DIY full aeroponics grow

a little background.

i'm about a week away from harvest on my first grow ever. i've decided to dump some more money into my setup.

current setup: (in my bathroom) 1 105W cfl, 8 23w cfl's mounted on to the range hood from my kitchen. a bunch of large pieces of cardboard painted white to enclose the space. and 1 6" circulation fan. dwc standalone bucket system. its about as budget as it gets.

future setup: tomorrow i will be building an aero-cloner, and 2 different aero systems, 1 for veg, 1 for flower. i thought it would be nice to takes pictures and get everyones feedback.

the cloner will be a 22 site. veg box will be 16 site, and flower box will also be 16 site. i'll be upgrading my lights as well in about 3 weeks. i'll be purchasing t5's, 600w hps, inline fan, and carbon filter. to complete the transformation.

i'll be changing location as well. no more bathroom grow for me. i'll clone and veg in my bedroom closet, and i'll be flowering in a closet elsewhere in the house. the closet i'm flowering in used to have my top/bottom washer/dryer in it(which i removed). i also removed the air vented folding door, and also plan to replace that with a real door that locks with a key. i'll be replacing the door tomorrow as well.

with all that said, i'll be posting pictures throughout the day tomorrow of my progress. as well as doing my best to explain what i'm doing. join me, it should be fun

We'll be here . Don't forget the popcorn:48:

I'll be following along here. I have never had what I would call great results from an aero set-up--don't know why. My first hydro was a smaller aero unit, but I switched to DWC after a few crops.

How large is your veg space and your flowering space going to be? How large are your containers going to be? Sixteen plants take up some room, even when you flower early.

Don't forget a pH meter and something to measure ec.

That's awesome man! I will stop by when I get home from work

my veg space is roughly 2 1/2 ft X 4ft, and the flower space is 3' x3'. in the flower room i'm going to be using 4, 5"x5"x3' vynle fence posts, capped at both ends. each post will hold 4 sites with 360degree micro sprayers between sites and a 180 degree sprayer at each end. so 5 sprayers per post, i'll add more if they dont get the job done.

as for the veg room it will be 2, 4ft vynle posts. there will be 8 sites in each post. when i get everything set up and going, the basic idea is 7-14 days in the cloner, 21 days in the veg, and both strains i've ordered from attitude are 8-9weeks flower

pics will be up soon of my progress so far

pic 1 - the flower room, i've put up the door jam and shimmed it so its plum. gonna have to pack the gaps with some spackle, but all in all a sucess. as you cans ee the door isn't attached. i have to shave a 1/2" off the bottom so that it will swing open just above the carpet. the 2x4's will hold the 3/4" plywood that the aero system will be monted on. all the of the plumbing and electrical will be routed to below the table, which is also where the reservoir will be stored as well

pic 2 - the veg room, the aero veg system will be monted on the top of the dresser. where the clones are surrently veging iswhere i'll keep the 2 moms i will be cutting clones from. it has crossed my mind that it might not be enough space so i'm prepared to remove the drawers from the other side and keep 1 mom is each space.

pic 3 - this is my little outside work station. WOW that pvc cement smells horrid! gonna finish capping the posts. then begin to drill holes for all the plumbing that will be needed

so with about 3 hrs of light left time to get back to it!!!

I have real concerns about your roots getting tangled beyond getting them separated if you veg for 21 days in tubes. The roots will grow right down the tubes and with several inches between net pots, the roots completely tangling is an almost certainty. This was one of my problems with this type of system. I am a plumber and this is exactly what I originally was going to put together.

Are you going to pull the plants from the cloner before they have roots? If so, why even put into a cloner?

Since your space is so limited, I would not keep moms.

The Hemp Goddess said:

I have real concerns about your roots getting tangled beyond getting them separated if you veg for 21 days in tubes. The roots will grow right down the tubes and with several inches between net pots, the roots completely tangling is an almost certainty. This was one of my problems with this type of system. I am a plumber and this is exactly what I originally was going to put together.

Are you going to pull the plants from the cloner before they have roots? If so, why even put into a cloner?

Since your space is so limited, I would not keep moms.

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yeah i've had concerns about roots getting tangled in the veg box as well. i considered scrapping the cloner, and using the veg box to clone in as well. but 22 sites in the cloner in a space of about 1sq ft is just much easier to control air temp, water temp, and humidity. as opposed to 8 sq ft of space that the veg box will cover. i can see where ur coming from though.

ok update. i capped all the posts, and started cutting the 1/2" pvc for the plumbing. i picked up some more tools from friends that will be needed. clearly i overestimated my ability to get alot of work done in one day. so i'm thinking this will be a 3 day excursion overall.

tomorrow's agenda: cut all the plumbing and glue it all together. maybe mount it as well(if i have the time). i have to shave about a 1/2" off the bottom of the door to make it fit. i also have to cut the plywood to fit the flowering area.

reguardless i won't have any finished(running) products till my sprayers,water pumps, hosing, gromets, net pots, etc. come in the mail. i ordered them last week so maybe i'll get lucky and they'll come tomorrow

EDIT: for anyone who is interested total amount spent to date on this project is... 559$

and i still have to purchase the 600w hps, air cooled reflector, digi ballast, 4ft 6bulb t5, inline fan, and carbon filter,
i'd say i'll be dumping about 700 - 800$ more into this before its 100% fully operational

ShOrTbUs said:

yeah i've had concerns about roots getting tangled in the veg box as well. i considered scrapping the cloner, and using the veg box to clone in as well. but 22 sites in the cloner in a space of about 1sq ft is just much easier to control air temp, water temp, and humidity. as opposed to 8 sq ft of space that the veg box will cover. i can see where ur coming from though.

Click to expand...

Actually, that is incorrect--8 sq ft will be a lot easier to control everything in. Little tiny spaces are far harder to maintain constant temps and humidity. Unless you are going to keep your plants in the cloner longer than a week, I don't understand even using the cloner--I doubt that clones are going to be rooted in that much time.

How are you going to deal with the roots of the plants getting tangled in veg? I really don't see you being able to take them out of one system and move them to another one after 3 weeks of vegging. Do you know anyone who does this? I think the roots will be a foot long or so and so intertangled with the next plant downstream that pulling them from the aero unit will result in a lot of root damage.

bad news, i didn't get any work done today, b/c i came home to leaking plumbing in my walls...ohh so much fun. so i shut off the water. cut a bunch of holes in my walls and ceilings. found the leak. cut the plumbing, and pluged it. so i'm off to lowes tomorrow for a pex 3/8" line, and a shark-bite adapter so i can attach it back to the copper 3/8" line feeding my bathroom sink. i hate this house so much. i should be able to get in on that lawsuit against quest. i've had 7 leaks in 5 years

The Hemp Goddess said:

How are you going to deal with the roots of the plants getting tangled in veg? I really don't see you being able to take them out of one system and move them to another one after 3 weeks of vegging. Do you know anyone who does this? I think the roots will be a foot long or so and so intertangled with the next plant downstream that pulling them from the aero unit will result in a lot of root damage.

Click to expand...

i've got some clones from bagseed i'm going to use as my test dummies. since i'll have 16 sites. i'm going to fill all the sites with the bagseed clones. then i'll let 4 of them run for 7 days, 4 for 14days, 4 for 21 days, and 4 for 28 days. i'll keep a close eye on them and see at what point i have to stop vegging, so that they dont get tangled and destroyed.i figure with the amount of money i'm putting into this. it's worth it to put in the time and dial it in before i germ my good seeds.

i've figured i'm going to go ahead and build the cloner even if it proves itself worthless in my situation. at the very least i think i can get my money back selling it on ebay. they're actually really cheap to build in comparison to how much u see company's charge for, ez-clone, power cloner, and such

i've also taken ur advise to scrap the MOM idea and clone from clones.

thanks for all the imput THG

ShOrTbUs said:

bad news, i didn't get any work done today, b/c i came home to leaking plumbing in my walls...ohh so much fun. so i shut off the water. cut a bunch of holes in my walls and ceilings. found the leak. cut the plumbing, and pluged it. so i'm off to lowes tomorrow for a pex 3/8" line, and a shark-bite adapter so i can attach it back to the copper 3/8" line feeding my bathroom sink. i hate this house so much. i should be able to get in on that lawsuit against quest. i've had 7 leaks in 5 years

Click to expand...

Bummer, sorry I am not there to help. I've run miles and miles and miles of Quest without any problems. I see far more problems with copper and galvanized plumbing than I do pex. Might be bad install--if you have a bad install, it doesn't matter what material your plumber used.

quest tubing was the worst thing man has used for water lines. I love this new PEX waterlines tho, in 1 day I can rough in a house that use to take 3 or 4 day.

The Hemp Goddess said:

Bummer, sorry I am not there to help. I've run miles and miles and miles of Quest without any problems. I see far more problems with copper and galvanized plumbing than I do pex. Might be bad install--if you have a bad install, it doesn't matter what material your plumber used.

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i know its just cause this place is old, and it was built poorly. all the lines are quest W/ compression fittings. 99% of the leaks are at the fittings. although this time is the weirdest thing. it looks as if the line was cut by a razer blade. its not at a junction of anykind. it was extrely hard to find as well cause it just so happens the slice in the line was right in the header of the wall. whats worse is i can tell the leak has been there for a while and i didn't even know about it. only reason i found it was cause i randomly stepped on the carpet in my closet, and it felt damp. i gotta replace a whole bunch of waterlogged drywall, and that section of carpet in the closet :-(. whats the best way to kill mold?

heavy bleach and water mix. like 2 cups of bleach to 1 gallon of water. Spray let it dry then repeat. after second spraying wipe it done real good then let dry completely before hanging the new drywall

I know that I personally replace far more bad galvanized and copper than I do polybutylene (Quest is a brand name like Kleenex and they now make Pex and Pex products). I actually have seen very very few instances where the pipe itself failed. Most of the problems with the pb came from the plastic fittings and the aluminum rings that were pinched and not crimped. I had it in a house I lived in in another place and was not concerned about it at all.

The main difference in the Quest and Pex is hat the Pex will swell to 5 times is size with out bursting. If the Quest gets cold it gets brittle and will split if there a little scratch on it. the fitting are the reason behind the law suits that so many have collected on. The new Pex fitting are better because the designers learned for the mistakes make with the Quest.

ozzydiodude said:

The main difference in the Quest and Pex is hat the Pex will swell to 5 times is size with out bursting. If the Quest gets cold it gets brittle and will split if there a little scratch on it. the fitting are the reason behind the law suits that so many have collected on. The new Pex fitting are better because the designers learned for the mistakes make with the Quest.

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^^^this, i have all the old fittings...now i spoke with someone who builds houses for a living. he told me if i dont wanna do any soddering, that there is this connector called "shark bite" that will allow me to easily connect the new pex to the old copper? or should i go another way?

LOL--I wish that Pex would swell to 5 times it's size--I would never have to winterize. Pex will expand some and come back to its normal size, but it will only expand about 10% before it splits and it will only do it a limited number of times and then it loses its elasticity. I have not found polybute to be that brittle--makes me wonder if there is something in the water in different parts of the country that causes this. If polybute and pex are side by side and one splits, the other is liable to, too. CPVC is the material that I have found to be incredibly brittle.

Sorry to have gotten off on a plumbing rant in your thread....