[opt1c]

So i'm finally getting around to documenting my last grow. I did a 30 site bato bucket sea of green. The canopy was about 4 feet wide and 5 feet long. Light was provided by 2 600 watt ushio bulbs in radiant 6 reflectors powered by global greenhouse electronic ballasts. They had to be mounted high to spread 4 feet across so the plants were lollypop'd to minimize fluff on the bottom. I ran atami coco with hydroton on the bottom. The strain was the white widow from SR-71/bluesky in Oakland so the true genetics are Mr. Nice Black Widow but that is confusing to a lot of people so white widow it is.

I was tired of random variables from my tap water between winter and summer; sometimes it was fine and sometimes the plants were not happy so i decided to eliminate that issue by stepping up to the realm of RO. Water goes in at 200ppm and comes out at 3ppm.



Some moms and the RO reservoir in the garage; i plan on attaching my water chiller to the reservoir in the summer.


Building a bato bucket sog setup is fun; not much room for error when measuring out holes and whatnot.


Here is the DTW drain, the buckets sit on some 2 inch thick RF foam; i find this helps insulate the buckets from the floor a little bit, is nice and mold resistant not to mention waterproof incase of leaks/floods, and gives a wonderful 2 inches of drop to eliminate standing water in the returns


I guess i did a decent job with my measuring. Measure twice cut once.



Finally some pics of the room


18,000 BTU lovage


Now just to fill em up.

[Mr. Tony]

super sick and clean. I'd give you some rep but i've maxed out my daily quota.

[LAMBS-BREAD]

i like the set up the moms look great

cant wait to see more

[Vegan]

dang NICE room ya goin there ..keep the pics coming

[opt1c]

More pics as requested... i was hella busy these past few months and didn't have access to a camera... so lets skip ahead shall we

room got a bit full; had to move the mom and clone tents into the room since it is the only one in the house with ac... ahh the sacrifices i make for my plants; but that's what loves all about right? sacrifice




lights had to stay high to hit all 4 feet across; next run will be a bit less wide to remedy that problem



Well that's all for now; i'll follow up with some bud porn and then it's on to the next garden

opt1c

[stink.whistler]

Really impressive.

The bato buckets fascinate me, am definitely leaning towards those, and w/ 2 600s as well. So I am very interested in this grow.

Those reflectors look huge, which ones are they?

You say you will make your next run more narrow... 3 or 4 rows, do you think?

What nutes are you running, and how much did you go through on that run?

And thanks MUCH for posting this thread!

[HellaFella420]

Why/how did you decide to go bato?

U local shop have a sale on that equiptment?


Looks like your willing to build, soooo why THAT?

[opt1c]

emergency reservoir on the bottom incase of power outage; sits on the floor and can still do DTW; the siphon in the bottom keeps the reservoir full of fresh solution and not the old stuff; they weren't that expensive.. i have a bunch of the larger size batos.. these are 9x9.. i got for 5 a pop i'm not even using; having built biobuckets i wanted something cheap and relatively fail-safe... funny you ask though; it took so long for the local shop to get them they almost thought i had already paid for em and gave em to me for free. i had to remind them to charge me; gotta play it safe with karma

i have some bato buckets in my other garden for like over 10 years now; they last and are easy to clean as well

aside from that i liked what pimpjuice did with coco and they've been used in holland and professional nurseries for years now; just because they aren't common here doesn't mean they shouldn't be

as far as stink.whistler's questions go
they are radiant 6 ac's
4 rows; not 5
i used rez's recipe for coco w/ h&g's drip clean, zone, and gnatrol added for good measure; i don't think i spent more than 100-150 for everything; i was going though about 40gals every 7 days; could have gone with less water put i didn't want to starve the heavy feeders; coco is a little hit and miss with rootsize in a sog... not the best imho

[opt1c]

Here are the pics of the crop a little before and before the chop; yet to be trimmed and weighed







Well i'll probably be back with some cured bud shots; i'm not a photographer

Next up is some strawberry cough x deep chunk in rockwool chum dtw; will be interesting to see what happens in a rockwool dtw; really not common around here

[gregor_mendel]

Where are you getting these small batos for $5 each?
(Assuming said store is not too close to home)

On Hydrofarm's website they are over $7 each.