Adventures in hydro #3 - AAA or Air Atomized Aeroponics - for sure!

Thats good. I was wanting something that would kill pain and put me to sleep :slight_smile:

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Day 93 More harvest

I cut two more of the colas on the big girl. Total wet weight 253 gms, so these two were significantly smaller than the first two. These were not the two main ones though, so thats expected.

Dry weight should be in the 68 gm range, so this portion of this one auto is now up to around 180 gms dry Im guessing. It looks to me like there is at least that much still on the other branches of this one girl.

It occurs to me that dragging out the harvest like this increases my total days, so in the end, my gm/day yield may be less than I calculated above - unless the total yield is larger than I guessed - which it may be.

I removed the scrog screen before starting.

After todays cut.


The seedlings are starting to pop. It looks like 4 of them are really eager.

Ok, ok, this is sort of sneeky, not so subtle bragging, but Im gonna do it anyway :wink:

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Day 94 harvest continues…

I cut 556 gms wet today, so maybe another 145 or so dry weight. Still a lot to go, but most of the rest needs some more time - which is fine with me. Harvesting in small steps is a lot easier when you feel like crap anyway.

This is what is still left on the vine…

Im putting as much of this as I can fit in the freezer, which will be maybe the equivalent to 150-200 gms of dry bud. Then, after turkey day, I will see if I can find some dry ice and give that a go. The rest of it is sitting out to dry some. I have no idea if that will help or hurt anything, but I dont have room to freeze it all, so Im stuck.

I am tempted to try pressing some of it, but I think you need heated plates for than and I dont have a good way to heat the plates. I’ll have to look into that some.

The seedlings are doing ok. I screwed up and fed them nutes water from my rez at EC 1.2, so they popped up super dark green. Ive since gone back to tap water. All but one look to be ok. That one is strange and I will probably cull it for sure.

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Im just wondering. Is 250°F for 40 minutes good for any size haul? Im not going to be growing any soda can size colas like @anon32470837 but I’m desperate to learn the “RSO” method and make oil for myself. I’m reading more and more about rso and I’m really wanting to try it as soon as possible.

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Yeah for the most part, up to about a 1/4 on baking pan.

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This is a very long thread, but it is the bible on how to make RSO, tinctures, de-carbing, etc. Lots of different techniques are discussed in detail. He is being shy, but @ReikoX is THE MAN on all things tincture, RSO, Edibles, hash, and pressing - AND - the inventor, manufacturer, and distributor of the single most important growing ingredient any of us could use - LITFA

Id recommend a fast read first, but make notes of specific posts to go back to and re-read. Truely one of the most information dense and valuable threads on this forum.

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I have done several baking sheets full of bud in the oven both to dry it out and to de-carb. If you pile it too hi, it doesnt dry or cook evenly. The outer layer gets much drier much faster and the stuff on the bottom, and in the middle of the sheet stays wet(er). Now I only pile it one layer of buds thick. Better to take more time and do it right.

This time around Im hoping to avoid all that stinky oven cooking. Im going to make dry ice hash, then decarb the hash in coconut oil on the stove top. I am also going to make some green dragon, but have not decided how to de-carb first… I will probably take @ReikoX advice and put the hash in aluminum foil and cook it, then dissolve in alcohol.

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I have a jar of alcohol quick wash in my freezer now because I didn’t decarb first and now I don’t know what to do with it, lol.

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If you leave it in a cool dark place for 90 days, it will naturally decarb.

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I almost just did the same thing! You could go ahead and boil off the alcohol, de-carb the oil, then re add the alcohol if you want tincture.

I keep forgetting about that option. This would apply equally to hash, or oil from a press or un-processed bud?

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Day 96 and this grow is done!

I just finished my final cutting, turned off the timers, lights, and pumps. Well, the lights will stay on for the new seedlings :slight_smile:

I have to say @ReikoX came up with a very interesting cross in this one, and Im giving it a 5 star rating even before I “smoke” it in some capsules. For one thing, this baby is tough as nails. It kept coming back from my repeated murder attempts and after all that, I found zero hermies and no seeds sacks. On top of that, the yield is way beyond my wildest dreams for an auto.

I think I should get some credit. The training I did under the scrog screen resulted in many large colas with numerous good size side branches with densely packed buds for the most part. Im sure the size of the root chamber and the aero also contributed as well as just the extra grow time, but the plant genetics had to play a role as well.

Final numbers are 2937 gms wet. Using my 26% dry weight number that works out to around 761 gms dry or an average of 254 gm per plant. It took 96 days from seed, so thats 7.9 gms/day. Thats just amazing to me and way beyond expectations. Its also my highest ever gm/day yield. I will report back with a “smoke” report after I have a chance to process the hash.

Keep in mind, I save more than you smokers do. Except for stems, if its frosty, I save it, so my numbers are somewhat higher than what many folks would come up with.

Some final pics.

Here is one more “bud shot”. This is one of the last branches I cut from the back side. It look shuge, but its actually just several brancheings off of the main stem. This is what LST under a scrog screen can do.

The remains. Note the size of the stem on the center baby - just over 1/4". The others are at least 1.5". The roots show a similar size difference. Im left wondering why the difference. The middle one was originally the second largest, but it took the runt position after the second or third dry-out event. Did this one just react more strongly to the drying event or did the other two plant roots - one on either side - choke it out?

This is the roots. Note the center plant has much smaller roots compared to the other two.

Still a few spots of fuzzy hairs, but most of it is smooth. Some of the roots also look to be dying off. I wonder of thats from cutting down the tops earlier or some other reason?

This last one is just to show how thick the under growth was- all the way down. Much of that inner bud was light weight, but still very frosty, so I kept most of it.

I have surgery Monday, and several things to do before then, so I doubt I will do any dry ice processing until at least late next week. Im going to try to make some progress on the root chamber re-build so I can get the new babies started asap. I dont want them to get too big in the mini hempy buckets before I move them over.

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Man what a result! Well done!

The biggest yielding and fastest growing plants I have seen have been done in aero, just not mine unfortunately lol…
I think maybe the story is that if your spray droplets are atomized to around the right size, then oxygen levels at the roots are much higher than any other method, then they sprout lots of fine feeding roots to hoover up more nutes more efficiently. All I know is that despite my very best efforts no other grow method I’ve seen to come close to it. … then of course the person at the controls might just be playing a small part also :smile:

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As long as it is sitting in alcohol, yes it applies. I’ve heard Blue River doing something similar using terpenes. Interestingly terpenes are pretty similar to an alcohol in structure.

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You deserve more credit than me. You did all the work, all I did was chuck some pollen. Cant wait to see how your next run goes. :+1::seedling:

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Yup, thats the basic theory behind it all.

I rate the different forms of hydro based on how good a job they do as far as aeration. They all are different ways to increase oxygen at the root level. I think HPA and especially AAA are at the peak as far as that goes and all other forms are a step down to one degree or another.

Now, dont all you DWC guys get your panties in a bunch. I know any form of hydro or even soil growing can produce great results. Im talking small steps down and small differences.

You soil guys on the other hand… :wink:

And yes - the grower has everything to do with the final success. Just look at @ReikoX and @Howard.Crane, just to name two. Both are using “inferior” techniques by my rating system, but to look at their plants compared to mine you would think Im growing my plants in the dark, in my toilet and feeding them toxic gator aide and fertilizing with my daily crap dumps :smiley:

It sounds like you are using some form of aero growing? Have a thread? Im always curious to see how other folks are growing. I get many of my best ideas that way :smiley:

So its the alcohol. Interesting. I dont know if I want to wait that long though. Im not usually that patient :slight_smile:

Thank you sir! I am looking forward to it as well. More on that in a bit.

Here are some better pics of how the roots at the net pots turned out on each plant. This is mostly for my reference down the road. These are all 3" net pots.

The babies for the next run are doing well, but growing fast! I need to hurry up and get the chamber re-built.

It doesnt take long for the fine roots to dry up and turn brown! They compress into a pretty small ball too.

Right now Im agonizing, and flip flopping over how to lay out the 4 nozzles. The only thing Im certain of is that they will be up top this time. At the moment, Im leaning toward Option 1, but two has some advantages. In both cases, the plan is to have the nozzles pointed down at aprox a 30-45 deg angle and oriented so that they create a swirling, or rotating action inside the chamber. Im back to my cyclodroplatron :slight_smile:

Part of my delima is deciding how many plants am I going to grow? Based on this last grow, I need 3 plants to fill the screen - BUT - if things went better Im pretty sure two would be enough. On the other hand, four would add some insurance, but might end with severe over crowding - maybe.

With option 1, three plants is easy, but doing one or 4 would be difficult to get uniform coverage.
Option 2 has similar issues, but it favors two or four plants.

We will see how Im feeling in the am. Im gonna sleep on it before cutting holes.

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You going to use those roots for a topical cream?

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Not this time. There were some signs of rot in a few places, and I dont want to mess with that. Plus, Im rushed at the moment. I was really tempted to save a section of that thick tap root, but decided not to at the last second.

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Ive decided to go with the three nozzles in the triangle formation around the edges, with the fourth one in the center. The outer three will be angled for the swirling action, and the center one will point straight down. There were a number of small reasons that option works best - routing tubes, placing the siphon tank, the access hatch, etc. However, the biggest reason is I really like the idea of a center nozzle. I think it will help a lot with getting even mist coverage.

This option also allows me to place the net pots equidistant from the fabric chamber walls and each other. That should allow for maximum root volume before they start getting entangled. Im still worried about that one plant that had the really small roots from last time. All three pots will have the exact same mist coverage and distance from the nozzles and the walls and each other…

We will see how this works compared to having the nozzles in the bottom of the chamber.

Even if there is no improvement in this next grow, as long as I dont totally screw it up, I should still be able to fill the screen and get a decent yield over time = grams/day. Of course, at this point this is all theory :slight_smile:

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My check in time for getting these stones removed isnt until 230PM today. Im sure many of you know what thats like. Im sitting around hungry and thirsty and bored. So this morning I cobbled together enough parts to do a quick test of the new siphon tank arrangement.

It seems to work great so far. It needs some more testing with all four nozzles running at the same time, but Im optimistic.

It didnt turn out exactly how I pictured it though. I have almost no room to adjust the water level with this tank. Right now it looks like my siphon “height” is under 1" and I have no easy way to increase that. I want to test heights up to 4" or so to see how that effects the droplet sizes and flow rates. Im going to need a different container to do that ot rig it under the top of the root chamber. I really want it accessible from above, so I need to look for a taller container.

The way these nozzles water feed works, Im forced to rout the water tube up above the chamber roof, then down into the nozzle. Seems to be virtually zero delay in time between the start of air flow and the mist forming.

Some ugly pics…



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I finally have three new babies started in the re-built system. I think I will start a new thread for the new grow though as things have changed a good bit.

I’ll post a link when I get it started.

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