SUPER SILO; Vertical, 2kW, 100 ft² RDWC Trees, water cooled on dry nutrients

 
I'm running RDWC, where all the nutrients are in the same water solution the plant's roots dangle and grow in their whole life. Thus it's a different environment than a soilless setup like coco, requiring different nutrient levels, pH, nutrient ratios and so forth.
 
I run a one hundred gallon nutrient change, which translates into about a quarter pound of epsom salts, a half pound of the '5-11-26 special hydroponic mix with micros' from Hydrogardens.com and three quarters of a pound of calcium nitrate. Altogether, that's roughly two dollars and fifty cents' worth of nutrient, and I change it a total of four times in an eight week bloom cycle. Ten dollars to get eight pounds and potentially more?! I'm running a head to head vs House & Garden Van der Swaan, and one run will cost ten times as much.

 

Mixing base minerals to make your own nutrient formula is not necessary. Get dry nutrient salts and mix according to manufacturer's recommendation.
 
The purpose of a reservoir in hydroponics, no matter what its shape, is simply to provide additional time for the plants to eat and drink between reservoir top ups.
 
My systems use eight 27 gallon tuffboxes and a five gallon control bucket. There's twenty gallons of perched water table (what doesn't run out when it drains) and one hundred gallons of solution that changes out every two weeks. 
 
I check and adjust my pH and EC daily, but other than those minor changes the system is set for at least two weeks and likely three if I wanted to. 
 
I mix into my control bucket. My design differs substantially from the UC in several ways, so I would treat that type of system differently.

 

It's cold. It's so fucking cold the Christmas tree froze its balls off.

 

You could use those vertically.

 

I had some industry friends come over last night for a visit. It's nice to hear people who do this for a living say that this system is better than what they're doing and they want me to help them upgrade.

 

This whole vertical growing thing has endless possibilities; who wants to see a Super Silo laying on its side?

 

It's been a minute since I've posted about anything new, but once again I'm trying something different. 
 
As designed, my Super Silos currently run about twenty watts per square foot worth of HPS thouies. I've been concerned about whether that's enough light for the ladies to be all they can be.
 
Flatlander grows regularly run 55-65W/ft² so I'm wondering if I'm leaving something on the table.
 
So what I've come up with for an experimental design is to cut my Super Silo right down the middle and put the two halves up against the wall- but use the same watts in each half, so I'm effectively doubling my watts per square foot.

 

 
I can use it on my lawn and in my garden, but it's not a pure organic.

 

RDWC isn't a critical component of this system. You wanna run organic nutes in soil, it will work just fine.

 

Update time, kids- preharvest pic du jour;
 

 
Well, it's upside down. No idea what's up with that, but there are eight plants in there around four lamps. 
 
Anyone want to guess final weight from the crop? Winner gets a free bag of Hillbilly Hobby- just come to Colorado to collect it!

 

If this doesn't make you want smell-o-vision, you're in the wrong website:
 

 

 
Thanks, Mac- imagine how six feet of them look...

 

 
Here's another, Hillbilly Hobby. Smells and tastes like sweet chewy lemon bars...