Hi thought I’d write and give some updates on my first indoor grow. It’s been about 18 years since my last successful grow. So I consider myself a beginner with some experience. First I will show my set up.
Size is about 2 cubic meters iam using 2 1000w full spectrum LED’s. I basically joined 2 shelving units together and cladded with 40mm Styrofoam. On the bottom shelf I have a 40 litre reservoir and 2 * 40 litre plenum boxes, which I mounted 2 * 250mm exhaust fans for my air supply. I have ducted out of each plenum box 4 * 100mm dia. Flexible duct up to the growing space where each duct connect to each end of a 40mm air diffuser manifold. I have 4 of these manifolds equally spaced at the base of the grow space.
On the top shelf I have a electrical sub main I DIY with individual breakers so if one circuit opens I won’t loose everything. I also have 1 * 30 litre plenum box with 1 * 250mm exhaust fan. The box I have divided into 2 with a baffle. 1 halve of the box is the fan in, the other half I half filled on the bottom with kitty litter crystals to absorb odour. This then is ducted out of box and out the top side of setup and straight out doors. The set up as removable panel doors also made of Styrofoam. This keeps the whole space air tight. The space is under positive air pressure, which I hope will keep any bugs or other un wanted things entering the space. Here is how it is going so far. Iam planting about 26 seedlings as I will pick the best once I start to clone so the next grow will be just 8 plants.
Heres how it’s going so far after the first week in.
First week overview.
As you can see, some OK some not so, overall not bad.we are just coming out of winter here with outside temps averaging from 3degC to 24degC. Set up temp sits at 25degC during lights on and 16degC lights off. Humidity is 60% which I control by adding 10 litres of water to the bottom air in boxes. EC for first week was 0.7 with PH 5.5. Iam using Canna vega.
Hope to update again 1week from now and look fwd to comments, tips and questions.
Nft setup …
Only problem I have with these setups , is unless your using 6" or bigger piping for your plant holders , is that the roots tend to clog everything up , unless your running really short vegg times and quick turn around times…
Looks like you put alot of time and effort into this setup , hopefully it works as you designed it too… @Wicko777
Yup. You can grow bigger plants with these type of systems but you need very big systems that either hold a ton of medium or have deep reservoirs and one of the whole advantages claimed by NFT is using less water, which it can do, but the plants have to remain small to accomplish that.
Not a bad thing, just something to be aware of so you can apply it to your growing…you need lots of small plants
I’m surprised that the light gurus haven’t been tagged yet. Theirs a couple on here that really knows their stuff and can get you squared away without the wondering if it’s good enough. I think one of the dudes is @dbrn32 but if not maybe he knows who they are and will help you
I’ve never done a real NFT grow. I just try and mimic a type of NFT grow with my top feed drip ring in my dwc, a table style NFT I’ve never done beyond.
My drip ring mimics the NFT in a system like this. This system is designed with a huge area for the grow medium however the roots are never supposed to sit down in the water with a system like this, it just keeps circulating water from the bottom reservoir area and drips a “thin film” of water over the roots then the water drops back into the reservoir to go through the cycle again
General Hydroponics Eco Complete Power Grower GH4830, Green
Actually all of General hydroponics buckets are suppose to be a “bucket style NFT” although when I first started growing I turned this one into a DWC cuz I didn’t know what the hell I was doing lol.
General Hydroponics Waterfarm Complete Hydroponic System Grow Kit | GH4120
You’ll notice it comes with an air pump, but no air stone. That’s because the air pump only powers the drip ring, it’s not designed to keep bubbles in the reservoir like DWC
