One for the newbs: cheap and simple hydro, but very effective

[Guest]

Hey just saw this and think its great thread. I want to start getting into hydro at some point and my question for you is, Could i set up a rubbermaid box with say 6 holes in it and run a system like this? or does each one have to have an individual bucket? I just started doing some research on hydro so just trying to get an idea, thanks.

 

[BenitoCereno]

You can put six in one box, make sure that it is a fairly large box. Right now I've been doing boxes of 2 plants in 5 gallon. you may want 12 gallon at least.

 

[Guest]

Will the same size pump and airstones work for an 18 gallon bucket?

 

[BenitoCereno]

It depends on the size of the pump. The regular size double air hose pump should work. I would use good quality airstones, like the really long ones for mazimum bubble exposure.

 

[Dr. D]

Hi Kreat yes u could use a rubbermaid, thats the good thing about bubblers is u can pretty much make them to suit ur requirements...u just need to make sure that the roots are gettin even spread of bubbles otherwise some roots cud outgrow others, hence the plant willget less nutes etc than the others and would result in a smalller plant/uneven growth etc. and like benito said it willl need to be at least 12 galllon, 2 gallons minimum per plant...how long will u be vegging for?

 

[Guest]

I'm not sure how long I would be vegging for quite yet. I will be doing a scrog grow with my current soil grow under a 400 watt HPS. The seedlings are currently in the process of germination, unfortunetly I live in the north USA, and due to oil costs, were cutting out how often we have the house heated. The seeds have been germing for about 24 hrs so far, not sure about my luck with them quite yet until temps get a bit warmer.

My box is 3x3x6 ft. I was planning on having that as my flower chamber and just using my closet as a veg chamber. I would veg the plants in a 6 pot rubbermaid setup and then switch them over to single 3-5 gal buckets where they could have there own nutes and what not.

With the pump, could you explain or point me in the direction in how I can setup one pump to work for say 6 separate systems?

 

[Harry Gypsna]

Hi there everybody...

Hi there everybody...

and hi there Dr D here, take a toke on that.......

I promised you a looksie at the bubbler ive been playing with the other day, well i finally got my cam to install on the PC again, so here are a couple for you all,


This was taken on the day i set it up, the clone only has a few little roots outta the cube, I decided to use a top drip for the early stages to bring the roots on a bit due to them only being few, andit was worthwhile....I ended up taking the drip off after about 21 days.....although it could have come off 10 days before but I liked what I was seeing.....




these 2 were both taken last week, sept 23rd, which is around 7 weeks, she has been topped and all stems have been bent a lot and "Massaged"....
Im feeding her the usual Vita Link Grow, with their bio-Plus, Bio-Pak,((that one coats up my roots like you said about the "Bizz" root juice but man it increases them....oh yes...its quite dear to buy but worth it and a little goes a long way!)) and Silicone - Plus; along with Canna-Zym, although Im switchin over to Sensi-zym next changeout to give it a try!
Im topping off with Ph'd water(5.5) and adding nutes as needed to keep up my ec.....still experimenting with the strength though so no numbers for you just yet! Ive been changing the water out every 2-2 1/2 weeks to be on the safe side! Ive got a nice Waterfarm style level indicator on the side which is just an elbow with some tubing on it, hot glued into the bottom side of the bucket and then ""Calibrated"" (haha) in 1 litre increments with marker pen) so its easy for buddy boy whose home its all at to top up when im not there!
I added a rolling plant pot stand at the weekend, but the pic with that is on my phone....aint got that on the PC, but ill get some pics with it this week....it makes it easier moving it and turning it and shifting it to get at other stuff I can tell u!!. I used the rim of the wheelie stand to fix some ties to, but I cant describe how ive done them Ill have to get a pic for that, its just a way of making them removeable so I can lift the top easily for changeouts and checking the roots,without actually having to unti them!
Well thats it for now, Ill get you some pics from this week when I go later on tonight shes looking amazing since I tied her, ....
right, Catch you all later,
Be lucky now,
Harry
ps this is the airstone I use...its the medium sized of this type

 

[Dr. D]

Hi Kreat ur ideas sound good..just one thing wen vegging the plants in tub all together the roots may become tangled together, so u would have some problems with gettin them out to put them into the seperate buckets..if u could seperate the root zones in the tub tis would help..roots are impossible to de-tangle and very tedious. As for the multi outlet on the pumps..u will need a good sized pump to run six buckets...i run a single 100 litre air pump in one bucket..u can get little valves that u cud run from a single outlet pump then run an airstone off each valve..il post a pic for u to show u wot i mean...
Hey Harry lookin good man..how long u gonna veg for?..i dont find the need to go any more than two weeks, cuz they take off in flower....i also gona try the sensi-zym next run i have somewot im using in soil at the mo..but ot sure on the results..i think the canna-zym is good stuff, hopefully the AN stuff performs better.
I think im gonna go back to the fish tank airstone...between me bolan and true we have found that the porous tubing is not lasting long at all, which i will be informing Growell of.
Because of the minimum bubbles from this porous tubing(i thought my pump was becoming weaker) my plant has not been gettin the oxygen to the roots it shud have so there wil be an effect on yield. Due to this wen i checked the roots the other night they had started to get a build up of crap on the roots..i took the bottom layer of the roots off with the scisors..luckilly enough none of them had started to rot i cleaned them off with some clean water and then cleaned and fillled the bucket with fresh water for the last 7-10 days flush..thishad an adverse reaction on the plant and seems to have killled to upmost tips of the main two buds..which are now drying out...another lessson learned...peace

 

[Harry Gypsna]

Have you tried attacking the tubing with a needle???? i have some green porous bubble wands that block and it says on the pack to use a pin to prick the holes open.....dunno if theyre the same stuff but you could try.....have you seen these airstones like I use though, ts good, it makes a nice ring of bubbles about an inch wide....still get the "Dead spot" problem when it fills wi roots though but ive got an idea for that which ill post once ive tried it!
i wont be vegging much longer....you have to give SB plenty time though, shes slow in vg and oesnt grow on much at all in flower... grows 1/3rd bigger at the most in my experience so far with em over tha last year(I cant believe its been a year sinceI got them bx1's!)
the sensi-zym is sposed to be really good....A guy i chat toin one of the the local shops uses it and says it beats cann-zym hands diown simply beacause its got more in it.....i spose we'll see wont we eh.
Im not gonna flower in this one as i think it'll get too crowded w roots, its getting that way already, You beat me to the punch again you sod, i was gonna use my Aquafarm rez for it and be really clever but you bloody go and do it hahaha.
right, really muct go now, I need a couple of hours kip, Ive been awake now for 36 hours lol.
Be lucky mate,
Harry
Next up for one ofthese buckets will be a cheese....

 

[bolan]

well what can i say ive done this to the letter and its been great first ever hydro grow ive done and i shall carry on now doinf it like this cheers dr d

 

[Mary Mary]

Hi doc,

They are looking great!

Are they still going? I didn't see that you have harvested but I might have missed it. If they are still going, you are coming up on 11 weeks. How long are you going to let them go?

Thanks for sharing!

All the best,
Mary

 

[Harry Gypsna]

Hi there Dr...

Hi there Dr...

i hope you dont mind me spamming up your thread....but i wanted to drop by with the other more recent pictures of the bucket i am usiong....which show it in more detail....
1st off, ive given the bucket a name...more of a title ...I christen her the "Bitch on wheels" for obvious reasons.....

now there youve got her on the pot trolley, very handy....the level indicatopr was an after thought so i got another bucket and did it, then swapped em on the 1st nute changeout.


lots of nice bubbles as you can see....it does get a deadspot though, due to the roots shoving the line and moving the stone, but i know how to fix that...

a nice shot of the SB BX 3 clone in there an her roots,( the staining is from the vita-Link Bio-Pak which is like gravy so it coats em right up for a while.....im going to try dissolving the powder in warm water and letting it cool before mixing it up....that should help.

there you can see how i attach my ties to the rim of the wheelie trolley

as you can see with the close up, i use a rip tie aon the frame of the whellie, and leave a small gap, then i use plastic curtain hooks to attch the ties to it, this allows me to easily detach them to get in the bucket for Ph testing and such, and makes it easy to adjust the ties!



and there she is a bit closer, so you can see how nicely the ties are working.... I think ill get a bigger wheelie this week that i can put an Aquafarm on and transplant her so i can veg a bit more before flowering her...

Well, thats it, just thpght id show the rest of how my bucket os put together.....I have plans for a coupl more linked together with a passive bucket controller judt using gravity nice n simple.
im pleased though, Ive never got so flat a canopy before, hell i was gonna SCROg this and have a 50 x 70 CM screen made up to go, butnever got round to it and then didnt need to once i saw how well the ties were going.
right then, im off,
Catch you all later,
Be lucky now,
Harry

 

[bolan]

yep this bubbler pipe aint good at all i will try aquarium airstones next i used to breed tropical fish and i had no trouble with them i cant see how its going to change the ph or anything else and the ones you are sposed to buy for hydro are really dear i have now used almost 3 meters of pipe on 8 plants so im off to the aquatic shop for my next grow

 

[bolan]

dr d i have e mailed growell and complained about there pipe if you do it to we might get some kind of response

 

[Harry Gypsna]

Bolan.....

Bolan.....


This is the airstone that gives me this
this is the small one, 4 pounds, a bit bigger s 5 and bigger still is 6 . I reckon its working a treat.

 

[bolan]

yeah man it is im going to do the same to you get them from any aquatic shop mate

 

[Dr. D]

Hey all i just chopped her this morning at about 85 days and plenty of cloudy trichs i could chop her a bit earlierbut i didnt start flushing early enough...i had a problem withh this run towards th end the buds started to dry out and the main bud was pretty much completly dry..i havee no ida weot caused this its like the buds were freeze drying on the plant...very very strange!!
He4y Harry thanks for sharing ur bubbler pics...and as to this porous tubing i had no probs with it to start with an since others have said its quite obvious they are not doin the job properly i had a very small amount of bubbles on this run so im going to try out some other methods..the only thhing i dislik about the aquatic airstones is the noise they make on the bottom of the bucket but i can fix that...any way heres a few pix of the harvested plant

this is the main bud
she wouldnt stand up at all this pheno likes to branche and they are very spindly





got a nice bit of colour on the leaves too its hard to see in the pics but theres bits of purp along the leaves almost black in some places...
So il have another plant in the bubbler in no time and all will be documented here..il be making a few changes to make things easier,,,just awaiting a clone of something new to stick in there...

 

[truecannabliss]

my DWC

my DWC

Hey all im using the porous tubing too and not had any probs although i did change it when i changed the nutes from grow to bloom......anyway here is few pics of her since she started....all thanks to Dr D for his help.













She is 4 weeks into flower here

Peace

 

[Harry Gypsna]

Hi D, I just wanted to let you know mate, I found some airopumps last night that actually sit in the tank/bucket, and just have a tube sticking out of the top to suck air in.....theyre at Progrow web site....... it says thats the point of em, their silent.

 

[Dr. D]

True man she is lookin great..i wonder how long she willl go for..i think ul be lookin at, at least 12 weeks my G13 x haze are into 12+ now...
Hey Harry thanks mate i just saw themm yesterday n the new growelll catalogue grab urself a copy mate(envirolites 20 bar!!)...he onlly problem i can see with those is the temp gettin to high in the water...i think theyd be ok in a larger res..im gonnna try out a few new airstones any way or see if i can come up with something my self...i kno im not gonna spend the dollar on a fucking ceramic one again..if u let them dry out tats its they are no good..but they dont tell u that wen u buy it do they peace