New Grow Room, New Everything

Shovelhandle

Shovelhandle

Well-known member
New house to be finished in a month or so. New grow area in the basement, probably a 4x4 tent or similar space. Being that I'm starting with nothing I am considering hydroponic as I am tired of hauling soil in and out of the hut. So any suggestions of what to use/not to use for a system and lighting? Tks
 
DWC is fairly easy, albeit a lot more attention to details are required (ie: PH, EC, PPM) than with soil.
 
I just Jared over 8 quart jars, in gorilla lite 4 x 4 tent, 231.00 great tent running 600watt ups, I had no luck with Led, but many here have
 
Miracle grow pure organics soil , love it, top dress once and tap water, my learning curve 1st run was I did not FEED MG soon enough

Got 8 in tent at 20Inch not sexed, will veg until 30 before flip, tomorrow is mg FEED
 
I have been rocking a Gorilla Tent 5x5 and am happy with it so far for my headstash. I am a big fan of the double ended hps lights these days. I have a 1k but with the size of the tent I have been running it between 600 and 750 or so. Some people have been liking the leds but say you have to heat them if you are in a basement to make up for the missing IR.

For hydro I ran dwc for years and then a flood and drain table with drippers. DWC can work well but needs everything perfect and one pump going out/getting clogged or air pumps going out can kill things pretty quick. If you do DWC I recommend going redundant on the air pumps so each res has more than one keeping it oxygenated in case one malfunctions.

I would recommend the drippers feeding a table. That way you can have wet and dry cycles and the roots can take higher temps or air pumps going out way better. Multi-flow type buckets would work good too.

If I did dwc again it would be a recirculating system hooked up to a chiller. If the res gets too hot those roots turn to mushy snot looking things way too quick. But if you get it dialed in yields well. I just personally had better yields with the table myself, but everyone has different styles.

Also for hydro you want to start with RO water or your life will be a lot harder getting things dialed in.
 
Thanks a lot for all the inputs. As I do not have drainage in the basement (zoning regs, adjacent property too close) I have to consider that. The old hut had no drainage either. So the hydro is not going to work. I'll look into coco and hempy bucket grows. I know that I will be anxious to start growing once we get all moved in. However, with the trimming we have to do around all this moving activity may delay things a minute. I do have seeds (autos) but like many other things we have in mind, I have to have all the contractors and vendors paid and evaluate the budget before I decide what I want vs what I need.
Probably wait a week... ;)
 
if you are thinking of LED, don't be cheap about it if you can. INVEST in commercial grade. Either Fluence or Mammoth. you will love the results.
 
Last year's LED experiment (California Lightworks 550) was not good. It performed maybe equal to but not better than a 400 w HPS/MH at the same energy usage. I doubt I will invest a ton of dough into LED at this point with more prudent home expenses. Likely looking for a 1000 W HID as I have 8' ceiling height now.
 
Shovelhandle said:
that's ok.
throw a hose out the cellar window and siphon. House is on a knoll so not far to below cellar floor level.
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i have the same problem. no floor drain in the basement. I plumbed a cheap utility sink into an 18 gallon rubbermade tub. in the tub is a sump pump with a float switch. The sump pump pumps through a pvc pipe that i installed, pumps up into the main sewer drain for the house. The sewer piping for the house is all pvc so just cut a piece out and glue in a T and attach the T to the pvc from the sump. pretty easy to do.
 
Guymandude said:
i have the same problem. no floor drain in the basement. I plumbed a cheap utility sink into an 18 gallon rubbermade tub. in the tub is a sump pump with a float switch. The sump pump pumps through a pvc pipe that i installed, pumps up into the main sewer drain for the house. The sewer piping for the house is all pvc so just cut a piece out and glue in a T and attach the T to the pvc from the sump. pretty easy to do.
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Well, that is also something I could do, pump into the septic line. When I had to pump out the cellar from seasonal flooding (up through the shitty old slab) I didn't want to have to run all that through the septic system. I do not expect any more flooding with the new foundation. A set-up like yours would be great if I run a grow system that has waste water. Thanks, GMD
 
NocturnalG said:
Also for hydro you want to start with RO water or your life will be a lot harder getting things dialed in.
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I'm in coco and just switched to tap from RO. RO is expensive and wasteful if its not absolutely necessary, I can only catch so much waste water in my washing machine. An alternative to RO and see if it's necessary, would be to get a water analysis (visit customhydronutrients dot com or somewhere else, but thats what they do and its not that expensive compared to other places) and if it's good to go, use an app called hydrobuddy, its free to download and use, to calculate your fertilizer needs. In hydrobuddy you can input the water analysis numbers and then build your nutrients from there.
 
I think what you're looking for is simplicity. You may benefit immensely, by building yourself a Stinkbud Aero/nft system. Check this out. https://rollitup.org/t/harvest-a-pound-every-three-weeks.116859/ A pound is an understatement. There is everything you need to know about running these systems, including instructions for building them in that thread. They're fairly cheap to build, and they're highly customizable to your needs. These systems use zero substrate, only water. They're fitted with a female garden hose attachment for hooking up your garden hose, and draining into your floor drain, or anywhere you want to drain your reservoir for rez changes. The heart of this system is the 400 gph submersible pump. These pumps are very reliable, and seemingly last forever. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. I've run them for 12 years now exclusively. I only keep my mothers in soil because in aero, they simply grow too fast.
 
I love aero/nft for smaller grows as well. Lots of work getting it setup but once its done its almost set and forget. Gives you lots of time to spend with the ladies instead of watering.
 
There is no floor drain and I am not motivated to start any projects involving work. The cellar is very cold and I do not have the ambition to buy/put up a tent, let alone any permanent grow area. If I do get any ambition it may be a small auto grow in soil/medium and the old 400W HID in a closet.
 
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