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Old 02-23-2011, 10:51 PM
PaulF PaulF is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 16
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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