OK! First Hydroponics setup!

Hey guys. I have some pictures of my first closet hydroponics set. Please review and let me know if you have any advice or notice anything I'm doing completely wrong!

So far I've only built my box and put together a hydroponics rez and setup with lighting.

I ordered some seeds offline form "Planet Wax" and hopefully they'll be coming in the mail soon. I hate to waste those seeds in case I mess up, so I might try growing some cilantro or basil or something to start. Or maybe I'll just gung ho into this whole project. Wish me luck!

As far as nutes to buy, i'm still researching RIU, but will of course appreciate it if all you pros help me out on this thread. kiss-ass

To describe the pics, its 4' high, 2' wide and long. It's hinged to open from the top and from the side. I'm working on making the box light proof by applying half cut rubber tubings or possibly fabricated electrical tape the sides that open up. so when they close no light gets in.

I so far have 4 60watt equiv cfls hanging from the top. I could make it 6, I dont know which would be better. Dont want to burn the plants.

I'm working on making 2 cuts in the box, each about 5 x 5 inch squares on two sides to allow one fan blowing air in, and one blowing air out.

The seeds I ordered were bubblegum. cant wait to try this out.

-G1

looks good, cant wait to see you growing, are you leaving it outside on the patio? If so, I assume you are going to use a filter for the exhaust fan?

Excellent, man! Welcome to the Great Wet Game!

Hey there, how's your system working, is it a bubbler or some kind of hybrid dripping system?

LonghornFan said:

looks good, cant wait to see you growing, are you leaving it outside on the patio? If so, I assume you are going to use a filter for the exhaust fan?

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I just cut 2 5"x5" holes on the sides, one to vent in, and one to vent out. I'm researching carbon filters throughout RIU. I might go with a cpu fan on both sides.

gr82bu said:

Hey there, how's your system working, is it a bubbler or some kind of hybrid dripping system?

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It was actually originally a drip system. But i chopped it up and decided to make it aeoroponics. I'm gonna put a pvc pipe just under the lid and add sprays all across. Should be interesting. The drip system was too hard to manage because the pump was too strong and shooting all over the place. This was actually easier because I didnt need to run an air tube through the bottom for O2. Plus less water to flush every 2 weeks. And it looks cool inside when its on.

Leohzboy said:

It was actually originally a drip system. But i chopped it up and decided to make it aeoroponics. I'm gonna put a pvc pipe just under the lid and add sprays all across. Should be interesting. The drip system was too hard to manage because the pump was too strong and shooting all over the place. This was actually easier because I didnt need to run an air tube through the bottom for O2. Plus less water to flush every 2 weeks. And it looks cool inside when its on.

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ok, i c, i was doing the exact same thing, kind of dripping system with water pump inside the reservoir pumping the solution up to the pots in the same reservoir (see the attached pics), figured out there was no point to drip the solution to the pots when the rots grew through the pots into the solution.
Now i've got micro sprayers and wanted to upgrade it to aero system, the problem is that the pump is too weak i guess and the sprayers aren't even close to spraying, more like dripping.
Now i have jebo 1500 pump, 150 gallons (600 L) per hour, it can pump water up to 60cm height, the sprayers are: micro jet sprayers 360.
Wanted to ask you if you know, what kind of pump to use and maybe some other kind of sprayers, to work it really like sprayers.

Your Rl life name must be Michael eh? Preview your posts hehe. Looks like a good little vegetative setup there. Remember one thing. you going to have to grow each plant to maturity and find a female you want to keep and then clone her to use your setup. If you put seeds in that setup and some are males, you will pretty much kill all the plants trying to get the males out, the roots will all mesh together and be hard as fuck to get apart without ripping shit up. It CAN be done, but you will have to wait some time for roots to grow back and you must not let ripped roots stay in water or they will start to rot and cause all sorts of problems.

Once you got clones that setup will work really good for initial vegetative growth. For flowering you should get a HPS light, nothing flowers as well.

NoDrama said:

Your Rl life name must be Michael eh? Preview your posts hehe. Looks like a good little vegetative setup there. Remember one thing. you going to have to grow each plant to maturity and find a female you want to keep and then clone her to use your setup. If you put seeds in that setup and some are males, you will pretty much kill all the plants trying to get the males out, the roots will all mesh together and be hard as fuck to get apart without ripping shit up. It CAN be done, but you will have to wait some time for roots to grow back and you must not let ripped roots stay in water or they will start to rot and cause all sorts of problems.

Once you got clones that setup will work really good for initial vegetative growth. For flowering you should get a HPS light, nothing flowers as well.

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Haha, you guessed it. I'm busted! now they can hunt me down.

Thanks for the info. that makes sense. I do plan on cloning as soon as I get one or two really good mothers going. But i'm still just testing out the system, and I'm using the freebies from my ordered seeds just to make sure this will even work. But quick question, is it ok for me to keep my mother and her clones all in there together? Or will I have to separate the mother from the tank due to the problem mentioned above? I'm guessing clones dont root real low and long like seeds do? And yes, I was gonna go HPS, but that was a difference by 60 bucks that I didnt have at the time for the sockets and the bulbs. I will eventually, if this system proves to work alright.

Thanks again,
-G1 <---- my alias after I'm already exposed!

Hey man, what about the pump and the sprayers, what pump and sprayers are you using?

gr82bu said:

Hey man, what about the pump and the sprayers, what pump and sprayers are you using?

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The sprayers I'm using are from Home Depot, 180 Degree sprayers, like 3 bux for a bag of like 10. I drilled holes into a short pvc pipe and added the sprayers. The pump is a 135gph water pump. The pump is a little weak so the spray doesnt actually come out as a spray but more like a spurt? Its not a flat spray.
But it still distributes the water wide enough and keeps the humidity high. That's all that really needs to be done.
At one point I was thinking of using misters, but I didnt know whether using misters would prevent an adequate flow of nutez because the opening would be too small? Maybe a stupid assumption.

Clones grow roots exactly the same as seeds do. you must have a separate area for the mother plant, it will stay under 18/6 light forever and never go into flowering. Its root system will get so large you will have to actually cut some of the roots off, its ok once they get big. the mothers are always in veg mode and grow things back awfully fast.

NoDrama said:

Clones grow roots exactly the same as seeds do. you must have a separate area for the mother plant, it will stay under 18/6 light forever and never go into flowering. Its root system will get so large you will have to actually cut some of the roots off, its ok once they get big. the mothers are always in veg mode and grow things back awfully fast.

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Aww.... Shit. My momma plants gonna get big eh... I have no where to put it. This might get ugly... After starting a plant with hydroponics, can you ultimately transfer a mother to a pot of soil? I don't want to build a whole nother hydro set just for the mamma.

UPDATE!!
My grow has now been going for over 2 weeks now! I had 2 seeds give me a sprout the first week, and 2 more sprouted for me the following week. Here are some pictures! The two larger plants are about 2.5 weeks old, and the two little ones are 1 week. The one in the middle has a 2 what appears to be burnt leaves. Just on the tips though. I'm keeping the light at least 2-4 inches from plant and checking every other morning.

Enjoy and comment if something looks terribly wrong.

Currently running sprinklers 24/24
Lights are on a 18/6 Cycle
5 Gallons in the rez of a 10 gallon tank. 5 teaspoons of FLora Nova Grow every 1.5-2 weeks. Will increase nutez amount every time I clean out the rez. Just following what it says to do on the bottle.

(Quick question about lights.) I'm using CFL's and which ones are used for veg and which ones for flower? the ones that glow soft reddish yellow? or bright bluish white?)

Thx
-G1

Blue for veg, red for flower.

you lights are good for your veg stage if you really want to do this right you have to dig a little deep and go hps..maybe look on craigslist in your area for a used system (will still be better then your t5 lights the spectrum is not the same and it will show in your yeild and potence

i do like your grow room that was the first system i built from scratch
i had prob w/ leeking lid so i would silicon every cleaning your girls look good to good luck....

HELLO EVERYONE!!
Heres a quick update with some pics! I'm on week 3 of my first grow and I have some interesting developments!

My gurlz are getting real big really fast. Plus there's a slight aroma of bud in my box.

I'm now changing my soup a bit following the guide on the GH website. I'm ready to dump out my rez and recycle my water once again. One thing I miscalculated was that growing a second pair of plants that are 1 week behind means they will be getting more nutes for 1 week earlier vegetation. I hope it doesnt bother them much.

And yes, I think I will be investing in a HPS by the time flowering stage comes into play. Hopefully. Sigh... $$$ ~~

Take a look at my gurls and let me know if they look alright to you guys!!!
I noticed they are beginning to droop a bit on the ends. Natural since they are getting heavier? or is something amiss?

O yea, and as predicted earlier in the thread, the roots are beginning to tangle, but I caught it early and did some separating. They came off of each other nice and smoothly. But I can foresee some cutting in the future if they keep growing at this rate. Its getting dangerous.

Plus, they are getting big, and I'm fearing they might also become tall. I'm trying to keep the lights as close the plants as possible without burning them to keep them from stretching. I used a suggested hand technique by placing my hand between the leaves and lights and as long as my hand doesnt get hot, it should be ok.

NoDrama said:

Clones grow roots exactly the same as seeds do. you must have a separate area for the mother plant, it will stay under 18/6 light forever and never go into flowering. Its root system will get so large you will have to actually cut some of the roots off, its ok once they get big. the mothers are always in veg mode and grow things back awfully fast.

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Will I be able to transfer the mother plant into soil after having started growing her in my rez? Making another rez and hydro set is gonna pinch me on cash and my box isnt large enough for it. Will that kill her? or be ok?

Your not really going to be able to transfer to soil. I just have my mothers in a 5 gallon DWC setup with an airstone in the bottom. Couldn't cost more than $20 to put moms into DWC. 5 gallon bucket is $5, the airpump and airstone are another $15 or so.

I just realized that I had misread the instructions on the back of the bottle, and have been using tablespoons instead of teaspoons.

I have been over feeding my poor little girls. Hopefully this wont harm them. They seem to look healthy enough.

Quick question though, on the GH website calculator, it mentions that I use a certain number of ounces per gallon of water. Now, does the number of plants growing add as a variable as to how much nutes go in? Considering I have 4 plants currently vegetating in the rez, maybe I actually need to put more nutes in there?

-G1

hey whats the link to the GH calculator so that i can figure my stuff out thanks for the help