Over the past week I’ve torn down the flower room for cleaning and resetting for the next run.
This is where a lot of my planning ahead has really shined. I was able to turn off the valve to the feed manifold, then open the spin-down filter valve to convert the system to drain to waste mode. From there I dumped my entire reservoir in a few minutes and was able to run some peroxide through the system to clean the feed lines.
Once my feed lines were cleaned I disconnected the feed manifold at the PVC union and disassembled the valves for a long peroxide soak and scrub.
The 10 gallon beds were then taken outside and power washed to clean up the excess hydroton dust that settled at the bottom of the beds.
During disassembly I had noticed a few of the beds were draining slower than they should have, and I found that sagging 3/4" flex line had collected hydroton muck which then slowed the drains. (Switching from the siphon removed the suction that had kept those lines clean in previous iterations of the system.)
I contacted The Bucket Company to discuss this and they sent out new drain connections yesterday. This week I’ll be converting the drain from the 3/4" flex line over to 1" PVC all the way to the return pump. This will also let me install an inline filter on the drain-side to protect the return pump even further.
I am planning on running a coco/perlite mix in the system for the next run to see how that works out for me. This will make transplants from the veg system much easier, allow me to run fewer watering cycles per day, and sets up perpetual flowering with me adding a new plant every week or two.
I am currently setting up the new 4x4 veg tent to complement the 3x4 clone/mother tent.
This tent will be running the Arden EH500 with clones in the 1 gallon Radicle Bags. I will be sticking with Ionic nutrients in the tents until they run out, then everything will be running on the standard Jacks 321 formula from start to finish.
I have another camera coming tomorrow, so the new tent will be added to the stream this week and I should be moving plants over this weekend. We’ve also been doing a lot more pop-up streams lately, so come check us out on Twitch!