My First Hydroponic Grow Room: An attempt at a sustainable medicinal supply

Hello all,

So, I recently moved to a place where there is no medical dispensary and the street supply is just plain shit. Not wanting to run the risk of having the DHL delivery man be my unknowing dealer, I decided to set up a sustainable grow room. The goal is to harvest every month to two depending on how much supply builds up. I decide to post this to not only show off my secret labor of love, but to hopefully get some good insight as to things I can do to improve on my setup, processes, and hopefully overall yield!
Having grown random found seeds in soil from time to time with success, I decided to step it up a notch and order quality seeds and grow them hydroponically. I also wanted to create two distinct areas, one for flowering and one for vegging/clone/mother for year round smoking! I did quite a bit of research and set aside a budget of $2,000.00 for the complete setup. Here is a list of the major elements my setup entails:

1- GrowLab 120L Grow Room
1- Generic Grow Tent 2'X3'X6'
1- 400 Watt HPS
1- 120W UFO LED grow lamp
1- 90W UFO LED grow lamp
1- 4" Can filter and In-line fan exhaust
1- 900 BTU LG Portable Air conditioner
3- Bubbleponics hydroponics systems
1- Bubbleponics reservoir
1- DWC Bucket
1- 25 bay Cloner

Seeds Purchased:
1 x Feminized Strawberry Cough
5 x Feminized Auto Berry
5 x Feminized Auto Widow
Afghan Kush (Free with purchase, I don't think they are Feminized)

Check out the pictures for how it is all setup and laid out! I chose to use LEDs in the veg/clone/mother room because they produce almost no heat, allowing me to close up the tent and contain the light when the flowering room is dark. I also chose what I call pod style growing to achieve my desired sustainability. By having 3 separate bubbleponics systems, "pods", I should be able to consistently have 2 pods in the flowering room and one pod in the veg room. When I harvest one from the flowering room I will transfer the pod from the veg to begin flowering; at the same time I can root new clones. This process will hopefully allow me harvest on a near monthly basis.

My stinky opinion

PPM at 1010? That's a lot of food. My ppms never exceed 650, but thats just me.

Res temp 78f. That's hot. Lot a schtuff can grow at that temp in the res.
you'll be fighting those res temps every day and find out what a pita it is.
That will be your major battle as you go along.


BB57^

ftp

Is there a good chiller I should get? Oh and I was reading that from 600 too 1200 PPM is a optimal, should I stick to the lower end?

I can save you a boat load of money if yer thinking about a chiller.

Let's see what type of grower you are,,,,,,

I have a thread
Best damn reservoir you can make
Look it over.
Check out my other posts and pics,,,,,,,,,

If it looks like I know what I'm doing and yer interested, I'll help.

If I seem to be full of nutrients (read Manure, sh*t) then by all means blow right on by me.

I'm hitting the stopwatch and waiting,,,,,,

bb57^

ftp

Nice Boomer! I like your setup and those massive Colas! Ill put some frozen water bottles in the res every now and again... Should save me $ and solve the problem!

No. Won't solve the problem.
yer putting a band aid on a sucking chest wound.
Not The Right Thing To Do.

Change out that res as soon as you can. I used em and and threw em out.

Light will penetrate that plastic.

Dropping cold bottles every 6 hours will get to be a pita.

Igloos maintain the perfect water temps you need to have healthy happy white roots.
Temps stay the same, constant for days on end no matter how hot it gets in yer set up.
and yer pumping warm air into the res to begin with.

That's from Co2, tricky to work with but worth it.

Good response time.

I'll lend a hand, but keep in mind I have a disturbed brainpan and after 41 years of growing in dirt and 10 in h20
I've seen a lot of failures and great successes based on water temps and res control.

Bad roots= Little Girls

and I like the big girls,,,,,,,,,,,,


bb57^^

ftp

Do the coolers, RP.
I did........

If you cool the room more there is no need for a chiller. But if you have money to invest go for the chiller. I have my area at 78 during the day and my 2 gallon buckets are 75 degrees. At night they're cooler. Btw i run a 400 watt hps. I also have a 1000 watt hps and when i run that my temps go up to 82 degrees.

as long as you stay below 90 degrees your fine but keeping it around 75 should be first on the list dont want your babys to burn well atlease untill they are done

--Update--

Ok, so I am going to try to update this page at least once a week. Right now these baby's are vegging, so there isn't really much to talk about.... Well thats not true, the Auto Berry is flowering and the Auto Widow is showing preflowers. It didn't hit me until recently that planting an assortment of strains into one system would impact my nutrient schedule.... I decided to just keep the nutrient schedule as is, and whatever yield comes from the autoflowering will just have to do.

Also, in preperation for flowering, I built a simple trellis to support the plants as they bud. I just guessed at a random height, I hope it works out!

The A/C unit I use keeps the grow room between 69 and 77 degrees 24/7, with the average at about 72. Reservoir temps were hovering at around 76-79, with the addition of two frozen water bottles a day the temp now hovers around 72-73.

On a gadget note, I purchased a 35X digital microscope with a photography function. After hours of playing, I got some good shots of the early flowering stages of the AutoBerry. I look forward to getting some close ups of the flowering process.

Here are todays photos: