Mini-DWC in Coffee Container

I have grown monsters in 5 gallon DWCs and this fun experiment is to see how small I can go. Here is the half gallon coffee container with Coke bottle for size reference. (Why is the new line function/ENTER not working? My keyboard is fine. No problems on other message boards. Am I missing something as the cursor does not move.) Started the Northern Lights seed in a pete pot and then cut a hole in the top for a 2" net pot. If I were to repeat this experiment I would paint the lid black as it is translucent and may cause algae problems later. The pete pot was placed in the net pot WITHOUT media. A small piece of aluminum foil was placed on top to prevent light leakage and algae growth on the pete. She was then placed under a 24w (13w actual draw) red & blue LED spotlight. An aquarium air pump and bubble wand were added. Nutes are generic dry at 1/4 strength in tap water. She is about 10 days old and already has some healthy white roots.

ur brave and bored.lol keep me posted bro..

cool! ........

No shit... I use 18g totes ATM with 8 ladies in each.. I'm pulling a seat up.

Even though it is only three days later, I decided to post an update. Notice the other three plants are half the size of Ginger even though in a 5 gallon DWC and under higher wattage lights. All four were started the same day and are from the same batch of seeds. I attribute this to two things:

1. Ginger is under a 13w LED spotlight whereas the other three are under two 23w CFLs and 20w of blue led, but are wide angle, meaning the light is not very well focused on the plants.

2. Both containers are running on the same dual outlet air pump. This means that the half gallon coffee container is getting 10 times as much air as the 5 gallon bucket.



Also notice that Ginger has doubled in size in just three days. I attribute this to the well-established root system and use of concentrated light.




One final note: I always underfeed my plants and they seem to be much healthier and happier.

To clarify because one member asked me, in the top photo of the previous post, the plastic coffee container is on top of another empty coffee container to keep it the same height as the 5 gallon bucket.

I may have to throw Ginger into flower in the next day or else the roots will fill up the container. The other three have pathetic roots in comparison and may be vegged for another few weeks.

Ginger was put in the flower room this morning. She is bathed in light from my awesome DIY lamp. Will try to dig up some pics of my space age creation.

Here are two photos of my 165w DIY CREE LED lamp. I would put this baby up against ANY commercial lamp. I spent years studying, reading and learning everything I could about spectra and horticulture, this is my solution. I easily passed the 1.25 GPW goal post even though the rest of my conditions are far from ideal (and out of my current control).

love this diy LED setup - I'm doing something similar and would love to see you detail this out in the LED subforum. I've got some cree XPG 50W floods that I'm working to get into my cab but I haven't gotten it installed yet.

where did you get the heatsinks? I'm using an arctic alpine 11 plus cpu coolers.

also - what spectrum are you hoping to get from the CFLs?

I have detailed my LED lamp on other websites. If I can Link I will. CREEs are CXA20s. Amazing little candles.

CFL spectra difference between cool and warm is neglible. I did, however, find some of those ultra mini CFLs with the closer wound coils to fit. This allowed me to bump form 13w to 23 w.

Now that Ginger is settling into the flower room and is doing well, she has yet to hit her stride. I will update when she starts strutting her stuff a bit.

In the meantime, Las Tres Hermanas are starting to come to life. I swapped in fresh water and increased the nutes to half-strength. Still have them under 20w of blue LED (10w X 2) and have bumped the CFL up to 42w. Not sure if you can tell by the angle of the photo, but all the plants are very short, being about 7" wide and only 4" tall. I attribute this to the copious amount of blue LED keeping the internodes tight.



FYI, these are not clones nor feminized seeds so really have no idea of gender at this time.

awesome, pulling up a chair. good luck and happy growing

awesome

Thoughts on bubbles:

I read a highly technical article a few years back comparing different styles of bubble wands/discs/aerators and different flow rates on air pumps on the effect of a reservoir. The conclusion was that even the worst/lowest air flow easily hit the oxygen saturation point of the water. The only thing a better pump and aerator would give you is to saturate the reservoir a minute or so earlier, but when running 24/7 there was no advantage.

Now lots of growers recommend having a 'bubbling cauldron' inside their reservoir with no scientific reasoning to back this up other than 'more is better'.

Now when comparing the roots of my coffee DWC vs. 5 gallon bucket DWC, the coffee container roots are far superior to the other three, so perhaps the additional bubbles is giving a benefit not found directly in oxygen-saturated water. Anyone done any controlled experiments?

Ginger (still too early to tell gender) is starting to fill out a bit in the flower room. 'She' is vibrant green and very happy with zero nute burn.



If this works as well as I think it will, it could start a SOG DWC revolution. Would probably use a matrix of 3 - 4" X 10 - 12" vertical PVC tubes with endcaps. The 1 liter hempy-style SOG yields great, but there are certain drawbacks that may be overcome with a batch of mini-DWCs.

Advantages of the plastic coffee container is that it has a built in handle and is not a pain to change the reservoir or move about unlike a 5 gallon (or larger) DWC. This size is also great for experiments and possibly for breeding and/or mother selection.

BTW, that is the actual color in the flower room. Am using 4 each 2700K and 1 each 5000K white 30W LEDs, so it looks like afternoon sun.

Three Sisters now under full nutes and 46w of CFL. May put into flower next week.

very nice sir!!!!

Im subbed, looks interesting so far, like to see some more pics of the light when possible..