Multiple Setups, NFT, DWC
 

These are my home setups.

The first one is a 6-channel, 54 plant NFT system, ten gallon reservoir. The others are a traditional DWC and a stacked-bucket DWC. I am still re-building that box as a plant hospital, those buckets are merely there to be out of my way while I get the other closet set up for those two DWC containers.

I also have a few more DWC buckets, I might be setting those outdoors, I'll have to see.

With the exception of outdoors, everything is diode lit.

Hello hydrophotobio,
Have you been using the LED's long?

For about two years on various testing crops.

leds
 

What brand of leds are you using and what will you be growing?

In those panels in the picture? Nichia, Cree, Bridgelux.

My next set will likely be solid BridgeLux as they can offer almost every wavelength and at some great efficiencies.

I will be growing lettuces, basil, cilantro, parsley, maybe some sort of tiny onion as well in the NFT. As for the DWC, peppers and tomatoes.

what would you recommend?
 

My system is roughly 28 x 32 inches, currently I'm using two 300 watt cfls, can I use a led in combination with these cfls to improve in both growth and in flowering? If so what do you recommend? Also what kind of peppers and tomatoes are you going to grow?

Not sure on which peppers and tomatoes I'm going to cultivate this time around. As for LED, in that room size you could likely pop in a well-tuned 300w LED panel and never think about anything else ever again.

Started the system up.
 

I am having a minor issue with getting even flow rates out of the nozzles due to some sort of clog or air bubble trapped somewhere in the splitter, despite repeated attempts at cleaning/purging. So for now, no direct experiments, just some home grows to work with.

I've started with some Parris Island Romaine on the left and Bloomsdale Spinach on the right. I did not have enough rockwool to propagate every channel, so each channel has four rockwool cubes, for a total of 12 plants per side.

The spinach is under my old prototype 50w quad-band + white. The lettuce is under my 50w tri-band research panels.

Lights were turned on immediately after the picture.

Nice system, I am just trying to get a sense of dimensions here. How far away did you hang your LEDs?

Approximately 2 feet x 8 feet. Lights are kept 15 inches away.

There is also a 12w blue-heavy LED in the dead center (mostly for effect, it is too high up to be of much actual use,) and another 12w white spotlight that is used primarily for checking pH and for checking plant color.

I've added more to the setup, or rather, re-arranged everything to keep it in a more compact area.

Plenty of light in here, about 440w of LED.

I also bought more rockwool and colonized the rest of the channels with cilantro (right) and dill (left) today, about 1 1/2 hours ago.

Still trying to decide what to drop in the DWC. I have four jalapeno seeds set in rockwool, I might try my luck at hydro bush beans in the cabinet that the blue spotlight is attached to.

Well, 9:07AM and there are little sprouts coming up already on the lettuce cubes.

Nil activity on the spinach, but those do take some time to germinate.

Air temps have remained between 50-60F. This will likely change in the next couple of weeks as the weather around here begins warming up.

Day 5 and all of the lettuce seedlings are quite visible above the rockwool cubes.

For reference, the square rockwool cubes are leafy veggies, the round ones are herbs. That's why you don't see anything from those.

Spinach still hasn't done much, but it takes up to two weeks for germination. No pics of that, yet. I'll put some as soon as I see sprouts.

I'm also not going to start a nutrient regimen until everything has sprouted. So very likely for the next few weeks this will be simple pH controlled tap water.

Why tap water?

Latest water report and some samples taken to a lab indicate ppm levels below 150, a majority of that being magnesium and calcium buffers. It's easier to control pH for longer periods of time in this water opposed to filtered water, and with my busy schedule this is usually more advantageous as sometimes I can't always tend to the system when needed.

What does it cost you to have the water tested? I have considered it because we can only get so much at a time out of the RO system, but I know this city is known for its hard water, particularly large amounts of iron. Our inside water is from the water softener, but I'm concerned about trace salts. Information about that is wildly varied, so I figure the only true way to know is to have it tested. I have been told the city will test it for you for free, but doubt it, and to be honest I just haven't gone down or called to find out.

It cost me $75 to get a water sample independently tested. Some cities will do it for free if you have a valid concern (potential contamination through your incoming lines is a common reason for free testing.)

Lettuce bolted on me when the temps got too warm. I thought chilling the nutrient solution for the root zone would be enough. Ah well.