So did anyone actually succeed in beating Krusty’s Buckets cola sizes…
1 Like
Elaborate…
2 Likes
I was gonna ask the same thing haha
1 Like
Nm I got you. Gotta love the search feature.
3 Likes
3 Likes
I ran my system for about 2 years, before I could not stand the constant thumping of the Thomas air pump, 24/7.
I’m one of the idiots that jack hammered a hole through a basement floor for a sunken reservoir. The 30 feet of draining back into it, as a constant flow was pulled from the bottom of it, kept my temps, in the buckets around 68 F to 73 F or so.
I also did not have all the lights, I only ran 3400 watts/lumen or so, I built all my lights from maintinence kits to beat the prices back them,a 1k hps, and some 600’s and 400’s, all naked verticals, with self made batwings on the edges.
I loved running it until I hated running it. A fantastic system, that I did not build to Krusty’s spec’s, so I followed his theme, as much as I could, and got some great harvests.!
DSCF0027|640x480 
Please forgive my pic’s, I’m an old welder fabricator, and when I found OverGrow in late 99, it was my first time getting online, or hell even being around a computer. So, I really did not do a good job at keeping my information. And, this was like 3 systems ago, and 98 second edition was not friendly to welders, with no skills.
Last pic, these went mad.
I got many of my as I was making stuff pics, if any there is any interest. I also have some of Krusty’s pics he posted up, but I’m very shy to post them as they are not mine. I had great respect for Krusty, he would box your ears, if he thought you was fucking with him or his system. I greatly enjoyed hanging out in his threads, and learned so much.
That was all long ago now, and what fun, for while.
8 Likes
Nice trees! Krustys grows blew my mind when I first saw them there was no one online doing plants like that at the time. The naked vertically hung lights were just crazy.
What kind of yield would one of those suckers give you?
4 Likes
Only thing I’ve seen beat them is the Heath Robinson trees. Same idea, though.
2 Likes
Just looked him up, holy shit! He’s pulling some great numbers too, really efficient.
1 Like
That’s why plant counts are so stupid. I could hang three 600’s in a 5x5 over 1 hydro plant if I wanted haha.
2 Likes
Hey beacher,
That pic was from my 4th or 5th run I made. I was gifted some mazar beans, started out with 6 plants being plopped onto the lava rock, after a week more of veg time, I flipped them.
About 10 days into it, 4 went to balls, and got composted.
I laid a lid on each vacant site, so more of the vapors were coming up through the 21 pounds of lave rock, it was the vapors that sent them into Dr. Seuss creature mode.
They dried and packed away each in the 2 LB range.
For me, I was done with running the system. It is a tinkering fools wonderland, well how I made mine as I said, I did not have the coin to build exactly as K did.
Hell I had no CO2 to play with, and as crappy as my system was, I doubt it would have been worth while for me.
Nor did I have all the lights K would run, but he did teach me that all the wars (back then) about HPS/MH and who is king, was destroyed by simply blending HPS WITH MH, and ever box I made after the KFB’s, was blended light.
Now with high quality LED’s, in the last 10 years are now slaying HPS/MH combos I lived with for so long.
Sorry I’m babbling.
I loved the system, I was invited to join a private site, that was all, bucket heads, juice junkies, and man there was some far far greater growers than I’ll ever be.
However, once I lost interest, I was tickled to just grow in a quiet, zen area, over the Buck Rodgers system, that would give you floods, and moving lights 3-4 times a week. Then I once backed into a hanging naked bulb, without a tee shirt on, jolted me into realizing my Frankenstein set up, could bitch me up real bad with a stupid mistake. The burn got my wife worried, and she is a rock.
So back to Pro Mix, and buckets and safe easy growing since then.
I did start organics a few years ago now, so I got that to wrap my wee
head around.
I doubt Krusty would even remember me, anymore, but I do remember his system, and saved how to build a real one…I would consider that doing that again, but I’m still in a dark age state…nice thought.
5 Likes
“backed into a hanging naked bulb, without a tee shirt on”
Jesus dude…lucky you weren’t sweating at the time it might have exploded. Also good to know I’m not the only nude gardener on the site lol
3 Likes
100% agreement. The best grow is one that is manageable and safe.
A house fire is the absolute last thing anyone needs.
5 Likes
do you need three buckets or can you use one and a net pot
1 Like
would you want more than 2" of liquid at the bottom of the bucket if you used bigger buckets or is it how much space root zone has between the water level and bottom of the plant
1 Like
did the sunken reservoir do anything besides hold more water but you still had to fill it often to not get too low below a certain point
1 Like
The inner and outer buckets, the lava rock, the outer bucket is one that goes between the corner buckets as per the Tee over a elbow.
This pot holds the 1/4" soaker hose that get threaded through the holes, then to an airline, I made a manifold that looped around where the drain and feed lines were on the floor at.
The soaker hoes that will provide millions of bubbles, so much so, as I ran the system for a week or so, I could see tiny whisp’s of nutrient rich vapor rising up through the lave rock. I tried to get some snaps of that but I could not ever really show it well.
Ok in the grow are, where the drain goes back to the sunken resy. You also just see the air manifold, I made that from hydraulic tubing and push lok air fittings, and maybe some ferrule type fitting also, what ever I could scrounge up in my* save for another day box*.
My first huge fail. I had this nutty idea, that if I ran my supply lines, through the drain line, they would stay cooler. FAIL!
After that I simply ran a 3/4" supply line to a big mag type pump. As it runs always.
I stated early on I had jack hammered through concrete to set this liner into the floor, BUT this system was installed to stop water from coming into the basement area of the whole house. So this resy was a 2 fer, a resy for me, a place where water ran to keep our floors dry when it rained…however, after watching it, I realized it would take a sever rain to make that system work. So it became a passive resy to aid me in growing weed. But you still had to top off and go on vacation…
A brand new garbage can, on wheels, needs some fittings and some love, but I had to take my lady on vacation, with out worry of the girls. This did take a while to figure out, but between some float valves, and bit of jury rigging, it worked a treat!
This was a few months of trail and error, but we got to go on a 10 day vacation, either coming back to a shit show or a fully running area. It worked fine, until I retired the whole set up.
This what it looked like fully running .
Since I had no auto food makeing set up, the system needed nutrients, but every 10 days it got cleaned and refreshed.
I hope some enjoyed walking down mmory lane with me. And Thanks to OP for even wondering about KFB’s, or Krusty Freedom Buckets, that many know them by. It did quell my tinkering fool soul for a while anyway. All props go to Krusty, and the other bucketeers that I copied and used thier ideas and what not, No-One, One Mo Pound, germy always kept me safe from doing some on line stupid shit I’d do. So many great growers, far better than I helped me also.
6 Likes
Hey cultivatorkid, the sunken resy helped my temps to to stay lower. You would need to run a decent chiller, as you run more lights. I would empty the system every 10 days, cycle clean water through it, checking PPM’s, then mix up a batch of nutes, and get back to it.
The solution level, is where the vapors are made, as you have the soaker pumping in a lot of air, since the bucket above it has hundreds of 3/8" ths holes, and when making a six plant site set up, that is a lot of freaking holes to whack out. Those holes allow drainage from the top down for the 24/7 solution flow, and for the vapors to rise up, and lick the roots to orgasm.
1 Like
His vertical grows were insane! He had a strain black rose the Dr used to give out as a freebie.
I was stupid and young 20 years ago I burn one of my parents rental property’s down.
Hell I didn’t know only so many apms could go on a certain breaker. You live and you learn.
2 Likes
Yeah man I love an indoor tree grow. I like variety but one of these days I wanna try ripping a single plant under a 1K in a DWC tote for shits and gigs.
What you mean to say is, through no fault of your own, the faulty wiring was to blame haha
2 Likes