Hey all, I'm still doing lots more research but I'm leaning towards a DWC setup & LED lights for my first grow. I'm a caregiver and also work with wholesalers, so my goal is to build a setup that can eventually yield 3lbs a month, when my skill level allows. I have two rooms to work with, one 10ft x 10ft room, and a 2-car garage with about 15ft x 15ft of space. I think the 10x10 room will be great for veg, and the 15x15 for flowering. Rooms are regular ceiling height, I believe around 8ft. I plan on growing strictly OG and will DIY the DWC setup. It seems anything from 3-5 gallon blacked out buckets will work, however, I'm not sure what bucket size I should go for as I plan on doing a perpetual rotation and will have a res as well. Main goal is yields with an emphasis on quality, and I have limited space (I think?). Lighting: I want to go with a LED setup as I prefer the inclusive setup and lower power consumption, despite the higher up front cost. I've been considering the KIND setup vs the Diamond XML 600 setup, however, I'm not sure what my best configuration is for the yields I'm looking for. These LED units are expensive, and I'd like to get the most out of them. I'd also rather pay for a slightly more expensive one than deal with poor LED life span on the cheaper ones. With that said, my main questions are the following: Eventual goal is 3lb yield monthly, and I have 2 rooms available (10x10, 15x15). DWC with LED lighting. How many plants do I want? Or how is the better question how many watts? Thanks!
Go with CFL's and Rubbermaid Tote's that's my set up and it works great in a 2x2 home made stealth box I can get 1 to 2 pounds depending on strain and veg time I scrog also
Oh, please! This requires proof. Especially when we have this... http://forum.grasscity.com/hydroponic-growing/1373412-first-time-dwc-using-cfls.html
Hey there, great questions you have I wish the answers from the guys with <5 posts were more helpful. If you want to go DWC, I recommend RDWC in 5 gallon buckets for your setup for a few reasons. To hit your yield goal per month you'll need a perpetual setup and obviously more than 1 plant. Its nice to take the plant, lid and all, and put it on a separate empty bucket and just carry it from the veg to flower room and put it back on another bucket, easy does it. Depending on how many different strains and # of plants you want to run, checking each individual bucket and then adjusting as necessary will quickly take up all your time. Its much simpler to do all that in 1 res that is supplying x number of buckets hooked up to it. So you set up lets say 4 six site RDWC systems in your veg now thats only 4 reservoirs to top off and adjust instead of 24! Same in the flower room. Being your first grow, I'd say start off slow maybe 3-4 plants in 5 gallon buckets (the bigger the res, the more stable it is) to get started and as you get your gardening skills sharpened just keep adding to your grow. I wish I had the room to grow in that you do! Best of luck
HAHAHAHA I just made the connection here. I suspect that yield is wet weight and more like 8oz dry if that
In a 2x2 box with cfl's, I'd imagine that might be the weight of the entire biomass of the plant throughout its lifespan.
3 pounds per month is one hell of a gutsy goal. I'm not even sure that's possible. That's 12 pounds per 4 month harvest. To kit out that whole area would cost an absolute fortune. I think you would be mad to go with LED. There is no electricity saving with LED, I'm not sure why you think that. And handling the heat they put out would be a nightmare. With HPS lighting you can use air cooled hoods. These are an advantage in large areas for containing the heat. Whether you use LED or HPS, you want 1000watts per 16 square feet. Remember that most LEDs have their rated watts in their title and will use about half of this. You need to use the actual used watts number and forget the rated number in the title. For each 1000watt used you could expect about a pound Edit.... I guess it is possible. In your 15x15 room you could have 9x 1000w lights with a narrow path between them to access all areas. In your 10x10 room you could split that with white sheeting to make two 5x10 rooms and use one for vegging and cloning and the other could take another couple of 1000w lights for flowering. This way you will have 11x 1000w lights and that should give maybe 11 pounds every 3 months (so somewhere near 3 pounds per month). Can your wiring handle that much electricity? You will need industrial equipment, house wiring isn't going to handle that