C_in_CT's basement hydro

[C_in_CT]

@luxton I have to extend my sincerest appreciation for you writing your message to me. Immediately below is the message as I had initially written it, then you’ll see where I get to the point where my thanks becomes relevant.

Yeah! I was pleasantly surprised at even the rapid change overnight.

Room RH is 50-55% on average. The tent keeps a fairly steady 55-57% (depending on how I have it set).

Perhaps foolishly, I’ve been experimenting with using the exhaust fan to keep the RH steady, and the light intensity to modify temperature and thus VPD. Due to the low humidity in the lung room, it means the exhaust fan isn’t running constantly, but like takes gulps of air here and there (basically).

Doing it this way lets me keep the transition humidity set so if there’s a particularly humid day, and my basement dehumidifier isn’t keeping up, it’ll run the fan as much as is needed to keep the RH as low as possible. I do have the internal clip fan set to run at a pretty high intensity to keep air moving around.

I remain fairly committed to getting through the grow buying zero other environmental controls (humidifier, in-tent dehumidifier, separate A/C, etc). If I end up needing to keep it more humid in the tent so the fan can run more constantly, I’ll uncover the hydroton. Now that I have the 30 gallon reservoir, I have absolutely zero concerns about the EC getting too high from rapid evaporation.

Will I regret this experiment in some way? Quite possibly! We’ll see!

I decided that I should add a picture to give a comparison to where it was earlier, especially since it’s almost lights out. Ran downstairs, noticed that the in-tent sump pump kicked on, which isn’t necessarily abnormal, sometimes it just does because water has settled against the sensor or something.

Opened up the tent and saw that the plants looked surprisingly similar to 24 hours ago, worse than my earlier photo. Also noticed that it smelled REALLY different than normal, very much like wet dirt. Pulled the plastic off the hydroton, it was extremely wet, which it hasn’t been even when pulling off the plastic. Opened up the panda film skirt to check the sump tub and the drains, noticed water coming out of the drains. It was 30 min until the next feed, the water should have stopped draining about 15 min after the last feed, which was an hour and 45 min earlier. Cue alarmed face.

Realized that somehow with my modification to the reservoir last night, apparently I changed the angle of something enough that it wasn’t breaking the siphon when the pump turned off. Which means that very probably, it had been basically an NFT or RDWC system for the last 24 hours (or thereabouts). So I went from at least 2 days of NO feeding to a WHOLE LOT of feeding. That might have been why they looked so much better 12 hours later?

Got it adjusted hopefully enough (will check it again after it should have finished draining fully). And hopefully it hasn’t COMPLETELY fucked it up now. Decided to leave the bins uncovered so they can dry back more fully overnight in the dark. Also in writing the earlier part of the message, I had mostly decided that would be a reasonable way to keep humidity and thus airflow up.

I am so incredibly glad that my system held up! The bell siphons worked as intended*! The sump pump system worked as intended! I have no idea how much water actually flowed through the system since it started. I would have been very sad if the bulk of the 30 gallons had ended up on my floor.

(*since the flow siphoning in from the reservoir wasn’t as fast as when the pump is running the drain could stay ahead of it at least enough to prevent overflow)

So anyway, here’s the pic I took after dealing with all of that! And THANK YOU again to luxton for inspiring me to take a picture to include with my response.

Sad again

[luxton]

Oohhhhh you’re lucky you have a wicked sump!! I ended up overflowing a solid 45 gallons a couple years ago, when a syphon broke… Since then, it’s 100% gravity fed for me, hahaha.

I bet your plants look a little rough in the morning but by the afternoon they’ll look right stellar . Gotta love hydroton for being able to dry out quickly, eh?? Hahaha

[C_in_CT]

YEAH, I am feeling very very proud of myself for at least designing a system that thought ahead to situations similar enough that it prevented this specific one.

I have had the hose manifold mounted in a few places on the old reservoir, it never occurred to me to make sure it wasn’t siphoning after the pump turned off. You can bet your ass I’m going to from now on though any time I change it! I also let some air into the manifold from one of those extra hoses, so that should function as a siphon breaker if it keeps a bubble at the top of the curve. So theoretically this shouldn’t be able to happen again.

Tomorrow when I have more brain and less adrenaline, I will make sure to situate it with a very sharp angle coming to the manifold, more even than I did tonight. And it’s been long enough that I’ve made sure it stopped running.

[C_in_CT]

Oh as an update I forgot to mention in the previous messages: my silicone gaskets are doing great! Even after that water had been staying in the bus tubs at a fairly high level (to be able to dribble out the bell siphon), zero moisture around the exterior/connectors of the drain. So that’s something!

As a bit of info about me that I’ve mentioned else-OG: I’ve been diagnosed with autism, ADHD, CPTSD, anxiety, depression, and I’ve had difficulties with low oxygen that fucked up my memory in a lot of ways. I also have a variety of “my body doesn’t work quite right in ways related to nerve communication, not specifically physical function”, so physical ability can vary significantly day to day.

I mentioned being proud of myself in the prior message because I have been struggling mightily for a long time with depression (and others) and have lost confidence in myself in a lot of areas.

I am very quick to beat myself up over mistakes, so a big part of my weed growing process this first round is to treat it as an exercise in “most stuff is recoverable” (except 30 gallons of water on the basement floor ), and to just run with it and see what happens. So I’m trying to recognize the victories where I can.

[luxton]

WICKED about the gaskets!! That’s a definite huuuge win . I’m a lil envious of your printing skills, not gonna lie.

Depression sucks. Period. If no one else has told you today, I’m proud of ya!

Honestly, as your “first grow”, if you’re beating yourself up at ALL, you’re being way too hard on yourself. Your plants look great and your system is very tidy

Speaking of healthy, how do they look after their nutrient bath???

[C_in_CT]

Thanks! I’ve thought about trying to offer paid modeling and/or printing services to folks who need specific pieces for their systems that aren’t commercially available, but I have no idea how to price stuff like that. One day I’ll figure it out.

I really appreciate your supportive comments! I do try to remind myself that so far everything is going way better than I thought it would on my first run, and this place is all about sharing the realities of a grow. I get stuck in my own head about stuff a lot.

Plants are looking better!

Both

Plant 1 - saddest during this whole ordeal

Plant 2 - just kinda chugging along

Also here are some tweaks I did to the reservoir:

Different exit point and tighter curve for the hose, made the manifold stay at an angle, and made that uppermost point stay open a bit so it’ll trickle back into the res and will break the siphon when the pump turns off.

Mini USB powered pump to have at the bottom to circulate water between feedings. I figure that’ll keep my EC readings more accurate and make PH adjustments and adding nutrients a lot easier, because I can just run that for a while instead of needing to stir it or disconnect the main pump and point it into the res and whatnot like I have been doing. Tried to add a venturi valve to incorporate more air, but it’s too deep and the pump is too weak. Still useful.

[Organical]

Woo! I’m all caught up with the thread. And I love all the ingenuity, 3d printing, and just being on top of it! Also happy you caught that little 1-day DWC experiment . I’ve got your thread set to watching now so I won’t miss any more!

[C_in_CT]

Hey thanks! And I am verrrrry happy about that too!

Thanks also for commenting in general, because opening it and seeing the picture of my little pump again gave me an idea! The venturi was pulling air down below the surface of the water, but not all the way to the bottom, so I cut the tubing off a little bit below that point. Then I put the now-extra tubing on the outlet side.

So now it is pulling water from the bottom of the barrel via the pump itself, about 2/3 up from the bottom via venturi effect, and pushing out the mixed water at about halfway up. I think that will be a better mixing effect than just kinda swirling it around on the bottom.

[luxton]

One of these bad boys would be killer to mix, you could put it on a timer to run 2/10 minutes or sometging so it’s always mixed up… Just a thought

If you do go this way, I’d stay away from sunsun wave makers… I’ve had a dozen of them in various tanks and they have a tendency to spin backwards on restarts after a while (which doesn’t move as much water as you’d think).

[3bombedmice]

heh, nice 4 valve manifold there.

[C_in_CT]

yeah! That’s been pretty central to my system, I’m feeding both bins in the tent off it, and it gives me room to run a third once I’m maxing out the tent. Also the fourth one can be to run a whole other tent (with a second manifold connected to it) if I decide to share a reservoir. I’m still undecided about that, we’ll see.

[C_in_CT]

That’s higher GPH than my actual feed pump I’ll stick with my little swirling pump for now, if I need something heavier, I may be reworking my clone situation (again) in the near future, and freeing up the pump I’m currently using for those.

[luxton]

Whatever you’re doing, is obviously working , I can’t wait to see them when you flip to flower! When do you figure you’ll do that?

[C_in_CT]

Technically on the 20th been a bit of a shitshow since then, so we’ll see what happens! I’m realizing it may actually have been even longer that they had no feed at all, because the 21st is when I’d pulled them out of the tent and the night of the 24th is when I noticed it.

I would be bummed if they die or herm at this point, but at least I have clones just kinda in stasis (afaik, they seem dry but healthy otherwise) that I could put into the tent if I had to.

This reminds me of something I’ve wondered about: If a plant stress-herms, is that different from a breeding standpoint than a strain genetically predisposed to it? Like if I just let it ride would plants from those seeds be predisposed to it? or is it like STS’ing to get feminized seeds? or is stress herm in itself a matter of being genetically predisposed? I’ve never been completely clear on that.

[luxton]

That’s a really good question… @RainToday might have an idea?

[Coffin_Dodger]

As far as I know, this is the root of rodelization. An older method of feminized bean production. Unfavorable for its unreliability, low production rate, and need for greater care and much greater time. Good for S1. Bad if that pollen makes F1s.

I’m stretching my understanding, and definitely still learning all this myself, but I think that’ll at least orient ya’

Someone smart correct me.

Stay up
Coffin_Dodger

[C_in_CT]

I appreciate the info! I wanted a general idea of whether it’d be worth it to just keep running if they do end up overwhelmed by my nonsense. Sounds like it might be! Could possibly harvest some pollen and also seeds from it, so I’ll probably full send unless one of them dies entirely.

[C_in_CT]

Last night right before lights out, I went downstairs, checked the plants, and #1 was very sad again, like droopy as fuck. Realized that some tweaks I’d made to the environmental stuff had it too high VPD and too high temp.

So I changed it back and hoped for the best. Also took a picture, but somehow my phone gave me a blank instead? So it enforced me leaving them alone and posting a stressed thing about it.

Failed picture attempt

Today I went down there and it’s looking better again. Took off a few of the larger fan leaves on Plant 2 to open up more to light, and added a couple LST clips. Now to apply a heavy dose of LITFA to both.

Plant 1 on the left is having a rollercoaster of a week

[methodanon]

Bro you’re still on 18/6 right? My veg plants always look droopy as hell for a couple hours right before lights off while in veg… I consider it normal healthy behavior and I think it’s just like exhaustion from putting all of that light to work all day. Ive noticed if I turn my light down to like 50% and have a lower DLI then they don’t droop as bad.

Go by how she looks in the morning I say.

Edit: Plants look great to my eyes, super healthy.

[C_in_CT]

I actually switched to 12/12 on the 20th, then promptly fucked them up for a week. So who knows what they think is happening.

That’s a fair point, I’ll try not to stress right before lights out. I’m still learning what the “normal” behavior of the plants looks like.

And yeah, I need to get more into figuring out DLI and such. I’ve mostly just kinda been using light intensity as a modifier, not as a thing in itself to track.

I’m intentionally not trying for giant buds, I would rather have many small ones that are less prone to rot. Especially since I’m going to be using a machine trimmer of some kind. So I’m not too worried about trying to push them super heavily.

And thanks! I really appreciate the feedback as I go. This is literally my first time growing anything as an adult. I researched a lot before getting to this point, but there’s a lot that I couldn’t really learn until I had a plant in front of me.