Grow Mediums General info for a single DWC 5gal.???

[firsttimer]

I'm looking at doing a 5 gal. DWC. It will be my first time growing, but I figured since I am just doing this for personal uses I'd like to yield a couple ounces at a time so I figured this would be the best way of doing so. Some of the questions I have are:

Since I will be growing one plant at a time and planning on using CFL's what wattage should I be looking at. 150w? 200w? Again its only one plant but I'd like to get my yield up. I plan on using good seeds no cheapos. Looking for any info or help with this project seeing as its my first. I plan on running a log on it once I get it up and running. Right now just getting as much info as I can and buying things here and there so once I order my seeds I will be 100% ready to be up and running. Any help with good nutes to start with for a beginner would be great too. I see alot of people recommend Advanced and have seen some Dyna-Gro users recommend that, as well as people say Fox Farm is the way to go. Obviously you will find pros and cons to them all but looking for a general census. Also have looked at getting a kit of nutes such as from Technaflora. Let me know what yall think please, SUPER Excited to get this up and running and be harvesting some dankness in the future! Thanks again guys!

 

[UrbanFarmer]

Ive also been interested in DWC but from what i have read, you have to be on top of your PH and PPM/EC regularly. So invest in good meters. Not sure about CFL's with DWC, wait for an experienced member for pointers on that. As for nutrients, its a person to person opinion, we all find what works for us as individuals and dial in.

 

[TheLittleBoyWhoPointed]

If doing a 5 gal/20ltr dwc, I suggest going for a rectangular tub with lid rather than a bucket with lid, the reason being filling the res and checking the res is a real PITA when you have to lift the entire plant and rootball up to get access...with a rectangular tub with lid one can have a separate access hole to do this...
Good nutes are a boon.....finding a good, well respected brand helps, but other less known brands of nutes are just as effective and often cheaper so it is worth looking around.
I am not a fan of advanced nutrients....NOT because they are not good, but because they are split into so many different products and sold separately...for me it's kind of like going to buy a meal....one could purchase a readymade meal, say a rice and chicken stirfry, or one could buy rice, peas, chicken, corn, carrot spring onions etc separately and then combine them to make a chicken and rice stirfry...both give you the end result, but one is already mixed and prepared, the other is individual ingredients one mixes oneself.....so it's more their marketing method I am not in favor of.
Canna make some good dwc or general use nutes, quite often they buffer quite well....and there are other brands to look at also.

Having a ph and ec/ppm meter is really advisable though it is possible to do without if ones water is pretty good.
It can be as simple as a res with lid, a netpot with medium and an airpump with simple airstone. I have had some great results with this simple setup.

I have a preference for SCROG...SCreenOfGreen....growing the plant under a screen and spreading it out during veg phase before flowering the plant through the screen....this gives an even plane of buddage and allows one to use multiple smaller cfl's to get a good spread of light rather than a single cfl with a smaller footprint of light.

TLBWP

 

[Tavosvo]

This guy ^^^ summed it up real good right there. If CFLs are your only option I would run as much as you can >200w. I like my LED it seems to be working excellent and is low heat low wattage. Light quality/quantity will make the biggest difference with yield.

I like the suggestion to use something that will make nute changes and checks easy. It is also important to keep res temps low. Dissolved oxygen decreases as water temps rise above 70f. If running a sterile res (ie h2o2), then colder is better <69f. But if running bennie tea, which I highly recommend (check sticky at top of hydro forum), I believe you can get away will slightly warmer water <75f. I will not vouch for 75f water, that sounds a bit warm to me. **Very important here: An easy way to help res temps is to use an insulated bucket/cooler. I am using round sport drinking coolers, but it would be great to see someone use a larger split lid rectangle cooler, one side for net cup, other side for testing and changes (I'm gonna need to try that!). Use frozen water bottles to keep water temps down. I fill a bottle with some pennies,so it sinks, and 3/4 water. smash it a bit to get the air out. When it freezes its max full but won't blow. Now I'm using this awesome Peltier water cooler for aquariums to cool my rig right now. It's doing a great job, I will post a link in DIY section soon, check it out.

I am using cheap GH 3 part, Lucas formula. Very simple, cheap and decent quality base nutes. People talk shit about them and suggest expensive AN products but we shall see my nugs look alright so far only a smoke test will tell. I would be running Canna if it was available around here. But that is also expensive. It all depends. If you want to max out your yield you need to cover as many bases as possible. I'm liking my botanicare additives but they weren't cheap. I try to go middle of the road, not crazy nute soup, but not bare bones either. I'm looking to max my yield from a single plant as well and did hours of careful research before choosing what I thought was right for me. Everyone will have different opinions. Most important is to maintain excellent growing atmosphere and conditions for your plant. Expensive nutes with crap setup does not yield great buds. However a great setup and reasonably priced nutes can easily make quality smoke.

Please visit my grow (link in sig) and you can see how my setup looks to you and if its something you'd like to pull some ideas from.

 

[Tavosvo]

Oh ya and LST or scrog is for sure the way to go. There are ways to rig a scrog to hydro lid. A split lid cooler seems like it could hold supports for a screen. Alternatively, LST can produce very similar outcomes.

 

[KsjAuto]

HI firsttimer
TheLittleBoyWhoPointed said it`s a real PITA to change the res. very true...
i made made a DIY aquafarm / water farm like system but with the res outside the growroom (very easy to change the res) SEE LINK BELOW
https://www.autoflower.org/f28/diy-top-feed-recirculation-16425.html trying it out now
Im just saying that its possible to make a system there is easy to maintain :dance2:
but hey i'm not an expert

PEACE

 

[Taviddude]

Since it's your first grow, tripple the amount of wattage for however many grams you want to pull and you should come in right around there.

Train your plants for best results.

General Hydroponics makes great nutrients that are easy to use, cheap and effective.
FloraNova grow/bloom will do you more than solid.
Grow during Veg, and Bloom during flower. KILLER stuff.
Add some Liquid Koolbloom during flower per the feeding schedule provided and you'll be way ahead on your first grow.

DO NOT try Hydro without a PH meter, and EC/PPM meter.
You will waste time, money and go through a bunch of unnecessary headache for no reason, and end up buying them anyway.
When running hydro the BIGGEST things you monitor are your PH, and EC/PPM. Keep those two perfect, and you will succeed. Let em get away from you and you will fail.

Peace.
Tav

 

[firsttimer]

Awesome info guys! I really appreciate it. Keep it coming. The only reason I was saying of going with CFL's is cost efficiency. But I think I might do some research on some LED's as well. I was just thinking I could run multiple CFL's and it be cheaper. I have seen great things come from both light sources. I was looking at a bucket set up but the rectangular/square tub thing seems logically easier for testing and swapping the res. Definitely trying to dot my i's and cross my t's before just jumping in and wasting perfectly good seeds. Keep the info, recommendations, and links coming. Thanks again!

 

[DWCocha]

Im nearly done with my 1st grow using DWC & LED ... You should check out Seymour buds & his threads if you haven't already ?.I learned a lot from him & some other top growers here .

I would be ready for more than a couple oz if you do go the DWC route mate !... How big is your cab/tent ?.

Unless you use loads of cfl's i doubt you will get the full potential from the system ,but LED works great with it.They grow so fast in DWC that you need a decent light to complement it.

If your grow space is small I would consider researching LST as well !.

Good luck

 

[firsttimer]

My grow space is as small or big as I want to make it. I have a room inside of my warehouse which the room is roughly like 14'x14'. I can use the room or I can use the closet inside of the room. I guess my next thing would be if I am looking into LED's how big should I get. I looked at Seymour's TD grow and he had a 1W and a 3W. Do I need both? Or can I get away with just one. If money wasnt an issue I would be construction a killer grow room with anything and everything you could imagine but unfortunately that is not the situation. So I have to try and keep the cost down as well as not draw tooo much attention to me with wattage used. But I guess if I was running 6-8 CFLS it would be close to what one of those LED's would use. I'm planning on whatever I do for the grow area, wrapping in with mylar all around. I'm planning on trying LST method or even a SCROG method. Now with checking pH and ec, how often is that checked? Is it a couple times a day? Once a day? Once every other day? Right now I am trying to gather as much knowledge as possible so I can put it to use and grow something awesome my first grow, well at least something good. I'm like a sponge trying to soak up everything you guys are sharin with me and I appreciate it. Keep it comin!

PS. looking at ordering seeds from Single Seed Centre, is that a good place to get them from?