SH Hydroponics > DWC Grower's Choice Kit

DWC hydro system.

First hydro grow.....

Good choice?

looks decent enough. doesn't say the gph of the air pump.80 ph strips, you can go through a couple of those in a short period of time what with buffers and all. i think you should source your own parts and build one yourself. a serious 950+ gph air pump alone will run you $50. however, it seems to be a convenient package deal.

looks like a great starter unit.But i would get a PH pen&tds meter.But that unit will get your feet wet. Peace

The light is weak for budding, and if it were me I'd shell out the extra $20 for the bubbleponics system (from the same company) as well because I have heard nothing but good things about it from so many people.

I can't start my grow right away because I have guests coming to visit, but I am going to use the bubbleponics system with the Dual Spectrum II lighting system. Depending on how the initial harvest goes, I might later upgrade the lights to a 250-400w HID during flowering and use the DS II lights during cloning and veg for my second crop.

95% of what you need to run any hydro system is available at hardware stores, discount stores and aquarium shops. Package deals from hydro shops, while convenient, are often seriously overpriced.

Hang around here for a while and read the growFAQ. You really ought to be able to build your own op out of commonly available bits and widgets much more cheaply than buying a package. Commercially made stuff doesn't do anything you can't do yourself, for much lower cost.

You might want to buy one or two specialised things from the hydro shop; purpose made blow-moulded plastic flood trays are better than home made stuff, but you can certainly make trays yourself, too. Even HPS lighting can be had from larger hardware stores. Lots of growers use converted HPS security lighting.

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Get a harvest every 2 weeks - A batch of clones in rockwool - Al B. Gone

Look at what I got from the bubblponics kit:
www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/12679-almost-7-weeks-flowering-54-a.html

with DIY, you going to be confused on nutes, what kind, how much? with the kit, you get free advise, and everythig you need but the duct tape. and if you SEA OF GREEN, going for a small harvest every few weeks, two lights will do you fine. for giant coke can colas, and big plants get two extra red spectrum lights and you will be proud. Listen to experience and look at my two threads on Bubbleponics and Stealth hydro.

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May Peace and Joy be your companions.
Roseman's DIY Bubbleponics Tutorial - Marijuana Growing
Pics of OLD Grow on this Page

Roseman, with all due respect, kits do help brand new growers to some degree... but if I couldn't replicate a kit for around 25-30% of what is charged, I'd eat every hat I own and BBQ a couple fedoras for dinner.

I really do think that all the information necessary to get started is already on this board. What did you get from your kit that you could not get here?

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Get a harvest every 2 weeks - A batch of clones in rockwool - Al B. Gone

you are absolutely right, Al B. !!!
Short answer is I got the right advise for the right system.
Long Answer:
There are plenty or many people who because of being poor on funds, change their own oil or spark plugs in their car because it is cheaper. But for a rookie- beginner, how safe is that and what can go wrong and who can he run to the first time he tries it and something goes wrong?
I saw someone here screwed up his entire system just this week cause someone convinced him to add mollasses to his tank. I've seen DIY systems with a straw poked in a large plastic coke jug that cost less than $2.00. He got 3 or 4 joints by smoking the leaves. I 've seen 5 gal bucket systems, 4, gallon, 6 gallon up to 30 gallon systems here, and tupperware loves the DIY Hydro system builder.
I am a do it your self kind of guy, and I considered it. I drive my own car, but I don't tune my own engine and there are plenty of instructions on how to do it. I looked at plans and designs for months, putting it off. Now I am a do it yourself grower, but I got a cadillac durable system cause I could afford to spend the $180. I been paying $150 to $180 a oz for wholesale sensi bud from a hydro grower good friend, so what is $180 for pot the rest of my life?

I visited here and read. I found dozens of soil growers offering advise on Hydro growing. I found outdoor growers trying to advise on growing indoors. I found half a dozen ways and designs to build a system and there are at least 4 or 5 systems argued. Most are good designs, I agree. I found kids and novices that never grew a tomato offering advise here; dirt or water, indoor or outdoor, trim , prune, or not, CFL or flour, stamen color or trich color for harvest, get a radio shack microscope, and those are a pice of shit microscopes, use PH test strips or buy a PH meter, and seldom on this site does any two people agree on anything. Half the adivse here is GREAT Advise, but half the advise here sucks. I wanted to experiment growing, not experiment building a system.
This past year, I decided I wanted to move into the new age and grow indoors and grow the hydroponics "no soil" way WITH THE MOST ADVANCED SCIENTIFIC SYSTEM AVAILABLE. I started out by googling "growing indoors" and "growing hydroponics" . I studied greenmanspage and a dozen others. I discovered a wide world of indoor growers, differing advise and a range of hydroponics systems, EZ Grow, Emily's hydro, Stealth, Etc, . I became convinced that Bubbleponics and delivering air to the roots constantly produced the most rapid growth. After many months of Internet research and study I found the term "Stealth" and I wanted the low heat, low energy use system. So I decided on this system.
I told my partner and best friend that we should order one of the Stealth Hydroponics Systems for each of us. He told me to go ahead and order one, and that he would be smarter and thriftier than me (he is cheap) by studying my system and then he'd build one just like it.

Around September my Dual Spectrum II bubbleponics System arrived. My best friend came right over and said "piece of cake, I can easily build one of those in a day!" He is a pretty smart dude, too.

I had already pre-soaked my seeds earlier and four days later introduced my FIRST six 2" seedlings to the rockwool cubes. My system was up and running! But my so called best friend and growing partner had become a big pest, bugging me for the first three days, coming over every day, wanting to look it over again and again to figure out how to build his own system.

Fourteen days later he had the tank, two pumps, ( he screwed up tho and didn't get a submersive underwater pump) he got some hoses or tubing, an air stone and he thought that he was on his way to building a hydroponics system. All he thought remained was figuring out how to cut those round holes, (had to buy the tools, EXTRA $$$) and ordering some cups, rockwool and hydroton rocks. Or so he thought. In the same 14 days I had six of the most beautiful 6" tall, healthy bushiest plants that anyone has ever seen!

23 days later, I was almost through "growth" stage (SOG) and my friend was still trying to figure out how to create the irrigation system and get it all assembled.
He found a plastic contraption that you hook air hoses together and he tried to duplicate the hub that sends the water EQUALLY to the cups. Of the six connects, one pushed water very hard, the 2nd not as hard,and time the water was pushed thru the 1st 4 tubes, NONE made it to the 5th and 6th tube.
He was driving me crazy constantly wanting to look inside my system and take the irrigation hub system apart to study it. . Finally he asked me if I thought he could order "just the irragtaion parts" from Stealth Hydro. Now he had also realized he will need the pre-measured and convenient Nutrient Grow Packets, OR HE CAN COME HEAR AND READ THE ARGUEING and try to experiment and see what works. He still needs the connectors, irrigation hub, and grow cups if he can figure out to get the water to each cup. Not to mention the free grow guide CD and 1-800 free advise on the phone.

My friend spent $80 less than me, but he has not started growing yet. I am about to harvet my 3rd crop, each better than the one before.

Al B, I've come to the conclusion that we are all like crayons in a box here on this site, we are all different. One crayon can't draw a masterpiece, but with a box, we can create a beautiful piece of art. I am not fond of some colors tho, and some colors are my favorites. Dirt Growers, hydro growers, inside, outside. Buy a store system, DIY and build a system. I often see you give great advise here and be very helpful, and I do hope it is the advise of experience. I m just trying to do the same thing here and offer good advise based on experience. I wish everyone else here would do the same.
Peace bro !

__________________

May Peace and Joy be your companions.
Roseman's DIY Bubbleponics Tutorial - Marijuana Growing
Pics of OLD Grow on this Page

4 weeks from first sprout

__________________

May Peace and Joy be your companions.
Roseman's DIY Bubbleponics Tutorial - Marijuana Growing
Pics of OLD Grow on this Page

Roseman, I really do believe bubble/DWC is a fine way to grow. Nothing beats the amount of oxygen to the rootzone- your lovely shower of white roots is proof of that pudding! I'd do it myself if I wasn't such a slacker.

I use a flood/drain because it can't possibly clog and with pots of rockwool media, as I use, the system can tolerate a water pump failure for as long as a couple of days with no harm to the plant.

I do consider bubblers/DWC to be an advanced technique to the degree that they require close supervision of nutrient solutions and periodic verification of pump operation. An air pump failure in a bubbler, not caught in time, could be very nasty.

I would hope that kits include an operating checklist and a basic troubleshooting guide along with all the bits and widgets- but I suspect that sort of data is better had in an interactive forum like this.

However, my point wasn't about bubblers vs anything else. It was about whether one could save a lot of dough with DIY. Cleverness and research must be worth a lot if you can make bubblers out of really cheap (if not op-shop sourced) plasticware and some pumpy sorts of widgetry.

Your fine DWC work is, however, notable by its absence from the FAQ! You might bang together a synopsis of your op to add to the DWC area.

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Get a harvest every 2 weeks - A batch of clones in rockwool - Al B. Gone