I’ve done a bunch of reading and I’m ready to start planning my drip system! A bit of background:
I am growing indoors in a 4’x8’ tent.
I’m using a coco/perlite mix.
My water is draining into small saucers under the pots.
I’ll be using 5 gallon grow bags with 2.5 gallons of grow medium in each.
Planning to have up to 8 plants, but currently only have four growing (I’ve got some seeds started).
Basically looking for ideas/opinions on what equipment to setup for this grow space. I am pretty sure I’ll need to recirculate the runoff back to the reservoir? I’d prefer to use a venturi rather than air stone (I swapped my fish tanks off of air stones years ago because I can’t deal with the pump noise). I don’t have a tap or drain nearby, so the system will have to be closed.
If a venturi could be worked in it could feed fresh oxygen into the water and also be used to uptake nutes for precise feeding rather than making a whole big reservoir of weak nutrients and constantly feeding them line in a hydro setup? Could also be used to take up chemicals for flushing the system if it gets caked with hard water crust or some sort of infection by algae, mold, bacteria, etc. I think the venturi could be pretty awesome if I could make it work properly!
Latewood: I hope you don’t mind. I would like to comment on individual parts of your post.Let me break it down
_I think you should take a minute and really think about how you want to set up your grow. I would like to consult with you about this for a day or 2. A 4’ x 8’ tent has large openings, making plants acessible, and easily moved around. If you build a recirculating system; It will be cool, but in the end just as much work as using individual grow stations, or pots. Let’s talk later.
_
I chose coco because I wanted to do hydro/aero but was not ready to commit to a full setup with time/money til I had gotten a few grows under my belt and was experienced enough to deal with all of the issues that would arise with one of those systems. I am honestly regretting choosing coco, but I’ll get the hang of it I hope.
I will actually have a bit more than 3 gallons in each 5 gallon bag. I calculated wrong when writing that. How full should the bag be?
Each plant will have 2x2x7 feet in which to grow. Not all strains will take up the same amount of space. I should be able to piece them together to maximize space usage?
My desire to build a recirculating system stems from the fact that I am draining my pots into shallow saucers of about 11 inches in diameter. They do not hold a whole lot of excess water and from what I understand you get a lot of runoff from drip systems.
I agree 100% with @Latewood here. You’ll want to fill those pots completely, and when doing a drip system you’ll definitely want to recirculate the nutrients.
I’d personally just recommend you try a DWC bucket out. I know you’re worried about time and commitment, but I think you’re probability for running into problems is much higher when growing in only coco.
Growing 6 separate DWC buckets I spend about 30 minutes a day tending to my plants. That’s topping off the buckets with water, pH’ing the buckets, and pruning. Once a week I do water changes for all my girls, so that takes about 2 hours. But in the end, you’re not really spending much time with the plants.
@3high5you Get with Latewood, he can really help you out!
I don’t really have the option of DWC now though? I’ve already got all of my seeds in coco. I realize now that I made a mistake by deciding on coco, but now I’m committed and I’m trying to make it work! I’ve already lost five seeds from Robert!
Quick note: You only get too much run off if you set your timers to water for too long. Drip time can be adjusted accordingly, and it is not necessary to drench entire pot each time. IN fact; The 1st watering event each day should not produce any run, and you should not see any until the 2nd or 3rd event 2-3 hours into day photo period.
So basically I just stick a big air stone, submersible pump, and ph balanced water into a bucket and run a capped 1/2 inch line from that, then run smaller tubes with drippers on the ends from that main line into each pot and run the pump on a timer for like 1-2 min on 2 ish hours off? No drip during lights out? Venturi won’t work?
hahahahah I tried to tell you! DWC is much easier in my opinion, I’m sure the store owner was explaining it too? Now you know you have to post pics for us lol! Happy to hear that you came to the hydro side!
Yeah, he was very convincing! It also ended up costing me less for all the DWC stuff than it would have for a decent drip system, so it was a no brainer really. Thanks again for all the help!
