Cool vid and nice page. Do you only use cns-17 does it have the micro in it?

Another good video halfway,

I know you eat the lettuce as it grows, rather than waiting and harvesting the complete heads/plant. But I was just wondering if you have been able to calculate much it costs to grow each plant (electricity, nutrients, growing medium, heating/cooling, etc.), in order to be able to compare with buying the same produce from the market?

hh, $6 a month in electricity for the 6 bulb T8 lights. pennies for nutes. I ran the numbers on one of the early posts in my blog to show feasibility. The savings are meaningful and as we were discussing last night, no wasted lettuce rotting in the fridge. It is also more nutritious and flavorful than the bagged crab and especially iceberg.

After depreciating out the initial items costs (lights, tubs, pump, air line tubing etc.), and recurring costs (bulb changes, medium, rockwool macro plugs), it becomes pennies per plant which is harvested as many as 30 plus times.

I will continue the basement grows through summer as it remains cool when the outdoor lettuce bolts. I see no reason to have at least 2 batches running at all times as it is so easy on the wallet and even easier on my valuable time $$.

As far as CNS17 goes, it contains all needed macros and micros. I am using "Grow" as I don't need flowering nutrient ratios.

Thanks for that. I like saving $ growing produce I never thought to wonder how much it cost me.

do you run the bulbs 24/7?
In you video, you mention adding the nutes to 1/2 gallon of water then adding that to the rez. Why not just add the nutes directly to the rez? It just seems like an unneccessary extra step.

Grizz, I should have elaboarated a bit on mixing the nutes. The only reason I mix it in about a half gallon is to get it mixed really well. CNS17 seems to clump or glob to the bottom of the bin if I do not mix it well. It will probably disolve over time I guess. It is also very messy mixing it while in the tub.

The lights for lettuce is 14 on, 10 off. That seems to be about the best balance I have found. The cost calculation were based on 16 hours on I believe. I will have to go back and look at the data though.

24 on didn't seem to improve the grow, but it seemed that 12 or less slowed it down.