Time came to change Rainforest small bushes style to Sea of Green style (no vegetation phase). I’ve always wanted to try this hardcore version of SoG when plants are rooted and trasplanted into rockwool cubes 10x10cm, placed directly on the table and switched to flower…
The only things I’ve kept from previous RF grows were:
HPS 600W lamp with cool tube connected to
Ruck airvent 125L (more powerful version ~350 m3/hour)
Air sucked through Hy-Filter Carbon + filter 400 m3/hour 125mm (8,5kg)
Milwaukee Smart pH monitor (btw great tool – I can only recommend for hydro users)
New arrival was two Gro Tank (code GN604) NFT trays. Its plastic made and its dimensions are ~ 150 x 48 x 20 cm. It is complete hydrosystem with upper tray, lower reservoir, submersible pump and hosing.
I’ve also ordered some geo textiles to put on the bottom of top channel and set of cubecaps. Cube caps solve big problem with drying-out of cubes (see pic). We want to keep humid atmosphere in the system so we need to cover it with something… Cube caps are great but pretty costly so I’ve ended up ordering basic black/white foil, just cut diagonally holes (X, + shapes) in it and cover whole system during installation of cubes.
Cube Caps are designed to keep humidity inside rockwool / coco block. They are made in 10x10cm size. Manufacturer also offers “Drip Cap” which allows connecting watering hose for easy drip system.
I’ve had some past experience with Ebb&Flow, which basically differs from NFT in watering frequency. NFT means Nutrient Film Technique, so on the bottom of the tray there is constant stream of water flowing. By continuous recirculating water is also kept aired properly.
Ebb & Flow (or Flood and Drain how is it called sometimes) is different as it just irrigates whole field in set intervals few times per day. In this case we want to irrigate not only bottom of the tray but to fill it to level set by overflow outlet (installed in the tray). Tray is only ~8cm high and cubes about 10 cm so its nearly possible to flood cubes completely. Watering cycle goes for about 10-12 minutes and after that pump is stopped so water can drain out back to underlying reservoir just by gravity.
Whole tray is skewed so when you pump water to one end it will flow through tray to another end where is waste to drain out.
I wanted to modify it slightly because from past experiments I knew that rockwool soaks more water than needed (this is mainly problem when plants are young). I wanted to select another medium while still have the easiness of planting to cubes (no plastic pots). Then I’ve found that Jiffy is making these great coco blocks. These are sold compressed so you don’t have to bring any large bags into your house ;). Box of 92 of these is sold for about 30 GBP. Jiffy also makes peat version, but I wanted to go with coco as it offers superb air-water ratio properties.
After soaking compressed block it expands so each Jiffy Coco Block is 10x10x8,5cm. It is still very shapeable (outer mesh is almost brittle so take care) so I managed to form them to fit five of them into tray ~48 cm wide.
At first days I just used manual switch to power on pumps and water it manually – as I just wanted to get proper feel for amount of water needed. After few days digital timer was set to deliver nutes into system. Watering interval was 15 minutes on, three times a day (with lights on, in the middle of day period and when lights gone off, with no watering during night). When plants got bigger after about 30 days I’ve added one more cycle during daylight.
There were mild temperatures about 19°C in night to 24°C in day. If these were higher, more watering cycles would be added to compensate for plant perspiration.
Whole system just fitted 50 of these 10x10cm blocks in one tray, so 100 clones total. Goal was pure Sea of Green (without any vegetation time). For this experiment I needed single strain with single dominant cola, basically no branching allowed. It wasn’t feasible to mix strains as it wouldn’t be uniform enough. Also as there is not any vegetative period, I needed clones very well rooted. Finally I was able to get 100 Hash Plant clones.
You can see that on more distant end there are slightly lighter leaves and I suspect it was due to cocos filtering free flow of nutes.
In front there can be seen some damaged leaves, but this is from two strong fans blowing from short distance, so this is completely normal.
I had complete line from Hydrogarden, so this time I’ve used it together with their additives. Great thing is that they offer Soft and Hard water as separate lines. For my use soft water version is sufficient.
VitaLink Hydro Bloom Soft Water
VitaLink Hydro Growth Soft Water
quoted from Hydrogarden website:
Humic acid - improves the uptake and transportation of nutrients and mimics natural growth stimulants. This in turn will help to promote fast and healthy plant development.
Fulvic acid - will further increase the absorption capacity of your plants roots. This will assist with your plants overall development and growth.
Fulvic Acid – quote from their catalogue:
VitaLink Fulvic improves the way plants transport/absorb nutrients. Through better nutrient availability, the flowering, rooting and growth of plants is boosted at every stage of the plant’s life cycle.
VitaLink Buddy catalog description:
VitaLink Buddy is a PK additive rich in potassium and phosphorus with added Magnesium and Sulphur to support the extra K and P which primarily supports the quality of the plant but also encourages maximum yield from plants i.e. growing bigger buds, producing more fruit and flowers. During the flowering process, an increase in the potassium to nitrogen ratio speeds up the reproductive processes and encourages plants to use more energy on their flowers or fruits leading to an increased yield.
I’ve tried to keep pH in 5,2-6 and EC under 2.0. For flushing I have replaced whole reservoir with pure pH adjusted water.
Grow space is roughly 1 meter wide and 1,5 meter long. Lit by 600HPS which wouldn’t be cooled properly with standard (not aircooled) shade.
This is shot of custom cooled hood. Because originally cooltube has only small shade which don’t allow placing shade high and reflect to wide area I’ve modified it - removed small “wings” and mounted in wide mylar shade (similar to what awings have).
Tubes are 125mm. Together with RK 125L (400 m3/hour) it is appropriate for single 600HPS.
That is NICE! Ebb and flow is my method of choice, expanded clay my medium of choice hands down. Yes you might have to use some pots but most times, I fill up the entire tray so that the rocks themselves provide insulating shading and space for root growth. I have been growing with the same rocks for many many years now.
I wanted to do a test with SOG in 10cm RW cubes straight on 12/12.
Uniformity is thanks to master mother keeper @metaphysical that provided absolutely brilliant clones of Hash Plant.
Some times it is problematic to get 100 of proper clones so uniform. You need to have mothers in good condition and it is time consuming to work with so many plants. That also adds complicacy…
I’ve done two more runs using this E&F setup but had to move soon after and dismantle the cabinet.
It was very lucky batch. No problems, good temps, healthy clones (damaged leaf you can see in first row of plants are mechanical damage by strong oscillating fan).
It was I think only about 420g of well trimmed and dried material which translates to 0.7 grams per watt. Maybe I’ll start topic about efficiency measures. GPW is not probably ideal way to measure performance of Sea of Green which is very fast (few days of vegetative state). It would probably serve better to use GE index for efficiency to take time into account and use grams per kWh.
I don’t know how to say it, I was very satisfied with the process (not each batch goes this well) but at the same time I had probably higher expectations about yield.
There are also few things that need improvement - like that foil cover. I’d seek other ways to prevent algae and keep moisture in root zone. Also cubes were too packed to each other not allowing water to flow through them freely and this was extending time needed to irrigate whole platform.
Cant you get hold of corex trops in black @LemonadeJoe On my nft decks I use black corex top, cut in the cube wholes then recover with either white or mylar to keep the temps down under the corex top and reflect any light back unitl the canopy covers the base. UV sterilisers also work great for keeping the algea down, but depends what nutes used if its viable for UV. H2O2 also works at keeping the algea at bay a bit, but will kill of any beneficials you are using.
Have you checked all the cubes cut out lines underneath are facing the same way, you kno wthe channels in the base of the rockwool. more important onnft than ebb and flow but does make the water go round the block instead of flowing underneath and through. (Im sure you have joe but just thought it worth mentioning)
I then manually cut cube covers squares of mylar bigger then the hole in the corex, put a whole in the middle of cut squaer and a cut to 1 side allowing plant stem and rockwool cube to be completely covered, I then tape the cut slit up and tape the square to mylar coviring the corex, it works if you keep everything every tight, preventing light getting into the deck and starting algea growth.
I’ve always used to cover rw cubes with white/black reflecting paper squares fixed with tape, with good results. Lately I’ve been doing in a different way and I like it more…
I just lift up 1 cm the plastic side cover of the block and fill the top cm of space just created with small grow rocks… it helps diffusing the water to the whole cube , keep light away from rw and reduce the extremely fast drying of the top 2 cm of rw when used in dwc with no top watering
Just my 2 cents
DS
Norse! Just got a Ebb & Flow system and this thread was just what I needed to push forward. Just in case nobody told you today, @LemonadeJoe your awesome! Thank you, for all that you do.
