newbie hydro minigrow - DWC or Autopots?

[toasty]

Hey everyone,

 

I've finally gotten around to planning my personal grow. I live in a small flat, so I'm thinking of building a grow box that's pretty unintrusive and can be hidden in a corner or under a desk easily. The dimensions I'm thinking of are

700mm high x 600mm wide x 800mm deep.

 

DWC had always looked the most attractive as far as hydro goes, seems pretty straight forward and means I won't need to deal with soil.

 

But yesterday I spotted these autopot things which look more suited to my problem. No pumps and it looks easy to setup. I was worried slightly about the bubbling noise from the pump in a DWC, and these autopots seem harder for a newbie like me to bugger up

 

Here's a little drawing I did of what I'm planning.

 

 

What do you think? I'd only use one of the pots that come with the autpot kit and grow one plant at the start from seed. Then if it's a girl I'll clone it and grow in the other I might also setup a separate CFL mother chamber.

 

Questions below:

The growroom calculator thinks I can fit 250W in this space. Has anyone used a 250W HID in such a cramped space, or should I go with CFLs?

 

Has anyone used these autopots before? will the reservoir fit in my space? How high does it need to be raised from the plants to do its gravity thing?

 

Thanks for your help everyone

[Shithappens]

Questions below:

The growroom calculator thinks I can fit 250W in this space. Has anyone used a 250W HID in such a cramped space, or should I go with CFLs?

Your problem will be keeping the plants out of the burn zone of a 250Wer try more of smaller lights as you show it will give a more even spread to all your buds

 

Has anyone used these autopots before? will the reservoir fit in my space? How high does it need to be raised from the plants to do its gravity thing?

They are nice and easy the reservoir needs to have its lowest water level just before empty above the water line of the auto pots as a minimum but higher is better

 

Use a filter as if the valve thing gets stuck open or blocked you will know it

 

Why have your res in the box? if you have light in with water and food (nutrients) you get algae crap....

 

Have an air stirrer fan as well in there as it gives them strength !!!

[sirtokesalot]

looks intersting the plant would need to be very small in that space

[sirtokesalot]

where do you buy those autopots?

[WantDaChronic]

i think you'd be better off using a few of those 130w fluros in that small space instead of a 250w hps or a heap of compact fluros. other than that it looks like a good plan to me

[J0k3rP0k3r_69]

if money and time is not an issue look into gettin a 70w HPS n 70 w MH mix em together for multi spectrum.. will give u a perfect result

[Shithappens]

Wow you can get 70w hps's damm well i never

 

i could use a few of these to spreed about to boost some low light areas

[toasty]

Thanks for your replies everyone.

 

ShitHappens: Thanks for the tip about the reservoir. I'll put it in a separate part of the box. Glad that someone thinks the autopots are nice and easy, that's exactly what I'm after. Would you recommend any nutes in particular? The kit comes with some, but I don't know if they'd be suitable for these plants.

 

WantDaChronic: Yeah, I reckon fluros will be the go unless I can find a way to hide a bigger grow space. I've seen some pretty decent yields with fluro grows on some other sites, hopefully i can replicate that

 

sirtokesalot: Yep it'll need to be small, I'll either LST or Scrog the plant to keep it low. I'll also not veg it for too long before flowering. I've been looking at getting the autopots from Nutriflo. Pretty sure other places sell them too.

 

J0k3rP0k3r_69: I haven't seen any low wattage HPS lights for sale from the online hydro shops here but I'll keep an eye out.

 

[mrsmokey1]

thanks, i just went and bought the autopots in a 4 pot system from the guy who invented them guy was showing me photos and him of don burke, nice chinese chap. He even connected everything up for me.

 

Toasty, what medium you growing them in soil? or perlite, verm? I was gonna do coco but he told me not to. So i might go the perlite/verm mix.

 

Any 1 eslse use these autopots?

[sunnycoaststoner]

i'm with wdc on this one , fluro's be the go and keep the heat down for you.