My kick ass 400w grow tent setup w/ waterfarm

hey puff my waterfarm 8 pack is almost here. did you have to get any additional supplys for the hydro setup like airstones or pumps or can you just start growing in them??

ivintheterrible said:

hey puff my waterfarm 8 pack is almost here. did you have to get any additional supplys for the hydro setup like airstones or pumps or can you just start growing in them??

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Congrats on your purchase of the GH waterfarm system. It is a great way to get into hydroponics. I have found it rather forgiving, but one of the reasons is the hydroton, or clay pebbles. Its hard to over water using that medium. But that doesn't mean you cant over water it. I recommend that you at least only let the dripper pump run while the lights are on. I finally bought a recycling timer that allows me to run them for 3 min on, 12 min off. I had a few plants develop stem rot. That was due to a combination of things, first was over watering, second was not using enough anti fungicide protection. Make sure you include some peroxide or hydroguard in your nute solution. I'm sure you will have lots of questions about using it. I'm here for your brother, I have been learning the ropes and I think I have it down. So hopefully you can not make the same mistakes. Stay away from large rockwool cubes, plan on using a 1" rockwool cube to start your plants with and then just bury it in the drip bucket with the clay pebbles. Also make sure you put enough clay pebbles in the bucket up to the circular dripper. If you don't your nute solution can splash around a little leaving salt deposits. Also when you add your nutes for the first time, fill the system up and when it levels off only use water to top off until the end of the cycle. I was having a problem with nute burn and I think it was because I was adding more nute solution when the reservoir would get low.

And to answer your question, you will need one additional component. The hydroton is not included. You will need a 50lb bag of the stuff. Should run around $40-$45. I reccomend you look up hydroponics store in your area and just pick it up. I had the first two 50lbs bags of the stuff shipped to me and it was twice as much from the shipping charges. But other than that it comes with everything, even the nutrients.

sweet man. will get in touch when i begin next week

thanks a lot man....I was told to hit them with lights right away which made no sense to me, so ill just let them chill...

So its been a while since I have posted pics of whats happening lately. I made some changes, I got rid of the big monster plants that took over the garden. They are going to live on in the outdoors. Anyway that was the first go around and out of the 6 there was as follows: 1 female, 1 intersex (hermie), 1 male, 2 other plants that never were sexed becuase they were such pathetic plants to begin with. They grew straight up with no side branching. So, out of all that I was able to clone the 1 female and have repopulated a tent with her clones. Im not going to veg at all. They are going straight to a 12/12 schedule.



I ordered seeds and Im trying them out. But so far I have had a few mishaps that have set me back a few weeks, not to mention the wasted seeds. But I havent had any major mistakes lately.
These are from the good seeds. I have 2 Critical Mass, 1 White Widow, 1 Blueberry, 1 Laughing Buddha, and 1 Sweet tooth. Hopefully I should get a couple of good mothers out of this group. They are also on a 12/12 schedule. Already had 1 of the Critial Mass turn Male.

causing trouble!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well the dual light setup (800W) in the DR80 is running a little too hot. I can keep the temps in the low 90's but that's too hot for my plants. I ordered a dual 250w (500W) electronic ballast with matching bulbs. Im going to try and run two of the new Hortilux high performance HPS bulbs in the setup. I hope this change will let me run both lights while maintaining the temps in the mid to upper 80s like I have been in the other tents.

i run 2 exhaust in my tent


1 exhaust strictly for the lighting...and another for the tent itself. it greatly reduces temps.

hope that helps!

Puff how is the performance on the odorsoks? I hear a lot of mixed reviews about them.

Hey man... nice pics... SO .. after reading all that it seems that your expectations were screwed .,..

I see a few issues.... 1 you have such a kick ass cab and set up yet i think you lack info.. You should just grow 1.. then clone a branch off of it and flower just the small clone... then you will know for sure the sex... after that having a perfect girl garden is nothing...

you should flower when they are between 7 and 12 inches tall ... give them a little time to fatten up you know.....

that time of the vegging is used to "create" your masterpiece.... its not just about putting it in the dirt bro...

you should check out topping and fim... and stuff like that... i beleave that you should start topping after the 2nd node... and continue doing so throughout...

topping... remove the whole shoot in between the two little tiny leaves growing.. ( you'll have to touch the plant and open the small leaves a little to see it... If you remove the whole shoot and dont leave nothing but the two leaves... it will cause those leaves to turn into branches... More buds...

Fim... same principle except you dont remove the whole shoot... just the top 3/4 of it... that will cause it to branch into 3 to as much as 6 branches... I have not been as lucky with the Fim...


That would have fixed your height issue...


well dude... i hope that some of this was helpful to you.... happy growing..

LoudBlunts said:

i run 2 exhaust in my tent

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LoudBlunts said:

1 exhaust strictly for the lighting...and another for the tent itself. it greatly reduces temps.

hope that helps!

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I could give that a try, but I think Its asking a lot to push 800w in a DR80. Let me go see what I can do about throwing a seperate exhaust in there. I have an extra 6" inline fan that could work. Thanks for the idea.

southfloridasean said:

Puff how is the performance on the odorsoks? I hear a lot of mixed reviews about them.

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Here’s the deal with the Odorsoks. They only work well when the humidity is low. If its too humid the carbon doesn’t work so great. But that’s true with all carbon filters. In my experience it works great. Occasionally I will think I can smell something and I will take a look over the ducting to see if its sprung a leak. Im not at the really stinky stage yet so the jury is still out as to how well they will perform in a few weeks. But so far so good, I’m going to keep buying them until I see a reason not to.

genfranco said:

Hey man... nice pics... SO .. after reading all that it seems that your expectations were screwed .,..

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genfranco said:

I see a few issues.... 1 you have such a kick ass cab and set up yet i think you lack info.. You should just grow 1.. then clone a branch off of it and flower just the small clone... then you will know for sure the sex... after that having a perfect girl garden is nothing...

you should flower when they are between 7 and 12 inches tall ... give them a little time to fatten up you know.....

that time of the vegging is used to "create" your masterpiece.... its not just about putting it in the dirt bro...

you should check out topping and fim... and stuff like that... i beleave that you should start topping after the 2nd node... and continue doing so throughout...

topping... remove the whole shoot in between the two little tiny leaves growing.. ( you'll have to touch the plant and open the small leaves a little to see it... If you remove the whole shoot and dont leave nothing but the two leaves... it will cause those leaves to turn into branches... More buds...

Fim... same principle except you dont remove the whole shoot... just the top 3/4 of it... that will cause it to branch into 3 to as much as 6 branches... I have not been as lucky with the Fim...


That would have fixed your height issue...


well dude... i hope that some of this was helpful to you.... happy growing..

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Well thanks for the advice. But I think you confused my thread with someone else’s? All the points you have made I have already covered. My goal is to plant a garden of clones that will turn female. And thats exactly where Im at. I FIM my plants and the height issue was from my plants growing 32" in 36 days under 18/6. Just caught me off guard and I dont see a reason to veg this next time around when they grow that fast. But thanks for the thoughtful advice.

LB the DR80 only has one exhaust port up top. Im not sure how to setup an independent ventilation system for the tent. I know what your saying, just not sure if I can do it.

Besides I already paid for the dual 250w ballast and the enhanced HPS Hortilux bulbs to go with it. You know anyone who is looking for a couple of brand new Futurebrite 400w electronic ballasts? Just what I need, more ballasts laying around. You know what that means dont you? More tents!!! LOL! Also by switching to the 500W balllast I think I can get away with a 15 amp breaker on everything. I still probably will have to deal with that issue anyhow. I figuered out a good idea, I already poked a hole in the wall between my bedroom and the living room to run cable into my bedroom. So Ill just put a power cord through the hole too. That would allow me to plug the DR80 on a seperate breaker without running a long power cord. Which is a big NO NO when running that many amps.

Sean you asked about those Odorsoks, well I have an update for you. I have been moving things around a bit and I took off the odorsoks. Mainly because the plants are all under a foot tall and dont smell very much, so I thought. Well I can smell them all the time and Im putting the odorsok back on. It absolutely works, and I found the instructions for it and it has directions for reactivating it after it looses effectiveness.

My lonely white widow sprouted some white hairs, and then today I noticed the beginnings of ball sacks. Also found another male, out of the 3 critical mass seeds I have 2 males and one unknown? So far out of 7 plants I have found only 1 true female, 2 hermies, and 4 males. Good thing Im not trying to do this strictly from a seed grow. My 6 female clones are all doing fantastic and I should have 8 more ready by next week. Ill post some new pics soon.

yea they say to reactivate it to toss it in the dryer or some shit

Wow, just went through your journal and you have quite a nice setup. good luch with the high grade!

sup puff? i read your whole grow just now and i will stay tuned..

OK I have tamed the beast! The DR80 is running like a Swiss timepiece. Its so sweet, I feel like an artist that has created a masterpiece. I switched out the two 400w bulbs for two 250w bulbs. I bought the enhanced HPS bulbs by Hortilux and they are bright! They advertise claims it delivers 25% more of the visible spectrum than a regular HPS. Well at any rate this tent is running as cool as a cucumber. 83 degrees only 14 inches from the light. The tent runs about 5-7 degrees warmer than the air around it. I took my light meter and checked for dim spots in the tent and there are NONE! No matter where I check the reading is 5000 foot candles. So sweet, this thing is going to be amazing!!!

I put a power cord through the wall to run it on a seperate breaker. Im already running 10-12 amps on a 15 amp breaker. So now its on its own 15 amp breaker.

The top tent is running two 250W bulbs (61,000 total lumens)

The bottom tent is running two 400W bulbs (93,000 total lumens)

But I had to do it, the tent just ran too hot before. Does it look half as bright? But before you answer that consider I was also using 1 MH and 1 HPS before. I was also able to lower the lights since the temps were no longer a problem. Which ended up giving me the same amount of foot candles from the previous light setup. Sometimes going bigger isnt always better.

Puff good choice on the reduction of the lights.... Let the orange in.... I dont like the MH bulb for small grows ....they get too damn tall.. But the again i am wanting short internodes and stuff.... anyway ... you have 500 watts of light for that area....which is as you can see by your tester way enough...


Not sure how many setups your running.... but it sounds to me like you have alot of ballasts and lights.... Maybe use 1 light for each grow space... Well the 2 250 i would leave alone... but the other 400 watters..... shit ...those things can grow that cab by itself... People say 3x3 for a 400 watt... but i have seen awsome 4x4 as well..... anyway man..good luck with your grow....

I was going to point out some cloning methods but it seems that you are already doing that.... (you speak of clones .. are they bought or DIY ) hehehe...

Are you just flowering the plant to see if its male or female?

is that how your finding out?

Or... are you doing it the safe way.... I want to see what you answer...hehehhe... good luck man