realtalgrower
New Member
Ok I am have done outdoor for 3 seasons now and have decided to go hydroponic indoor during the winter. For two reasons. 1. It seems like so much fun after watching a few videos. 2. I want to have my own clones to go in the ground come april.
Water
Now I have set up a fairly easy and cheap hydroponic system. Using two large rubbermade containers one for a Planter and one for a resivour. I bought a patio 12 sprayer drip system and a pond pump and about 20 feet of 1" funny hose. A few fittings and some zip ties to keep everything water tight. Ok so the way I imagine it is I am going to cut 4 holes in the top of the "planter container" and place a roundplastic planter in each of those holes. bring the funny hose from the resivoir and make that pump power the drip system to where I will putt 3 of the drip nozzles on each plant. a second hole will be put in the planter to drain the water back down to the resivoir. Set it on a timer and other than changing the water once a week and checking the water level daily it should be fairly fool proof.
light
For the time being I am using 3 shop light hoods with with 6 48" floros. for the veg and hope to have saved up for a nice flowering light (either a sodium or a few of the new CFL's I have been reading about) in the next two months as my plants veg.
Air/enviroment: I put a digital thermometer/humidity alarm first off. And also installed a squirl cage fan to vent and a a few other fans for breeze (Gotta keep those stalks nice and strong) And I thought up a fairly smart CO'2 system. Using baking soda and vinegar I set up a rope to hold a bottle of dawn that I had washed out and filled with vinegar and I have a flat bottom bowl that I put about a 1/4" of baking soda win the vinegar drips on to the baking soda it creates CO2. This is the only time of day I will be shutting my fan off so that i get a nice saturation on my plant. I used a co2 detector I bought at walmart for 15 bucks and I got the co2 up to 1600 ppm in my grow room with in 2 minutes of starting the vinegar drip system and it stayed at above 1400 ppm for a while even after I turned the fans back on. (this is the shakiest part of my set up but we will see how it goes)
Question
Now then my question. What is a nice cheap way to set up the soil pelletts. I would buy them if I could find a store that had them. But keeping of the tradition of this set up maybe one of you knows a cheap and easy way to do grow medium.
Thanks for your help. If anyone see any holes in my set up please let me know. I will put up pictures as soon as I am finished... its a work in progress my goal is to keep the entire set up under $250 and beable to harvest about a half pund every 3 months. My only thing is figuring out how to set up the grow medium. Any suggestions?
Water
Now I have set up a fairly easy and cheap hydroponic system. Using two large rubbermade containers one for a Planter and one for a resivour. I bought a patio 12 sprayer drip system and a pond pump and about 20 feet of 1" funny hose. A few fittings and some zip ties to keep everything water tight. Ok so the way I imagine it is I am going to cut 4 holes in the top of the "planter container" and place a roundplastic planter in each of those holes. bring the funny hose from the resivoir and make that pump power the drip system to where I will putt 3 of the drip nozzles on each plant. a second hole will be put in the planter to drain the water back down to the resivoir. Set it on a timer and other than changing the water once a week and checking the water level daily it should be fairly fool proof.
light
For the time being I am using 3 shop light hoods with with 6 48" floros. for the veg and hope to have saved up for a nice flowering light (either a sodium or a few of the new CFL's I have been reading about) in the next two months as my plants veg.
Air/enviroment: I put a digital thermometer/humidity alarm first off. And also installed a squirl cage fan to vent and a a few other fans for breeze (Gotta keep those stalks nice and strong) And I thought up a fairly smart CO'2 system. Using baking soda and vinegar I set up a rope to hold a bottle of dawn that I had washed out and filled with vinegar and I have a flat bottom bowl that I put about a 1/4" of baking soda win the vinegar drips on to the baking soda it creates CO2. This is the only time of day I will be shutting my fan off so that i get a nice saturation on my plant. I used a co2 detector I bought at walmart for 15 bucks and I got the co2 up to 1600 ppm in my grow room with in 2 minutes of starting the vinegar drip system and it stayed at above 1400 ppm for a while even after I turned the fans back on. (this is the shakiest part of my set up but we will see how it goes)
Question
Now then my question. What is a nice cheap way to set up the soil pelletts. I would buy them if I could find a store that had them. But keeping of the tradition of this set up maybe one of you knows a cheap and easy way to do grow medium.
Thanks for your help. If anyone see any holes in my set up please let me know. I will put up pictures as soon as I am finished... its a work in progress my goal is to keep the entire set up under $250 and beable to harvest about a half pund every 3 months. My only thing is figuring out how to set up the grow medium. Any suggestions?
