Easiest / Lowest Maintenance Hydro Setup

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elgaucho

New Member
I'm about to set up a new grow, this will be my first time, I've been reading here for months and would love your advice on what would be the easiest system to maintain? I will be doing this at a rented house so don't want to be going in and out everyday. Would love to be able to set something up that is automated as much as possible so i could visit maybe once a week. I will DIY the whole thing.

Options I've considered so far.

1.) 6" Rockwool cubes with top feed system and run to waste
2.) 6" Rockwool cubes in tray with flood and drain to re-circulating system with 800L tank
3.) Some sort of bucket / tray flood and drain system to re-circulating system with 800L tank - unfortunately I can only buy perlite/vermaculite in my country.

I'm in a warm country my max room temp is around 25 degree - if I was to use a re-circulating system would I need to a chiller to keep the temp at 20 degree to prevent root-rot?

Any recommendations/ideas would be welcome.
 
foliage2018

foliage2018

Well-Known Member
When I decided to switch to hydroponic system, i was thinking about the same. Low maintance, low cost, week or longer w/o my visit.

Flood and Drain - bucket system was my choice. But! There is always a lot of things you need to check on daily basis (PH, pumps, temp.).

But there is another option - Autopot system. Self watering pots w/o any pumps, no chillers needed, PH stable, EC stable. You cannost DIY, but it's cheaper than buying chillers and PH self dosage system. You can also use perlite/vermaculite.
 
Major Blazer

Major Blazer

Well-Known Member
A flood table has by far been the easiest grow I’ve ever done. I’m running one more strain in here then trying dtw for comparative purposes. I was recently out of the place for 7 days at 5th week of flower, came home to zero issues. I think that says a lot for a hydro system at that stage.
 
shawnery

shawnery

Well-Known Member
Not really an option from your post but ive found my hand feed coco girl the easiest thing I've ever done and it can be automated easily.

I've had one semi good grow and one good grow in hydro and not one went to plan the entire grow. I've had a little extra clone in a way to small coco pot for a couple months and the only issue is, i was to lazy to buy more coco and repot. Now i just have a really small 12" beautiful flowering plant that looks PERFECT.

I just switched to hpa even though I've said to myself multiple times that coco appears to be so simple. It's like growing with siri or painting by numbers.
 
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shimz

Well-Known Member
Automated watered DTW coco has to be easiest. I have stock solutions made up that auto fill the res when it needs it. Timers control the watering. Never a hitch and zero work required except to refill the stock solution containers about once a month. Some day I intend to post up my autofill DIY solution.
 
Keesje

Keesje

Well-Known Member
The KLX Way.
https://www.rollitup.org/t/the-klx-way.960314/

You need no medium.
Just trays, netpots, neoprene pucks, tubes and pumps and some things more
Some things you can buy ready made in some countries, like trays, but you can always make them yourselves.
Netpots and pucks, pumps, fittings and other things can also be bought in China online.

But if you have never grown, try it out first on a smaller scale.
Especially when you don't want to spend to much time on it.
Chances are huge that you will fuck up the first few times (trust me; I've been there)
And then all your investments will go down the drain.
 
baaael

baaael

Active Member
foliage2018 said:
When I decided to switch to hydroponic system, i was thinking about the same. Low maintance, low cost, week or longer w/o my visit.

Flood and Drain - bucket system was my choice. But! There is always a lot of things you need to check on daily basis (PH, pumps, temp.).

But there is another option - Autopot system. Self watering pots w/o any pumps, no chillers needed, PH stable, EC stable. You cannost DIY, but it's cheaper than buying chillers and PH self dosage system. You can also use perlite/vermaculite.
Click to expand...
hi man im doing a f/d bucket ytem at the mo,can u tell me ur pot sizes and feed times for them cheers
 
fragileassassin

fragileassassin

Well-Known Member
I'm at the point that I only touch my rdwc system once a week to feed and dose hydroguard and fill my top off tank. That's about all I've done with it for the last 3 months. There was extensive setup though and youd need something to alert you if a pump fails.
Just did a similar setup in a smaller version for my new veg room.
Check out the link in my signature for my build.
 
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40sdroppinhot

Well-Known Member
shimz said:
Automated watered DTW coco has to be easiest. I have stock solutions made up that auto fill the res when it needs it. Timers control the watering. Never a hitch and zero work required except to refill the stock solution containers about once a month. Some day I intend to post up my autofill DIY solution.
Click to expand...

hey mate sorry to necro an old thread but did you mean something like a bluelabs auto-doser for the stock solutions ?

Im such a lurker... not enough to PM :/
 
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