Interesting. What do you think caused the damage here? Light? Things dried out?
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Mostly drying out Im sure, but the roots dont like light either.
When I have the timing set really close to the ideal level, and the droplet size is close to ideal, that means there is only a very thin layer of water on the roots at any given time. There are the occational large drops you can see in the closer pics of the roots, but on average, that water layer is only microns thick. That thin a layer of water will evaporate very quickly if given half a chance. On top of that, the drifting fog of small droplets is very easily dispersed by even the slightest air leaks. You have seen how those droplets just float in the chamber. All of that adds up to rapid drying, which causes the air pruning as the roots die back.
Just a few minutes ago, I discovered that the time I left the lid off was captured by the time lapse pics I have been taking. I need to process a GIF, but you can see the roots shrivel up and turn color very rapidly after the door gets left off.
Its kind of cool in a depressing and embarrassing sort of way 
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That would be valuable information for the community to see. I’m guessing I’ll be a bit surprised at how rapid the damage progressed.
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Note that the root die back happens very fast. For some reason some of the images are out of sequence, so this is off to some degree. I will leave it up for now. Might take me a while to figure out what Im screwing up - still on drugs 
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Ok, I think this will work better.
The lid was off for aprox 12 hours total.
The roots in the affected areas had shriveled up and died by hour 4.
It took until around hour 10 for the plants to react and droop suddenly. You can see that best by watching the small plant in the bottom part of the image. It droops first and most dramatically.
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Cool, thanks for the animated GIF. I can’t see it well but I do think I can see the rapid die back of the roots on middle left of the image. Amazing. I wouldn’t have imagined that would occur so quickly. Thanks for posting that.
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Day 39 Time for a more or less normal up-date.
Things are actually going pretty well considering the recent root trauma. I have been expecting to see some serious leaf damage to show up, but they actually look pretty good.
It more and more clear I need to re-think the nozzle placement, and/or the way they point, and/or the total number of nozzles or some dam thing. The roots continue to have three distinct “zones” of growth.
Zone 1: The top maybe 10" to 12" of the chamber are producing nice white wide spreading roots, but the fuzzies are unevenly distributed. Most places are nice and fuzzy, but some areas are smooth white roots - which indicates they are getting/staying too wet, but not by much. If they were really way too wet, those shoots would have gone to the floor instead of spreading wide.
Zone 1a: This is the area between the upper roots and the side walls of the chamber. Im not getting good mist flow into these areas since early on as the roots spread out. I definitely need to keep the roots further from the chamber walls to allow for better flow.
Zone 2: The middle 10-12" or so is staying too dry and the rots are even air pruning to some degree.
Zone 3: The bottom 4" to 6" is staying the best as far as having fuzzy hairs almost everywhere.
Im still playing with lots of different ideas but nothing has firmed up yet. I will likely change my mind several times before the next grow cycle 
The big girl continues to way out perform the runt - both in root development and over all size. The runt hasnt even made it up to the scrog screen, while the big girl is spreading out nicely.
Its starting to get difficult to get into the chamber to get decent pics, but here you go - root porn
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Sorry for a long silence, had something in process. I’m curious would it be interesting for anyone on this forum to read about AAA but not weed specific? I’m very thankful for you, Larry, and for this place for all information and ideas I’ve found here and would be happy to share my experience in exchange but not sure it is suitable for this forum.
This is what I have now, this is a root chamber frame: https://youtu.be/sBKep33Fo8w
And this is what I do now:
Some math (I need water flow to the certain part of the chamber):
Root chamber outer core (PVC film) in progress.
Will see how would it work, I’ve made the things in a way I can easily add an inner textile chamber later.
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I dont see why not. People talk about growing all sorts of other plants all the time - tomatoes, peppers, clover, and strawberries. In this case, I think the technical aspects will be the most interesting. The basics of setting up and controlling an AAA grow are independent of the type of plant. I think more people will become interested in this technique over time and the more information that is out there, the better.
I think starting a thread in Advanced Techniques would be just fine.
To be 100% sure though, we should ask the big boss - @LemonadeJoe - what he thinks.
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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.
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”.
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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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 
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.
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
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 
Looking good, man!
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