workngrow
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As the title suggests, first time grow.
Like many I have done a fair amount of research to try and understand environment control, ventilation/temperature/humidity/tds readings/ph, the list runs on. Interesting community as everyone seems to find which way works for them.
I am diving straight into the deep end, puns intended, with deep water culture. The approach fits my time schedule and with the monitoring tools available should give me the capability to remotely monitor aspects of the grow. Parse out changes in environment and/or nutrient uptake over time, and basically generate reports. I work in a technical space, so data management and workflow is where I tend to thrive.
Since I've basically learned to date that a 'grow' operation has varying stages with varying environment and feed needs at each stage. So listing what I am working with for each.
Propagation:
Super Sprouter Premium Propagation Kit
Rockwool cubes
Clonex Seedling and Clone nutrients
Veg and Flower, same tent. (Will likely change in the future assuming this isn't a Trainwreck (haha).)
5x5 Tent
6'' Vent system /w humidity and temp control
Few fans (clip-able, have batts, should run for a bit if short power outage)
Dehumidifier
Wireless temp/humidity monitors (Data collection)
Bluelab Guardian Monitor Connect with the USB Connector (This for water measurement/monitoring/data collection)
**This would basically hang out in the res and transmit readings to PC (Think this can be cloud leveraged as well.) Almost a third of the cost is invested in variable monitoring because I dont want any sort of failure be a result of inaction on an item that gets out of wack, such as water temp or ph.
UPS System Surge Protection and power outage battery life. (This should keep the system rolling in the event of a short outage.)
The 3 variables I am trying to settle on for the final stages of planning this out is the lights, nutes, and construction of the dwc system itself.
The DWC System:
For the under current reservoir dwc system I am just going to model a 4 plant site system off videos and diagrams I've seen. The system isn't too incredibly complicated, though I did read in one of the threads here that it was possible to run this system without air-stones, and use falling water to oxygenate the water. So the plan is to drop a couple drains with maybe a fitting at the end in each plant side to push aerated water into the container. The thread also mentioned that the air coming from the stones tends to rip up the root mass and that they found the water 'jets' or 'drains' produced sufficient oxygenation. Any feedback on that perspective would be awesome.
The containers are 15 gallon, 25'' inches x like 14'' and 12'' tall. Black but will be coated in reflective material. They look sturdy, are made of the appropriate plastic and have a nice surface spot to drop a plant basket right in the center. Through research on bucket sizing the information I found said you want about a foot deep for root space, as anything after about that tends to want to grow outward instead of down. To maximize space for growing the plants in a 5x5, keeping the container itself at a safe but short height seemed important.
Otherwise standard pvc, fittings, etc. My super awesome color coded mspaint diagram of the general layout. This is just pieced together from what I have seen other people or companies sell. Most of the pre-built setups didnt have the right amount of spacing, shooting for 2.5m2 per plant or close to it which means everything needs to be centered and spaced appropriately.
Nutes
Aqua Man here pointed me to the Jacks products which I am checking out. I am pretty sure whatever I settle with, it'll be powder based and ill be avoiding the Fox Farms/Advanced Nutrients rigmarole. So either Jacks or Lotus, which the cal-mag aspects with those seem to be taken care of so then I would probably get a silica additive and hydroguard.
Light
With what the system would be able to produce this is where I am struggling. I've seen some of the YT videos where Spock from I believe the univ. of utah shows you how to do light intensity measurements and calculate what's needed for X Space over time, etc. Using I believe was a quantum reader. I will need to go over this a few more times to understand how all of the conversions work because I am dumb. Really looking for the ideal scenario for potency/yield as probably most people.
The light I am currently looking at purchasing is here:
horticulturelightinggroup.com
Sorry for the long post, just a lot of information to take in the first pass and needed a place to decompress this and hopefully get some ideas/pointers along the way. Thanks in Advance.
Like many I have done a fair amount of research to try and understand environment control, ventilation/temperature/humidity/tds readings/ph, the list runs on. Interesting community as everyone seems to find which way works for them.
I am diving straight into the deep end, puns intended, with deep water culture. The approach fits my time schedule and with the monitoring tools available should give me the capability to remotely monitor aspects of the grow. Parse out changes in environment and/or nutrient uptake over time, and basically generate reports. I work in a technical space, so data management and workflow is where I tend to thrive.
Since I've basically learned to date that a 'grow' operation has varying stages with varying environment and feed needs at each stage. So listing what I am working with for each.
Propagation:
Super Sprouter Premium Propagation Kit
Rockwool cubes
Clonex Seedling and Clone nutrients
Veg and Flower, same tent. (Will likely change in the future assuming this isn't a Trainwreck (haha).)
5x5 Tent
6'' Vent system /w humidity and temp control
Few fans (clip-able, have batts, should run for a bit if short power outage)
Dehumidifier
Wireless temp/humidity monitors (Data collection)
Bluelab Guardian Monitor Connect with the USB Connector (This for water measurement/monitoring/data collection)
**This would basically hang out in the res and transmit readings to PC (Think this can be cloud leveraged as well.) Almost a third of the cost is invested in variable monitoring because I dont want any sort of failure be a result of inaction on an item that gets out of wack, such as water temp or ph.
UPS System Surge Protection and power outage battery life. (This should keep the system rolling in the event of a short outage.)
The 3 variables I am trying to settle on for the final stages of planning this out is the lights, nutes, and construction of the dwc system itself.
The DWC System:
For the under current reservoir dwc system I am just going to model a 4 plant site system off videos and diagrams I've seen. The system isn't too incredibly complicated, though I did read in one of the threads here that it was possible to run this system without air-stones, and use falling water to oxygenate the water. So the plan is to drop a couple drains with maybe a fitting at the end in each plant side to push aerated water into the container. The thread also mentioned that the air coming from the stones tends to rip up the root mass and that they found the water 'jets' or 'drains' produced sufficient oxygenation. Any feedback on that perspective would be awesome.
The containers are 15 gallon, 25'' inches x like 14'' and 12'' tall. Black but will be coated in reflective material. They look sturdy, are made of the appropriate plastic and have a nice surface spot to drop a plant basket right in the center. Through research on bucket sizing the information I found said you want about a foot deep for root space, as anything after about that tends to want to grow outward instead of down. To maximize space for growing the plants in a 5x5, keeping the container itself at a safe but short height seemed important.
Otherwise standard pvc, fittings, etc. My super awesome color coded mspaint diagram of the general layout. This is just pieced together from what I have seen other people or companies sell. Most of the pre-built setups didnt have the right amount of spacing, shooting for 2.5m2 per plant or close to it which means everything needs to be centered and spaced appropriately.
Nutes
Aqua Man here pointed me to the Jacks products which I am checking out. I am pretty sure whatever I settle with, it'll be powder based and ill be avoiding the Fox Farms/Advanced Nutrients rigmarole. So either Jacks or Lotus, which the cal-mag aspects with those seem to be taken care of so then I would probably get a silica additive and hydroguard.
Light
With what the system would be able to produce this is where I am struggling. I've seen some of the YT videos where Spock from I believe the univ. of utah shows you how to do light intensity measurements and calculate what's needed for X Space over time, etc. Using I believe was a quantum reader. I will need to go over this a few more times to understand how all of the conversions work because I am dumb. Really looking for the ideal scenario for potency/yield as probably most people.
The light I am currently looking at purchasing is here:
HLG 600 Rspec®
High Efficiency Commercial Indoor Horticulture LED grow light designed to replace a 1000watt HID with just 490 Watts. 1522 PPF @ 2.55 PPF/W. Full-spectrum. Reliable passive-cooled design. Powered by Samsung LM301H LED and Deep Red LED 660nm
horticulturelightinggroup.com
| Power | 60-600 Watts |
| Voltage Range | 100-277 VAC 50-60Hz |
| LED | Samsung LM301H & Deep Red |
| Flowering Footprint | 5' x 5' at 28" |
| Veg Footprint | 6' x 6' at 40” |
| System PPF Efficacy | 2.55 μmol/joule |
| Total output | 1522 PPF |
| Dimensions | 26" x 21.5" x 2.75" |
| Recommended Mounting Height | 28-36 inches above canopy |
Sorry for the long post, just a lot of information to take in the first pass and needed a place to decompress this and hopefully get some ideas/pointers along the way. Thanks in Advance.
