giving it a go said:
well basically me n my mate have our own place n we both smoke a lot and we came to the conclusion it takes the piss having to waste money on mediocre bud people have to sell.. so we wanna grow our own! nothing major, 3-6 plants in a 60 litre tub, about 10 sprayers.. hoping for 5+ oz per plant. I assumed that DWC was hard to manange seeing as the roots are submerged entirely?
I want to start out by telling you that we are here to help. Part of that means that we are going to tell you the truth. While I may come across as terse sometimes, I do have your best interests at heart, so keep that in mind.
DWC is not hard to manage and the roots are not submerged entirely. The problems with aero is that the sprayers have nute solution going through them and they clog regularly. In addition, the addition of a water pump to the res raises the temp of the res solution too high. You almost certainly would need a chiller.
Not trying to burst your bubble, but your expectations are not realistic. A 5 oz plant is a large plant. In 30 years of growing, I have never had an indoor plant go over 5.5 ozs, with most running in the 3 oz range And you could never ever get 3-6 5 oz plants in a 60 liter system.
The next hurdle is your space--I translate it to be approx 36" x 30" x 72". You are hoping for a yield in the 1-2 lb range. While you may be able to get a pound from a space that size eventually, you will need a dialed in space and have to do everything right. And it will not happen right out of the gate--there is a large learning curve to this growing stuff.
I would suggest a 600W HPS for flowering with an air coolable hood. I have found that T5 fluorescents work great for vegging. You will need ventilation, probably a 6" centrifuge type fan (don't get a duct booster fan as they do not work) for exhaust, although a 4" may work. You will need an oscillation fan for the space. I would go individual DWC buckets if you are sold on hydro. I think that DWC is the easiest of all the different types of hydro. You need buckets, lids, net post, medium, air tubing, air stones, and 1 or more air pumps. I like 1 larger one, some people use several smaller ones. You want the buckets to look like they are boiling, so you do need some air--ie don't buy a 5 gal aquarium pump for a 5 gal bucket--you need something larger like 20 gal pump. You will need net pots and medium. You will need a pH meter, caqlibration fluids and pH up and down. You will need something to measure ppms, calibration fluids, and nutrients. You will want to start with quality genetics. Decide what kind of high you want (up and energetic, something to relax, etc) and then start looking at seedbanks for something that sounds great.
Run everything by the good members here for advise--before you buy, as we can probably save you money and steer you away from things you don't want.
