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New guys take on a DWC, with pics.


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Old 02-23-2011, 10:51 PM
PaulF PaulF is offline
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Default New guys take on a DWC, with pics.

Hi Everyone-

For the last 6 months or so hydroponics has had me fascinated. About 6 weeks ago I started gathering up parts and pieces to do my own indoor hydroponic vegetable garden. I made the mistake of mentioning to the fellows at work I was interested in hydroponics and all I got was a bunch of flak about being a pot farmer, sheesh. I just want fresh veggies year round.

I live very far North in the US and our growing season here is pretty short. So if you have a bad garden you are kind of sunk for the entire Fall and Winter season. I thought it would be fun to try and do a hydro grow before the Spring plant comes along just to see what happens!

I tried to do this on a shoestring budget and so far I am into the whole project for about $200. I think my setup could be replicated for probably half of that but I splurged on a few things.

Anyway onto my pics.

After a lot of reading I decided that a deep water culture looked like the easiest and cheapest method, and probably most important it looked simple. So I bought a pair of 20 gallon storage totes, some 4 inch plastic pots, a bag of vermiculite, and a bag of perlite which I mixed as my growing medium. I brought all that home and made my DWC tubs. I then scoured E-Bay and found a guy selling 400 Watt metal halide Hi-Bay light fixtures he had salvaged from a warehouse somewhere, he was selling them for $50 shipped. As a bonus they had already been converted to 110 Volts. I put a $2.49 plug on the stub of cord that extended from the ballast. I know a lot of people bad mouth the hi-bay fixture for hydro gardening. For me it looks like it will work pretty good. The reflector seems to focus the light very nicely on my two tubs, and for fifty bucks with bulb, ballast, reflector, and shipped to my door it was hard to beat.



I had a couple of old mirrors that I had been holding onto from a home remodeling project I had done several years ago and I thought they might help with the light situation. Look at how much more light is being reflected onto those pots in relation to the pic above, pretty amazing!



Another $60 spent at my local Lowe's got me two sheets of Dow Tuff-R foil backed foam insulation and some door hardware in the form of hinges and a latch. Yep, that is duct tape holding the two pieces together. What can I say, it works. Not pictured is the opposite side of the Tuff-R which has a super reflective foil surface on it. The grow area is 4'X4'.



A view inside my little grow room. Notice now that the DWC tubs are simply flooded with brilliant MH light. You can also see my thermometer/hygrometer. I am a little worried that the basement is a bit too cold. With the hi-bay light off the temp will drop to around 52 F, after about 2 hours of light run time the temp will reach 65 F. Any input on how this will work for growing veggies? In the left of the photo on the floor you can see my little dual port air pump, it is ridiculously loud and will either get sealed in a box and surrounded with foam, or thrown out, its incessant buzzing is very annoying. In the mirror on the back wall you call clearly see the two barbed fittings I siliconed in as drains for the DWC tubs. The MH light is on a heavy duty timer and set to run 16 on, 8 off right now.



Here is a shot of the two DWC drain tubes running out to a pair of shut off valves and terminating right over a convenient floor drain. This spot in my basement was picked for this very reason.



And finally a picture from this afternoon. My cucumber seedlings are ready to be transplanted tomorrow. Today I made up 16 gallons of nutrient solution with General Hydroponics nutrients in the form of Flora-Gro, Flora-Bloom, and Flora-Micro. I used the GH test kit to adjust the PH to right at 6.0. And here is my DWC tub full of water and bubbling. I can hardly wait to get those seedlings in there tomorrow and see what happens!



I still have lettuce, two varieties of peppers, and Roma tomatoes in seedling stage. The cukes are just so far ahead of the others they need to be transplanted. So I am going to give a shot.

I will try to update this thread weekly with grow progress!

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Old 02-24-2011, 12:12 AM
GpsFrontier GpsFrontier is offline
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Hello PaulF,
You did a great job on a budget. As for the temp that might be a bit cold. 52 with the lights off (night time) shouldn't be much of a problem, although 65 when the lights are on (daytime) will probably be a bit cold for everything other than the lettuce. Especially the peppers that I believe are a warm weather plant, and prefer temps 80 degrees (F) or above. You might experience slow growth, and/or a lack of flowers/fruit on them.

Also I would wonder about the water temp, temps below about 65 degrees (F) will also add to slow growth. You can use a fish tank heater to help keep the water temp's in check. Just get one that has a adjustable thermostat and try not to set it above 72 degrees. Also make sure it stays submerged in the water, but not in contact with the plastic tubs. Water temps above 75-78 can add heat stress to the plant, above 80 can cause the plant to stop or abort fruiting.

Personally I think you will find that cucumber and tomato plants will be to big for that space. What is that black tube looking thing the bubbles are coming out of? Does it stay down at the bottom of the tub without weights?
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Old 02-24-2011, 04:50 PM
ralphkaz ralphkaz is offline
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Originally Posted by GpsFrontier View Post
What is that black tube looking thing the bubbles are coming out of? Does it stay down at the bottom of the tub without weights?
I believe its one of these:
36" Permeable Flexible Air Stone - EZ Hydroponics & Organics

On another note - do the totes need to be so deep? seems like you will have a hard time getting the lids on with how they are bulging out. Also - perhaps to help the temps you could add some insulation over the concrete walls (behind the mirrors)? otherwise GREAT JOB! I'm getting ready to start my first DIY hydro setup and I love seeing pics of others projects!

Last edited by ralphkaz; 02-24-2011 at 04:59 PM.
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Old 02-24-2011, 10:50 PM
PaulF PaulF is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GpsFrontier View Post
Hello PaulF,
You did a great job on a budget. As for the temp that might be a bit cold. 52 with the lights off (night time) shouldn't be much of a problem, although 65 when the lights are on (daytime) will probably be a bit cold for everything other than the lettuce. Especially the peppers that I believe are a warm weather plant, and prefer temps 80 degrees (F) or above. You might experience slow growth, and/or a lack of flowers/fruit on them.

Also I would wonder about the water temp, temps below about 65 degrees (F) will also add to slow growth. You can use a fish tank heater to help keep the water temp's in check. Just get one that has a adjustable thermostat and try not to set it above 72 degrees. Also make sure it stays submerged in the water, but not in contact with the plastic tubs. Water temps above 75-78 can add heat stress to the plant, above 80 can cause the plant to stop or abort fruiting.

Personally I think you will find that cucumber and tomato plants will be to big for that space. What is that black tube looking thing the bubbles are coming out of? Does it stay down at the bottom of the tub without weights?
Thanks for the advice GpsFrontier! I really appreciate it. I am thinking that maybe a little space heater might benefit greatly. Home Depot sells an oil filled space heater for about $40 that I think would be quite safe in my little grow room. I think if I set it for 72 degrees F it wouldn't have to work very hard at all to keep that room warm.

I thought the 4'X4' room would be quite big enough but now I am not so sure. I am afraid the tomatoes and cukes are going to get huge!

Your question about the black tube in the bottom of the bucket is answered below!

Quote:
Originally Posted by ralphkaz View Post
I believe its one of these:
36" Permeable Flexible Air Stone - EZ Hydroponics & Organics

On another note - do the totes need to be so deep? seems like you will have a hard time getting the lids on with how they are bulging out. Also - perhaps to help the temps you could add some insulation over the concrete walls (behind the mirrors)? otherwise GREAT JOB! I'm getting ready to start my first DIY hydro setup and I love seeing pics of others projects!
You are spot on ralphkaz, that is the very same flexible air tube that currently sits at the bottom of my DWC tubs. And to answer GpsFrontier's question, yes they do stay submerged without any weight on them. I'm not so sure that an air stone wouldn't be better though. They don't seem to put out a massive amount of bubbles but they do work decently. So I guess I really can't complain.

As far as the depth on the totes go, I bought 20 gallon totes for my project. I did this because everything I read online said that once your plants really get to rocking and rolling they will eat up nutrients FAST and you will go nuts chasing your Ph. So the idea is that with a huge nutrient reservoir you can go a couple of weeks before you flush and refill them. Hence the reason I plumbed in the drains. As far as the reservoirs bowing, for right now once the tops are snapped on they hold their shape. Once I have established a good root system I plan on reducing the nutrient level. Right now the nutrient solution comes right up and the bottom half inch of the pots is submerged. But once the roots are established I plan on reducing that so they can get more oxygen. In other words the roots will be exposed to open air before they get submerged in the nutrient solution.


Early this morning I transplanted some of my cuke seedlings. I took them from the seed starter trays and very carefully rinsed all the peat off the roots. I was shocked at how large the root system was for something I planted from seed less than two weeks ago. I then planted them in my DWC pots and gave them a light shot of weak nutrients. Within two hours the leaves were deeply curled, obviously from the shock of transplant. Two hours after that the leaves had straightened out and they were looking healthy again. By late evening they appeared to have grown a lot since this morning! We will see what tomorrow brings.

Here is a pic from early this morning just after the transplant took place. I think they look great. I should have taken a picture before the MH light shut off because I swear they grew noticably over the day.

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Old 02-25-2011, 04:09 PM
halfway halfway is offline
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Excellent!
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Old 02-26-2011, 10:10 PM
biloyp biloyp is offline
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Your cucs will want to spread out and your tomatoes will want to grow up and out. To me it seems that you may not have enough space but keep going with it and see what happens. As for pollinating, I believe both need some help from bees or maybe shaking them might help (not sure). I am gonna grow lettuce and pepper since peppers are self pollinating and lettuce don't flower. I am going to try and grow lettuce and peppers fro now and maybe jump into tomatoes later. I would say keep going with what you have, keep good records and post so we can all learn and contribute to the world of hydroponics!
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Old 02-27-2011, 09:09 PM
halfway halfway is offline
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Paul, do you intend on supplementing with HPS for red spectrum when it comes time to flower and fruit those maters and cukes? I am interested in seeing your solution.

The lighting system is what is preventing me from moving to flowering veggies because of initial expense and continuing expense. You caught a great deal on the light setup, so that puts you well ahead of the curve. Adding the red spectrum (to me) seems to be the challenge.

Great setup!
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Old 02-27-2011, 10:01 PM
PaulF PaulF is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by biloyp View Post
Your cucs will want to spread out and your tomatoes will want to grow up and out. To me it seems that you may not have enough space but keep going with it and see what happens. As for pollinating, I believe both need some help from bees or maybe shaking them might help (not sure). I am gonna grow lettuce and pepper since peppers are self pollinating and lettuce don't flower. I am going to try and grow lettuce and peppers fro now and maybe jump into tomatoes later. I would say keep going with what you have, keep good records and post so we can all learn and contribute to the world of hydroponics!
Hey biloyp-

I'm with you, I think the cukes and tomatoes are going to need a lot more space. But for the time being I'm going to do as you suggest and just keep on going with what I have. Pollination of the tomatoes will be handled with a little oscillating fan mounted on the wall, from what I have read they are very easy to pollinate. The cukes I will pollinate by hand by taking male flowers and dabbing them on the female flowers, should I even make it that far! I will hopefully keep this post updated with progress as I go.

Quote:
Originally Posted by halfway View Post
Paul, do you intend on supplementing with HPS for red spectrum when it comes time to flower and fruit those maters and cukes? I am interested in seeing your solution.

The lighting system is what is preventing me from moving to flowering veggies because of initial expense and continuing expense. You caught a great deal on the light setup, so that puts you well ahead of the curve. Adding the red spectrum (to me) seems to be the challenge.

Great setup!

As much as I would love to supplement with HPS I am trying to keep the budget on the shoestring level. I know there are HPS conversion bulbs available that will work in a MH fixture but I am just going to stick with the MH bulb as the conversion bulbs cost more than I paid for the entire MH fixture shipped to my door!

Keep an eye on E-Bay if you are interested in doing an indoor HID setup. There are a bunch of hi-bay fixtures on there right now for the same amount I paid for mine. My biggest concern is what it will do to my electric bill. The lights are designed around a 220 volt power source. So I am assuming that the amp draw is going to go up being fed from a 110 volt feed. Therefore I assume the 400 watt bulb is probably drawing the same as say maybe a 600 watt bulb, although that is only a guess at best! But even at 400 watts running 16 hours a day I am sure there will be a significant jump in my monthly bill.

Don't underestimate the lowly MH light for your entire veggie grow from start to finish. There are A LOT of documented grows out there that used MH from start to finish and have had great results. Admittedly they are for marijuana but the principles are still pretty much the same. I'm not in this at all for pot growth but I have to say, the folks that have documented their marijuana grows online have helped me a lot with ideas and tips!

Judging by what I see online, if people put as much effort into growing vegetables in their closets as they do growing pot I think a lot of grocery stores would have no need for a produce section!
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