First hydro grow any/all advice welcome

Hi all,
I've been following post on this site for about three years when I started growing. Judging by my progressively better grows, you folks know your horticulture. Many thanks.
So here is the jist of my setup. I'm a closet/cabinet grow (Closet is 30in wide, 7ft high, and 24in deep with matte white walls) and grow a single plant at a time. I had some issues with heat using MH and HPS, so for light I use a 200 watt CFL 5600k for veg and 2700k for flower (I actually own 2 of each type of bulb). I have always done soil grows in the past using distilled water (I own a water distiller) and miracle grow fertilizers. I can see the horror in your eyes, but I have gotten really good results with miracle grow, I swear. Also I grow from seed (bag seeds), no clones (right now at least). I have a magnifier to monitor trichomes, small fan, timers and surge protectors.
I would like to switch to a hydro setup. I'm looking a WaterFarm DWC It seems simple to operate plus it's expandable. Probably going to double up the bulbs to help get more light to the lower branches.
Does any of this sound like a bad idea? Any recommendations about nutes? Ph tester recommendations? Have I missed or forgotten anything. Any and all information will be much appreciated.

Well, you can make your own "waterfarm" bucket using stuff you probably got at home or is no farther away than your local hardware store.. I used the round 5 gallon buckets from Home Depot and made my waterfarm hardware using half inch CPVC pipe. see attached pics.

Anyway, it consists of a 12" cpvc pipe with a hole drilled near the bottom of the pipe that will facilitate a 1/4" tube that goes directly up out of the water.
So the pipe with the tubing end goes straight down near the bottom of the bucket. Then, hook the air pump up to the other end of the tube. You are basically pushing the air along inside the tube and it exits INSIDE the tube very near the bottom of the bucket. The air is pushed Down, and thereby bringing the water up out of the foot long pipe. From there on, its just a matter of putting an elbow on the top and leading the water coming up towards the middle of the bucket where you want the water to go. I use another CPVC pipe maybe 3" long add a tee, and then put a couple of 45s on each end, and have 3 places that the water pumps out to. You can also drill a couple of small holes in the pipe to release some of the nutes on the way out of the 45s.

keylime

Easiest and most affordable way to learn Hydro ............
3 or 5 gal bucket (Lowes or home dePOT, Lowes gray store bucket is already light proof)
Air pump (Walmart pet dept)
air stone (Walmart pet dept)
Bucket basket (Hydro shop of your choosing)
and a couple handfulls of Tron
should be less than $40 :jointsmile:
Btw 50 views and only 2 replys?? Got allot of shy peeps looks like.

I'm basically usine the set up tiny just explained

5 gal buckets with air pump And drip system from local organic store

Im on my 2nd grow right now and haven't had problems with it yet, easy to clean, maintain, and perfect if yu only got a few pants going

Check out a few of the threads I've started... i've got pics of the set up from when we could actually put pics up

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tinytoon

Easiest and most affordable way to learn Hydro ............
3 or 5 gal bucket (Lowes or home dePOT, Lowes gray store bucket is already light proof)
Air pump (Walmart pet dept)
air stone (Walmart pet dept)
Bucket basket (Hydro shop of your choosing)
and a couple handfulls of Tron
should be less than $40 :jointsmile:
Btw 50 views and only 2 replys?? Got allot of shy peeps looks like.

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the easiest, most affordable way would be to do hempy buckets. you need some one gal buckets, perlite and vermiculite. no moving parts, so if something fails your plants don't. and it's cheaper!


-shake

Ty for the correction Shake.
Is that a real friggin pumpkin or?????

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tinytoon

Ty for the correction Shake.
Is that a real friggin pumpkin or?????

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not trying to correct per se, just share my experience. you are the hydro man, i just tinker.

and it was a real pumpkin. i carved it, pretty much freehand. my wife drew it on, but i just cut where i felt and used it as a guide.


-shake

So you down graded your lighting due to heating issues? How your air circulation? Do you have an exhaust fan? How about odor control?

I did not actually downgrade the lighting. If you read my post you would see that for the size of my growing are the 200 watt cfl provides more than enough light and the Kelvin temps are right about where they ought to be. The 250 watt HPS I tried using before got the stand up closet I use too hot, about 82 degrees F. Plus I would have to keep the light further away meaning I would have to grow smaller plants. Since I grew'em bigger than average, about 5' to 5'-6" high (measured from soil top to cola), I get around 4 oz. a plant plus or minus a few grams. Since it is only one plant odor is not much of an issue and can easily be masked. No problem with ventallation as it stands right now. I was looking for more info about nutrients and ec/ppm meter.

you are getting four ounces off of one plant with a 200W CFL?

-shake