Just finished 1st grow (600W, faux aero tub in closet). Now I have a 1000W and moved into basement.
The aero method is nice and all, but seems to much PITA/expense for a larger scale setup. So I have settled on attempting a popsicle style SOG (ala Dr BudGreenGenes, see LINK) except on a huge scale in about a 6'x6' footprint. I'll be using the following reflector...
Heat Buster Max
and I have rigged up a vent system using a 8x10 ventilation duct boot to cover the two vents on the top where the heat escapes. Now the reflector is 72-75 in the hottest areas (68 ambient).
So the reflector has a fairly wide throw. At about 12-18 inches light-to-canopy height I should be just covering the 6'x'6 footprint with no wasted light. At this distance, with the use of a fan blowing across the canopy the temps are excellent. So i am hoping to maximize every lumen of available light.
Now as previously stated I will be attempting to fill this light footprint with popsicled 12" tall cuttings that have been minimally vegged under about 10x 26w cfl's. They will be going into a RDWC system, and this is the point where I am stuck. I am sorta on the fence about using rubbermaid style tubs or 5gallon buckets.
I realize that the 5gal buckets are a hell of alot stronger and if I use the cheapo rubbermaid tubs, and if I use the tubs I am going to have to place them on a soft surface to minimize stress to the bottoms under the weight of being full of water, and they are probably going to have to be replaced with the larger "Heavy Duty" 400lb capacity tubs in the near future (pending acquisition of proper funding).
So i am thinking of having 4 rows of 4 tubs each (which barely fits the 6x6 footprint). The 4th tub on each row will be a controller for the other three above it giving me 4 stages to do a 2 week perpetual setup.
Enough rambling... my questions are: has anyone done/know of any attempts at a large scale perpetual SOG like this? Will SOG work in a RDWC setup? i.e. will the barely vegged plants be able to grow enough in flowering to utilize all the root space provided? Or would I be better off doing some sort of shallow DWC or possibly even a flood table? (Previously i thought flood table wouldn't provide as aggressive growth as the DWC but after using flood'n drain for vegging I think I might be wrong)?
Does this plan seem feasible/well thought out? ANY and ALL input would be extremely helpful! My goals here are to have aggressive growth with large g/lumen #'s while harvesting every 2 weeks, and obviously keeping maintenance/upkeep efforts to a minimum and being somewhat immune to power outages of about 4-6 hour max.
The aero method is nice and all, but seems to much PITA/expense for a larger scale setup. So I have settled on attempting a popsicle style SOG (ala Dr BudGreenGenes, see LINK) except on a huge scale in about a 6'x6' footprint. I'll be using the following reflector...
Heat Buster Max
and I have rigged up a vent system using a 8x10 ventilation duct boot to cover the two vents on the top where the heat escapes. Now the reflector is 72-75 in the hottest areas (68 ambient).
So the reflector has a fairly wide throw. At about 12-18 inches light-to-canopy height I should be just covering the 6'x'6 footprint with no wasted light. At this distance, with the use of a fan blowing across the canopy the temps are excellent. So i am hoping to maximize every lumen of available light.
Now as previously stated I will be attempting to fill this light footprint with popsicled 12" tall cuttings that have been minimally vegged under about 10x 26w cfl's. They will be going into a RDWC system, and this is the point where I am stuck. I am sorta on the fence about using rubbermaid style tubs or 5gallon buckets.
I realize that the 5gal buckets are a hell of alot stronger and if I use the cheapo rubbermaid tubs, and if I use the tubs I am going to have to place them on a soft surface to minimize stress to the bottoms under the weight of being full of water, and they are probably going to have to be replaced with the larger "Heavy Duty" 400lb capacity tubs in the near future (pending acquisition of proper funding).
So i am thinking of having 4 rows of 4 tubs each (which barely fits the 6x6 footprint). The 4th tub on each row will be a controller for the other three above it giving me 4 stages to do a 2 week perpetual setup.
Enough rambling... my questions are: has anyone done/know of any attempts at a large scale perpetual SOG like this? Will SOG work in a RDWC setup? i.e. will the barely vegged plants be able to grow enough in flowering to utilize all the root space provided? Or would I be better off doing some sort of shallow DWC or possibly even a flood table? (Previously i thought flood table wouldn't provide as aggressive growth as the DWC but after using flood'n drain for vegging I think I might be wrong)?
Does this plan seem feasible/well thought out? ANY and ALL input would be extremely helpful! My goals here are to have aggressive growth with large g/lumen #'s while harvesting every 2 weeks, and obviously keeping maintenance/upkeep efforts to a minimum and being somewhat immune to power outages of about 4-6 hour max.
