subbed for this. Absolute reciprocation on the appreciation of my work just now. This is fucking awesome
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I ran into that same issue recently. Turns out its my water that is the problem. I have well water that normally has an EC of around 80 uS. However, it must also have a lot of carbonates in it because the PH shoots up wildly when ever I aerate or agitate the water.
I could take plain tap water that started at 6.7 PH, and aerate it for 15 minutes, and it would be close to 8.0. Just putting it in a jug and shaking it would raise the PH.
This wasnt so bad when I was running full strength nutes at around EC 1.3 or more, but when I tried cloning with low EC levels, it turned out to be almost impossible to keep the PH in the 5.8 range. In just a few hours the PH would shoot up to 6.7 or so - no matter how much PH down I used or how often I added it, the PH just kept going up within a few hours as long as I was aerating.
The other side effect was that it took a ton of PH down to lower the PH from the 6.7 range down to around 6.2. For my rez, typically about 60-80 ML of acid. BUT, adding just an additional 1 or 2 ml would drop the PH from 6.2 to 4. I had a heck of a time trying to keep it in the 5.8 range.
Like I said, higher nute levels were not nearly as much trouble. I assume the nutes were acting as a buffer. This was with a 15 gallon rez.
Maybe your water has similar issuesā¦
It came up in this thread. There are some links to explain it in more detail.
By the way, I still dont have a solution.
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I forgot to comment on this. Those are some very interesting ideas! Do you think it will be possible to have fuzzy aero roots up top, and normal hydro roots on the bottom? Ive read that its possible for the roots to change from one type to the other, but I dont recall any mention of the two types co-existing on the same plant.
I almost did something similar to your HPA+NFT idea, but with LPA. I got sidetracked by this HPA thing before I could try it out though.
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Sort of the same for me. My water has a very low ppm (around 100 or so), but very high pH (both values depend on if weāve received rain recently or not). Mine doesnāt change when I aerate the water, but it fluctuates very easy ā a lot like RO water. Thereās just not enough buffering in the water to maintain a stable res, and by the time I got it balanced it was time to add more water to throw it off again.
As long as I have a big enough res and I recirculate I can manage the pH a lot easier, but once I had a small res w/ high usage it was a major pain in the ass.
I couldnāt find a solution either, which is why recirculation and a bigger res was my answer. Not a real solution, but the bandaid prevents the bleeding. 
Weāll know soon enough when I harvest. Right now Iām running HPA + E&F so when Iām done I will be able to dig into the roots and see what they were doing. I know that as it stands the top part (aero) are what I posted the pics of in the roots thread ā theyāre a big ball, free-standing and spreading out. Once they hit the hydroton they actually crawled along the top of it across the whole bed, as well as dug down deeper into the clay. Itāll be interesting to see what the inner part of the upper roots looks like, though, before I can really make a determination of what I want to do next.
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Last night when I went into the room I found a few things had shifted. It looks like when my tender came over while I was gone he took a peak at the roots. This dislodged the water line that was feeding the E&F portion and caused it to drip onto the floor. It also shifted the plant in its collar, which caused the plant to want to try and fall over from the sheer weight of the buds.
Hard to tell here, but you can see how sheās leaning pretty badly and the collar is trying to pop out of place.
This was never a problem in the E&F setup with the roots supported in the hydroton. I assume had I built my trellis this would have been less of an issue, as well. (Also having a way to peak at the roots w/o moving the plant would have been a smart idea for the lids.)
Right now Iāve strung a slip-knot around the main trunk and pulled her back towards the wall to stabilize her. The yoyos will be here tomorrow, so I will take a lot of weight off from her then. Hoping that helps, but finding a better solution to stabilize a huge, heavy plant thatās floating in air is going to be a challenge.
From the top sheās looking pretty good, though. I did go back through and give her quite a haircut last night, cleaning up a lot of the excess fan leaves that were blocking light from getting lower into the canopy. I probably stressed the shit out of her last night, but hopefully sheāll recover quickly.
And I picked up another new sign for the room when I was out in Sante Fe at Meow Wolf. 
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Thats some nice tree trunks you have there! Love that sign!!
Im addicted to SCROG, so Im hoping the support thing wont be as much of a problem for me.
Cant wait to see your roots!
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I got a bit annoyed trying to work around the scrog last run but that probably had more to do with making the one plant 5x5 then it did the trellis itself.
Iāve been revisiting this version of the system in my head for some time now. On top of giving myself peace of mind with having a backup water source for the plants, I believe this system will also help me stabilize the root zone temps. Right now this is the direction I am leaning. (I just need a new, lower-profile res so I can drain direct w/o a siphon.)
The only thing I have outstanding now is keeping the plant stable. My thought here is to build a root trellis that is attached to the lid of each grow bed. It will hang down slightly and will give a large area for the plant to hang onto.
My hopes is that this will not only stabilize the plant, but also help expand the root mass higher in the chamber, giving me even more vertical roots and less of a large central mass.
Here is what the trellis material looks like. (One of the few products Multiponics actually delivered.)
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That trellis is an interesting idea. Dont forget to allow for the hatch to look at roots
I think Im going to have a door in the top of my chamber as well as a side door in the fabric pot. Im still working on options to seal them up so there are no air drafts, or leaks that could dry out the roots.
One way or another, I want to do some kind of time lapse of the roots growing.
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Yesterday was the start of week 8 of flower, so we should be nearly done. The trichomes are still cloudy and Iām not seeing any amber yet so thereās a possibility these will go a week or so longer than normal. The OC has started to yellow quite a bit but thatās normal for this plant at the 8th week. (We harvest this at day 1 of week 9 when itās in the big room in soil.)
The buds have gained quite a bit of density and are hard as a rock right now, even though theyāre smaller than I normally pull with the OC I believe that was more about us not training this plant at all vs how we normally run in soil. Tried to do an apples to apples comparison, but we slacked when these plants werenāt responding well to the HPA setup. The weight has forced us to install yoyos since I didnāt have a trellis setup, so weāve got 24 of those holding up the primary colas across the two plants.
The good news is sheāll still produce quite a bit of smoke and the smell is incredible. When walking in my garage you canāt even tell I have chicks in the brooder, because the plants are so potent.
Looking forward to getting this run done already.
Additional light rails have already been installed in the room that will allow us to move the whole grow bed setup out into the center of the room. I hated not being able to get behind the plants and this will give me a walkway on both sides.
I also picked up a 35 gallon storage tank that I plan on turning into my new reservoir. Comes with a 3/4" NTT bulkhead fitting already installed and should be low enough profile that I can switch from the siphon back to a straight recirculating system.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/horizontal-leg-tank-35-gal?cm_vc=-10005
Reservoirs are super expensive to ship (sometimes 150-200% the cost of the product itself). Since I live in the middle of nowhere we have to make due with what we have available ā I still had to drive an hour to get to TSC, but itās better than 3 hours to the nearest Home Depot/Lowes. (Or 1.5 hours if I want to cross into Canada.) 
Living in the woods has its advantagesā¦and its drawbacks.
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Looks to me like its really coming together nicely!
It looks really nice, but Im curious why you chose that type of rez instead of the more usual Home Depot tote?
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I read another Atomizer thread a few days ago, but now I cant find it again. He mentioned something about the wet roots situation, but I cant remember exactly what he said, and I didnt copy it down 
It was something like if the leaves are wilting but the stems are not, then something, somethingā¦Im thinking it was too much mist with too long a pause time, but that may b wrong.
But if both were wilting, it was too little moisture over all - I think.
Im going to keep searching for that, because it sounds like good info to know. I was too stoned at the time to realize how good a tip it was!
Edit: oops - thought I was answering your post on my thread!
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Iām always on the search for a better res. I started with the totes quite a few years back and ran into all sorts of issuesā¦ leaky bulkheads, weak sidewalls causing the tote to bulge, no way to measure level accurately. I did the normal fixes, silicone the bulkhead, built a frame for the tote, and installed a clear tube for level but it seemed like a lot of work when purpose-built tanks exist for this reason.
For the past few years Iāve been using a sump basin.
This has worked fine up til now, but for this next run I want a much lower profile res so I can eliminate the siphon and drain directly back into the res. This tank also has gallon measurements in 5 gallon increments which is way better then my rough measurement ticks I am using today.
Who knows, Iāll probably end up changing it again at some point. The pet food container idea didnāt work as well as I wanted, so thereās always a chance Iāll switch things up again.
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The plants are a few days into the flush now as we enter week 9 of flower. I can already tell that some of the earlier problems with the system have affected the plants. Normally weāre starting prep for harvest at the end of week 8, but I can see these going another full week before theyāre done.
A few bud shotsā¦
And a little trichome forestā¦
Itching to harvest and get the room reset with all of the new goodies.
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They look pretty good to me. That looks like a tree stump in that first pic!
Looking forward to seeing the changes you put in place for next time.
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Today is officially the start of the 12th week of flower. 
I checked the plants last night and everything looked good to go for harvest, finally. I went ahead and gathered up the supplies then converted the 3rd bathroom to a temporary drying room. Since the room already has a dedicated thermostat for the baseboard heat I only have to worry about humidity.
Hereās a few of the items Iāll be using during the drying.
Humidity Controller
Dehumidifier w/ Continuous Drainage
Drying Hangers
Monitoring Sensors
The smell from the room is absolutely incredible and Iām really looking forward to the harvest tonight. Itās only 2 plants and Iāll have help so it will be a nice change of pace from the normal trim jail we get confined to for days on end.
I will post pics pre and post harvest tonight, including root and trunk dissection. I donāt do wet weights normally but for this test I plan on logging all of the data so I can compare against what we already know about these strains.
More to come later tonight!
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Just bought several of those SensorPush hygrometers + a hub. Expensive but the reviews have been good. Being a data hound, I like that they claim theyāll be providing an API interface to the hub data.
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I have the hub as well, itās a great little setup. I looked at all of the competition and this seemed like the best for me. I have them in each of the root chambers, grow room, garage (lung room), outside, as well as 3 in the chicken coop (coop, run, and loft).
Same here man, I absolutely love me some data. I made a career out of it, so it only makes sense to have all of the data for my grow as well.
Anyone looking at these but is afraid of the cost can look at the Boveda Butler sensor, itās a lot cheaper with all of the same features ā minus the hub. This means you have to sync w/ the phone to get the data but would be good for spot-checking.
Room Update
We started the harvest but itās going a bit slower than expected. (There is a TON of weed on this damn plant.) Should have her done by tonight.
Weāre anticipating at least 12oz from the OC and 8oz from the BK once dried, so not a bad haul.
We were a bit bored while trimming yesterday so we went ahead and flash froze some and pressed out some live rosin. Amazing taste and one helluva high. Iāll be tweaking that process even further today so I can press a bit more ā it makes the trimming go a lot quicker.
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Flash froze? You have liquid oxy or nitrogen or?
Those are some real tree trunks on those babies. Nice haul!!
Did you ever get a chance to compare the PH before and after the nozzles? My setup is still running at least a full point or more of PH increase when it gets sprayed out of the nozzles. I am now PHing my rez down to 4.6-4.7 to get the water I collect in the root chamber down to the 5.8 range.
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Oh no, nothing that advanced. I do have access to a commercial blast freezer, which is what we use. Not perfect but it gets the job done and outside of some liquid runoff during the press everything comes out nice and clean. (We save the runoff and use it in cooking or drinks.)
The trunk on the OC was nearly 2" in diameter and we finally gave in during trimming and started using bigger garden tools to get the job done.
I did not yet, I was having issues getting access to the root zone while the plant was in the way. Thatās a big correction Iāll make during the rebuild, for sure. I will be able to test this in the coming days though, just have a lot of projects on my plate right now to complete then itās back to the room.
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You have all sorts of cool toys to play with! Awesome stuff
That pic tells the story for sure.
Im pondering ways to improve my setup as well. Im finding that when you try to ride the edge to find the perfect ratio of mist quantity, and on/off times, its very tricky.
Not only is the timing critical, but even minor changes in the position or angle of the nozzles can make very big changes in how wet the roots get. On top of all that, its difficult to get the top of the chamber wet enough without having the lower sections too wet.
I havent come up with anything at all practical, or affordable yet though. What we need is nozzles that put out a lot less water, but still create the correct size droplets AND are affordable.
Looking forward to your PH results.
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