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

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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Ha!! Silly me I have to remember to actually check the truth of some things before mouthing off. Turns out one of the other nozzles is actually more covered up than this one in front!! The roots had put out a finger pod and swallowed the nozzle!

I had to force my arm into the chamber and squish the roots back so the nozzle could fire properly.

The thrid nozzle is still ok - for the time being. A finger of roots is starting to go toward the nozzle, but I suspect I have a week or two until it gets swallowed.

I noticed a change in the tone of the nozzles tonight and when I checked I found the siphon tank was dry!! Crap. Turns out he filter 200 micron filter was clogged. Looked like mostly cat hairs and some dirt. Im going to have to make a reminder to clean the dam thing more often.

So, Im now thinking that after these two episodes of “drought stress”, that I am going to have a great yield this time!! Ha!! :smiley:

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By the way, how are your nozzles going? I mean, they are brass ones, don’t they? Any corrosion happened because of nutes?

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No significant issues.

Well, early on, one nozzle showed signs of electrolysis. I traced that back to one of the water solenoids (when I was doing gravity feed) that had a leak and was allowing 12 volt current to get to the nute water. After replaceing that solenoid, no more issues other than some slight discoloration of the brass parts.

These nozzles have stainless orifices internally, which helps a lot. The nutes dont stay in contact with the brass parts long enough to be a real problem - at least so far.

I plan to do a close look at the end of this grow.

Im actually hoping you manage to find an inexpensive option that works with the nozzles you are using. I think the ones I have are wasting too many droplets on the too large and too small side of things, and not enough in the correct size range.

I do like the low air consumption, and they are capable of making nice fuzzy roots when I have it dialed in well.

My biggest problem now (other than me stupidly forgetting things), is trying to keep the roots from over growing the nozzles. No matter where I put them, the roots swallow them long before the grow is finished. Still trying to come up with a good solution to that.

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Here are some pics of one nozzle I took out after the last grow. Then a pic of the one with the electrolysis. You can see the green crap on one area.

I’ll post these in separate posts so you can zoom in if you want.

Electrolysis first.

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Here is the other nozzle. Just some discoloration with no build up.

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You know, there is no any difference for me: I’m able to see bigger versions in both multi and single pic posts, pics look the same: small version but just click on the pic and it appears full screen. Or do you mean full screen pics zooming? Can’t do this in any version as well.

Can’t imaging solution as well, at least with fixed misting point. If plants have the same moisture source direction every time, they will try to reach this place. The only way is to mist everything indirectly, but as you know still can’t do it either.

Is it a really bad thing: just to cut some parts of roots and do it regularly? Probably it is but does anyone tried?

By the way, have you seen this Atomizer’s comment?

I have tried some minor root trimming, but nothing like what would be needed to stop them from eating nozzles. The little I have done shows that the roots stop growing where trimmed - but only for a few days. It does tend to make them sprout more side shoots though.

Im not sure which comment you are talking about - the ones about the chest freezer? If so, he ridiculed me for suggesting using one just like he is talking about a year or two ago! :smiley:

I didnt see any replies to your questions though.

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No-no, I put a link to the certain comment above, here it is, the part about roots:

I’m surprised you had no luck with the netafims in that tote. The 8 site planting layout would lend itself to two 4-way nozzles and one 2-way nozzle for a total of 10 individual nozzles. Its a little overboard for a 250Ltote but it could be offset somewhat by using a solenoid on each assembly to provide better response, netafims are capable of delivering very tightly controlled mist pulses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx_nbXsyhLg
Roots always know where the source of the mist is and once you notice this you can use it to your advantage. Extension tubes of different lengths could be used with the netafims to vary the height of the nozzles. Initially, you’d want them high to encourage the roots out of the netpot. Lowering the nozzles encourages the roots to grow down which prevents the umbrella rootball issue you ran into. If the roots head down they will tend to be a cone shaped mass which leaves space at the top of the tote. Once the roots are down far enough you can raise the nozzles and hope you make it to harvest before the roots completely fill the tote.
Roots that resemble straight columns between the netpot and floor are too wet (they’ve followed the water), umbrella roots tend to form where there are fewer or no larger droplets. Nozzles mounted low down or nozzles that create too small a droplet size or not enough of the larger sizes (50-80 micron).
You have to keep your eyes and mind open with aero, its easy to overlook stuff like this even when its right in front of your eyes. Nutrient and water uptake is where things get really interesting, if you recirculate the nutes you`ll be none the wiser :wink:
A big compressor would work but it may not be worth it. As an example to run a typical 100gal AA chambber for 24hours on one tank of air, charged to 145psi and allowed to discharge to 40psi. The tank would need to be 200gallons, about 26" diameter x 8ft tall. The compressor on a tank that size would be 10-20hp and likely cost 4-6 grand which is a lot considering it would only run once a day :wink:

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My 100 gallon air compressor only has a 5 hp motor on a twin cylinder pump and it takes like 10 min to fill to 175psi from dead empty

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Ah, the link didnt take me to the exact comment. Yeah, I have read all that from him before in other places. I have actually done that more than once, but it is not as easy as it sounds.

In my case, there is very limited access from outside the chamber. I can only easily reach the front and part of one side without dismantling the table the tent sits on. My space is very limited. Trying to reach the nozzles from the access hatch on top is also tricky - especially once the roots start to get big and fill the space. You can see in the pics above, there is literally no room to get in there any more and Im only half way through the grow. I have another removable patch on the side of the root chamber, but it is also now blocked by roots.

I have come up with several plans to make the nozzles movable, but they all have major issues or problems. Many of them have to do with the roots getting in the way as they grow. This is why I was trying early on to get that inverted cone shape - but I failed in that!

His comment about the umbrella roots is a good one that I had forgotten about. Now Im wondering if Im having the same issue you are - too dry a mist? It certainly seems possible. I know these nozzles put out a large % of big droplets though, so Im still not 100% sure. This time around it may be more a nozzle position issue - too hi in the chamber for too long. I should have dropped them lower after the roots got started, or put them on the bottom shooting up like I did last time, but with some way to raise them as needed.

Right now Im trying to work out the mechanics of how to have nozzles that can easily be raised, re-positioned, and rotated as needed - all from outside the chamber. If I had a much larger grow space it would be simple…

Interesting. It doesnt work that way for me at all. When there are more than a single picture in a post, I get a “viewer” that displays the pic at some medium level. When I click it again, it just goes to the next picture with no extra zoom. If its a single pic, then the second click makes it full size at the original rez.