Its not the ss that rusts, its the copper in the brass. When exposed to salts it corrodes into this green stuff and leaves traces anywhere around it. On top of that it gets toxic. That’s why I’m supper hesitant to use any other metal than ss 304L and above/pete plastic for such applications.
By the way I got in contact with couple of Chinese copy cats and their nozzles looks exactly like the Delavan ones. The one I just ordered for test is $14 (including the adapter) and I asked the seller to send me pics of the disassembled nozzle. I measured the orifice and its very close to 1mm, so I orderd a 1mm and 0.8mm versions. They will arrive mid Nov and I will measure and compare all aspects of it with the original Delavan one. I’m very skeptical they are ok quality given the price, especially as they claim its SS 304L, which I will test as well. Here are the pics they sent me:
I have been racking my brain trying to figure out what had changed from last time around. I decided that the change from 1/4" tubing to 3/8" tubing couldnt be the problem. If it had been, lowering the air pressure would have made up for that, and that didnt help.
So, I drained my rez and cleaned everything out really well. It was fine, but I cleaned it out anyway. I also threw away all my mixed up nutes just in case I had made some error last time on the ratios. I was pretty sure that was NOT the problem because the plants looked fine, but just in case.
None of that helped.
Then I remembered that I had bought some new pool shock right after my last grow. I wasnt happy with the old stuff because it didnt like to dissolve. Turns out the new stuff didnt either. But, I recall when I was shopping for pool shock, some of the options had extra stuff in them to fight algae - like copper and other nasty stuff. I was sure I ordered the one that was pure chlorine - BUT - just in case, I tossed out the mixed up shock and did a new rez with zero shock added.
That was yesterday AM, and tonight I have fuzzy hairs! About 36 hours. So, I am assuming I got the wrong shock or the crap I got had something in it that was inhibiting my fuzzies.
Now to see if I can get more of them and on both plants. The other plant has just a hint so far.
Edit: It just occurred to me that it is also possible I had one of those “growing while stoned” senior moments and just mixed up the shock incorrectly. It may have been way stronger than it should have been. I checked the ingredients, and the only “active” ingredient is calcium hypoclorite, - but - it also says its 4-in-1 shock, which makes me think they added some extra crap. Others are 7-in-1 and I know they have other crap in them,
I do want to run sterile because I live in an actual rain forest full of mold and spores etc. My outside soil is many feet thick of composted pine cones.
So - I ordered some 99% pure calcium hypoclortie from amazon. Its more expensive up front than the shock, but will go farther because its more concentrated, so actually about the same cost per dose. This bottle should last me years.
My personal opinion - I would never use pool sanitizers due to the unsafe chemicals.
I brew beer and this is one of the best good grade sanitizer ever: https://www.amazon.com/Star-San-2883-8-oz/dp/B01467UGN8
It is safe for all surfaces except Aluminum.
You can do 1oz of it in 5 gal of water and spray your equipment. You dont have to rinse after. It acts super fast - 1 min of contact and its done.
I soak all my equipment after each grow or use. So for $13 (you can find it cheaper in brewing sites) you have a 40gal of sanitizing solution.
I wanted to come back to this and show exactly how much change you can see in just 12 hours.
Compare that pic above to this one I just took. This is the same place on the same plant, but there are also now fuzzy hairs all over this set of roots and on the other plant.
This is how much things can change in just 12 hours. Keep in mind that these roots have been seriously stressed by the bad/excess pool shock and are just starting to recover. Roots in good shape can change even faster, so you need some way to monitor the roots easily early on when you might be making changes often. Later in the grow, when you have things dialed in, you can back way off on checking…
I am kicking myself that I spent money on new nozzles I didnt need. It also occurred to me that those Spraying Systems nozzles I said didnt work may actually work just fine!
This pair of babies in seriously stunted and not looking all that great, so Im tossing them and starting some new seeds. I plan to try a range of different settings in the mean time to see how far I can push the flow rates in either direction.
Cool! I will keep that in mind for cleaning equipment.
I dont know how well it would work for what Im using the calcium hypoclorite for though. I am trying to keep any bacteria/algae from growing in my rez water, and I will only be running around 2PPM or less concentration. Im sure its great as a surface cleaner though.
That Star San is made up of two different acids - which will lower your PH. Most people are already using Phosphoric acid - which is the majority ingredient in Star San - as a PH Down. At that concentration, Id bet that even a few drops will drop your PH drastically.
I dont know anything about the other acid, but I do know that the acids we use, in the concentrations we use them, do not work as far as keeping a rez sterile. I worry that your PH will drop too low before you get to a useful level for rez water sterilization.
On the other hand, I have not tried it, so I may be 100% wrong. Have you used it for rez water sterilization?
I agree with your comments on the pool shock and “other ingredients”. Thats why Im changing to the lab grade calcium hypoclorite. The amount of chlorine that gets released into the water at the low levels I will be running are well below safe levels and the chlorine is actually a necessary micro ingredient. Lots of people already have chlorine or chloramine in their tap water, but Im on a well.
I use the starsan for sanitizing all equipment before use. I would not add it to the nutrients, as it will drop the ph and will make your nozzles rust.
For keeping bad bacteria out, I’d add a filter system and Sodium Benzoate (although the concern for cancer is valid) as a preservative based on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx0uNp2dzAU&t=598s
I’m on tap water and it is 25ppm, but I always filter it before I use it. If the container where u store the nutes is black and light cant get in u can store them for some time before any bacteria start to build up.
For examples I was following the video above, I did not use the Sodium Benzoate and stored my nutes in concentrated form in a sealed back container for over a month - no issues whatsoever. There are containers where you can pull all the air out and vacuum it.
LOL Glad Im not the only one who has those ‘growing while stoned’ moments
I use the concentrated chlorine stuff mainly for cost. That 1 lb bottle Im buying will last many years for me. H2O2 would add up to many times the cost over time.
Yeah, your SS nozzles are cleared for testing for sure! I may try my SS nozzles again at some point, but not right now. Probably next summer when I normally take a break from growing due to heat.
Ah, I see. I thought you were recommending it for use in the nutes - my bad
I tried using RO water and that didnt work - still got algae, slime etc growing in the rez. The problem is that where I live, in an actual honest rain forest, algae, mold, etc are in the air as well as in the water.
Ive seen his video. His formula is actually very close to the Jacks 321 Hydro Im using. Should be great nutes. I agree about the sodium benzoate prezervative. I decided to skip it for the same reason. My solution to storing the concentrated nutes is to mix up small batches - about 2 liters each of the 3 part mix. I mix them fairly weak so I use up that much in maybe 4 to 6 weeks. I keep the bottles in a cabinet out of the light when not re-filling the rez. So far I only had one bottle go moldy and that was when it sat for a while between grows.
Im paranoid about light getting into the rez and any fittings or tubing. My rez is an old Rubbermaid ice chest - 100% light proof. It holds just over 12 gallons max, but I rarely go over 8. That amount lasts me 5 to 10 days depending on my flow rate.
All the lines and fittings are opaque and either wrapped in aluminum foil or hidden inside cabinets or the root chamber box.
Even with all that - AND - using RO water, I still had slime, smell, and crap growing in the rez. But that was back when I was using nutes that had organic components. Since switching to Jacks and low dose chlorine I have had zero nasty crap.
But - I still need to use some sort of sterilizer because If I leave the Jacks sitting too long or in any light, the crap starts to grow after not too long.
Im hoping this rez will last until the new sodium hypoclorite gets here. I may have to use some house hold bleach if it starts to smell.
25 PPM is darn good for tap water! Mine is usually around 100 PPM plus or minus depending on how much rain we have had.
If you clean and sterilize the containers with starsan on regular bases you should not have issues.
For the nutes:
Place the concentrate in dark wine bottle with the stopper and vacuum with the pump. Dump in a dark room and you are good to go.
I did tested the nozzle and I like it, I ordered another one so I can finish my setup. I ended up on this design. I will start with red bell peppers - final plants count is tbd, but I’m thinking max 4 so they have good room to spread.
By the way, Im currently playing with settings that should be giving me a lower VMD = smaller droplets than I was running in the past. Im doing that mainly by increasing the air pressure, but Im also running the siphon tank slightly lower = aprox 2" siphon height instead of my old zero to 1". The air pressure change is making the largest difference in hang time.
Settings at the moment are 10-12 PSI, 1.0 ON x 50 OFF.
At that air pressure these nozzles have about 4.2 LPH flow rate. That gives me just a hair over 3.9 LPD total flow rate and 0.042 ml/gal/cycle and 0.072 LPD/gallon. Pretty much in the middle of atomizers numbers.
Looks good , I run a lower pressure system in 55 . While I know I’m not a true aero system the results really are amazing. I’ve never seen growth like I have with it. I truly love .
Your roots look awesome something you can only get with high pressure system . Thank you for sharing .
I will have a single main tank with separate small syphon ones located right next to the nozzles. Main tank will feed the small ones when they are low on nutes. I want to feed each nozzle separately.
I’m also planning to configure each solenoid for the air line separately, such that 1st one kick in sprays for 1 sec, the second one kicks in 10 sec after the 1st one. As there is a line pressure drop, if both open at the same time the pressure drop will be more significant. On that note how do you setup the pressure?
Do open and let it open, let the pressure drop, then adjust the regulator to the desired psi and then close it? Coz if its closed at the 1st place and you set it at lets say 5psi, when you open the pressure drops to below 3psi.
When I tested the nozzle, I had to setup the regulator at around 7,5-8psi in order to hit 5 psi when the solenoid opens.
Thanks! If I wasnt addicted to fuzzy roots, LPA would probably be my favorite way to grow. Its biggest advantages over HPA/AA are lower cost to get started, the simplicity, and relaibility of the system, and the fact that it is so forgiving as far as timing settings, etc.
But, fuzzies!
Thats almost exactly what I started playing with last spring. My theory on it was that it should keep the mist level in the chamber more uniform and help avoid any wet/dry cycling.
Towards mid summer - right in the middle of my “why dont I have fuzzy hairs?” freakout - I decided maybe it wasnt working the way I thought it would. For a time it seemed like it was keeping the roots too wet, by not giving them any time to absorb the water collecting on the roots before the next cycle. So I stopped doing that and changed back to having all the air solenoids on a single timer.
BUT - now that I know the bad/excess chlorine was the issue, I am going to try it again. This is a perfect time to do it while Im waiting for new seeds to pop. Later this evening I will be changing back to separate timers on each air solenoid with very slightly staggered OFF times. It turns out my cheap timers are not exactly in sync all the time. They seem to have about .01 seconds difference so they tend to stagger even if I set them the same. I prefer they do the rotation of firing times more rapidly to even things out more.
So I will be setting them both to the same 1.0 sec ON but one will be 50 sec OFF and the other one will be 51, or what ever timing I end up with.
I should be able to see if there is any difference either way in a short period of time.
Thats one of the reasons I changed from 1/4" tubing to 3/8" tubing. There is noticeably less pressure drop with the larger tubing between the compressor and the regulator.
Thats normal. The important pressure is when the solenoid is open. Doesnt matter what it is when the solenoid is off. You will always have a bigger drop with more airflow - like when you have both nozzles connected vrs one. If the pressure drops more, just turn it up more until its where you want.
Im using two regulators. One is on the compressor and I have it cranked up as hi as it can go - 95PSI - so that the extra 5 gal air tank I added will hold the max volume of air. That feeds to the second regulator which only goes up to 30 PSI max. I wanted one that had finer control at lower air pressures.
A typical 150 PSI compressor regulator isnt very precise at very low pressure settings.
I do it like you do. Wait for an ON cycle and watch to see how far it drops, and adjust as needed so the ON pressure is what I want. Right now, the second regulator gauge reads about 13-14 PSI closed and right at 10-11 PSI open. Those numbers drift slightly depending on the pressure in the storage tanks.
I dont think it matters what the difference is though. You will be turning the pressure up or down based on the density and hang time of your mist and - most importantly - how well the roots like it. That starting number is just that - a place to start until you can see how the system is performing, and can make the final adjustments.
Yes , those roots . I do beilve its the superior way for speed and yield once dialed in Next imo dwc.Consider the results I get from lower pressures I can only image high pressure. I wish I had the time and patients to do a high pressure system.
Great system you have .
Almost final design. Compressor and main nutes reservoir are going to be placed outside of the grow room. Everything else would be attached to the growing container as a whole plug in unit. So it could be moved around and just attached to a new compressor and/or nute res.
Got the solenoids today and they look pretty high quality - pleasantly surprised by the mesh filters they have - Nitra DVP-2DC3F-24D
Control Box will have a rpi with relays that will controls the solenoids. Powered by Mean well DRC-100B attached to 2 12v batteries connected in series as backup in case power goes down.
After several hours of running the nozzles on separate timers with slightly different OFF times, it looks like this technique does keep the roots slightly wetter than having them on the same timer firing at the exact same time - but not much.
Visually, the mist density does look better as far as staying more uniform.
Im going to stick with it this way for a few more days at least. It looks like I should be able to run slightly longer OFF times and still have the roots stay just as happy - which will save even more on nutes and reduce the compressor run time.
One other thing Im liking with the new setup and smaller droplets - Im seeing much more uniform distribution of fuzzy hairs from top to bottom on the roots. One of the babies has reached the bottom of the root chamber and it has nice fuzzies all the way from the ceiling to the floor of the root chamber. Every time in the past I have always had areas with more or less fuzzy hairs - from super fuzzy to smooth.
