hey bro, hope all is well man. ive got a few tips for ya. you are using the same soil, techniques, and nutes i use for soil grows. lol.
* how tall are you gonna grow your plants in veg? sounds like you are going pretty big. i'd suggest getting some tomato cages. they really help when you are growing bigger plants. especially ones that are topped and lst'd. something like these...(
http://www.amazon.com/Glamos-748096-14-Inch-42-Inch-Tomato/dp/B003WQB8SW/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1340993841&sr=8-9&keywords=tomato+cages). you wanna get cages that are about a foot shorter than the final height of your plants. sure beats tying plants up all the time. i like them better than bamboo stakes too. they have a bunch of different kinds on amazon.
* have you thought about amending your soil with anything? i've run sunshine for a long time. i'd recommend adding 20% worm castings to your oil for beneficial bacteria and fungi. i'd also recommend that you mix in 1 tablespoon of dolmite lime per gallon of mixed soil. this will stabilize the pH of your soil. sunshine being a soiless mix will tend to run all over the place pH wise if you don't stabilize it.
* you will find the pH sweetspot for your strain and soil mix but i's recommend starting at 6.3 pH in your soil. i've run my nutes and soil for sunshine in a couple places and 6.3 seems to be the right spot.
* 24 plants under 8 lights seems like and odd setup. 3 plants per light. sound like you are running 1000w lights. 4 plants per light will be plenty. that's what i get when i grow larger plants. i definitely think you can get away with 6,000w no problem. especially if you are running them in a row. when you put two lights side by side they have overlapping light. since footcandles are stackable you'll be able to actually space the 1000w lights a little further apart. 1000w lights have a 5x5 footprint at 18" from the canopy. so if you have them in a line i think you can place 5.5' between the center of the bulbs instead of the normal 5'.
* i would also suggest running larger pots. 5 gallon will be a tad small in my opinion for plants that big. i would at 7 gallon or 10 gallon even better. also, check out those Smart Pots." they are made of fabric and allow easy access for air to the root zone. plus they are super easy to water. you can actually see exactly how much you are watering so that makes it hard to over or under water.
* whether you go smart pots or regular ones i would put your plants on trays if you can afford it. 4x8 trays would be ideal. you could fit 6 mature plants per tray. when they are younger you can squeeze more plants onto a tray and use less lights. the reason i recommend trays is that they make watering super easy. just raise the tray 1' off the ground and put a drain fitting on 1 side. then lean the tray slighty to that side. put a bucket under there and when you water any runoff will go right in the bucket. plus, you just run some hot water through the tray every week or so and it stays clean. if you do smart pots this won't be that big of a deal.
* pulling 8oz. off each plant is very possible. it will just depend on you and how healthy you can keep them. i just pulled 6oz. per plant off 4 plants in sunshine. none of the plants were taller than 3' in flower. i topped and lst'd them.
* go light on the H&G nutes. they are very concentrated. i do a feeding schedule of feed, feed, water when running just nutes in soil. for a grow that big you should have a quality pH/ppm meter and probably a soil pH tester. testing soil runoff isn't all that accurate.
* something else you might want to think about is brewing a tea. it will save you a ton of money on nutrient additives. basically you just run your base nutes and the tea. you would have to brew a batch once a week but it's really easy. all you need is a 5 gallon bucket, air stones, air pump, lid cover, really fine mesh or painters filter, and maybe a cheap reservoir heater. you stick your tea in the filter and wrap it up tight. then stick it in the 5 gallon bucket with 4 gallons of water and turn on the air pump and stone. you might need to put in a reservoir heater depending on where you are brewing it. then just cover it and leave it alone for 24 hours. then you dilute the tea in water and feed it to your plants. these teas will add beneficial bacteria, fungi, pH stability, and enzymes to your soil. your plants will LOVE it. i do a feed, tea, feed, tea schedule. you don't have to pH the tea. you won't need ANY of the additives nor will you need to add dolmite lime to your soil. this is the tea mix i use. there are a ton of recipes though. (
http://www.bountea.com/).
* if you are running R/O water then you wil need to get a bottle of Cal/Mag. i use botanicare cal/mag plus. you'll need it more in flower than in veg. just have to read your plants and see how they react. they'll tell you if they need something. if you are running just tap water then it's probably a good idea to just let it sit out overnight to burn off any chlorine.
* try and run only a single strain if you can. just akes things so much easier. different strains like different environments, pH, nutes, etc... running more than 1 strain can get tricky sometimes.
* an easy way to water a large soil grow is by using drip stakes. basically you put a drip stake or 2 in each pot. then connect them all with fittings and black tubing. then connect all the tubing to a reservoir at the end of your lights. when it's feeding time you just mix up the nutes in your reservoir and turn on the pump. after a few times you'll know exactly how long you need to leave the pump on for and then you can just put it on a timer.
that's my $0.98c let me know if you have any other questions. good luck bro.
