I'm wondering which hydro method y'all would recommend that doesn't take up much vertical space. I'd like to run a discreet grow cabinet in my closet, so available space is the biggest limitation. The closet is 2' deep, 7' wide, and 5' 6" high (to the closet rod anyways). That being said, I'd prefer to keep the height under 2' 9" so I can still hang clothes and for added discretion. I'm planning on using all 2' of depth and somewhere between 2' and 3' of the width to grow 1-2 plants (might try to ScrOG), but don't really know how much height that size footprint would call for. This is however a private closet in the apartment I rent, so I'm open to going higher than 33". I don't expect my landlord or parents would come through on more than 1 occasion per grow cycle, so security isn't a big concern. I've already got plans to disguise the cabinet as a couple stacked Uhaul boxes as it is. I've thought about (R)DWC in the past, but think a bucket would likely set the plant up too high to leave enough headroom. I'm currently leaning towards NFT, but ebb & flow also seems a viable option. Definitely not doing soil, as my goal for this project is really to design an automated system controlled by an Arduino rather than just maximizing yield. Thoughts?
Not sure if you're still deciding, but I've set up an ebb & flow system in my closet that's pretty low profile. Nice thing about ebb & flow is that you can separate the reservoir to keep it cooler. I think your DWC solution might be hard to keep cool in such a small space. Here's the two sections I set up: View attachment 150367 View attachment 150370 View attachment 150151 Let me know how the Arduino set up goes. I'm interested in using it to stream temp/humidity to web & give SMS alerts when out of range.