Feedback on my 12 buckets RDWC scrog setup (wip)

Hello guys, I'm planning to build a rdwc system and I need your help to get the best out of this, I already refined the idea with the help of the guys from a friend forum, but I still have lots of doubts and I'd like your advice/criticism.

So the initial idea is:
Have a veg room with moms and a cloner, here:

Setup:

• 1x 2*1.2*2m tent (4x4x6.5 in feet)
  
• 2x 5gal dwc buckets with moms
• 1x rainforest cloner
• 1x small airpump
• 2x CFL ~125w for the trees
  
• 2x T8 tubes for the cloner

And a flower room with the RDWC system:



Setup:

• 2*2*2m tent (6.5x6.5x6.5 in feet)
• 4x 600w digital ballast hps in cool tubes
• 1x Air Out 500CFM fan
• 1x Air In 150CFM
• 2x Scrog screen with an area of 2,3m2 (24 feet2) each
  
• diy RDWC system composed of:

Now, if I had the space and the possibility to have 2 of the same big tent I could make a perfect perpetual grow, 12 plant in flower room and 12 in veg for all the 6~9 weeks it take the others to flower, and then switch, but the max I can have is a 2x2 tent and a 1.2x1.2, so I thought to make the above setup.

So it should follow this pattern:

1. Fully developed clones are taken and moved to the flower room where they will veg till they fill 50% of the screen then flipped to flower.
   
   
2. In the meantime the veg room would be idling.
   
   
3. When the flowering is at a good point, in the veg room new clones will be taken from the moms and they will have the time to make root and develop as much as the little space allows.
   
   
4. When the flowering is complete the plants will be harvested, and the developed clones from the veg room moved to the flower room and repeat from step 1.

Now I know this system is not the most efficient, because during the flower the plants in the veg room could be vegged for 6~9 weeks and be tree in the time the flower room is free again, but it would be ok I guess...



What do you think of this system? Any obvious flaw that I didn't notice?
What can I do to make it better / efficient?




Notes:
-The models are made in sketchup and rendered in keyshot
-The 4 lights should do fine even if they are in a inline cooling setup because of the high air flow
-The rdwc system will be cooled "manually" if necessary with ice packs or similar
-I would like to maintain the scrog method since I'm curious to try it
-Still dubious about the plant count, lowering it could make things easier but I really don't know

your cool tubes will be filthy black in a month, losing precious par every minute they operate.been there, done that.

i love your design better than mine(then) though.
dehumidifier, ac unit
system cooler, ice would be ridiculous

chemphlegm said:

your cool tubes will be filthy black in a month, losing precious par every minute they operate.been there, done that.

i love your design better than mine(then) though.
dehumidifier, ac unit
system cooler, ice would be ridiculous

Click to expand...

Thank you for your advice,and thanks for the appreciation.
unfortunately I can't afford (talking mainly about power absorption) an AC.
There aren't alternative solutions? I think that, unfortunately, my only solution would be to plan regular cleaning of the tubes...

dehumidifier, check

water cooler, well the price is too much for me, it would cost nearly as half of my entire system (the smaller one is 560€) and my budget in already over.
I read that many people successfully cool the water placing frozen water bottles in the reservoir (anybody has direct feedback on this?), and since I have a big refrigerator in the next room it wouldn't be a problem, the most I can do if this is not enough is placing some fans to blow on the water, but this would cause too much evaporation

just make sure you have good air circulation through the plants.

Is it only that one little fan between those net set ups?

Uberknot said:

just make sure you have good air circulation through the plants.

Is it only that one little fan between those net set ups?

Click to expand...

There is another one in the opposite wall, just over the reservoir, idk why but the model was hidden, they are about 2000 m³/h each

I`d say your res is about 50% too small unless you can cool everything

if you do make your res bigger you may want to step up to a bigger air pump.... 70L/M is good for 200L maybe 400L..... I`d use atleast 1x 50mm airstone per bucket and 4 to 6 in the res........ you want air rushing and bubbling on the top so much so it develops like a mist and loads of bubbles...... that stops most nasty crap growing on the surface of the water.

Also you running 12 strains ? I`d do bigger plants in bigger buckets less plants less hassle

Go for 300g per plant min.... but 500g to 1kg is a nice size, try to remember that I like cutting down a 500g+ plant better when I`m pulling them out of veg and it`s a new strain I`m always in a hurry to see what they`ll bud like

be sure to buy a wet n dry vac, or two, in case the first fails. these systems leak, all the time, esp when self built.
your room will cook your plants without an ac unit I think. you'll need c02 augmentation too, with those monsters breathing all the hot air.

THE KONASSURE said:

I`d say your res is about 50% too small unless you can cool everything

Click to expand...

I can't understand the meaning of this, can you elaborate?

THE KONASSURE said:

Also you running 12 strains ? I`d do bigger plants in bigger buckets less plants less hassle

Click to expand...

Since the system is all connected I'll do one strain at a time or at least few that share the same nutriment requirements.

The reason I originally planned 12 buckets was because I thought that this way the vegetative phase would be shorter, ie less time to cover the screen, I'm still unsure about plant number, but I still have a week for planning and sort this before the real build start.

chemphlegm said:

be sure to buy a wet n dry vac, or two, in case the first fails. these systems leak, all the time, esp when self built.
your room will cook your plants without an ac unit I think. you'll need c02 augmentation too, with those monsters breathing all the hot air.

Click to expand...

ty, I'll try to be prepared to eventual leaks, about the heat cool tubes hooked to a 500cfm fan should suffice I hope, co2 integration will come in the future, I'm just over the budget with the setup as you can see it now, so I have to hold over.

Gamberone said:

I can't understand the meaning of this, can you elaborate?



Since the system is all connected I'll do one strain at a time or at least few that share the same nutriment requirements.

The reason I originally planned 12 buckets was because I thought that this way the vegetative phase would be shorter, ie less time to cover the screen, I'm still unsure about plant number, but I still have a week for planning and sort this before the real build start.





ty, I'll try to be prepared to eventual leaks, about the heat cool tubes hooked to a 500cfm fan should suffice I hope, co2 integration will come in the future, I'm just over the budget with the setup as you can see it now, so I have to hold over.

Click to expand...

I totally get it. I'd rather see you with a few dirt buckets and a pound of killer meds, than a huge over thought under equipped underfunded grow fail is all. it happens to all of us, be cautious running with such intensity, and that is intense, very, this system out produces any I ever seen or used.

understand your plants can only grow to their weakest resource. yours might be temperatures real fast. nothing you can do but cool the air to resolve that, but now you're stuck with inferior smoke, all foxtailed and fluffy budded, maybe some weird pests that love high heat. then the humidity could possibly be way over the top, inviting pests and mold, some you wont be able to ever rid yourself of in the room. with high heat, high humidity, large plants, the metabolism of these plants will demand more air. not your air, but their air, c02. without it in that enviro they will suffer dearly, wilt even. maybe you wont notice while standing at the ice maker(ok, that was mean, but funny right?) but at harvest some just wont be right. you'llknow, you'll taste it and bum out. you wont even know what the real issue is.

I want you to succeed your first time out. I would like to see you build a mini dwr system next to your already producing buckets. check out the ups and downs of running that way. and smoke your own product while watching it all happen. dont fail

Is your sketch to scale? That flower room will be awfully tight with all that gear. You could cut your plant count in half if you plan to scrog.

Gamberone said:

I can't understand the meaning of this, can you elaborate?



Since the system is all connected I'll do one strain at a time or at least few that share the same nutriment requirements.

The reason I originally planned 12 buckets was because I thought that this way the vegetative phase would be shorter, ie less time to cover the screen, I'm still unsure about plant number, but I still have a week for planning and sort this before the real build start.





ty, I'll try to be prepared to eventual leaks, about the heat cool tubes hooked to a 500cfm fan should suffice I hope, co2 integration will come in the future, I'm just over the budget with the setup as you can see it now, so I have to hold over.

Click to expand...

yeah the initial veg time will be less if you have more plants....... but you could use some big square boxes or trash cans or something if you went bigger

I like to go from seed the 1st run with a new strain pick out the best one, clone that one off and grow at least one up jumbo, that way you can get 300g+ from one plant and you can do the same again

consistency is what people like if its a strain they enjoy

Personally I like them to be a little bit different each time but once I find a really nice one then it is nice to clone her out and get one big one, with less space I`ve been prioritising seedlings and big plants, any mid size from seed I don`t know I`ll bloom off and pick out the best one to veg it`s clones up bigger

Just found it nicer to have one producer big plant over a ton of smaller ones but the hydro system will do the work for you so if it`s all clones then do what suits, some really huge buds have problems with mold so that`s why some people like to do smaller plants I guess


Yeah I like the res to match the size of the system or be 2x the size

also you want the system to fail safe if there is a problem

but also if your pots are 2x the size of your res then your res will heat up a lot more then if your res is 2x the size of your pots and stored somewhere cooler

In the summer my indoor bloom areas can get well over 30c at canape once hydro systems get over 22c they can be a real handful unless you`re really good with bennies or you use poolshock or whatever

If you can't upgrade the size of your Rez or afford to cool it go areoponic with a creative gutter and piping design you can do 4rows of fence post or what have you all dump into a single Rez. No need to worry about air pump and you can get away with no cooler as the roots dangle in the air... I did a rdwc and it was a nightmare areo is so good I can go out of for 5-6 days with no issue

chemphlegm said:

your cool tubes will be filthy black in a month, losing precious par every minute they operate.been there, done that.

i love your design better than mine(then) though.
dehumidifier, ac unit
system cooler, ice would be ridiculous

Click to expand...

Yes I agree I would give a upgrade to your fans and pull the tube out

chemphlegm said:

understand your plants can only grow to their weakest resource. yours might be temperatures real fast. nothing you can do but cool the air to resolve that
.....
I want you to succeed your first time out. I would like to see you build a mini dwr system next to your already producing buckets. check out the ups and downs of running that way. and smoke your own product while watching it all happen. dont fail

Click to expand...

As I mentioned in the open post I already grown in this room, but with a different setup, first only aero with ~20 plants, then 26 plants aero SoG + 3 DWC tree without ScrOG, just LST), the system was lighted by 2x 600w HPS, and aerated with just a 150 cfm OUT fan and a 100 cfm IN fan + 2 fans that would move the air inside, the ballasts where inside the tent and where mag, the water was never chilled. I did C99, super lemon haze and the church and I got 0.6 g/w, (I could have done better I know) very good flavor/potency, no pests since I keep the room extremely clean and use 0.5ppm chlorine in the water, no mold, just some green algae on top of the aero system.

Now I know going from 2x 600w to 4x600w is a lot of extra heat, but the conditions are different,
- cool tubes
- 500cfm out fan
- possibility to chill the res (you can tell me that it will be annoying doing that way, but ineffective? I do not think)

However ty for insist on this point, I get that it is a key factor, I will do more research on the heat produced by 4 lamps and the efficiency of a cool tube system to reduce and effectively take away, if I see that regular air cooling it's not enough my only possibility is to go back to 2 light, because as I said I don't have the available power to feed an AC unit after the absorption of the system.

redi jedi said:

Is your sketch to scale? That flower room will be awfully tight with all that gear. You could cut your plant count in half if you plan to scrog.

Click to expand...

Yes it's in scale, I already "simulated" using cardboard the spaces and yes they are very tight, but lying down on the ground I can reach the back buckets, but maybe you are right, with 6 plants the time to cover the screen should be still relatively fast, this would also "solve" the reservoir size problem, because that way the reservoir would become 1:1 with the buckets