First grow, CFL / Hydro

westmn

Member
This is my first grow and my first post, but I have read a lot here and I think I know enough to get started.

Flowering room:
-2.5' x 2' (5sqft) and 40" tall
-8 plants total (all 7 days apart in age)
-each plant will have 7.5" x 8" to grow
-I plan on using 16x CFL lights (42watt, 2500K, 2600Lumens each)
-Lighting will be 672 watts for the flowing room ($17.50/month @ 12/12 for me)
-This will mean 8320Lumens / sqft (about)
-Each plant will have an adjustable light fixture with 2 lights (5200Lumens)
-Plants will be in net pots with the roots resting in flowing water (through 4" plastic hollow fence post, with gravity fed water)
:?:-I'm completely unsure about nutrients and additives. there are no shops around here so I'll have to get them online, any input here would be greatly appreciated.
:?:-Grow medium will probably end up being smooth rocks I find outside, 1/2dia average, I will clean and rinse in PH'ed water. (let me know if this is a bad idea, as far as I know all you need is a PH neutral and solid substance for the roots to be in)
:?:-I am also unsure about my watering setup, I plan to just lay the roots in the flowing water (1/10th" deep stream) and let them grow out of the shallow net pot like that

Vegitating room:
-16"x24" (2.66sqft) and 40" tall
-This room will be used to grow the clones I take from the flowering room untill they have enough roots to use the flowering room water system
-3x CFL lights (42w, 6500k, 2600Lumens each)
-This will mean 126w of light total ($6.56 / month on 24/24 light). There will be 2932Lumens/sqft in this room. (I hope thats enough for clones).
-I don't think ill ever have more then 2 clones in here.
-I'll be using a DWC watering system in the vegitative room, the bucket is 12"x14"x5" so thats 3.637 gallons or 1.82 gallons half full (2.5" full with 2.5" air space)
-It will be filled with PH'ed water only, Clones will be held by foam rings and will have no growing medium. (they will have a light layer of rooting powder through)
-There will be only 2 spaces for clones in the bucket lid.
-The bucket will have 2x 10" air stones running 24/7. they will be supplied by 2x 1200cc air pumps. this will give the bucket 1318cc/gal of air when it is half full of water (2.5") the pumps will use 4w power max

-ventilation in both rooms will be 2x 60CFM 4" 12v fans. each with costom built carbon filters (thanks to the gides on this site) the rooms will share air (but not light). Air will be vented from the tops of both rooms. This should change the air in the room about every 15 seconds (32ft^3 @ 120CFM)
-In this way I could potentially have 8 diferant kind of plants growing at one time, and I plan on harvesting a plant every 7 days with 2 month flowing time each. I'm hoping for 1 ounce/plant

-I will post pictures and any details I may have left out later. Please comment on my design and let me know where I can improve, and thank you reading!
 

westmn

Member
The attached picture shows the grow space.
-The cylinders are the CFL lights. The light frames are made with 1" PVC pip
-The walls are 1/2" plywood and the frame was made with 2x4"
-You can see the space on top for the 4" fans
-Under the shelf is the res for the 2 fence posts that will feed the plants. It will pump water into the elivated end of the hollow fence post and the water will run down through the plant roots to a drain at the bottom and back into the res. (the res is dark green in the picture)
-Everything depicted in the picture is to scale
 

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