DWC/Soil - 400w HPS - Sexy Avatar!

Ok, so I bet it was the last part of the title that got you to come look at this. W/e it takes. lol

Going to be doing a soil and dwc side by side grow in a 4x4x6.5 tent using 400hps. I currently have 5 NLs and a PW under CFLs in soil...waiting for them to break the surface. Once they do, 3 NLs and the PW will go into homemade DWC buckets and 2 NLs will stay in soil.

The tent...ignore the bottom, it served as storage in between grows.


A blower mod for ventilation. I had this blower laying around and have been reading a lot about others having great success with it. So I decided to give it a shot.

Three screws take it apart. One in the handle and one in each leg....have to remove the rubber feet to get to the leg ones.

The cover takes up too much surface space and so...it goes!

6" starter collar with tabs bent out. Gorilla glue on all tabs and around outter edge of intake. Gorilla glue expands 3-4x its size when drying so it does good for creating a nice seal. I put a heavy weight on top while it dried for 3 hours.

Finished intake side. I like the fact that the blower has two outlets built into it as well as three speeds. I'll be doing an exhaust mod to it later...if I find I need it.

The plan is to connect the blower to my euro hood on the 400hps and pull air over the bulb and out the tent...using passive intake vents. I tested it earlier with the intake vents closed and the blower set to 1 (lowest) and it sucked in the walls of the tent.

I'll be hanging the light and getting my buckets setup the next few days while waiting for the girls to peep up. Thanks for stopping in and reading my babble.

I'm so excited, That's 4 of us now with the PW popped or about to pop, and I'm glad you started your grow. I have a blower like that sitting in my garage, i think it may be time to make use of it. Thanks for the pics, and the info on how you did it.

Good to see you here Bill. Most mods I read said to use a 5" collar or a 5" to 4" reducer...but my collars on my lights are 6" and I had 6" duct work already. So I double checked and a 6" starter collar fits it good enough. The only part I left out was that I used foil duct tape...but the pictures show that. If you want a link to a HUGE thread on all kinds of mods to the blower, hit me with a PM.

Yeah I'm interested in seeing how the PW grows for everyone since we all seem to be using different methods.

That blower mod is nice! I bet that thing will move a ton of CFM's on high. The exhaust would be a little tricky, maybe you could use a sheet metal boot that goes from 4x8 or whatever that rectangular dimension is then to like a 6" round and flex duct it somewhere outside or something. I work in the heating and cooling buisness so we have crap like that laying all over the place...lol

stonesour said:

That blower mod is nice! I bet that thing will move a ton of CFM's on high. The exhaust would be a little tricky, maybe you could use a sheet metal boot that goes from 4x8 or whatever that rectangular dimension is then to like a 6" round and flex duct it somewhere outside or something. I work in the heating and cooling buisness so we have crap like that laying all over the place...lol

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I picked up a register vent (I believe that's what it is called). It has a rectangle on one side and a 6" circle on other. But I test fitted just the 6" flex duct to the exhaust and it is pretty snug. I'm thinking of gorilla gluing and taping the flex duct there and see how it works. Right now the blower is sitting outside the tent and exhausting into a spare room. Smell isn't an issue for me so I'm probably not going to run a scrubber in the tent and I'm thinking by keeping the blower out of the tent...I won't have the added heat from it to pull out too.

Guess I forgot to say, "Feel free to post in this journal"

There. So I got some more stuff today to hang the lights with and another fan for air movement...but I'm kind of apathetic as to working on it right now. The girls haven't broken soil yet and tbh, I think I'm going to have a friend over and get high. No seriously....hhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggggggghhh hhhhhhhh (watch Christopher Titus - ...ah hell I'll put it here). Pics of the tent with the lights up and all tomorrow!

Go to 4:23 in the clip. Or watch the whole thing starting with 1/9 if you have never seen it. HILARIOUS! More so stoned, so I'm out of here.
[video=youtube;qpszZtVAAKw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpszZtVAAKw&feature=related[/video]

Everything looks nice! You can throw some autos in there soon too!

I wish my PW would crack, I got a good feeling for when I get home.


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Nice tent and blower. What kind of nutes you got for the DWC?

Polecat said:

Nice tent and blower. What kind of nutes you got for the DWC?

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I haven't gotten any nutes for it yet. Still reading and researching on those. I have a hydro shop about 30 minutes down the road and can get pretty much anything I want at cost since I do some marketing work for them. Any suggestions on nutes for the DWC?

I use Floranova by general hydroponics. It works. A little messy and brown but it is really concentrated. get some ph down because it climbs in about 18 hrs out to 6.7 or 6.8. 3 part GH, advanced, and dutchmasters all seem to work. A ph pen is a must. Strips work but the pen is the best tool in the shed. A ec or tds meter is a fun toy. But if you go by the directions on the bottle you can get by without it.

Silent Running said:

I haven't gotten any nutes for it yet. Still reading and researching on those. I have a hydro shop about 30 minutes down the road and can get pretty much anything I want at cost since I do some marketing work for them. Any suggestions on nutes for the DWC?

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Hey silent, i have some stuff i could send you

billcollector99 said:

Hey silent, i have some stuff i could send you

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Really now? That'd be pretty awesome.

Got my light hung yesterday and the duct attached. Ran it for 18 hours and the blower mod does awesome. I can lay my hand on the hood without having to take it off and the temp inside the tent never got higher than 79 degrees (ambient outside of tent is 74). The PW broke soil first! Still waiting on 5 NLs to break through.

I think I'm going to go with a 18/6 lighting schedule for veg and do veg and flowering under the HPS. Washing out the hydroton and the DWC buckets today and hopefully I'll have something to put in them by Wednesday/Thursday. The PW is definitely going into DWC just to see how she does in it since she is an outside strain (thanks Natty).

Looking nice SR, what was the cost of that blower? Run loud at all?

machnak said:

Looking nice SR, what was the cost of that blower? Run loud at all?

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I got it a few years back for around 35.00$ . I've seen it at HD and Wally world recently for around the same price to about 45.00$. It's also known as a Lasko. A lot of times they will go on clearance for about 20$ too. How loud? Depends on the setting. At the lowest setting I can't hear it outside of the room. In the room it sounds like the hvac system is on...so no louder than my heat pump being on and coming through the floor registers. On the highest setting, I can hear it only in the next room...but not two rooms over or downstairs. In the room, on the highest setting it sounds about like my clothes dryer running. I imagine I could silence that some by actually ducting the exhaust and maybe putting it in a sound deading box. But to be honest, on the lowest setting, it is keeping a 4'x4'x6.5' tent with 400w hps cool enough with just using the passive intakes. If I put my hand against the open end of my euro hood...I can easily feel the intake pressure. If I close my passive intake vents, the sides of the tent get sucked in.

I'm not up on the rules of posting links to other forums, but if you are interested, PM me and I'll link you to a huge thread on the stanley blower that discusses all kinds of mods and info. One guy is using 1 to cool 2 1000w lights as well as pulling through a scrubber.

Wow, some fan. I'm gonna have to pick one up, thanks!

I was looking at those the other day & trying to figure in my head how to modify it, thx S.R.

The PW and one of the NL's went into hydroton and the DWC bucket today. They are in the tent under hps doing a cycle of 18/6. The other 4 NLs haven't broken through the soil yet. Temps in the tent are holding steady with the stanley blower mod'ed exhaust. Water temps after 8 hours climbed from 65 to 68. I'll keep an eye on it and if it breaks 70, I'll work on doing something to alleviate that. I didn't get out to the hydro store to pick up nutes for the DWC yet.

Yes, I know. Shitty picture, you can't see the girls. You'll just have to wait! Hopefully, I'll be adding the others in there within a day or so and I'll take better pictures then.

Silent Running said:

The PW and one of the NL's went into hydroton and the DWC bucket today. They are in the tent under hps doing a cycle of 18/6. The other 4 NLs haven't broken through the soil yet. Temps in the tent are holding steady with the stanley blower mod'ed exhaust. Water temps after 8 hours climbed from 65 to 68. I'll keep an eye on it and if it breaks 70, I'll work on doing something to alleviate that. I didn't get out to the hydro store to pick up nutes for the DWC yet.

Yes, I know. Shitty picture, you can't see the girls. You'll just have to wait! Hopefully, I'll be adding the others in there within a day or so and I'll take better pictures then.

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Are you going to check on that House & Garden line?

billcollector99 said:

Are you going to check on that House & Garden line?

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I am indeed going to check on the one you suggested. I'm just kind of apathetic to going to the hydro store right now because I'm coming down with a chest cold (jokes aside).

I've had a casualty. The NL that went into DWC is no longer with us. I left my tent open and forgot to close the room door and my calico cat decided to sample the NL. I've put one of my own LRxWW in a shotglass to replace it with. The PW looks very good. Thicker stem on a seedling than I've seen...but then again I've been growing nothing but autos for the first three goes. She seems to really love the DWC and the light. Her second set of leafs are already coming out to say hello.