12/12 From Seed Experiment - 21 Strains

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 3 Update
Day 29

Pretty good progress. Many of the plants that are starting to really do well have developed a really nice thick tap root that extends into the water. I'm gaining more and more confidence with each passing day.

A few closeups and then some group pictures.

Chronic Thunder



Blueberry Headband



Blue Dream



Sour Blueberry



C99



Group Shots

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

I'd like to show you guys a few things that I'm working on. While I certainly have not given up on the NFT tube idea, I'd like to try a few new things and since I have quite a few plants that are still not in the octagon, I figure what the hell...lets use those for these new ideas.

All of the ideas I'm about to share will be in 1 gallon containers. The ones I'm prototyping with are black and circular. I have on order white circular ones and white rectangular ones...both 1 gallon still. Because black will absorb heat, I won't be using these containers but all of the ideas will of course transfer.

DWC #1:
This uses a single container. It has 2 intakes at the top...one for air and one for water. The drain is up near the top and would be positioned approximately 1/4" to 1/2" below the bottom of the 2" net pot that would be sitting on top. The last picture compares the 2 air stones I would be considering. a 4" air stone requires a pretty strong air pump and is probably way overkill. I'll be filling the bucket and try both stones and just see how they look. The reservoir would be well oxygenated as well. Note the water line...this is submerged all the way to the bottom so all new water coming in will arrive at the bottom. In theory, this should force the old water through the drain hole. Water pump would be on 24/7 of course.


DWC #2:
This idea is nearly the same as the above example except that 2 buckets are involved. A few very small holes are drilled in the inner container to let water overflow into the outer container. These holes are positioned just below where the bottom of the net pot would be sitting. The outer container has a drain at the bottom which returns to the reservoir. Everything else about the air stone and water coming in are identical.

Pros/Cons between the 2 DWC ideas:
The main pro for idea #1 is that the drain hole is already elevated which means these containers could possibly sit right on the floor and not have to be elevated.
The main pro for idea #2 is that the temperature of the water in each container should be less affected by heat. With the outer layer of plastic followed by a steady stream of water coming from the run-off, there is somewhat of a shield. This could all be bullshit and wrong...I'm just thinking outloud. Maybe this would make zero difference at all...maybe it would actually be worse as the water would be coming in direct contact with the outer bucket and actually absorb more heat. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Idea #3:
Nothing really special here but want to see what you think. This one is similar to DWC #2 in that 2 buckets would be used. The inner bucket would be filled with about anything. I'm probably going to try the following: Coco/Perlite, Perlite only, Hydroton, Growstone. The container holding the medium just has a few small holes in the bottom that I drilled. Depending on the medium, I might adjust the size of these holes. For the larger stuff like hydroton and growstone, I've done three 1/4" holes. The lid is really what is worth talking about. It might seem ridiculous and maybe it is. I have not been able to find any halo water rings that have 1/4" inlets. These sprayers I have do not give great coverage but 4 of them oriented like this gives the entire container perfect coverage. Of course, this means I have to waste 4 lines to feed it.



Any and all thoughts, ideas, criticisms, etc are welcome!

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 3 Update
Day 31

Just a quickie this morning. Changed the water and began the Week 1 flowering schedule. A few pistols have been sighted
Did 25 gallons @50% strength and then added 5 more gallons of plain water to dillute a little. I'm staying pretty aggressive on my feeding but keeping a very close eye.
Many of them are preparing to enter the stretch and look fantastic. Quite a few are behind because of their delayed root issue but I expect them to pick it up soon. I now risk shading issues as their progress is not uniform. Damnit!

I'll be working on my various prototypes this week and will be using the plants that *still* cannot be moved into the octagon for these prototypes. All in all, I think we're around 70 plants that are in the octagon of the 100 projected...not too bad considering I ruled out using an entire row (which is 25 plants).

Picture update in a day or two.

 

[hayrolld]

I'd like to show you guys a few things that I'm working on. While I certainly have not given up on the NFT tube idea, I'd like to try a few new things and since I have quite a few plants that are still not in the octagon, I figure what the hell...lets use those for these new ideas.

All of the ideas I'm about to share will be in 1 gallon containers. The ones I'm prototyping with are black and circular. I have on order white circular ones and white rectangular ones...both 1 gallon still. Because black will absorb heat, I won't be using these containers but all of the ideas will of course transfer.

DWC #1:
This uses a single container. It has 2 intakes at the top...one for air and one for water. The drain is up near the top and would be positioned approximately 1/4" to 1/2" below the bottom of the 2" net pot that would be sitting on top. The last picture compares the 2 air stones I would be considering. a 4" air stone requires a pretty strong air pump and is probably way overkill. I'll be filling the bucket and try both stones and just see how they look. The reservoir would be well oxygenated as well. Note the water line...this is submerged all the way to the bottom so all new water coming in will arrive at the bottom. In theory, this should force the old water through the drain hole. Water pump would be on 24/7 of course.
View attachment 3457101 View attachment 3457102 View attachment 3457103 View attachment 3457104 View attachment 3457105 View attachment 3457108

DWC #2:
This idea is nearly the same as the above example except that 2 buckets are involved. A few very small holes are drilled in the inner container to let water overflow into the outer container. These holes are positioned just below where the bottom of the net pot would be sitting. The outer container has a drain at the bottom which returns to the reservoir. Everything else about the air stone and water coming in are identical.

Pros/Cons between the 2 DWC ideas:
The main pro for idea #1 is that the drain hole is already elevated which means these containers could possibly sit right on the floor and not have to be elevated.
The main pro for idea #2 is that the temperature of the water in each container should be less affected by heat. With the outer layer of plastic followed by a steady stream of water coming from the run-off, there is somewhat of a shield. This could all be bullshit and wrong...I'm just thinking outloud. Maybe this would make zero difference at all...maybe it would actually be worse as the water would be coming in direct contact with the outer bucket and actually absorb more heat. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Idea #3:
Nothing really special here but want to see what you think. This one is similar to DWC #2 in that 2 buckets would be used. The inner bucket would be filled with about anything. I'm probably going to try the following: Coco/Perlite, Perlite only, Hydroton, Growstone. The container holding the medium just has a few small holes in the bottom that I drilled. Depending on the medium, I might adjust the size of these holes. For the larger stuff like hydroton and growstone, I've done three 1/4" holes. The lid is really what is worth talking about. It might seem ridiculous and maybe it is. I have not been able to find any halo water rings that have 1/4" inlets. These sprayers I have do not give great coverage but 4 of them oriented like this gives the entire container perfect coverage. Of course, this means I have to waste 4 lines to feed it.
View attachment 3457111 View attachment 3457112 View attachment 3457113 View attachment 3457114


Any and all thoughts, ideas, criticisms, etc are welcome!

Hey Hot Diggity. Love how you are always trying to improve your hydro system, I know the feeling. I have a couple thoughts/questions. If you are going to put an airstone in every bucket, individual dwc for each might be a lot simpler than trying to recirculate to a central reservoir. It might also help if water temp is an issue - the water pumps can add a lot of heat depending on their size compared to the amount of water in the reservoir. You might need bigger bucket though, roots get huge in dwc. For the third design, you said you could not find drip rings that use 1/4" feed. Is there a reason you have to use that size line?

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Hey Hot Diggity. Love how you are always trying to improve your hydro system, I know the feeling. I have a couple thoughts/questions. If you are going to put an airstone in every bucket, individual dwc for each might be a lot simpler than trying to recirculate to a central reservoir. It might also help if water temp is an issue - the water pumps can add a lot of heat depending on their size compared to the amount of water in the reservoir. You might need bigger bucket though, roots get huge in dwc. For the third design, you said you could not find drip rings that use 1/4" feed. Is there a reason you have to use that size line?

Can you elaborate on what you mean by individual dwc? Did you basically mean where each bucket is filled but not recirculated...the water would sit isolated in that bucket for a week or so and then be changed?

 

[hayrolld]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by individual dwc? Did you basically mean where each bucket is filled but not recirculated...the water would sit isolated in that bucket for a week or so and then be changed?

Yes, basically. The airstone keeps the water oxygenated and moving around the roots. During flowering you need weekly changes, but less often in veg. You can also just keep an eye on ppm, pH, and water level to judge whether to top off with plain water or add fresh mix. 1 gallon pots might be a challenge though, root balls on dwc can get bigger than that.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Yes, basically. The airstone keeps the water oxygenated and moving around the roots. During flowering you need weekly changes, but less often in veg. You can also just keep an eye on ppm, pH, and water level to judge whether to top off with plain water or add fresh mix. 1 gallon pots might be a challenge though, root balls on dwc can get bigger than that.

Being a hydro novice, is this the general approach that folks typically take? To treat each vessel/plant as it's own environment?
If so, I guess what I was thinking is completely different from this.

1) I totally hear what you're saying about 1 gallon possibly being too small. I'm guestimating based on non hydro root volume using a lot of assumptions based on my 1st chapter with the very small containers. With no *veg* time (12/12 from seed), I honestly believe that 1 gallon will be more than enough space. Do I know? Absolutely not!

2) If I were to treat each container as it's own individual DWC, it would be impossible to manage water temps. I guess where I was coming from was to have a single water pump that fed a 1/2" hose and had a bunch of these:

I'm visualizing 1/2" tubing coiled up with about 4 of these. I've got a crude prototype using a 300 ish GPM water pump connected to two of these and it works fantastic. While I might need to fiddle with pump size, in principle, this seems like it will work.

By running water from the rez into each container and having a chiller on the rez, I will be able to keep temps where I want them.

 

[skunkwreck]

Chapter 3 Update
Day 22 Continued

I have been having some troubles getting plants to get roots long enough to be able to go into the contraption. I know where I went wrong but we're almost there now.
There are exactly 50 plants in the contraption. 3 plants have not made it and 47 are being nursed. It should just a few more days before most of the 47 will be able to go in.

I also am working on a new really simple design that I'll be running in parallel with this grow. Basically a PVC hempy container that is automatically watered and has an air stone at the bottom. These containers could be the best of both worlds.

The one picture of the root I took is pretty typical. Of the 50 plants in the contraption, the roots are anywhere between 8 and 15 inches long already.
Most of them only have a single tap root but some of them have 2 and even 3 taps coming out.

View attachment 3453102 View attachment 3453103 View attachment 3453104 View attachment 3453105 View attachment 3453106 View attachment 3453107

This is some epic shit bro !

 

[hayrolld]

Being a hydro novice, is this the general approach that folks typically take? To treat each vessel/plant as it's own environment?
If so, I guess what I was thinking is completely different from this.

1) I totally hear what you're saying about 1 gallon possibly being too small. I'm guestimating based on non hydro root volume using a lot of assumptions based on my 1st chapter with the very small containers. With no *veg* time (12/12 from seed), I honestly believe that 1 gallon will be more than enough space. Do I know? Absolutely not!

2) If I were to treat each container as it's own individual DWC, it would be impossible to manage water temps. I guess where I was coming from was to have a single water pump that fed a 1/2" hose and had a bunch of these:
View attachment 3458408
I'm visualizing 1/2" tubing coiled up with about 4 of these. I've got a crude prototype using a 300 ish GPM water pump connected to two of these and it works fantastic. While I might need to fiddle with pump size, in principle, this seems like it will work.

By running water from the rez into each container and having a chiller on the rez, I will be able to keep temps where I want them.

It is not the general approach for hydro to run every pot separately, but with dwc it is because it is much easier. After seeing pics of those emitters, you are talking about a top feed system. Which works quite well without making the pots into dwc at the same time. Use the growstones/perlite in the buckets, and put the airstone in the main reservoir. You probably want to let the pots drain from near the bottom, so the roots do not drown. They will only have gravity to feed the return line, not pump pressure, because the buckets are not sealed. You mentioned wanting the buckets on the floor before. Depending on the shape of the main reservoir, they can be kept pretty low if height is a concern. But if they are in the same room as your octagon build, you use a vertical bulb, and you are not aiming for trees, you should be fine making a low table right over the reservoir. It takes very little elevation to get nice flow back down, and you can use a res that is more wide than tall to keep the base height down. With the top feed into buckets of media, your plants will get plenty of nutes and oxygen, and you can use the chiller. Also, the 1 gallon buckets should be fine with the short veg you are planning using media instead of dwc.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

It is not the general approach for hydro to run every pot separately, but with dwc it is because it is much easier. After seeing pics of those emitters, you are talking about a top feed system. Which works quite well without making the pots into dwc at the same time. Use the growstones/perlite in the buckets, and put the airstone in the main reservoir. You probably want to let the pots drain from near the bottom, so the roots do not drown. They will only have gravity to feed the return line, not pump pressure, because the buckets are not sealed. You mentioned wanting the buckets on the floor before. Depending on the shape of the main reservoir, they can be kept pretty low if height is a concern. But if they are in the same room as your octagon build, you use a vertical bulb, and you are not aiming for trees, you should be fine making a low table right over the reservoir. It takes very little elevation to get nice flow back down, and you can use a res that is more wide than tall to keep the base height down. With the top feed into buckets of media, your plants will get plenty of nutes and oxygen, and you can use the chiller. Also, the 1 gallon buckets should be fine with the short veg you are planning using media instead of dwc.

What are your thoughts on this though:


Where there are 2 intake lines and out line. One in line is connected to an air stone (probably not this big 4 incher but a smaller one). The 2nd in line you see would be connected to one of the ports on the manifold bringing in a constant supply of fresh water from the rez. Because this line would be at the bottom of the pot, in theory the older water would leave the pot from the drain pipe and return to the rez. This is the DWC idea I'm trying to explain and experiment with.

 

[Mohican]

The bigger the air stone the better!

 

[hayrolld]

What are your thoughts on this though:
View attachment 3458512

Where there are 2 intake lines and out line. One in line is connected to an air stone (probably not this big 4 incher but a smaller one). The 2nd in line you see would be connected to one of the ports on the manifold bringing in a constant supply of fresh water from the rez. Because this line would be at the bottom of the pot, in theory the older water would leave the pot from the drain pipe and return to the rez. This is the DWC idea I'm trying to explain and experiment with.

Your design can work. You will want a return line a lot bigger than the intake to avoid overflows, with some kind of screen cover to keep roots out. The buckets still might need elevation above the reservoir to circulate well. The only problem you will run into is the bucket size. Roots in dwc grow much faster than the plant, and once the one gallon is full of roots, dealing with feeding gets really hard. Having very little space in the res and lots of thirsty roots means water is taken up almost too quickly. Keeping pH in an acceptable range and avoiding nutrient burn/lockouts is tough. On the plus side, it looks like an effective design and if you use large enough buckets your design I bet you will grow big, vigorous plants. Edit: The central reservoir will help avoid the nute/pH problem, but you will probably need a higher amount of water moving through each bucket per hour than one 1/4 line can provide.

 

[Sativied]

Being a hydro novice, is this the general approach that folks typically take? To treat each vessel/plant as it's own environment?

It's, in cannabis forums anyway, typically the difference between DWC and RDWC. With DWC you have 1 or more containers with 1 or more plant sites each. I.e. a bucket with 1 plant, or a larger container with like 6x6 or even more. Each container has its own air stone(s), pump can be shared given enough capacity. Once you start interconnecting all the buckets, recirculate, including through one brain/control bucket (to adjust ph and nutes gradually as well as refill and drain), you get RDWC. RDWC is imho the second best way to grow hydro. Slightly less efficient than tubes, I prefer not to use air stones (save money and waste), but pretty much same deal as with the tubes.

Main difference is that RDWC is more suitable for growing trees, i.e. large plants, and tubes are more suitable for SoG (optimally with clones). Ideally, well, what I would do for a mini "pot factory", create a few DWC buckets or a small RDWC setup for moms. Grow moms in the DWC, take cutting from those and put those in an aero or bubble cloner (like a DWC rez with multiple sites), and once rooted run them 12/12 in the tubes (from which you can then harvest every 8-9 weeks, 5-6 times a year).

This might be interesting for inspiration if anything, from the Lucas from Lucas' Formula:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1988600/how-many-pepper-plants
It's from 2010 and RDWC is quite popular and I think there are probably better examples by now even at riu.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Chapter 3 Update
Day 32

Girls are really jamming now! I checked 5 random plants and 4 of the 5 had tiny pistols so I'll probably call day 1 of flowering in a day or so.
Many of them took to the octagon slower than others but they are really taking off now too so all in all they will probably just be a little bit behind. Nothing to worrisome.

 

[hayrolld]

Chapter 3 Update
Day 32

Girls are really jamming now! I checked 5 random plants and 4 of the 5 had tiny pistols so I'll probably call day 1 of flowering in a day or so.
Many of them took to the octagon slower than others but they are really taking off now too so all in all they will probably just be a little bit behind. Nothing to worrisome.

View attachment 3458837 View attachment 3458838 View attachment 3458839 View attachment 3458840 View attachment 3458841 View attachment 3458842 View attachment 3458843

Looks great Hot Diggity!

 

[skunkwreck]

Hot Diggity is a mad scientist with this $hit !!

 

[Sativied]

Yeah looking really good seeing those rows fill in. Great internode spacing too.

Would you mind continuing to add the names of the strains with the individual pics? Really like the structure of the first two. Third (headband?) looks almost too branchy although it will probably stretch out a bit I think the others are going to form better colas.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Yeah looking really good seeing those rows fill in. Great internode spacing too.

Would you mind continuing to add the names of the strains with the individual pics? Really like the structure of the first two. Third (headband?) looks almost too branchy although it will probably stretch out a bit I think the others are going to form better colas.

Sure will!

 

[skunkwreck]

Last time I saw something like that was in a movie...called a NFT spiral system...it rotated under a 1k bulb...I think the movie is called "leaves of grass " You ought to check it out .

 

[Mr.Head]

Fucking killing it dude. Keep it up.