Help w/ New Hydroponics Setup

So I'm starting out as a first time Hydro grower. I've purchased a good chunk of what i think i will need and could really use some tips. I have a 20 gallon container that i will use as my resivoir, four 5 gal buckets which will each house 1 plant, 400 watt hps & 400 watt metal halide bulbs, 400 watt/120 volt ballast, Super Sun II 6" air cooled reflector, hydroton stones, grow cubes, and my nutrients are as follows : General Hydroponics FloraBloom, FloraMicro & FloraGro. Right now i'm trying to figure out the right submersible pump to use so that i will have enough water going to all four plants. I'm using a fish tank pump with an air stone to oxygenate the water in the resivoir.

I havent started setting up yet and would like to figure out the issue with the submersible pump before i do. Please post any tips! Thanks guys!

-Mitus
diLAted 4 LiFe

what kind of hydro setup are you doing? u say u need a submersible pump, will this be for a drip setup, or an aero mister setup, or a bubbleponics setup.. you say you have a bubbler stone for your res so at some point the roots will be hanging in it right?

Tips: -wash your hydroton well with ph'd water- soak your grow cubes and then use a salad spinner to get em down to moist insted of squeezing, i think dry 1 inchers are 1g and wet it should be 3g? anything moist and not soaking- put the Floramicro in first otherwise massive nutrients lockout- TDS meter and PH meter are pretty much neccessary for hydro- think about H202, hygrozyme or a different product to keep pythium away- what space are you growing in? will res temps be an issue? anything ambient over 75 degrees is going to slowly raise the res beyond tolerance. if you have $ get a chiller or do a DIY. if not start saving 2l bottles for ice packs.- what fan are you using for the cooling of the light? i use a 110cfm bathroom fan to keep my 400w hps cool enough to be within 5 inches of the plants- make sure you have a method for draining and cleaning your res, if this means adding a drain or something, you will need to res change every 10-14 days (in general)-have you though about odor control during flowering? will you need a carbon filter of some sort?- how long will you veg, what strain are you planning on using, will you be training these plants at all as in SCROG, SOG, LST, suppercropping, etc., or just letting them grow?

that's all i can think of

Demosthenese is right !

You've listed all the hardware, but haven't mentioned how you will be using it.

Using a 400watt HPS I would recommend SOG & Ebb&Flow.

look for a copy of marijuana horticulture by Jorge Cervantes. I hate to say it because he seems like such a cool guy and he helps thousands of people, but i found a digital copy on a bit torrent site. I can't reccomed you do that, all i am doing is saying that it is out there. go to amazon to purchase one...

good luck,

~B~

Mitus said:

So I'm starting out as a first time Hydro grower. I've purchased a good chunk of what i think i will need and could really use some tips. I have a 20 gallon container that i will use as my resivoir, four 5 gal buckets which will each house 1 plant, 400 watt hps & 400 watt metal halide bulbs, 400 watt/120 volt ballast, Super Sun II 6" air cooled reflector, hydroton stones, grow cubes, and my nutrients are as follows : General Hydroponics FloraBloom, FloraMicro & FloraGro. Right now i'm trying to figure out the right submersible pump to use so that i will have enough water going to all four plants. I'm using a fish tank pump with an air stone to oxygenate the water in the resivoir.

I havent started setting up yet and would like to figure out the issue with the submersible pump before i do. Please post any tips! Thanks guys!

-Mitus
diLAted 4 LiFe

Click to expand...

Ok so here is some more info on the setup... i'm going to use this drip system setup i found online and it seems easy enough. from the res i'll be pumping out of a 1/2 inch vinyl tubing into a 4 head drip nozzel in the tray above the res (where my four 5 gal buckets are). from the drip nozzel im running four seperate 1/4 inch drip lines into each 5 gal bucket. the plan is to have a drain at the bottem of each bucket which runs back into the res.
Right now im trying to figure out the airflow/temp situation. My grow space is a closet in which i have about 3 feet x 4 1/2 feet of space, about 5 feet tall. The walls are covered in mylar to reflect the light. I have open access to the atic of the house and am concidering running a vent of some sort through there?

in response to Demosthenese i had misunderstood the purpose of the airstone i think... i had thought i needed to keep it in the res to oxygenate the water? should i keep an air stone in each 5 gal bucket so the roots can get to it ?

like i said before... this is my first time doing hydro... just going off learned knowlege from the internet/my friends... any tips or suggestions are more than welcome!!

ok, i understand, so one common res going to 4 different buckets filled with hydroton , then drain back to res. So it's a recirculating drip system . You have it right about the airstone, it is there to increase the dissolved oxygen in the water, which in turn wards off pythium (root rot). You could certainly keep it in your common res, and since your plants will be growing into moist hydroton they will probably get plenty of air. If you end up with an inch or two of sitting water at the bottom of the pots not draining quickly enough, then i would think about putting an airstone in the bottom of each pot just in case. Having only 4 plants, you really can't afford to get root rot halfway through the grow, and roots sitting in water without any o2 is a recipe for root rot. However, if your system ends up draining well and there's no stagnant water you should easily be able to get away with bubbler in your res.

I have a space almost the same size in a cabinet and i'm venting it with two different 50cfm fans into a larger room. With my 110cfm running the cooltube i can keep that space at under 30C as long as the intake air is 24 C or less. If you can vent to a seperate area in the home, that's probably best. Smell will be an issue at some point unless you vent somewhere it's not an issue such as your attic. Temp wise, as long as it's a common res u can always just throw some 2l ice bottles in there. One 2L bottle brings 20L of water down 8-10 degrees F in my experience, so i use one every 12-24 hours, and my res stays between 62-72. I don't like to go lower or higher then that because lower seems to substantially slow root development and higher seems to promote bacterial growth very quickly. If i wake up and find it at 74 or higher the water has usually gone cloudy and it's time for either H2O2 or a res change.

If this is going to be a closed door sealed closet then make sure you have some source of fesh air into the closet and a chap fan inside just blowing air on the plants, that will promote strong stems for your large plants.

Have you thought about indica/sativa and or time schedual? You won't want to grow continuously from seed, so at some point you'll need to get some clones off one of your plants. Your first run can either be with seeds for luck of the draw on some females, or you can grow some plants in dirt, or even in your system and then find a mother, transfer her out of the system, clone her and then start the system with those clones. Or you can find a mother, grab some clones and then flower the mother hoping for your first clones to work perfectly giving you mothers.
Getting started is the most annoying part once you have invested in all the equipment . I started growing mothers last August and just got my first harvest last month. Now im almost on my designed perpetual cycle, where i have 4 sets of 15 plants going at once, 15 clones (DWC, FLURO), 15 vegging (DWC, CFL), 15 flowering (DWC, CFL), and then 15 flowering under my HPS in an aeroponic setup. They get rotated every 30 days so they get 30 to clone, 30 vegging, 60 flowering. Thus i get a harvest every 30 days.
If you're doing large plants and they take 60-80 days to flower, and at minimum 30-60 days vegging, so min 3-5 months for your first harvest, and that's only if you get some females. Not trying to be discouraging, just saying if you're going to end up with mothers in soil, start growing as many as you can NOW so they are ready faster as you get all your grwoing shit together.

I'd like to do a small bushy indica. I have open access to perfect clones of various beeds. I'm hoping to keep the plants at full size no taller than 36 inches. After some thought now i am also second guessing the 5 gal bucket idea and maybe thinking of using something that will house multiple small plants. I was taking a look at your setup Demosthenese, and it looks awesome. I have some questions about the submersible pumps and i'm hoping you can help me out... As far as the power of the pump i will need, how many GPH do i want the pump to have? It's going to be pumping through a 1/2 inch vinyl tube into the 4 hose nozzel i posted earlier... maybe a 8 hose nozzel ...

I'm concidering seperating my 24" x 48" shelf into different sections once i get to the point of seperating mothers/clones/veging/flowering. I go to pick up the clones on monday and i'm not 100% sure on what they have. I know there is a few strands of O.G. and 1 or 2 strands of Bubba.

We're gonna get down to construction today and i'll post some more pictures as we get some shit done. Thanks!

to be totally honest i don't know the gph required for drip systems. i run a 350 gph and i had one of those 9 head irrigation manifolds at first hooked up to it. It would have easily run a drip system. I would think you could get away with less.

access to clones is tight . It will save you so much time its ridiculous. Only problem with one bucket housing younger plants is shared res will mean they all have the same nutes, and they will need vastly different ammounts at different stages.

Thanks about my system . It's a lot better then some of the pictures these days, since it's fully up and running with three batches of plants now lol. ill get some of those up .

Thank you so much for all the tips. So it looks like i'm gonna go for a 350 gph on a 8 nozzel. We put the shelf together and got some progress today. I'll post more pics later.

Mitus said:

So I'm starting out as a first time Hydro grower. I've purchased a good chunk of what i think i will need and could really use some tips. I have a 20 gallon container that i will use as my resivoir, four 5 gal buckets which will each house 1 plant, 400 watt hps & 400 watt metal halide bulbs, 400 watt/120 volt ballast, Super Sun II 6" air cooled reflector, hydroton stones, grow cubes, and my nutrients are as follows : General Hydroponics FloraBloom, FloraMicro & FloraGro. Right now i'm trying to figure out the right submersible pump to use so that i will have enough water going to all four plants. I'm using a fish tank pump with an air stone to oxygenate the water in the resivoir.

I havent started setting up yet and would like to figure out the issue with the submersible pump before i do. Please post any tips! Thanks guys!

-Mitus
diLAted 4 LiFe

Click to expand...

It's nice to see someone who's venturing in to the hydro world and doing it right. Nice ballasts, nice reflectors, nice bulbs. Good luck with hydro grow!

The only tip I'll offer is nute concentration advise. If you're going by a well published chart like BD 97 recipe, or Lothar's mix (uses NO Grow in his formula) remember that even though these recipes show ml/gal of each component, you should consider those numbers RATIOS and not gospel. For example...... in week 1 of flower the BD97 recipe calls for 3ml/gal of Micro, 3ml/gal of Grow, and 6ml/gal of Bloom. If you mix at that concentration you MAY end up with 1000ppm. I don't know for sure because I don't follow THAT recipe. If your plants are small 1000ppm MAY kill them depending on many other factors such as system type, room temps, nute temps, etc. If you wanted to run 200ppm you'd need to mix those components in the same ratios ( twice as much Bloom as the Micro and Grow) but not necessarily 3, 3, and 6 ml PER GALLON. Hope that makes sense.

Ok, so here is an update on the setup... I've built a shelf/table for my res and plants (sprayed it w/ water proofer and its drying now). The shelf is 24" x 48" & is 19" inches tall. The bottem shelf will fit 2 of these 18 gal containers i have to use as res w/ a few inches to spare on top of them. I picked up my 375 GPH submersible water pump.

So the plan is... 18 gal container as res... inside the res is the 375 GPH sub. water pump w/ a 1/2" vinyl tubing fit to it... which runs to my 8 spout nozzel on the upper part of the shelf... from the nozzel ill run eight 1/4" drip lines to their perspective plants... The container that will house the plants is still under debate, but either way it will have a drain with a 1/2" tubing fit to it, which runs back into the res. I have a normal air pump from a fish tank w/ tubing hooked to a 10" air stone which will be in the res to keep it oxygenated. I plan to line the grow space with mylar... prob this week before i pick up the clones. I'm open to any nutrient recipies that you recomend, preferably using the nuits i have (see pics).

Here is some updated pics of the supplies

So the grow space has expanded to 7 feet x 3 1/2 feet & is 7 feet tall.

working on getting a duct fan/blower and installing it. wondering how strong of a fan i will need?

Fan & mylar aquired

If you live in an areaa where growing is illegal, do not vent to the attic. You dont want heat build up in the attic, as the police fly over with thermal imaging equiptment and can pick up on hot spots where it is not normal, and this would cause them to look further into things. Just a heads up...

How do you plan on attaching the mylar, unless you can get it nice and flat it isnt so usefull. Since you aready have it try to use a spray on glue and get it to lay real flat on the wall. The will keep fans and such from moving it around as well.

BTW nice set up and good luck on everything.

I have a card, so it is legal. I'm venting to the attic with the fan i posted earlier. Thx for the tip on the mylar!

Ye Man I Just Got A Lumatek Ballast They F...ing Wicked Man And Believe I Use To Put £20 Electric In A Week And Now Its About 12.50 They Really Are Worth The Money Mate

But I Use One Less Pump AsWell So Im Guessing Im Saving A Fiver A Week

Mitus said:

Fan & mylar aquired

Click to expand...

Like I said in a previous post, it's nice to see a newb who spends the $ and does it right.

That is a nice fan which moves a lot of air. Consider your options given the characteristics of the fan.

Due to the amount of air it moves it is noisy. I use the same fan to ventilate a Mom closet (3'x2'x6') as well as ventilating (2) 600s in my flower area. It works well but I can hear it a mile away.

Because you're moving so much air you might want to consider a carbon filter and dumping the air back in the house (outside your grow area) rather than exhausting in to your attic. I don't know where you live or what the outdoor temps are in both summer and winter but you might as well leave a door open if you're taking inside air using this fan and dumping it in the attic. This isn't any cheapo 90cfm exhaust fan.

Lastly, you might want to consider a variable speed controller.

Hope this helps.

Ok, I'm gonna look in to the speed controller. Growing is illegal in my area, unless you are have your perscription. I have my script so I'm good. Well I prefer to vent into the attic... There are two vents that lead from the attic to outside... Randomly & conviniently there are some pretty strong smells located outside of those vents. Not to mention the smell of OG already seems to linger within a 3 house distance

So... The plan is to pick up 8-10 clones this week. Of those I would flower all but 2 which I would keep as mothers. Eventually I'll split my room so I can seperate mothers/clones from my budding plants.

Is the drip system I mentioned I'll be using good enough for when the plants are budding? Or will they need more water than that?

Mitus said:

Ok, I'm gonna look in to the speed controller. Growing is illegal in my area, unless you are have your perscription. I have my script so I'm good. Well I prefer to vent into the attic... There are two vents that lead from the attic to outside... Randomly & conviniently there are some pretty strong smells located outside of those vents. Not to mention the smell of OG already seems to linger within a 3 house distance

So... The plan is to pick up 8-10 clones this week. Of those I would flower all but 2 which I would keep as mothers. Eventually I'll split my room so I can seperate mothers/clones from my budding plants.

Click to expand...

Ok well if you plan on venting in to the attic you should consider getting the supply air from outside too but this creates temp problems if you have 100 degree summers and 30 degree winters. You'll need to condition that air. Just trying to save you on your utility bills. IF you exhaust in to the attic but you draw from inside the house, the make-up air has to come from somewhere. Your home isn't airtight so that would be through infiltration around your windows, doors, elec plugs, and any other cracks you might have. How many cfm is that fan? Do you REALLY want to be exhausting the air you've just paid to condition (heated or cooled) and drawing in more unconditioned air through the cracks? I still say use a carbon filter....draw the air from inside the house and exhaust it through the filter back in to the house.