first grow Bio Buckets

so to give a little background. i just received my medical card and i have been researching different ways to grow here on IC and have decided to go the Bio Bucket route. I have never grown before and i don't know anyone that has done hydro before either. i am picking this route because it seems to be the most maintenance free and as far as hydro the most logical since it actually builds an ecosystem for the plant to thrive in. i am picking hydro because i have a few years of experience in saltwater reef aquariums and i think i will be able to use a lot of the same techniques or methodologies to the ecosystem, also aquariums use the same nitrogen cycle to break down waste in the system.

I have a few ideas of how i am going to go about putting my system together that i would like to run by everyone first and get some feedback on. my grow room that i have to use is 9'x9' with 8' ceiling. my goal is to have a continuous garden that always has some plants vegging and some flowering, but if it is not as economical or practical to do with my limit of 12 plants and my space alloted then i can go with one setup that i just switch the light cycle on and harvest all 12 at once. here are my different ideas:

#1 do a bio bucket set up of 8 plants that will always be flowering under a 1000w, plastic off part of the room with panda plastic and have a mother and 3 clones vegging in simple hydro bubbler buckets, every so often when the plants are ready i will harvest the oldest 3 plants flowering and then add the other 3 from veg, and start 3 new clones. this way i will harvest more often.

#2 i would panda plastic the room directly in half and run one reservoir for 2 bio bucket systems of 6, each under their own 1000w. one will be in veg at all times and one will be in flower at all times. this way i will always have a crop getting close to harvest, when i harvest one side i will take a clone off each plant in veg before it goes into flower and use the clones to start the other side. the main problem i see with this is the nutrients will be at flowering concentrations at all times and i will never get a chance to clean the system in between crops.

#3 the same as #2 just each system has its own reservoir so it can have proper nutrients and water parameters for veg and flower.

#4 and the plan i think will be easiest, cheapest to set up, and most practical. i run one bio bucket system with all 12 plants on it, and use a 1000w on a light mover. with the space alloted this will probably be my best bet but i would like to harvest more often than less often.

In any of my ideas does anyone see a problem with running a bio bucket system continuously adding in new plants for flower and never flushing it or maybe just doing a partial water change when i add new plants from my veg room. i would image it would be like an aquariums somewhat where the beneficial bacteria can get very well established and it becomes very stable. but im new at this so let me know.

i also have a question on the nitrogen cycle of a system like this. i know it runs on anaerobic and aerobic bacteria that break down waste through the nitrogen cycle the same way an aquarium does. i use a product on my aquarium that is specifically made as bacteria and enzymes to start the nitrogen cycle and also maintain it to be more efficient as well as make disolved oxygen more abundant. do you think i could use this the same way i would in an aquarium to help seed the beneficial bacteria as well as give them some extra help every week by dosing it with nutrients.

here is a link to a detailed description of what it does. if you read it, it is almost identical to BigTokes explanation of the nitrogen cycle in bio buckets.

http://www.marinedepot.com/Brightwe...-Brightwell_Aquatics-BW01220-FIADWTBS-vi.html

I also have one last question about pH. i know you can maintain pH in water with CO2, and i know pH down adds a lot of phosphates to a system. does anyone use a pH controller with a CO2 tank and regulator with a solenoid on it to keep their pH very stable and control it? i use this on my aquarium in a calcium reactor to lower the pH in the reactor to 6.5 to dissolve the media and it only takes 40 bubbles per minute to do so. the only problem i see with this is it could add to much CO2 to the water so their isn't enough dissolved oxygen.

thats it now, sorry it was so long but i have been doing lots of research and i am ready to get going on building my system.

here is a little taste of my aquarium, it is a couple months old though

Bio-bucket systems are not cheap IME

True, Bio Buckets are not cheap to setup, but very cheap to operate and once you understand how it's designed to work, it's a VERY easy grow cycle. I'll be setting mine back up for a new run very soon.
I originally did exactly what you're doing, 12 buckets in 6x2 configuration, 1000W light and a light mover.
The plants in the middle did very well while the ones on the ends did not.
This next cycle I'm going to do with 8 plants, 4x2 configuration and
run a pair of 1000W lamps, each one over a 4 plants.
I'm convinced that I'll get a better yield from this setup than I did with 12 plants. Definitely something I'd recommend you try. I'll never use a light mover again.

Caz

Harvesting 12 plants at once could be a problem if your medical, keep in mind you can only have so much medicine (dried cannabis) in your posession, so it may be a good idea to have a perpetual harvest - as in a room for vegetative growth and another room for flowering, so you aren't harvesting all 12 plants at the same time.

#1 Sounds fine to me

#2 You will need a LOT of that plastic to make it completely light proof, you will also need to somehow create a door to go from room to room. One resorvoir for both rooms will not work because they will have different nutrient requirements at different times of growth.

One reservoir for the flower room won't even work if you're throwing 3 plants into flower every so often because then your flower room will have plants at all different stages of growth. Their nutrient requirements will be similar but not equal. But how will you flush the plants before harvest if you have plants not ready for harvest on the same reservoir?

I recommend doing DWC, not RDWC. Meaning no main reservoir. Each plant has just a bucket, an air pump, and an air stone. So you can customize the nutrient requirements per plant. That, or run 3-4 reservoirs

the whole harvesting all plants at once and being medical is not a big problem for me because there is a local dispensary that will store and sell any excess that i have from my grow. Does anyone have any comments on using this bacterial supplement for the system or for using CO2 for pH monitoring? what are some nutrients that work well with the bio bucket system, or people have personal preferences for?

#1, yeah i figured it wouldn't work from what i have read but i wasn't sure if anyone had tried it or not. it was just an idea that me and my bro came up with and he has never done hydro either so i just wanted an opinion.

#3 is still a good option to keep my on hand weight down as well as it might give a better learning curve since i will have 2 systems to try different things on simultaneously.

i have abandoned the light mover idea all together because i have heard similar things from other people that said the results wernt as good as they would have hoped. i am just going to go with 2 1000w

does everyone reuse the same lava rock to keep the biological system going from system to system? or do you have to use new lava rock?