I decided to try my hand at this. I grow coral, and the more I learned about reef tanks , it seemed very similar to hydroponics. So I thought I'd give both a try since I have some of the equipment.
I am growing in a closet using a bubble bucket/dwc kit off eBay. I got a 400w mh/hps combo off Craigslist for $80 with a nice timer , I tried talking him down to $60 (he wanted $100) but he started whining about the timer, so we settled at $80. He wasn't lying though it is a nice timer, still a cheapo setup but nice for my purposes. It's an igrow 400w mh/hps switchable and dimmable ballast with both bulbs and batwing reflector. The timer is inter dynamics .
The bubble bucket consists of a 6" net pot lid on a 5 g bucket, a 4x4 rock wool cube, some hydroton, some veg &bud nutes, a bubble stone and air pump with black hose. It was around $40 shipped. Seemed like a good deal. I swapped out the cheap air pump for a better one I had.
I have a reverse osmosis / deionizer filter already. So water quality is excellent, I ordered some cal-mag supplement per reading on here. I am currently using a liquid ph test kit, I have ordered a cheap digital ph/tds meter from china. My water comes out at about 7.0ph so I put about 20 drops of ph down to 3.5 gal and that got me down to around 6.0 ph.
I've ordered some regular white widow seeds from nirvana but I've already started growing with some bag seeds. I got three sprouted. Most of the seeds were immature or broken they were taken from more than likely a brick of Mexican schwag. So if I mess these up no big loss.
I sprouted in paper towel. I then transplanted to the rock wool cube. I started the seedlings under a 10w led, then after a week put them under the metal halide. I stretched the plants some by having the light about 3ft over the plants. I have since lowered the light to about 1ft over the plants. I also have the water level at about 1/2in under the netpot.

Here are some pics if you have any questions, comments, critiques I would love to hear them thanks for reading.

These are about a week old.
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Saratj1 Reviewed by Saratj1 on . Budget First time grow critique I decided to try my hand at this. I grow coral, and the more I learned about reef tanks , it seemed very similar to hydroponics. So I thought I'd give both a try since I have some of the equipment. I am growing in a closet using a bubble bucket/dwc kit off eBay. I got a 400w mh/hps combo off Craigslist for $80 with a nice timer , I tried talking him down to $60 (he wanted $100) but he started whining about the timer, so we settled at $80. He wasn't lying though it is a nice timer, still a Rating: 5