I am new to the forum and wanted to get started with a debate that will hopefully help me determine how Im going to run my next setup. I started growing about a year and a half years ago. I was taught by a friend to use five gallon buckets with baskets, rockwool, Hydroton, and hydrofarms drip rings. I use a another five gallon bucket to kinda act as the control bucket or some may say its the reservoir. For Nutes I use GH 3 part. I have always seen a pretty good out comes. However it came to my attention that I could greatly improve my system by adding a true resievior with a float bucket, adding airstones to all my buckets, and then adding a pump and recuirtculating the whole system. I would be very excited to make these changes and see what type of improvments would be seen.

However it has came to my attention that flood and drain buckets with a reservior and a true control bucket may be just as good if not better. Not to mention cheaper as well.

Part of my question also includes if you do flood and drain buckets. Would you see higher yields with 5 gallon buckets vs the smaller 2 gallon buckets.

I have come down to the conclusion that I will do either 36 5 Gallon buckets on the DWC, or I will do 48 of the smaller flood and drain buckets. But again if it came down to going with the flood and drain. Would I be better off doing the 36 5 gallon or with the 48 2 gallon.

I have been told for the DWC to be most effective that you need to keep your water as close to 72 as possible. Which can be challenging for me in the summer months. One reason Im thinking that the flood and drain will be better.

Any advice is much apperciated.

Thanks.

In my opinion what exact type of hydro system you run is much less important (in regards to yield) than how well those plants are grown in any given system.


That said, I would stick to what feels most comfortable for you. I prefer larger plants for legal reasons, so I would do 36, 5 gallon buckets and grow the plants as big as possible.

My plants usually end up about 2ft tall. Isnt that about as tall as you want them? I just dont ever see much difference between a 2ft tall plant and a 3ft tall plant.

When I say larger plants I am mostly reffering to square feet of canopy per plant, assuming optimal plant height for whatever lights you run.

I plan on running two 600w MH on light movers for veg. Then four 1000w in my bloom room. Im worried that the 48 might be a litte to many for lights and my grow space. It just seems like most of the time I see gardens just jammed packed with plants. So Im firguring I will give it a shot and try to maximize my grow space. What do you think?

Sounds Like You Have A Plan, & Ya'll Are Working Things Out, One Thing With Big Plants, Is They Tend To Out Grow The Light Penetration, So You Have To Lolli-Pop The Bottom Half.
And As Far As Hydro Systems, Go With What Fit's Your Situation Best.

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I have found that. It seems like in your indoor enviorment that your light only penetrates about 2 foot under the canopy. Even with my 2 ft plants I still lolli pop em pretty good and still get some smaller un ripe buds it seems. So with that said do you think that the yeild is about the same between 2ft and 3 ft with those techs being used. I have been coming to the conclusion that it seems to be better to grow them faster and smaller. Plus I plan on flowering them for two weeks in the veg room then switch them over the bloom room for only four weeks. I have a 45 day strain and I have been using Canna Boost. So then we will be harvesting every 4 wks.

That's about what I was thinkng to cover 36 big plants. 4 square feet per plant, you'll cover 24X24. If I were you, I'd setup some kind of trellis at where you want your bud growth to start, and train the plants by weaving them into that trellis. I like to bring plants about 18"-24" above the trellis at their highest point before flowering under 1Ks. Doing this you'll need to pay attention to cola spacing and make sure it doesn't get too crowded, don't be afraid to prune.

Good luck.

You grow your plants out pretty big it sounds like to me. How big are they when there finished?

heheehe... did I come to the right place?

you will be very happy with your choice in DWC.

And congrats on your line of nutes. I've always used strictly GH with the exception of superthrive during veg.

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Some plants finish at 12+ square feet when scrogged.

I have found that. It seems like in your indoor enviorment that your light only penetrates about 2 foot under the canopy. Even with my 2 ft plants I still lolli pop em pretty good and still get some smaller un ripe buds it seems. So with that said do you think that the yeild is about the same between 2ft and 3 ft with those techs being used. I have been coming to the conclusion that it seems to be better to grow them faster and smaller. Plus I plan on flowering them for two weeks in the veg room then switch them over the bloom room for only four weeks. I have a 45 day strain and I have been using Canna Boost. So then we will be harvesting every 4 wks.

What is scrogged?

How do you like that Superthrive? I have a friend that uses it that is suggesting it. But my guys at my hydro store said to not worry about it.

What type of pruning are you talking about? I usually lolli pop em on the bottom pretty good. But are you saying that you should prune out the smaller cola's?

It depends on how crowded it gets. You don't want more than 1 big cola every 6" or so, and I fill in smaller branching around those colas. I pull out the lower leaf too, as scrogs get crowded. I like to leave the top 2-3 fan leaves on the colas. A scrog btw stands for screen of green, it refers to weaving your plants into a screen or trellis. Mimicing a sea of green but with much fewer plants.

This is very interesting sounding technique. Would a trellis be those white nets I see strechted across gardens with the square grids? Im definitley going to look into trying to use this in my next grow I believe.

Yes, that would be a trellis. You can build a PVC frame and stretch that across it. You can put down fencing material. There are a lot of ways to make a scrog. We use hardware cloth;




I setup rooms to have 15 plants in them because that's what my state allows. But if you look at them from the top so you can't see the number of pots beneath the screen, you would swear there were 500 clones transplanted in a couple weeks before.

Ok I im getting the idea. I did some more reading up on the method. I think its starting to hit me. I am begining to think that It may not be a good method for my next grow. I think Im planning on going with the Ebb N Gro 2 gallon bucket system. Actually 2 of the Ebb N Gro's. One for veg and one for flower. I want to have a 2 week veg periord with the most effiecient growth as possible. Im going to induce flowering in the veg room for two weeks. Then transfer my baskets to the flower room. Im thinking that my plants would be all tied up in that trellis. Making it next to impossible to transfer my plants. Would you agree with that?

When I was growing in pure water systems, I did a recirculating water culture system. I would do one bucket into another, so that if I needed to move a plant, I could just move an entire bucket without having to swap connectors.

To facilitate an even canopy, I used modular scrog that attached to the bucket (PVC at 4 spots that came through the bucket lid and were attached to the bucket), and sat directly above it (about 12" above) creating a screen between the 4 PVC posts that each plant could be trained into. When they were vegged to the size I wanted them, the first bucket (with the PVC bucket scrog attached to it) gets pulled out and placed into its flower bucket. You can even cut the bottom completely off the top buckets if you want.