The world's cheapest hydro setup.

Honestly guys, hydro doesn't mean big, fancy automated systems......it means growing without soil.

Lighting is pricey, but that's true regardless...

You can do it as easy as this. Seeds(preferably germed) or clones are started in the 1" cube, as soon as they're rooted the 1" goes into a 4".... 1" cubes come 98 to a slab for $20, 4" are about $1.75 ea.....unless your tapwater is totally crap...just tapwater for the 1" and then 1/4 strength hydro nutes(not miricle grow dammit) for the 4".... Soak the cube before using...but just in the solution it'll be watered with.... hold it with 1 corner down and wait until runoff slows.......set it in a shallow tray...then you can water from the top until some comes out the bottom or just water from the bottom and let the cube wick it up......

I use ebb/flow.....but my buddy just does this...with 3" cubes no less.....he fills the tray 1/4" with solution and when he sees it's been sucked dry he waters again....... that's it.......his plants are about 2/3rds the size of mine pictured, but gets 1/4-1/2 oz per plant. Clones with tap water, veg with dynagro gro 1TBS/5 gal bucket, bloom with dynagro bloom at same strength......That's it!! He has 1 mom, 4 clones, 4-8 in veg and maybe 16 in bloom.......harvest and replace 2 plants per week.........

He doesn't give a crap for Ph, tds, ec, or anything else. Dumb luck or is it just that easy??? That depends on your tapwater really......our's is 7.4-8.1 out of the tap and 250 ppm tds....but when I check his stuff with my meter he's right around 6.5 Ph.....didn't check tds but I'd guess around 500 from the bucket, with maybe a slow buildup to 800 by the time they finish......due to evaporation. If you try it and have problems...you may have to buy water or filter yours, but it's generally safe other than high salt levels in some places.....

Your results will vary based on lights, temps and other factors......but you can make due with this until you can afford somthing else... If you get half what he does, you should be very happy......

Could it be any easier?? Questions??

It seems to me that unless you are going to do hydro outdoors, you still have to invest in lights. And if you are going to do that, you may as well invest in a few other things to increase yield beyond what you describe. Finding the best point of diminishing returns is always a challenge in any production. If I can spend $200 and get 2 oz or spend $500 and get 5 oz it looks like $100 per ounce either way - until I do the second and third grows.

As for the rest of it....he has a 175 mh I gave him for mom and veg, some flouros for clone area and a 400 for bloom ($119+s&h from htgsupply.com) dynagro is about $15/pint, 480 ml to a pint/15 ml per 5 gal=160 gallons of solution that lasts him a few months, and his electric bill went up about $30/month. Once he hit full perpetual....his 2 month average output is 6 oz at a cost of appx $200.....48-4" cubes @ $1.75=84, a slab of 1"=20, a pint of gro and bloom=30 and $60 in electricity..... If you bought $25 a quarter swag every week.....same cost.............can you do without for a little while to never have to buy again???

BTW.........from seed to perpetual will take about 4 months and 6 until you've chosen the best available and ditched the others. You want to grow your seeds about a month, clone and mark them......2 weeks to root the clones, 2 weeks under 12/12 to sex them and destroy all males....by then you'll be able to take more clones and start filling the system.......let the sexed clones continue on so you'll have something to sample..........then you can pick your best mama and go from there.......

This assumes an 8 week flowering strain, but you can adjust it to suit you own easily enough.....

Well, as I said...lighting is pricey regardless..........If you're growing indoors, you need lights.....whether soil or hydro. I'm just saying you can start out cheap..........Lights first, then a cheap ebb/flo..........you will have the money you save on weed to upgrade as time goes on..........An you don't waste a fortune to decide hydro isn't for you......

And my buddy has been at this since I set him up with the first light and clone 5 years ago........he has never upgraded a thing, he smokes about an oz a month so he has 2 a month to sell and pay for everything......$400 profit and smokes free......He's happy with that and I bet 70% of the folks here would be as well....