4 X 8 DWC tent grow 1200 watts

After a year in I have slowly upgraded my equipment to what you see in photos. This is a 4x8 tent in which I crated a divider for VEG and Flower. I am running 2 600 watt MH/ HPS lights. I have a 4 site tank that measures 30 x 30 x 12 that has been insulated for about 25 gallons. The insulation stops the chiller from turning on so much. Making the box smaller than 48" gave me storage under the top piece of foam. The lights and heat in the grow room have no effect on the water temps. The temp during the day is 81 and goes down to 70 when lights are off. It the water temp stays constant @ 71 degrees. For circulation I am using a Koralia 400 power head. For air I have an overkill element solution 951 GPH air pump going to 4- 4" air stones that produce micro bubbles. For humidity I have an old skool vaporizer that produces lots of vapor compared to new models. I have a chiller/heater that is good up to 100 gallons  fed by a 35 GPH pump that empties into an overflow box where my TDS & PH meter are located. Its nice because I just leave the meter on an glance at it. I can also fill and drain from this area. I also added a float gauge using a test tube that has been plugged and some balsa wood, see photos. I also made my own scrubber that works very well. It is an old air purifier that I modified the air filter to accept charcoal. It looks Crude but is fairly compact and saved me 130.00.  This system is almost maintenance free. I use reverse osmosis water and Advanced Nutrients Micro Grow Bloom PH perfect. I rarely need to adjust my PH. The last component that I want to add is an auto top off unit. coming from a trash can full of RO water and pre PHed. As far as strains. Super Skunk is vegging and White widow X Big Bud is almost done flowering. The growth was stunted as the heater broke and temps plumeted. You can see in the pics how it stopped then started again. Since it was stressed it has been way more pungent smelling than the grows before it. It is a 4th generation clone. So weird how it turned out so much different and for the better. The yield seems to be less but whatever it smells great! They are in soil but I went back to hydro. I seen the difference and am convinced hydro is the way to go. All comments welcome, good or bad. Tips and tricks are ALWAYS appreciated! After I get the auto top off I wont feel like a slave to the grow, no vacations and so on. My goal is for the system to sustain itself for at least a week hands free. I will keep you all updated. When ready I will go hands free for a week and just monitor. So as long as PH stays within 5.4 to 5.8 or so I think its feasible. Thats where quality nutes come in. Thanks for looking!

 

small update! No auto top off yet but really because I haven't needed it. I can go 3 days without attending to them. I determined that new growth in lime green color in my case was due to borderline low nutrients. I'm on day 27 from seed and they are @ 950 ppm, pics below. Also is a 3500k 160 led light fixture. Can this temp be used at all with some effectiveness? 

 

Thanks for the brainstorming. I did think to put it into the flowering room hooked to a battery back up for power outage. I figure that the back up could probably run a lot longer than a MH or HPS fixture. Did you start your DWC grow yet?

 

I removed from soil to DWC before as well with success. I got an air stone and a bucket of water and just let the bubbles agitate the root ball. I had to refill the bucket a few times but worked very well. I have been upping my ppm as the days go by. I got some advice from someone else about feeding and what he told me isn't much help until you figure it out. He told to to let the plant tell me what they need. In the beginning I was underfeeding and I knew this by the very bottom leaves starting to yellow, ( Nitrogen DEF) So I added some more nutes and aw that the bottom leaves started to turn green again. about two days later I noticed they were turning yellow again so I figured I better add a bit more than last time. The first time I went up by 100 ppm, the second time I increased by 200 ppm. The whole time this was going on I had lime green new growth and thought it was normal but a couple more days later I increased by 300 pmm total. That was last week and I was at a total of about 600-650 ppm. I went up to 950 on day 27 and I saw very faint signs of burn so I did a res change and set it back to 800 PPM where it sits now @ day 29 from seed. I let the plant tell me what she wanted like I was instructed. I know I am right in the ball park now. Next week I will increase another 200 ppm unless she calls for some before that. I hope that made some sense!

 

Here are some pics @ day 29. I also made a 16 site seed starter. I am just about to harvest two on the other side and just purchased another 600 watt MH / HPS. Looks as though I will have both sides vegging at once. I started these seeds 29 days after the others. I am not sure of the strain. They were 10 free from Nirvanna Seeds. My plan is to hopefully get at least 4 girls and if not I'll just cut a couple clones of the Super Skunk which are female seeds.