hey all, i plan on doing a 10'x10' 2000 watt dwc grow in the near future. was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on making it most efficient. such as using 3 gallon or 5 gal buckets or using tote for multiple plants per res. also im wondering if feeder tubes are necessary when starting plants if i fill buckets to the top of net pots. thanks fof any help
2000w is more than enough for a 10x10 room. I would suggest vegging in 5 gallon buckets, and then move up to a 20 gallon Rubbermaid tote for flower. Feeder tubes as in top feed? No it's not necessary if you have a root system that's touching the water. If not, just too feed by hand for three-4 days and the roots will pop out the bottom of the net pot
if your growing that many your better using 5 gallon buckets. 2000watts for 100 square feet isn't much, you could do with double that . brim the buckets from day one and you won't have to worry about them not getting enough water. make you you push enough air through the water,. I recommend at least 1 litre of air per minute for every 2 litres of nutrient solution
ok,thanks for the replies as for the hand feeding how often are we talking? also 1 reply said could do more like 4000 watts,would i end up with a better yield or the same if i cut back the space and plant count. my buddy grows strictly soil and is trying to talk me out of dwc because he thinks 20 plants would be too labor intensive. again thanks everybody
I actually find DWC really easy. The hard part is getting it down. Seems like once you get the hang of it it's pretty simple. Plus I love the growth of DWC over soil. So much faster and ends up being more yield because bigger plants make bigger buds. With the appropriate amount of light though.
is there any input on a decent pump? the biggest one ive seen is a 6 outlet one, just dont see running 20 pumps and stones. can some enlighten me on plant count and size of room? would 20 trees in a 10x10 yield more than 10 trees in say a 5x5 or 6x6 under the same 2000 watts of light??? ive always wondered this
if you can't use more lights then you can still make do with what you have. you will probably end up with a little more bud by having the area you have proposed compared to half the area when using the same amount of light. in a 10'x10' area I would have 25 plants in there each having 4 square feet each. you could have 25 buckets but you will have to have it recirculating though otherwise it would be a full time job looking after them. you will have to have at least a 10 litres per minute air pump in each bucket. the noise would be like a train firing up in your house. a 100 square feet grow is (in my opinion) not a suitable size for a beginner. you may want to think about sectioning of a 4'x4' area and have 4 buckets with one light over them. after you finished you can decide if you want to add more, but I suspect you would want to try out flood and drain instead as its more suitable for large grows
I'd do 18 gallon totes with 4 plants in each. Would only need 1 air pump for each with 2 air stones in them. It works great. I like the idea of single buckets so you can move them more freely, but it will get to be a bit of work either way really. If your plan is to run 2000-4000W and 16-25 plants, then you'll be busy tending to them anyway. I think hydro's a little easier. Tote's may be more difficult if you've never done hydro though as there's 4 plants in one. If you get it right, then it's pretty easy growing. If something screws up they can need quite a bit of attention though.
just thought id throw in that i have experience in aeroponics, reason im switching to dwc is to reduce plant count. also i wanna take advantage of the cold temps right now so i have no probs with resovoir getting too warm and causing problems.
if you skimp on the air you will lose out on final weight. More oxygen = More growth you can give them just enough to survive or enough to make them thrive. I always recommend at the very least 1 litre of air per minute for every 2 litres of nutrient solution you have. the amount of pumps that is shared between makes no difference
oh right I see, fair enough. the only way to reduce plant count is to grow less plants. if you still want to make the same amount of bud you will need to grow the plants bigger. this means longer veg times. how many plants are you aiming for? any less than 12 plants in there is going to take forever to veg. did you use just 2x 1000w lamps in that 100 square foot area before?