Three types of hydro in a small tent on one airpump?

[anon32470837]

@Viva_Mexico

sometimes by slowing down the air flow you can further reduce odors.

I discovered that by accident 1/2 way through the grow.

My first step was to build one filter and use a bath exhaust fan to take air out of the tent and blow it into the room. Worked ok until flowering time. I decided to add a second fan and filter to work as a scrubber - taking air out of the top of the tent and through the filter, then back into the tent under the canopy. The first step was adding the second, more powerful fan. I could tell right away that the higher power fan, running through the same filter, was less effective at reducing odors, so I had to re-do the ducting twice to put the faster fan doing the scrubbing and the slower fan blowing out into the grow room.

Ive been thinking I may try choking the ducting down some to reduce air flow on the scrubber to see if that helps next time.

[ryasco]

Never tried, i assume when pollen hits the carbon it is torn and destroyed any pollen. Ha! Ha! You got me on this one, never thought about it that much.

[anon32470837]

If the pollen only lasts for a week or two, then it really doesnt matter if some is stuck in the filters or ducts does it?. It will all be dead by the time you get to flowering.

As far as cleaning/changing the carbon, Ive read all sorts of things - from changing out the carbon 1/2 way through a grow to once a year.

My plan is to wait until it seems to need it - based on how well it keeps the smell out of the house.

[h3y4rnold]

Well I’m sending you

Topanga pure Kush x Chem sis fems

I know they aren’t super “elite” or anything but they seem to be pretty homogenous and it’ll prob be moderate smoke at best

But hey at least they were free

Should make the thread even more of a show if I may so myself

[anon32470837]

@h3y4rnold

Chem sis

Thank you sir!!

I just looked up those two and thats an interesting combination. They sound like polar opposites - one knocks you out and the other wakes you up!

What are the effects when using it?

Also, any idea how big they get?

[v1ru5]

It will knock you out and then you have lucid dreams

[h3y4rnold]

Honestly the topanga is one of the rarest and best OG Kush known to man and the Chem sis is all power

I was being satacastic earlier there’s people out there that wold cut their dicks off for these beans. lol

[anon32470837]

As a newbie, Im still not at all sure what to expect, but THANKS!!

Im making progress on setting up the three totes. I’ll be posting some progress pics by tomorrow I think. I should just about be ready to germ those seeds by the time they get here

[anon32470837]

Making some progress. I have the three totes more or less set in place and adjusted to the best height above the rez. Now its down to details and plumbing.

[MBSeeds]

Looking sooooooo good doll. Mechelle x

[G-paS]

Yes he is. Nice shot Larry, of you

[anon32470837]

LOL! At least there are no feet showing!!

Ok, I made some good progress today. I may even get it all plumbed tomorrow so I can start cycle testing with the finished totes.

Ok, this is the Meniscus Membrane tote. That pipe in the right side in the bottom is the drain. There will be an elbow on the outside I can rotate from pointing up or down to adjust the water level. This tote wants the water level to just be at the bottom side of the “membrane”. For this technique, you do not want standing water inside with the roots. The water will wick up through the membrane to feed the plants. Water will enter on the opposite side via some drip lines feeding from the main air-lift water pump.

I made a PVC frame to support the membrane (rip-stop nylon) so it will be held nice and flat and tight. The excess fabric laps up the sides of the tote so no roots can get down into the lower area where the nute water will be flowing. The fabric is tacked to the frame with hot glue and folded into the corners to form a fabric box to line the tote.

Next I put a layer of perlite up to the top of the drain pipe. Thats to allow the water to flow through and wick up at the same time. I then added a layer of poly batting on top of the perlite. That should help with the wicking by increasing the contact area with the membrane.

The membrane ‘box’ sitting on top of the perlite/batting layer.

This is all three totes in place and almost finished.

On the left is the ebb/flow tote. In the front is the auto siphon with a protective shield I hope will keep roots out. I can remove the lid and clean it out if needed. The shield is just a plastic container I cut the bottom out of and wrapped with silk screen fabric. I first put down a thin layer of lava rock, then started filling with a mix of lava rock and pipe cutoff’s. The pipe cutoffs are hopefully going to allow more room for roots to grow between the rocks. I put a final layer of just lava rock on top. I have to say that washing lava rock is a pain!!!

The center tote is the modified NFT tote. It has a 1/4" slope. There are two layers of the same batting in the bottom. This tote will get a steady, slow supply of water much like the Membrane tote. The water will flow through the batting and the roots will grow into the batting. Refer back to the video I posted earlier. Im doing the same basic thing he did - with changes

The right tote is the Membrane tote.

Thats the auto siphon and lid.

[anon32470837]

More progress.

I got the water distribution manifold installed and adjusted pretty close to the flow rates I want. All three totes are pretty much complete as far as the basic setup and have been cycling for the last hour or so.

The cycle time on the E/F tote is around 10 minutes at the moment. I have had it up to 16 minutes, but the siphon wasnt always tripping reliably. Im going to keep playing with that. I would prefer more like 15 minutes, but Im ok with 10 minutes if it means reliability.

The other two totes both have a steady trickle of water flowing in and out. Its roughly 3.5 gals/hour each.

I did a test of the membrane ability to wick water by placing a small handful of some damp but not wet lava rock on the membrane. Before putting it in, it weighed 50.3 gms. After about 5 minutes they weighed 53.6 gms, so about 3.3 gms of extra water were absorbed. Thats not much, but over a 24 hr period that would add up to about .25 gals. That bit of rock was only covering maybe 5% of the area at most, so that means about 5 gals a day of potential water transfer at least. I think that will be fast enough to keep up with one plants drinking rate.

The mat in the NFT tote stays saturated really well.

So the three totes will have a large spread as far as how much water the roots get. The E/F tote will have the max - approaching DWC levels. The Membrane tote will have the least amount with the roots mostly in air. The NFT will be in the middle somewhere, but closer to the low end.

At the moment, my gut feeling is the NFT tent is going to win, but we will see.

Here are some more pics.

The pipe coming up from below in the bottom left of this pic is the air-lift pump. The water runs to the ‘T’ in the back. Most of it goes into the E/F tote on the left, but some flows to the right and into the other two totes through small holes - two in each tote. There is also a lot of air flowing with the water, which goes into all three totes. In addition, there is a cutout between each tote that goes down to under the work bench. That means the air pump is constantly supplying fresh air and the totes can get fresh air from below every time the E/F cycles.

Im going to be wrapping all the totes in 1" insulation on the sides and top to seal them off from the grow tent.

This is a pic under the work bench showing all the lines draining into the rez from the totes above. The rez is raised up off the floor about 14 inches. Just enough to get a 5 gal square bucket under the drain spout. The second pic shows the 3" PVC pipe that forms the pumping chamber. It holds the air-lift pump. You can see the hose connecting it to the rez.

If I had done a better job of pre-planning and visualization, things would have ended up much neater. I dont really care as long as it works.

Its hard to see, but this shot shows the meniscus forming at the bottom of that small piece of PVC pipe.

[anon32470837]

I almost forgot - I changed my setup for roiling the rez and simplified it. I have 4 of these running in the rez. I’ll put one in each corner to keep things stirred up and aerated.

I know, they look really lame, but they work really well, so I dont care They roil the water very well without using too much air - and the best part is they cost about 5 cents to make All they are is airline couplers with one end smashed down and mostly blocked off so there is only a small hole for the air to get through. I then zip-tied them to a piece of lava rock to keep them on the bottom of the rez.

[G-paS]

@anon32470837

LOL! At least there are no feet showing!!

For sure that is the most important thing.

[anon32470837]

Im about ready to start popping some seeds! I just have a few minor things to do to the tent, re-rout some wiring and tidy up some air lines and finish the rez lid cutouts. Then Im going to let it run a few days to be sure no issues pop up, then the seeds will go in to the perlite.

More pics…

Insulating around the totes and preparing the lids. I can remove the entire lid in sections to get to any part of ant tote if needed.

Those black and white pipes are filled with perlite. Thats what the seedlings will go into. I drilled a bunch of large holes in the lower sections of the pipes, then wrapped them in one layer of batting. Thats mostly to keep the perlite in. Its too small a grade and falls through the holes other wise. Im hoping the roots will pass right through it.

Reflective mylar added.

[anon32470837]

Ive been running the setup full time for the last few days and the last 36 hrs with the lights and heaters on in the tent. Temps in the tent are staying in the 75-79 degF range. Room temp is staying right around 66 degF.

With the tent lights/heaters OFF, my rez temps are staying around 61 degF.

With the tent lights and heater ON, the rez temps are staying right at 62 degF.

Apparently, my efforts at insulation have worked just fine and Im getting very little heat transferred to the root zone and the water.

There must also be some evaporative cooling going on in the rez and the totes because the rez water stays at least 4 deg F below room temp.

Thats very good news in one way, but now Im wondering of I need to add a heater?

Also, Ive decided to get clones for this test - if I can actually get someone to sell me some. After reading about the inherent variations between plants grown from seed, it just didnt make sense to call this an experiment unless I used clones. Plus the fem seeds thing didnt work out and I just dont want to mess with culling male plants. It would just add another layer if variables.

[MicroDoser]

I would agree with this. If your roots have access to a nutrient filled, oxygenated solution at the right strength, temperature, and PH, then that will enable your plant to produce vigorous growth. In ebb and flow, and aeroponics, and pretty much any system you think of, you are trying to get more oxygen to the root surface, nothing more.

I also pump as much water as I can to the roots. Like with air and having a large enough fan to clear used air from the leaf surface, you want to have a pump capable of removing used nutrient solution from the root surface. I use 2 x 15-60 Grundfos central heating pumps, which AFAIK are rated at 3000 LPH for a total of 6000 LPH although this is spread over 11 x 1m lengths of guttering in a vertical system. I have multiple waterfalls which provide generous amounts of oxygen. To deal with excess roots, I circulate my nutrient solution with a pump in the tank so that the roots flow away from any pump inlets. I have sometimes four feet of root in my main tank (on top of the six feet from the plant to the outlet), which in the past has been a problem.

Stopping your pump and allowing roots to ‘dry out’ is just enhancing oxygen at the root surface, if your nutrient solution is properly oxygenated you do not need to let your roots ‘dry out’ and so you can allow vigorous growth with no down periods of lower nutrient supply. If we say `re-oxygenate’ or ‘a period of higher oxygen saturation’ instead of’ ‘dry out’ (because as you have shown they do not dry out) it should make the best solution more apparent.

EDIT :

Root Zone Temperature is very important, in the context of getting as much oxygen to the roots, the lower the temperature, the more oxygen. This of course needs balancing with the fact that the warmer the roots are the more growth you have. Also the warmer the water, the more chance of root rot.

61F, wait that is only 16c or so?

You want that to be at least 19 (66f), ideally between 21-24c (70f-75f), even more ideal is 22c (71.6F), hehe. I would say to get an aquarium heater set to about 21c (70f)

Your tent temps are about perfect, keep doing what you are doing there!

The knowledge I have been told is to not vary tent temps by more than 2 degrees c between day and night if you can, My Guru says 26 in the day, 24 at night with 22 tank temp. The theory is that growth continues at night if you keep temps up leading to a higher yield and greater strength…

Thank you for posting this thread, I am always interested in the differences between methods, and the only true way is to keep as much the same as possible, use clones, and have the only variable be the method.

[Albannach]

Wish i had thought about using central heating pumps years ago. That is a dam good idea, they are fairly cheap, well built, easy to find and almost silent running. Respect!

I refuse to run a chiller in Scotland but i have paid the price in ruined plants due to root rot during what passes for summer here. You have to keep res temps around 21 to maintain a root zone temp of 22 to 23 due to radiant heat from lighting.

[anon32470837]

@MicroDoser

11 x 1m lengths of guttering in a vertical system.

I have a bunch of questions and comments on your post, but no time now, so I will keep it short.

Do you have pics and details of your system somewhere you can link too?

I have been thinking recently that the key thing - in addition to all the details you listed above - is the size of the root ball. The more room for roots, the bigger they will grow and the larger, more vigorous the plant will be - thats my current theory anyway.

Ive been trying to come up with techniques to accomplish that and keep the roots zone out of the grow tent at the same time - to help keep temps down in the rez. Your system sounds like it might do that.

More later…