A long time coming.

[DM_Grows]

Hello farmers, I am a hobbyist cultivator located in eastern US. I have been growing for 4+ years with at least 6 full cycles completed.

I mainly run hydro, in a custom hybrid dwc setup which I designed by combining concepts of multiple existing systems. (Along with a bit of trial and error along the way)

I grow primarily for personal consumption + friends and family. My interests in joining this forum are to learn techniques from others as well as to share my personal experiences.

Aside from growing, hobbies include woodworking, guitar playing, DND DMing, and disc golf.

I look forward to learning from the community. Photo is of Ethos Cherry Gar See Ya that I grew in aeroponic buckets.

 

[Captspaulding]

Howdy homie.
Nice herb.
I’m jumping back into dwc here real soon as well, hope to learn a abit and share abit,
Welcome to the farm.

 

[DM_Grows]

Howdy homie.
Nice herb.
I’m jumping back into dwc here real soon as well, hope to learn a abit and share abit,
Welcome to the farm.

Thanks, happy to be here.

My system has had a lot of tweaking over the years and basically no 2 grows have been exactly the same. I'm hoping to find some good tips to help nail down some consistency.

 

[RootFarmer]

Welcome! I loved my aero rig I made years ago. I'm interested in learning about your set up. It appears that it works great.

 

[Captspaulding]

Thanks, happy to be here.

My system has had a lot of tweaking over the years and basically no 2 grows have been exactly the same. I'm hoping to find some good tips to help nail down some consistency.

I can give you a pretty solid tip for consistency, right off the bat, look into green leaf nutrients, my friend that shit is ambrosia i’ve been able to grow 31 different strains at the same time and not have to cater to anyone specific plant. Wonderful stuff super versatile. The mega crop killer stuff. One Soluble needed, for veg. in flower, I use three. The mega crop
Sweet candy
And sea kelp

 

[DM_Grows]

Welcome! I loved my aero rig I made years ago. I'm interested in learning about your set up. It appears that it works great.

My aero rig was 2 5gal buckets and a small storage container. Using 2 pumps on a timer and some tubing, the solution would exit the res, making a ring around the top of the bucket in which sprayer heads were inserted. Roots get a nice misting, and excess would gravity feed out of further tubing from the bottom of the buckets back into the res. That was my first hydro/aero attempt, and worked well with the exception that my res was much too small, and in flower it needed constantly to be refilled. Otherwise, conceptually it worked fine.

My "hybrid dwc" system is 2 30gal containers. One being the res and one being the plant container. Much larger pump carries water from the res to the grow container (which has 2 plant sites, evenly spaced) and is distributed via a PVC sprayer heads of sorts that I made. It goes around the perimeter of the grow container as well as having a cross beam through the center (between the net pots). This distributes the incoming water to every nook and cranny, even after the root balls get giant. Running this system is effectively a waterfall (several waterfalls really) as the nozzle simply has 1/8" holes drilled every few inches. Due to this, I am *not* running an air pump of any kind. I have found the waterfall action plus the addition of h2o2 (as an antibacterial) keeps enough O2 in the water for the plants to be happy. Similar to the buckets, excess drains back to the res via a 2"PVC drain. Since the bottom of the tote has some curve, the drain sits about 1.5" up, meaning the roots are always mostly in contact with the air, with about the bottom inch or two always being in contact with water. The pump is on a timer, to ensure that A) my entire res doesn't get pumped into my grow container, and B) that the roots get enough air contact to avoid rot.

This is how I've been doing things the last few years, and is by no means perfect, but it absolutely does work and I've completed several cycles with this setup. Any advice is welcome, as I have almost no one I talk to about this regularly.

 

[DM_Grows]

I can give you a pretty solid tip for consistency, right off the bat, look into green leaf nutrients, my friend that shit is ambrosia i’ve been able to grow 31 different strains at the same time and not have to cater to anyone specific plant. Wonderful stuff super versatile. The mega crop killer stuff. One Soluble needed, for veg. in flower, I use three. The mega crop
Sweet candy
And sea kelp

I will have to check them out for sure! Up until now I've kept things very simple with GH. Originally I was using the trio, but last few cycles I've been using the Lucas formula with good results.