You should also do a video with the cameras light on. That will give you a better idea of how dense the mist is. The laser beam will stay lit up pretty well even when the mist is on the thin side.
In your video, the mist starts to drop down from the top roughly one minute after the nozzle turns off. Thats not bad, but I did see some banding earlier on starting about 20 seconds in. You may have some air leaks causing drafts or the mist may just be a bit thin. The lights on video will help clarify that.
The banding/leak/ventilation could be cause I had the drain screw open for the camera.
Normally that will likely have a pipe/hose attached. I suspect that’s where a draft may have been coming from and if so, I would also suspect it likely won’t have that draft when a pipe/hose is attached
Also, I looked at it with a light on and it seemed super thick… I don’t know if this is normal or if it was during my laser malfunctioning (not full brightness), but I couldn’t see the laser when the light was on, in fact I couldn’t even see all my white pvc pipes in my chamber either.
That could be it. I get that banding when my flow rate is on the low side and the chamber isnt filling completely, or when the camera opening flap isnt sealed completely. It also can happen if you wait till the mist is settling out and its getting thin.
That sounds good overall, but you dont want the mist toooo thick or the roots will stay too wet.
Were you using the light from the camera flash or just room light, or?
The best light for illuminating the mist is from an LED. Your builtin camera flash, or the flashlight function should work great. A regular, narrow beam flashlight will work, but an LED is better.
What are the dimensions of your chamber - diameter, height?
Once you get those flow rate numbers, we can start playing with some specific ON/OFF times and see how it looks. Then you can do some testing to see how wet the roots stay.
I forget - what nutes are you planning to use? Id highly recommend you do NOT use anything organically based. NO teas, no kelp, etc. Pure salts work best in any kind of hydro. You will also want to run sterile with either chlorine or H2O2.
I STILL dont have any fuzzy hairs and Im pretty much out of things to try and ideas as to why.
From my first HPA grow all the way through every single AA grow, I have had fuzzy hairs show up within 2 to three days of putting the baby plants into the system. Even when I halfway kill the roots from stupidity by leaving the nozzles turned off for hours at a time, I have always been able to get them back in just a few days.
But ever since I started experimenting with the SS nozles after the end of my last grow, nothing has worked. I went back to the old nozzles, and that didnt work, so I bought new ones because the old ones were getting clogged up with salt deposits. That still didnt work, so I switched over to known good seeds, and that still didnt work. So I have gone back to my old positioning of the nozzles and the old pressures and timing schedules - that worked great before - and still no fuzzies!
The roots look like good LPA roots. White and smooth.
Ive checked the PH using two different, freshly calibrated meters, drops and strips and the PH is perfect. Ive tried increasing and decreasing the EC. Ive tried more and less chlorine and no chlorine. Ive tied pressures from 5 PSI up to 25 PSI and siphon heights from 0-4". Direct spraying and 100% indirect spraying and everywhere in between.
Nothing has changed in the tent or the chamber. Temps, and humidity are within the same ranges they always have been.
I was using my camera phone led light… I will try to get another video eventually with the light on and off to compare against the laser…
My nutes are planned as of right now to be salts and h202. I will likely mixed up a batch (for leafy greens) of some sort of master blend maybe close to the Steiner formula altho I have to figure out the sulphur aspect of it if I remember correctly last time I tried to calculate it using the hydro buddy… Also h202…
We talked a about organics a tiny bit and if I recall, you said it’s no bueno because it clogs up the nozzle?
When you tried them, did you ever try them at like 200ppm or something very very low?
One organic which I wonder if it would have a positive effect would be Yucca, as a surfactant… but I don’t know too much about surfactant and am not sure if this would actually work for or against our fuzzy goals.
And my chance is the 55gal drum, approx 36” high by 24” diameter.
As far as the mist too thick, do you think a hygrometer sensor in the chamber might help?
Maybe we can find a certain humidity to aim for as another point of reference?
No, organics feed bacteria and make them grow like crazy - especially in warm water. Our AA nozzles dont have the super small orifice openings like HPA nozzles, so they dont clog nearly as easily. Its that nasty bacteria you want to avoid = root rot and wild PH swings in the rez.
Stick to pure salts and NO organic anything.
Yes. Still grows crap like crazy in a warm rez.
Ive never tried any surficants, but if you want to try one, Id highly recommend you use a non-organic one. I remember someone recommended lye (potassium hydroxide) thats used to make soap, but I have no clue as to PPM levels, how to make it, formulas, etc.
Keep in mind its is a potent base, but I have no idea what it does whn made into soap. I use it (very rarely) as PH UP. A tiny bit goes a long way.
Thats close to my chamber dimensions, but a little larger. Mine is 24" x 28" ± tall = around 55 gallons. Yours would be closer to 70 gallons depending on the wall thickness, and the exact inside dimensions. You dont need to be exact on measurements, as long as you are in the ball park.
Doing the math will get you a starting point as far as target flow rates, on/off times, etc but the roots are your true guide.
Unless you are waiting way too long between ON cycles, the humidity in the chamber will always be very very close to 100%. Remember, its going to be filled with literally millions and millions of tiny tiny droplets that are always evaporating. The rate of evaporation is a function of surface area of the water. All those droplets add up to one heck of a lot of surface area for evaporation. Plus, the water that collects on the chamber walls, roots etc. Because you are always putting more droplets into the chamber BEFORE all the mist is all gone, the air will never have a chance to dry out.
The only way to judge if you have too much or too little mist is to look at the roots.
Mostly things happen a lot faster than that.
For example, when I transfer new babies into the system from the perlite hempy cups, it has never taken more than two days for them to get over the shock and start showing fuzzy hairs. When ever I have halfway killed the roots, its never taken much more than 1 to 2 days to see them start to come back.
When you screw up, the fuzzy hairs can go away very fast. You can see air pruning start within just a few hours. You can also see the rate of growth of tips change in just a few hours.
One of the key indicators is the collection of small droplets on the tips and other places on the root mass. You can see changes in the number and sizes of those droplets in just 2 or three hours if the roots are drinking faster than you are misting. You will see the droplets building up much faster than that if you are putting too much mist in or spraying too directly. Just a few minutes will show that.
Yup. Never even close to 70F. I mostly keep it well below 60F these days.
LOL Ive tried every possible combination of ON/OFF times/pressures/angles/positioning, etc you can think of - which translates to a ridiculous range of flow rates. From .009ml/gal/cycle to .1 ml/gal/cycle and from .037 LPD/gal up to .192 LPD/gal. Those numbers are will outside atomizers recommendations and well outside anything that has worked in the past.
In other words, I have dried them out and flooded them like crazy and every where in between.
I have no mature plants. These are all babies - autos. This current pair is the oldest so far at about 3 weeks from seed and 2 weeks in the system.
Yes to all that, and Ive gone back to the previously working 7 PSI and all the way down to 5 PSI.
Shortly after posting that last bit I realized there was one other change I had made after my last grow and before I started this new series of experiments. My air lines had all been 1/4" tubing, and 1/4" solenoids. I changed them all to 3/8" tubing and 3/8" solenoids. That change would have increased the air flow rate and the effective air pressures at the nozzles. There is always resistance to the flow in any tube/pipe, and larger diameter pipes have less resistance and less pressure drop over distance.
So - it occurred to me that when my regulator says 7 PSI with the larger tubing, the nozzles will be seeing higher pressures than they did before. So I have added some 1/4" tubing back in the lines between the regulator and nozzles late yesterday. By this am I saw one tiny patch of fuzzy hairs! Some other sections of the roots looked too dry though, so I made changes to try to help them, and tonight those fuzzy hairs are gone again.
Tomorrow I plan to change all the lines back to 1/4" and try that for a few days. My fingers are crossed
One, you said wel below 60F… isn’t that a lil on the chilly side (slower growth)?
Two, if being that chilled, I’m not sure I understand when you were talking about the organics and root rot with a warm res?
PS, my res is going to be in a mini fridge probably set around its highest temp I’m imagining (shooting for 64F)…
I’m pretty sure that’s my chamber size, measured from the outside (it does have pretty thick plastic), I could double check the height, I might be mistaken about that.
Sorry for being off for so long, still haven’t got enough time to read all the thread (but I do later), just a little progress with the roots. I didn’t spent much time on the system lately, just change nutes and sometime treat plants (they got sick).
But at least one plant is trying to grow fuzzy roots:
I still don’t know what is going on and why it is getting fuzzies. I think it includes a number of parameters, including drops diameter, nutes flow rate, pH, EC. By the way, I finally getting difference between in and out EC, at least in my waste container today I measured ~190 ppm (0.5 scale) in opposite to ~200 inside the nutes keg.
Sadly I almost lost the main plant because of a few diseases it (and other plants) got. But berries were just amazing. Really, both very sweet and flavor. Didn’t expect to have that kind of taste.
Exciting times. I got the Delavan nozzle today. Cant wait to test it out.
I also got the adapter for $18.
@anon32470837, I wonder if the issues that you are facing with the inconsistent performance could be a combination of the custom adapter that you are using and the 3/8 lines.
With the original one I got I also plan to use 3/8 lines, but I dont think it will be an issue as it has these 4 holes for the air line that are made to pass only the right amount of air.
Also you mentioned that you had clogging issues due to salt build up on the nozzle - have you tried dipping only the SS tip to vinegar overnight? That should dissolve the build up.
In addition could you share where did you get the SS Delavan version from? I looked around, but cant find it. I think at least for the adapter, a SS 304 Chinese one could be use, as they seems to not be anything special.
Ha! I wish. Its more like Im getting desperate and throwing the kitchen sink at the problem Im to the point that this has to be something in the system that is inhibiting the roots - but so far I have not figured it out.
Part of the problem is the number of variables that you have to play with. Even if you just look at the number of permutations when you have all the possible air pressures + siphon heights (or water pressures) + all the different ON times + all the different OFF times + all the different directions the nozzles can point - thats one heck of a lot of different things to try.
Say you angle the nozzles so there is no direct spray on the roots at all. Then you have the following different options to try:
Air pressures from 5 PSI to 30 PSI = 25 different air pressures.
On times from 0.3 seconds to 1.7 seconds = 14 different ON times.
Off times from 25 seconds to 120 seconds in 5 second increments = 19 different OFF times.
I tried to calculate the total number of possible combinations but I got lost - Im too stoned - but the number is huge.
When you figure most of those changes need at least a few hours to see the effects and up to a couple of days - it adds up to one heck of a long time.
I can see how that is confusing. You need to remember that the roots are NOT in the rez. In my case, the rez temps have nothing to do with the root chamber temps.
My rez sits outside my tent. If I did nothing the water would be at room temp = 68F on average in the winter and mid 70’s to hi 80’s in summer. Thats barely ok in winter and way too warm in summer. Bacteria grow much better over 70F.
My solution - for the rez - is to use a 12 gallon ice chest as my rez, and add frozen water bottles as needed to keep it cool. I have three litter size water bottles I rotate in the freezer. I used to keep the water just under 70F, but I decided to keep it much colder - in the 50’s - to really inhibit any possibility of bacterial growth. Bacteria can lead to root rot, and can cause major PH swings. If you have any bacteria growing in the rez, it will likely do much better when it gets to the root chamber - especially if you cant keep the chamber temps down below 70F.
So - my water starts at say 55F in the rez. It flows out through a 200 mesh filter and a total of about 4 ft of tubing until it gets to my siphon tank. This tank sits inside the foam box that insulates the root chamber. That area inside the foam box and outside the fabric root chamber, stays between 69F and about 71F.
That tank holds about 1.2 liters of water. My nozzles use about 0.13 liters/hour at my current settings, so it takes about 9 hours to replace the water in that tank. Thats way more than long enough for the water to warm up before it gets sprayed on the roots.
The net result is the roots get sprayed with water that is very close to the temps inside the root chamber - which is always 68F-70F winter or summer.
Your situation will be similar in that you have a remote rez that is also cooled and you get to control the temps. Thats good.
In your case - with no siphon tank to hold water before it gets sprayed on the roots - I dont know how much it will warm up. It will depend on the “room temps” outside the rez and how long the tubing is in total and the water flow rate. Im sure it will warm up some, but you will have to see how much.
I am more concerned about your root chamber. You cant rely on evaporative cooling like Im doing because you have a plastic root chamber. It is going to be at room temp plus what ever heat gets transferred by the lights. You might get some cooling by keeping the water temp lower in the rez, but at the same time you dont want to spray the roots with cold water. Again you will just have to see how it goes.
No, Ive been using that same DIY adaptor from day one and it worked fine for going on 2 years and produced all those fuzzy roots in the first post.
The thing with the 3/8 vrs 1/4 inch lines is just that it increases the air flow rate - which will change the VMD. In my case, I could do the same thing just by lowering the air pressure down below 7 PSI, but my regulator seems to have less precision the lower the pressure setting.
BUT - I may be completely wrong about the 3/8 lines being the problem. Ive had restricters in place for several days and still no fuzzies.
Those holes do limit the air flow, but not until the pressure gets very hi. If you look at the Delavan charts, you can see the CFM numbers go up as the pressure goes up from .21 BAR to 2.8 BAR. The CFM goes up by a factor of about 7 fold. However - the water flow rates do not do that. The water flow rates increase until you get to 1 BAR, then they decrease.
According to that PDF I up-loaded earlier, the reason is the air flow chokes due to hi mach numbers in the nozzle and also back pressure on the water at the nozzle tip.
Any way, the key thing is my adapters worked just fine until recently.
I tried that and it did help some, but didnt clear them up all the way. I think at least part of the clogging was due to some galvanic corrosion that occurred because one or more of my 1/4" solenoids had an electrical leak to the water. The clogging was in the air passages right at the very tip. There was nothing in the water orifice. That could have been some crap that got through my air line filters too.
In looking at your pictures I realize I didnt even try to take them apart to clean them! Silly me!!
They show up on Ebay all the time. Here is one of the -5 ones with .5 GPH nominal flow rate.
@anon32470837 so I don’t think my outside res tube nute temp will rise much because it is going to be circulating back to the res and at times will just drain all back to the res as well during some off times…
I may have chamber temp issues, but I am hoping between the hopefully 68F nute spray and my reflective bubble on the outside of the chamber, I’m hoping it doesn’t but we’ll see…
Doesn’t the intrinsic value of the fog evaporating inside the chamber also lower it’s temperature?
It will be in the sun in socal so there could be some days where it’s rough… maybe eventually I can get a temperature controller on the mini fridge or something.
I might hook up a smart temp sensor inside the chamber that connects to ifttt and maybe since that up with a smart outlet, but maybe there is a simpler solution.
By the way, from my experience: I’m using 8 mm tubing (6 mm internal diameter) for both air and water circuits. I also initially thought it should lower the pressure. But then I installed the second nozzle and put pipes underneath the chamber: like 1.6 m total pipe length and at least two L-connectors between two nozzles. Then I’ve measured pressure near each of the nozzles with digital pressure sensor. And it appears the pressure is totally the same. No difference at all. And btw no difference in water flow rate as well (which should be if any pressure difference would be present). So probably in much higher distances or with thinner pipes (like 4 mm and less) or with much higher flowrates it would have a role but not in our circumstances.
Sorry for being slow folks - Im having stone issues again
Ah, I forgot about the circulation pump. Maybe it will help with chamber temps by keeping the rez cooled down as you plan. Fortunately, you are moving into cooler weather down there. Winters in SoCal
can be all over the place as far as temps though.
P.S. I spent many years in socal before moving to Wa state. I lived in Glendale, Pasadena, and LaVerne. I loved the LA region because you could get anything you wanted locally. Hated it for the smog, gangs and traffic! I still miss it sometimes.
Unfortunately, no. Evaporative cooling only works if the heat can be carried away by the evaporating water. The heat has to go somewhere else or you dont get any cooling. If any water does evaporate from the chamber walls inside, it will just be carrying that heat back to where it came from - inside the chamber.
The same thing will apply to any plastic chamber or any chamber that does not wick water to the outside.
In the case of my fabric chamber, the fabric gets wet from the spray and water wicks to the outside of the chamber. The outside air is at a far lower humidity than inside the chamber, so some of that water evaporates from the fabric. That evaporation leaves the water soaked fabric colder, which in turn cools the interior. In my case, it drops the inside temps anywhere from 7 to 10 degF below room temp.
Interesting. I would not have expected the pressure near the open end of a tube/pipe to have the same pressure when there is flow in the pipe. The orifice size in the nozzle must be really small compared to the pipe diameter - which is true for the SS nozzles I had and for the Delavans. I still would have expected some drop. It must be far less than I was thinking.
Also, I think i was unclear in my post above. I meant that the smaller 1/4" tubing would have a lower flow rate and therefor a lower effective air pressure at the nozzle. From your tests, maybe its not a great a difference as I thought.
In any case, the restricters I put in place to lower the air flow rate are not making any difference so far - still no fuzzies!
Im racking my brain trying to figure out what else could have changed.
I cant believe it didnt occur to me to take the old nozzles apart. I just took two of them apart and cleaning is really easy. It now looks to me like the deposits are mostly salt type - white and powdery looking. There was also some small grit looking stuff that either got through my filter or when I was connecting fittings. There is also what looks like what you get with galvanic corrosion - green flaky stuff. That may not have been due to electrical leaks from the solenoids at all . It could just be from the two dissimilar metals in close proximity - stainless and brass. Maybe the stainless isnt all that hi a quality.
