose. The low-pressure pump in the master bucket sends water to the satellite buckets via small drip lines, and each satellite bucket has a larger soft-plastic tube at the bottom that attaches to a large solid PVC master drain pipe, all of which uses gravity to drain back into the master bucket. The kit comes with an air pump and air lines to run to each bucket, one line to each, with a single air stone.My tent is a 4' X 4' x 6'. It holds the master bucket, and two satellites pretty well, and I could see it fitting all five buckets into the tent, but I will need to keep the plants smaller to make it work. Also, the master bucket and large PVC drain line are a non-flexible connection that tends to be difficlt to place just right without causing kinks in the flexible drain lines from the satellite buckets. Even with three buckets in my tent, it is sometimes hard to prune, etc., as there are lines in the way, constantly.This was a good starter kit for me. The plants I grew were monsters and, no kidding, almost double the size of the same plants I grew in pots, grew much more quickly, and also required a lot more water and food.I like that the kit has a single master bucket with the pumps and filters in it. I started with only two plants/buckets, and quickly realized, the kit doesn't downsize to less than 4 satellite buckets without buying additional hardware. This is due to the large PVC return line that has four ports that receive drain water from the satellites. If you don't use all four satellite buckets, you have plug unused ports or the water will drain out of the system. I just took the flexible drain tubes that would attached to the two buckets I wasn't using, and just put the free end of the tubes into the master bucket by hanging them over the top rim. Not ideal, and the tubes have fallen out and drained into my tent twice. I have PVC plugs for the unused ports now.I would HIGHLY recommend you double the air pump, lines, and stones. I felt instantly that one stone wasn't enough airflow in the buckets with a big mass of roots in there; since I was only using two buckets, I used two lines/stones in each bucket, and that worked well. The air pump is a bit too noisy for my liking, but does the job; I have it outside my tent so I'm pulling cooler air into the water, in an attempt to help reduce water temperatures.I am not a fan of how the water and air lines have to be routed to the satellites in this system. They suggest routing them through the top of the bucket, through the net pot (and your roots) and down into the bucket. That means a) you cannot detach anything, or remove the plant from the bucket easily, as you will have lines attached that are difficult to remove when they are entrenched in your rootball, and b) if you aren't careful about the water lines, you will flood the floor. There is nothing that attaches the lines to the buckets. I have since bought some water-line tube holders, and have cut/melted/welded them into my lid tops so I can at least quickly attach and detach the lines when I need to. If you think you can just run the lines to the top, and have them sit there unattached, you're asking for floods, trust me on this.If things were secured and solid, I would run my water pump on a very frequent schedule (5 minutes on, 15 off), or even keep it on 24/7. But, with the floods I've had, I no longer run the pump unless I'm there to keep an eye on it, so typically it's on for a while I feed and prune each day.I have had problems with the satellite buckets draining back to the master bucket, and am not 100% sure why yet. I have two suspicions, a) something got in the drain line and is hindering flow back to the master, or b) the physics of the setup are such that the farther the satellite bucket is from the master, the slower it drains. It could be both. In any case, I've had several instances of overflows at one of my satellites when the water pump was on, and water was going into the satellite faster than it was coming out.On a related note, there's no way to see how full the buckets are without opening the lid. An indicator tube on the side would be a good improvement. I'll be adding those myself in the next week.I have also found what most DWC users have found, it is hard to run a DWC system without a chiller in warm places. Using cool air helped, but not enough, I am constantly fighting/looking out for root rot, but that isn't a fault of this system.I have yet to figure out how to change/clean the filter. However, it's plugged up now, so I plan to use percussive maintenance to figure out if it's even possible to do so. It feels like the filter canister screws apart, but haven't been able to make it do so yet. There is a small cap on the filter, but opening that seems useless, and doesn't provide access to the filter inside. I am looking at better water pumps, filters, and lines to address these issues.Speaking of floods, I will not run any DWC system again without having a hard, water-proof, water-holding barrier underneath everything, and preferably, an inch of clearance between that and anything inside of it so removing water from floods is an easy task. In addition, I'm buying moister sensors that send me an alarm when they detect a flood. It only takes a few minutes to empty the system with the pumps on. These things will make sure that any leaks, fallen tubing, overflows are caught and managed before they become a problem.

I chose this hoping all the parts would fit nicely and I wouldn't have to spend time troubleshooting it or building my own. But the longer I have it the more I realize how schlepped-together it really is. The instructions are a joke; terrible quality of photos and minimal instructions. The grommets/rings aren't designed for round surface so they leak a little. I can't move anything because of the massive manifold that must be propped up so it doesn't pull on the reservoir bucket. Worst of all, the air pump was super noisy and I had to replace it. Filter is a total PITA to remove and clean out.

I purchased a 370 GPH Canister aquarium filter / pump ( External ) with this system and used it instead of the stock water pump that comes with it and it works great , water temps are between 67 - 70 ( under a 400 watt HID) and i have it to cycle 1 hour on - 1 hour off to keep the nutrient solution moving around , this combined with the agitation from the generous airstones in each bucket should keep any root rot / algae / pathogens at bay ! My room temp ( basement ) is at around 70 day 65 night at this time of year but if it gets hot ( up to 80's ) i am going to invest in the active aqua 1/10 hp chiller http://www.amazon.com/Active-Aqua-Chiller-Refrigeration-Unit/dp/B0048IVBT4 just dial in the temp and its all good ! make sure to tighten the joints well and give them an extra few rounds of pluming tape to avoid slow drip leaks . Customer service from Nick was fast and informative , am altogether happy with this product :)

It is what it is...and well worth the price if you don't want the hassle of building your own. The air pump and stones, not so much. With a better air pump and stones, I would give this a 5 star. I ended up making some diy air diffusers with soaker hose and a MUCH MORE POWERFUL air pump, and I am happy now! :) So much so, I will be buying a 6-site set at the end of the year.

Only been in use for about a week. So far, no leaks or issues with pumps. Instructions were a bit difficult at first, mainly because they are pictures printed B/W. I emailed seller for a colour .pdf and I got it the next day. Would buy again. Will update again after several weeks of use.

I thought these would leak. But so far so good. I have made it through 90 days and moved these around with no problems.Nice set up.

This is an excellent kit for both the novice and experienced grower. My plants are producing so many tomatoes that I have a problem giving them away fast enough. The only thing I would improve on this system is to include a circulation pump so your nutes. don't settle on the bottom of your buckets. The brand of nutes. I use are more to blame than the kit. You can buy a cheap fish tank pump for about $20. I contacted clonebucket.com ( the makers / distributers of Aquabuckets) with an e-mail at 1:30 pm on a Sunday and got a response by 4 pm that same day! Great customer service!

Decent price but not the best construction. Returned my order and lost almost $50 to shipping costs. Won’t use this seller again