My under current DWC grow shed.

So, this is my first journal. It's not my first grow, but definitely my first hydro grow.

The grow room is a 4x4x6 shed I have built out of wood and drywall. I built a window on one wall to house a window A/C. The shed is located on my porch so controlling the temperatures will probably be a big concern. This is an enclosed system and will have CO2 injection (tank pictured).




I constructed an undercurrent system using 1-1/2" PVC pipes and 5 gallon buckets. The 250 GPH pump pulls water from the 4 peripheral buckets into the main reservoir. This negative pressure creates a gentle even flow. An air pump with 5 air stones, plus the waterfall in the reservoir, will keep the water nicely aerated. The pipes are secured into the buckets using Uniseals. The whole system will be topped off with a reverse osmosis filter and a float valve.


[video=youtube_share;wsoqSoYgh_M]http://youtu.be/wsoqSoYgh_M[/video]

Not pictured:
600w HPS light (magnetic ballast and Hortilux bulb)
Vented Hood
CO2 controller/timer
4" Vortex inline fan and 4"x8" PhreshFilter (will scrub room, not exhaust)
6" Duct booster fan (will air cool light)
5 Gallon bucket lids with 5" net pots, growing medium, etc.

Now this might catch some flak but the only nutes I will be using are the Vertigro 2 part system. The guaranteed analysis on them is the same as all the other high $$ nutes but I don't like to pay for companies to dilute for me and I certainly don't like to pay to ship water.



Anyway thanks for checking out my system. I plan on being up and running in about a week so I will be updating soon. I have a few finishing touches left to do on the shed (Panda Film for the doors, venting, etc).
Any questions or advice are definitely welcome. I haven't decided on strains yet. I'm thinking indica since I don't have a whole lot of vertical space to grow. I plan on FIMing each of the 4 plants in hopes of obtaining a couple decent colas from each plant.

Peace ,

Jumokee

Looks good. Im working on building a RDWC system myself.

Nice setup man, definitely looks good. +rep and welcome to RIU

Couple things I noticed. I'm sure space restriction had something to do with it, but having your epicenter underneath the lights is going to make water temps that much more difficult to control. If there's any way to run a pipe through the wall and put it outside the room, that would probably work out much better for you. Are you going to be running a chiller?

Also, I like that you pay attention to whats in your nutrients(most people here don't know a single ingredient) and got something that works and is simple enough, but I've read of quite a few complaints about various nutrients causing issues specifically in undercurrent setups. They just dont all get along with the aggressive agitation very well. Never heard of verti-grow before and I've obviously never seen anyone use them in an undercurrent, so I have no idea if your nutrients will have issues or not, just something to keep in mind in case you run into anything, hopefully not.

With 6' of height, definitely stick to an indica-dom strain. And I would top them after the 2nd node if anything to get 4 equal main tops, I'm just not a fan of FIMing. It's not a clean, symmetrical method that ends up with evenly dominant shoots most of the time, and I've seen them take longer to recover. Not really a huge deal either way though.

Lookin forward to seein more. Good luck!

Hey thanks for the replies! As for the epicenter being under the lights, yes it's mostly a space issue, partly a plumbing issue, and also a bit of a compromise. Since the shed is outdoors and I'm in SoCal, we've got another couple months of heat, so the room will actually be cooler than outside of it for quite awhile. I plan on keeping the whole room around 75 degrees so I'm hoping the water stays about that temp as well. I realize this is the on the higher end of the ideal temperature for DWC, but with as much aeration as I'm providing, I don't anticipate a big issue. Hopefully I'm right. I'll probably put some foil tape on the buckets to help reflect light and heat also.

Noob question: How does one go about '+repping' ?

Subscribed. PLanning my new box & this has given me some ideas

Jumokee said:

Hey thanks for the replies! As for the epicenter being under the lights, yes it's mostly a space issue, partly a plumbing issue, and also a bit of a compromise. Since the shed is outdoors and I'm in SoCal, we've got another couple months of heat, so the room will actually be cooler than outside of it for quite awhile. I plan on keeping the whole room around 75 degrees so I'm hoping the water stays about that temp as well. I realize this is the on the higher end of the ideal temperature for DWC, but with as much aeration as I'm providing, I don't anticipate a big issue. Hopefully I'm right. I'll probably put some foil tape on the buckets to help reflect light and heat also.

Noob question: How does one go about '+repping' ?

Click to expand...

I'm in socal too(IE). Heats a bitch right now for sure. Have you thought about running a chiller and its own res outside the room, and using a pump/wort chiller to chill your system? If air temps are 75, expect water temps to be at least that. Water and air pumps heat it up quite a bit. Just dont want you running into the same problems many people do with high water temps. if you decide to run it as is, just make sure you keep up on res maintenance, and use some type of preventative ie beneficial bacteria or sterilization. And foil tape would definitely be a good idea no matter what you do. I did that to my rdwc setup and temps are 2-3F cooler, plus less risk for algae.

See the little star underneath each post? That's the rep button.