looking for advice on a hydro grow.

willisofla · Oct 16, 2019

I am looking to start a hydro farm. I plan on vegging with a t5 ,8 bulb ,ho system. I have a dome to start my seedlings, i would then like to veg my best 10 plants in a 4x4 tent . I want to flower in a 4x8 with either two 1000hps lamps, or 4 kingled 3000 watt leds(600 true watts at the wall). i plan on using a bucket top feed system , which would top feed and return back to the resevoir through tubing, 10 plants in veg under the t5, then 5 plants under each 1000hps. once im past the seedling stage id like to clone before flowering, and have a 4 week veg, then cycle back to flower perpetual. This is going to be my first grow and would like some advice from some veterans or anyone who can offer valid suggestions or tips for someone new. money is not a huge issue i have a budget of about 3000$ to invest, electricity cost is not a huge factor either. do you guys have any suggestions of things i should do , or advice about my plans. this sounds good in theory to me and like i can make it work !

cemchris · Oct 16, 2019

If you are new can I give you some solid advice?

Everything you said is a good idea and a sound start. Personally if I were you I would x they recirc DWC buckets for the first round and do something like DTW (Drain to waste) in something like coco. You will basically have the same setup and same yield/growth as DWC without all the headaches and experience you will want to have when running DWC. DTW is pretty simple and has a lot more room for error. Equip wise also. Recircing nutes on your first grow works but you really need to have an understanding on add backs and when to change the rez so you dont get into lockout territory. Not to mention you will be blowing through nutes on DWC compared to DTW.

Go through a lot of the old RDWC threads on here with guys doing big rooms and what not and you will notice a trend of most of them stopped using DWC buckets and went to DTW setups or beds. Some of these guys where pretty vet also just got tired of losing plants to rando stuff. In fact I don't really know a single dude/lady who was using RDWC buckets from back in the day that is still using the system today after years of doing it.

willisofla · Oct 16, 2019

I’ll continue searching and reading more into dtw , systems , maybe if you have a little time to give me a brief break down of a set up you would suggest , I’d like to use Rockwool on top of hydroton , top feed . If you suggest dtw I’d love to experience it first and perfect what I’m doing and maybe fall back into recirc and see which is better for me . I am very curious and can’t find much information about , with 5 plants what kind of amount of water I’ll be going through, should I be able to run that waste water to a drain, and clean and refill the reservoir with recommended weekly nutrient dosing. Such as follow week nutrient schedule , flush , clean, begin week 2 nutrient schedule and so forth. Thanks for the suggestion ! I’ll be watching out for a reply but even if not I’ll be doing my own research in the mean time ! Blessingssss

willisofla · Oct 16, 2019

cemchris said:
If you are new can I give you some solid advice?

Everything you said is a good idea and a sound start. Personally if I were you I would x they recirc DWC buckets for the first round and do something like DTW (Drain to waste) in something like coco. You will basically have the same setup and same yield/growth as DWC without all the headaches and experience you will want to have when running DWC. DTW is pretty simple and has a lot more room for error. Equip wise also. Recircing nutes on your first grow works but you really need to have an understanding on add backs and when to change the rez so you dont get into lockout territory. Not to mention you will be blowing through nutes on DWC compared to DTW.

Go through a lot of the old RDWC threads on here with guys doing big rooms and what not and you will notice a trend of most of them stopped using DWC buckets and went to DTW setups or beds. Some of these guys where pretty vet also just got tired of losing plants to rando stuff. In fact I don't really know a single dude/lady who was using RDWC buckets from back in the day that is still using the system today after years of doing it.

4plant · Oct 16, 2019

The bucket system your describing sounds similar to “Dutch buckets”. I’ve never used them but their very popular in greenhouse tomatoe growing. You can make the drain adjustable depending on your root depth which is nice. They usually don’t aerate every bucket and just run a continuous feed so the waters always moving. I use to love my dwc system until I got too busy working for multiple ph checks and nute addbacks. If you don’t have the time or energy to be on top of the maintenance side your missing the benefit of the system.

I've been using dtw for awhile now and you get 80% returns for 20% of the work. I’ve used 4” rockwool cubes placed on rockwool slabs but actually prefer now to place the 4” blocks on 3 gallon smart pots filled with 1/2 promix 1/2 pearlite.

willisofla · Oct 16, 2019

4plant said:
The bucket system your describing sounds similar to “Dutch buckets”. I’ve never used them but their very popular in greenhouse tomatoe growing. You can make the drain adjustable depending on your root depth which is nice. They usually don’t aerate every bucket and just run a continuous feed so the waters always moving. I use to love my dwc system until I got too busy working for multiple ph checks and nute addbacks. If you don’t have the time or energy to be on top of the maintenance side your missing the benefit of the system.

I've been using dtw for awhile now and you get 80% returns for 20% of the work. I’ve used 4” rockwool cubes placed on rockwool slabs but actually prefer now to place the 4” blocks on 3 gallon smart pots filled with 1/2 promix 1/2 pearlite.

So with the smart pots , how do you run waste out ? Are they sitting on top of trays with drains ? Or similiar to my plan with buckets with tubing to drain?

4plant · Oct 16, 2019

On a flood table. I water until I get 10-15% runoff then collect that. Depending where my grow is at I can do my add back to the waste and return it to the main res.

4plant · Oct 16, 2019

Like that

Mytwhyt · Oct 25, 2019

I'd say three Waterfarms with 1- 315 watt cmh for ea WF.. Of course a scrog screen, 32 " x 96" … This is two of my modified WFs, in 24"x 32" scrog screens. If your at all handy at DIY, the mods are not difficult, and not expensive.. With these mods ea WF will draw water from a remote reservoir and change the water in the WF about 2 times an hour.. The remote reservoir can be as small as a 5 gal bucket with a float regulated feed back reservoir,.. The feedback is another 5 gal bucket that sets on top of the reservoir.. By the way there's no need for air stones or an electric water pump with setup..

Deep Water Culture

The reason for lack of answer to a 'simple question' could be your opening statement. Did you mean dope or top? If you are top feeding then all the roots are getting fed, therefore, water/nute level is not important, assuming your feeding cycle is frequent enough to not allow roots to dry out hth

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looking for advice on a hydro grow.

looking for advice on a hydro grow.

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