If you could do it over again what would you change?

RetiredMatthebrute

Well-Known Member
i would use grow tents and 600w lights with coco as a medium. hydro in a basement would require more effort than a coco grow with a no run off system. moving all that water and dumping nute solutions into your local sewers is bad.
he can always dump the solution in the woods somewhere if its aplicable and the growth in the woods would use up any remaining nutrients. I do agree though dumping them excess nutes into the water system isnt really good.

he can also pick up a sink somewhere and plumb it to dump the water where he wants it dumped and run a hose down to the basement and it souldnt be that difficult to maintain.
 

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
Ok I'm missing something I guess. I live in a city with crap city water in the first place, what exactly is me dumping 30 gallons of nutes every couple weeks gonna hurt any thing? I would rather use it to water my out side garden, but I don't live some where I can put one yet. I've always hated wasting them.
 

RetiredMatthebrute

Well-Known Member
synthetic nutrients are not good for the waste water system as they shouldnt get into the local rivers, ponds and ocean. too much can cause algea flourishes and Potasium is a controlled substance just for that reason.
 

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
Ah well, I'm not gonna feel to bad. The river that the city water comes from here is monitored all year long due to known ecoli levels. Hopefully by the end of the year I'll be in a new house where I can recycle them in another garden.
 

hotrodharley

Well-Known Member
I have built every DWC unit I own. From my first 5-gallon to multi-site tops and big res bins. It ain't rocket science.
 

Flaming Pie

Well-Known Member
I used CFLs.

My first grow I used nitrogen heavy ferts for veg, and a 3-4-5 mix in nute for flower. Got 2.5 oz off one plant.

Second grow was a clone from first grow. I used nitrogen heavy ferts for veg, but used a low nitrogen high p-k for flower. 3 weeks into flowering my plant had a serious nitrogen deficiency. I didnt fix it and got no bud worth trimming.

Lesson learned - use 3-4-5 for flower
 
i would use grow tents and 600w lights with coco as a medium. hydro in a basement would require more effort than a coco grow with a no run off system. moving all that water and dumping nute solutions into your local sewers is bad.
Fortunatley we live in the woods, pretty secluded, and will probably eventually plumb something like a sink that pumps water a few hundred feet into the woods away from everything! and my closest neighbor is 500 feet away at closest ! Thanks man, all input is sparking more ideas!
 
i just did the math and @ $.075 for the 3 600w lights to run 18 hours a day will add around 144 bucks for a 60 day period. not sure where your getting your numbers from or how much your power company charges but thats a pretty big difference.

so the 3 lights on 12/12 would cots on average 40 bucks a month
then add up the other 2 600w lights in the veg cab and your looking at a increas of around 72 bucks a month.

so his total increase in his power bill will be roughly 130-140 bucks a month and thats adding in some $$ for all his pumps and fans..

the money he is going to save after his first harvest will be well worth the jump in electricity since most dispensarys are charging upwards of 40-50 bucks an 1/8th so as long as he harvests at least a half ounce off his 12 plants he should be breaking even at least. I would be willing to be he harvests more than a 1/2 zip though.

to calculate your energy costs look at you electric bill and see what they are charging for a kilowatt hour (KWH)

then break down how many watts you are using. 600w x 3 = 1800w.
break the watts down to Kilowatts, theres 1000 watts in 1 kilowatt. so 1800/1000 = 1.8
multiply the watts times the KWH (in my case my electric company charges $0.07438 per KWH) 1.8 x .075 = $.135

it is costing you almost 14¢ an hour to run those 3 lights.

now multiply the hourly rate to run your lights by how many hours a day you will have them running, in this case the 3 600w will be fueling the flower cab so 12 hours a day .135 x 12 =$1.62

its costing $1.62 to run the 3 lights for 12 hours a day, now multiple the amt per day and the amount of days in a billing cycle (30) 1.62 x 30 = $48.60

feel free to correct me if im wrong in my math
Im not sure what side of the pond you live on but we have the same exact kwph price haha....neighbors?
 

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
ya my comp was just being awesome, well I ordered some seeds, ordered 15, and they gave me 4 free, I ordered Dinafem Seeds Critical Jack,
I guess I missed this the other day, you ordered some dinafem critical jack. I just put in a seed of that lsat night, I'll let you know how it turns out.
 

splifchris

Well-Known Member
i just did the math and @ $.075 for the 3 600w lights to run 18 hours a day will add around 144 bucks for a 60 day period. not sure where your getting your numbers from or how much your power company charges but thats a pretty big difference.

so the 3 lights on 12/12 would cots on average 40 bucks a month
then add up the other 2 600w lights in the veg cab and your looking at a increas of around 72 bucks a month.

so his total increase in his power bill will be roughly 130-140 bucks a month and thats adding in some $$ for all his pumps and fans..

the money he is going to save after his first harvest will be well worth the jump in electricity since most dispensarys are charging upwards of 40-50 bucks an 1/8th so as long as he harvests at least a half ounce off his 12 plants he should be breaking even at least. I would be willing to be he harvests more than a 1/2 zip though.

to calculate your energy costs look at you electric bill and see what they are charging for a kilowatt hour (KWH)

then break down how many watts you are using. 600w x 3 = 1800w.
break the watts down to Kilowatts, theres 1000 watts in 1 kilowatt. so 1800/1000 = 1.8
multiply the watts times the KWH (in my case my electric company charges $0.07438 per KWH) 1.8 x .075 = $.135

it is costing you almost 14¢ an hour to run those 3 lights.

now multiply the hourly rate to run your lights by how many hours a day you will have them running, in this case the 3 600w will be fueling the flower cab so 12 hours a day .135 x 12 =$1.62

its costing $1.62 to run the 3 lights for 12 hours a day, now multiple the amt per day and the amount of days in a billing cycle (30) 1.62 x 30 = $48.60

feel free to correct me if im wrong in my math

Sorry... i was really stoned last night and multiplied by 0.76 instead of .076 ...... and by the way.... holy shit your electricitys cheap... hear in ireland its 0.17 euro per kwh
 

Sir.Ganga

New Member
A couple of things. If you are building... your flower room should be twice the size of your veg area, if you can... have the light intensify in flower for better reaction. For ease of use I would go ebb/flow. This allows you to hand water, using rockwool slabs you can customize a system for you situation. You can build a complete table set up for pennies.

Start with a couple of meters,ppm and ph and a base line nutes, they all work and record what you do for future reference.

Good Luck
 

RetiredMatthebrute

Well-Known Member
Sorry... i was really stoned last night and multiplied by 0.76 instead of .076 ...... and by the way.... holy shit your electricitys cheap... hear in ireland its 0.17 euro per kwh
dam that sucks>< lol yeah i figured you made some small error in your equation but i had to correct it before you scared the shit out of the original poster HAHAHA 500 bucks a month for only the 3 lights he would be looking at around 1000 bucks every 30 days....holy shit batman!!
 

ghb

Well-Known Member
i know somebody who was arrested because he was growing plants in dwc and dumping his unused nutes down the drain, when his local sewer system became clogged with roots they traced them right to his house and raided it. he only had 2 plants flowering and he still got sent to jail, when i got caught with 18 plants nothing happened.

police do not like hydro growers! anything that looks hi tech will land you in more trouble if you get caught, worth bearing in mind.
 

RetiredMatthebrute

Well-Known Member
oh and Hotrodharly suggested this pump here

http://www.aquariumguys.com/supreme-air-pump-9150.html

he said it would power 24 individual buckets. If you decide to go RDWC instead it will power your rezz just fine and the water coming into the buckets at a constant is going to provide airation so you wont need airstones in every bucket just the main rezz (i believe)

bubbles.jpg

as you can see from my crappy diagram as long as you put the fresh intake water coming in above the water line when it hits the water it will crate bubbles. not sure if this is how they are supposed to be built but what i would do is simply build one large PvC frame to go through all the buckets with a hole in the PvC at each site, then pump the water through the PvC and it will run out at each hole, dropping down into the water creating airation.

then you need a fill line and when the water reaches a certain level in the bucket (which it should maintain at all times) it will go out the drain and back to the main rezz to be recurculated.
 

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
So guys I got a surprise last night. I was checking out threads at like 2 in the morning when I found something cool. There was a fellow around here named Stinkbud, that back in 08 when I joined this community was running a thread called how to harvest a pound every 3 weeks. He has amazing knowledge and uses home built well designed systems. Well he was gone for a long time, but he back. From what he posted last night he has all kinds of new tricks up his sleeves. Heres the link to his post last night, the first hundred pages of the thread have all the best info and experiance in them. I believe he is just going to continue this same thread just add new info.
https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/116859-harvest-pound-every-three-weeks-992.html

This thread asked what would we do over. Well I've seriously considered running one of his systems for years. I almost forgot about them honestly, but really amazing results.
 

RetiredMatthebrute

Well-Known Member
So guys I got a surprise last night. I was checking out threads at like 2 in the morning when I found something cool. There was a fellow around here named Stinkbud, that back in 08 when I joined this community was running a thread called how to harvest a pound every 3 weeks. He has amazing knowledge and uses home built well designed systems. Well he was gone for a long time, but he back. From what he posted last night he has all kinds of new tricks up his sleeves. Heres the link to his post last night, the first hundred pages of the thread have all the best info and experiance in them. I believe he is just going to continue this same thread just add new info.
https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/116859-harvest-pound-every-three-weeks-992.html

This thread asked what would we do over. Well I've seriously considered running one of his systems for years. I almost forgot about them honestly, but really amazing results.
yeah i have seen that thread before and its a nice system for sure.
 
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