This is my first foray into growing any plants as an adult, so I spent approximately the last year researching and planning, and I finally got seeds started on 7/25. I thought the system would come together faster than it did, but over a month later, I’m satisfied with it.
My system is a flood & drain setup: external reservoir → individually fed restaurant bus tubs → sump pump tub → external reservoir. One of my primary goals was to have it be as leakproof as possible, so only the bus tubs have holes in them, and only one each. The holes sit fully over the sump tub, so even if they leak, it’s straight into a container that will pump it back out. And being f&d, there’s minimal water that remains in the bus tubs in between fill cycles.
Another goal was to make it as low-maintenance as possible, so I opted to spring for AC Infinity tent kits with the fancy control system. I also got their smart plug so I could integrate the reservoir pump into the automation schedule and deal with all of it in one place. I’ve got a 2x4 tent (which can hold 3 bus tubs perfectly), and eventually I’ll have another one for flowering. I’m still getting the room situated, so figured I would wait to set it up.
The plants are in pots made from weed prevention cloth, filled with and sitting in hydroton. This has been super useful, because I’ve been able to shuffle them around and go from shared to separate tubs without stressing about damaging roots. I did trim off some lower leaves on Thursday, since they were touching the substrate.
I have bell siphons, water level indicators for the bus tubs, and various other aspects that I’ve 3d printed, one picture is below, and I’d be happy to share more if anyone is curious.
The seeds were bag seeds from a friend, figured I’d start there in case of catastrophe at any point through my first run. I had some delays shortly after they sprouted and thought they’d died or damped off because they hadn’t progressed at all in at least a week, but went ahead and got them into a temporary f&d setup as soon as I could. A day later, they had new leaves showing up, and were off and running from there.
My basement is quite warm, but also about 45-50% humidity, so I’m opting to prioritize temperature over running the lights as high as I possibly can. My average lights-on temp sits around 84F. I also don’t want to deal with adding humidity, so I just automated the exhaust fan based on VPD. I’m not shooting for high yield (especially on this first run), just actually achieving some amount of vape-able weed.
My plan is to top them and try to root those as clones, then once they’re rooted, to flip the larger ones to flower. My partner sewed the main pots, and he’ll be making smaller ones for me this weekend. Once those are ready, I’ll be attempting the topping/cloning. I genuinely don’t actually know if these are photos or autos, so we’ll see! I’m going to treat them like they’re photos until I know differently.
I’ve had a few signs of distress, and was able to tweak things and keep stuff happy as far as I can tell. I’m pretty excited that I’ve gotten this far on my first try, though I realize there’s a long road ahead! I welcome any tips and feedback.
Pictures!
Overview - You can see that the tent juuust fits
Inside - 2 bus tubs on a shelf covered in panda film
Sump tub under the shelf
Reservoir, water monitor, and hose manifold
Bell siphon and quarter inch drain assembly
Just a few min before posting
A few min before posting but a different angle
Go back if needed, oh, I see you have already done it, wise move …
