Nothing wrong with going hydro your first whack at it....you just went way overboard with your purchases. Spent a bunch on stuff that was not 100% needed.
If you go hydro to start on your next grow let us know before hand and we can help you get it going in the correct direction.
Ill try to help as much as I can with the knowledge I have gained from fucking it all up myself.
First question I have is....do you have ac where you live...as in does your residence have central air?
That ac should not be required for a 2x4 grow space. If your inside air tempt is in the low 70s you should be able to manage the temps with enough air flow out the vents.
I stopped doing dwc for the same reason basically. I was not able to keep res temps in the tent down.
So I moved my res outside and pump water over buckets filled with expanded clay that then drains back to the res.
Those air pumps are massive over kill. Just one of those is designed for an 4 or 8 site grow. But it seems you have 1 for each bucket. To much air will soak your roots in the net pot and then the roots will never get oxygen....then they rot.
You only need a some what cheap pump for aquariums. 20$ or so. The one I currently use has lasted 2 years now.
2 plants should easily fill a 2x4 space. Things get very difficult to manage when you start adding more. I did 5 and it was a shit show. Even 2 plants can be a shit show. I filled my 2x4 tent easily with 2 auto flowers.
I'm not a soil guy so hard for me to help with that.
I went the sterile res direction because I had rot on my first 4 grows. Way easier to just kill everything in the water than to keep bennificial bacteria and what not. That is strictly in my opinion and what my small grow space allows.
Your plants are looking better so I hope it turns out all good in the end.
Ill post a few pics. 2 auto flowers in a 2x4x7. 600 watt hps...hps was added at wrong time causing the difference in size.
Pics are from different stages of the grow. The bigger the plant the more recent the pic.
And yeah. Calibrate that pen, shit caught me off guard many times. Once a month minimum.
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