Adventures in Aero #4 - Sebring's Earth Lover (now Dragon Tongue)

Ok, Im short on coffee, but I cant figure out what the final shape is going to be - a simple rectangular shape or a tapered odd shape or? Nozzle placement?

Glad to see this progress!

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Just finished outer chamber:

Of course, had broken my riveter in the middle of the process. But got a new one and finished. :slight_smile:

Now it should rest for a day or two (till sealer fasten) and then i’m going to install it inside the frame.

The nozzle will be near the bottom from the plywood side (I’ve put plywood there to mount all components).

The only problem with the chamber is that this film isn’t 100% light proof. So I’ll need to figure out how to seal it from the light.

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Ah - now I get it. I would have thought that material was light proof.

What are you going to use for a lid/top to hold the plants? This is shaping up nicely! Im looking forward to seeing how you put the rest together.

We havent heard back from @LemonadeJoe, so Im going to take that as a “yes you can have a strawberry thread on OG as long as it about AAA growing techniques”. :wink:

Id suggest we keep it in hydroponics.

I dont have the power to edit/move posts, so maybe one of the mods can move your posts to a new thread under your name? It would be good if they can move my responses too I think. That would save a lot of re-typing to fill in missing info.

Be sure to tag me when this gets setup.

Any mods that can do that?

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@heathen, start a new topic and let me know if and what you’d like moved into that thread.

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Day 44 and no big changes. The girls look fine other than the runt staying runty. Im starting to think its just not going to grow much more. The big girl is spreading out on the scrog screen nicely. I expect to get a decent haul from it.

The flowers are also starting to get formed up nicely and the first hints off frost are showing up. Oddly enough, its the runt that has the most frost so far.



Its getting difficult to see down into the bottom of the chamber. These two babies are positioned so that they tend to block my access hatches.


I decided to take a peek at the bottom of the root chamber. I was curious to see if the roots were trying to grow down through the fabric pots. It looks very much like the bottoms of my soil pots. The roots have penetrated, but air pruned and are just short nubs. So, its working according to plan.

The dried nutes are certainly building u

p quite a layer of salts. I think I had better “flush the pot” to get some of that out before the next grow.

It occurs to me the roots are following the first rule of roots - go for the source of the water. The nozzles are up top, so the main force of the roots is to grow towards the nozzles. They only go down reluctantly. Im going to have to see what can be done about that next time.

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Guys, really sorry for so long answers and reactions, been very busy with this my project, just wanted to start it more than to write :see_no_evil:

But here it is, finally, the first version: https://youtu.be/Qt5vN1jCrh0 .

Looking forward for your comments!

P.S. I’m going to start a new thread ASAP, hopefully today.

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After a little thoughts I think it’s probably better to leave my comments here as they are parts of the whole picture. I would better point this thread to everyone interested in.

Thanks anyway! I’ve started a new thread.

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Thats fine with me. :slight_smile:

Lets add a direct link to your new thread to make it easy.

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Day 46 No real news. Other than topping off the rez every 5 days or so, the system is solidly in LITFA mode - which is a good thing!

Here is a quick GIF of the last 7 days or so. NO big changes.

I also made a short root tour video.

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Day 47 and no real changes, but Im bored and hi, so here is a mostly useless and/or silly up-date :slight_smile:

The plants are starting to smell and develop some more frost. I did some bottom up shots trying to imitate @Howard.Crane wife’s cool arty pics. Mine are not nearly as good as hers, but I like them.

I decided to look at the roots again. Its only been one day, but the roots are a lot closer to cutting off the one nozzle, and its getting to where its really to tight to reach down into the lower part of the chamber from up top. The roots are really closing in on the nozzle that’s in the center of the opening. It wont be long before the nozzles is covered up. Fortunately, the other two nozzles have a long time to go so the roots will still have good mist from the far side.

Unfortunately, I forgot to start the camera in the correct position, so the video is upside down again. Sorry!

On top of that, I dropped the camera part way through so you get some odd views.

Here is a before and after pic of the damage my arm did to the roots. The fuzzy hairs make the roots act like velcro and the stick together when compressed. They seem to stay that way too, and dont bounce back.

In other news, the plants are starting to smell more as the frost builds up.


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I showed her and she took over my phone for five minutes looking at them, lol. We like them :smile:

Looking good, man!

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Oops - forgot to post the new video.

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Man your research and development, communication, enthusiasm and personality are amazing! Way to take it to the next level seriously :+1: this is the kind of stuff that that changes the rules for growing. I love how you do it your own way. Trailblazer!!!

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Wow. Thank you @Outlaw !!

I have to ask - are you saying that because I dropped my phone down into the root chamber or because all my recent videos are up-side down :wink:

Seriously - thanks man! Thats an awesome compliment!

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Day 51 No big changes. The plants continue to mature and look good. The runt is still 100% runt and has not grown taller in weeks. It is chunking up some, but its not going to yield much I dont think. The big girl still looks good. They are both starting to smell stronger.

The most interesting thing is the roots are closing in fast on the nozzle in front. The opening is almost completely closed off now. Its easy to see the progression in only the last three days. Note the dent on the right side from my arm when I reached in to get my phone is still there.

Im going to have to only post a single pic per post from now on. If I post more than one pic per post, I cant zoom in and thats just not going to work foe me.

It sucks not being able to zoom in. It means before and after pics have to be in separate posts :frowning:

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The after pic.

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2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Site Update February 2020 - What has changed

Day 54

Well, its obvious I have completely failed at the root training I started out to do in the beginning! :smiley:
The roots have merged and completely blocked off this one nozzle. Fortunately the other two are further away from the roots and still can distribute mist around the chamber to some degree.

No big changes up top. Both plants look fine and continue to develop buds and get more frosty.

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I am about to give up on trying to “fill the chamber with mist” in my setups. It just has not worked using ANY of the nozzles/positions/pressures/feeds/etc, etc that I have tried - HPA or AAA. I am seriously doubting some of the things atomizer has been proposing as gospel. It may be that you just cant do it the way he says unless you are using a $200 nozzle as he has sometimes claimed. Or - he is just leading us on a wild goose chase down the wrong path trying to reach an impossible goal. It occurs to me that he has never posted root pics of his setups that I have been able to find - other than one shot of a single root hair all by itself. As far as Im concerned, if there are no pics, it didnt happen.

Im going to go back through my earlier grows looking at what worked best. Im already pretty sure that shooting UP from the bottom of the chamber works better than anything else, but I want to be sure.

Then of course, there is still the problem of how to keep the roots from ‘over growing’ the nozzles!! :wink:

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Interesting. I just went back and checked my earlier grows. In every case it has taken somewhere around 60 days or a little less for the roots to get big enough to begin covering up the nozzles. On the last AAA grow, it took 56 days and Im now at 54 days on this grow. One of the HPA grows was closer to 60 days.

It doesnt seem to matter where they are either - top, bottom, middle. They all got over grown.

I need to ponder this some more, but Im thinking that this almost has to be primarily a function of chamber size, plus total number of plants, as much as anything else. It seems to be independent of the type of plant - photo vrs auto.

Bottom line is this means a really need a MUCH larger root chamber. Unfortunately, I just dont think I have enough room to expand it much more than it is now…gonna have to think on that when Im less stoned, and have had more sleep :wink:

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