akhiymjames
Well-Known Member
KILLING!!!!!!
12/12 From Seed Experiment - 21 Strains
- Thread starter Hot Diggity Sog
- Start date
Hot Diggity Sog
Well-Known Member
Thanks man! This is shaping up to possibly be my best performance yet.
akhiymjames
Well-Known Member
I knew it was gonna be when I saw how you constructed this setup. Lots of trials and tribulations and money you've put into trying to get the best setup and it has paid off bro. Keep killing man. Have you decide if your gonna continue to run seeds or run clones?
Hot Diggity Sog
Well-Known Member
That's a good question and I don't know. I owe it to myself to at least try the clone option. One promising new option if I continue running seeds is that I should be able to run regular seeds with this setup and simply germinate twice what I need. But clones offer some serious benefits that I just cannot get with seeds. I can pheno hunt and use spectacular mothers. I can expect extremely uniform growth. Time will tell.
Hot Diggity Sog
Well-Known Member
I have not been as diligent with updates as I used to and I do apologize for that. Since I never took the time to explain some of the details of the current setup, I thought I would do so now. Most of you probably won't be interested but if even one person gets something useful out of this post then sweet!
So for Chapter 3 which was the 1st ever Hydroponics run for me as well as the 1st try with this NFT Tube setup I learned a few things.
I run my nutrient strength extremely low...almost unbelievably low. I keep my PH range between 6.5 and 5.8. When I do rez changes, the PH will remain very steady until about 10 or 12 days later and then it starts to drop off. This seems to be when a rez change will be needed soon. I like to start the PH off at 6.5 and just bring it down slowly a little every day when I do top-off's. Water temps are managed by a chiller which is sitting just to the left in this picture. 68/69F is what the temp always is...very little variance. My PPM range is between 500 and 600 and I generally like to keep it between 530 and 560 PPM's. Seems crazy huh? But if I even approach 1.0 EC I get burning and leaf curl.
This is the back side of the rez and is my wire management. All of the power cords for the pumps and what not come out here. This is nice so the lid can always fasten securely to keep it dark. It's high enough that even when I fill the rez all the way there is no risk of water escaping.
The water returns from the tubes via a 2 inch tube. You can see massive roots in this too. About once a week I take scissors and cut off any roots that are actually inside of the rez. These roots are meaty too. Not whimpy little roots but big pasta like roots...haha. The rez is about 5 feet away from the tubes so you can get a sense for just how many roots these girls have.
On the right side of the rez, I have 4 input holes for air lines. I'm only running one air stone which seems to be just fine. I had anticipated running 4 air stones but it's just not needed. These grommets work great. I actually should close these up as a little light appears to be able to get in.
This is the front-left side of the rez. All of the tubing is 1/2". The two on the left are for the chiller. A pump inside the rez pumps water to the chiller and is immediately returned. I have a 90 degree elbow on it just to control spraying/splashing.
The two up front feed the tubes. There are 2 feed pumps in the rez. I chose to use two for a few reasons. One, if my feed pump were to ever fail I would be royally screwed. By having two, I have some fault protection. The other reason is that I have a lot of flexibility in pump size. I've found that two 396GPH pumps is about perfect and that's what is currently running.
These are the 2 feed lines feeding the top of the tubes.
So for Chapter 3 which was the 1st ever Hydroponics run for me as well as the 1st try with this NFT Tube setup I learned a few things.
I run my nutrient strength extremely low...almost unbelievably low. I keep my PH range between 6.5 and 5.8. When I do rez changes, the PH will remain very steady until about 10 or 12 days later and then it starts to drop off. This seems to be when a rez change will be needed soon. I like to start the PH off at 6.5 and just bring it down slowly a little every day when I do top-off's. Water temps are managed by a chiller which is sitting just to the left in this picture. 68/69F is what the temp always is...very little variance. My PPM range is between 500 and 600 and I generally like to keep it between 530 and 560 PPM's. Seems crazy huh? But if I even approach 1.0 EC I get burning and leaf curl.
This is the back side of the rez and is my wire management. All of the power cords for the pumps and what not come out here. This is nice so the lid can always fasten securely to keep it dark. It's high enough that even when I fill the rez all the way there is no risk of water escaping.
The water returns from the tubes via a 2 inch tube. You can see massive roots in this too. About once a week I take scissors and cut off any roots that are actually inside of the rez. These roots are meaty too. Not whimpy little roots but big pasta like roots...haha. The rez is about 5 feet away from the tubes so you can get a sense for just how many roots these girls have.
On the right side of the rez, I have 4 input holes for air lines. I'm only running one air stone which seems to be just fine. I had anticipated running 4 air stones but it's just not needed. These grommets work great. I actually should close these up as a little light appears to be able to get in.
This is the front-left side of the rez. All of the tubing is 1/2". The two on the left are for the chiller. A pump inside the rez pumps water to the chiller and is immediately returned. I have a 90 degree elbow on it just to control spraying/splashing.
The two up front feed the tubes. There are 2 feed pumps in the rez. I chose to use two for a few reasons. One, if my feed pump were to ever fail I would be royally screwed. By having two, I have some fault protection. The other reason is that I have a lot of flexibility in pump size. I've found that two 396GPH pumps is about perfect and that's what is currently running.
These are the 2 feed lines feeding the top of the tubes.
Hot Diggity Sog
Well-Known Member
Chapter 4 Update
Day 59
Flowering ~ Day 15
I've been doing very aggressive pruning on these plants. When I topped them, they ended up having 4 main branches plus tons of little stuff. I've removed almost all of the little stuff and in many cases I've removed 1 of the 4 main branches. When I topped them, I was careful to orient each plant so that the two main branches were side by side (not front to back). The 3rd and 4th branches that came were from lower branches. What I ended up with was a triangle shaped plant with the 2 main branches on each side and a lower branch out in front. The 4th branch was behind them and thus not receiving much light and so in those cases I simply removed the 4th. All in all I've removed about 2 full 5 gallon buckets worth of branches. Taking pictures is kind of difficult now so some of these are just me holding the camera in the octagon and shooting. What you will see in these pictures is pretty much only dominant branches that I hope will be big 'old colas!
Day 59
Flowering ~ Day 15
I've been doing very aggressive pruning on these plants. When I topped them, they ended up having 4 main branches plus tons of little stuff. I've removed almost all of the little stuff and in many cases I've removed 1 of the 4 main branches. When I topped them, I was careful to orient each plant so that the two main branches were side by side (not front to back). The 3rd and 4th branches that came were from lower branches. What I ended up with was a triangle shaped plant with the 2 main branches on each side and a lower branch out in front. The 4th branch was behind them and thus not receiving much light and so in those cases I simply removed the 4th. All in all I've removed about 2 full 5 gallon buckets worth of branches. Taking pictures is kind of difficult now so some of these are just me holding the camera in the octagon and shooting. What you will see in these pictures is pretty much only dominant branches that I hope will be big 'old colas!
Hot Diggity Sog
Well-Known Member
No real reason. Sat had mentioned not running air stones at all with this system and how it would be just fine. Heath never oxygenated so it was more out of curiosity than anything.
Hot Diggity Sog
Well-Known Member
Hmm. Well, I'll throw some more in then. Certainly won't hurt!I saw a similar post back when I was in hydro. I pulled out my airstones and everything when bad. Now I am a strong believer in as much air as possible
Sativied
Well-Known Member
Max DO level is not so hard to reach in NFT if the pump runs 24/7. Once you reached that adding more bubbles doesn't help anything. It would depend on the rez contents and pump capacity whether I would use bubbles, the larger the res contents the less fast it recirculates... Most aeration however comes from surface aeration (also when using bubbles) which happens constantly in NFT. Add the additional return from the chiller recirculating it too...It ain't dwc... Frankly I personally would rather have the water go bad once and know I actually need the bubbles than not know and potentially run air pumps for no reason but that's just me, don't take that as advice, do what you think is best to keep'm healthy. Root problems are hard to recover from and like you said it won't hurt.
Hey, if you still interested in arduino, you could get a DO probe (pricey though) and measure it and really tune it optimally.
Hey, if you still interested in arduino, you could get a DO probe (pricey though) and measure it and really tune it optimally.
Sativied
Well-Known Member
N2, atmospheric nitrogen, which needs to be fixated (by nature or synthetically) into forms the plant can take up. In hydro the symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria do not live, that's something for organic but even then atmospheric nitrogen it's not a major source. One of the main reasons we use synthetic nutes, one of the major export products of NL, one of the main problems with traditional agriculture, fixated Nitrogen. Speed up the natural nitrogen cycle.
"But plants do not use nitrogen directly from the air. This is because nitrogen itself is unreactive, and cannot be used by green plants to make protein. Nitrogen gas therefore needs to be converted into nitrate compound in the soil by nitrogen-fixing bacteria in soil, root nodules or lightning."
eschooltoday.com/ecosystems/the-nitrogen-cycle.html
Some crops you can plant to help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nitrogen-fixing_crops in soil...
And just in case you are not "sold" yet
"A major new technology enables all of the world's crops to take nitrogen from the air rather than expensive and environmentally damaging fertilizers. Nitrogen fixation, the process by which nitrogen is converted to ammonia, is vital for plants to survive and grow. However, only a very small number of plants, most notably legumes (such as peas, beans and lentils) have the ability to fix nitrogen from the atmosphere with the help of nitrogen fixing bacteria. The vast majority of plants have to obtain nitrogen from the soil, and for most crops currently being grown across the world, this also means a reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.
A major new technology has been developed by The University of Nottingham, which enables all of the world's crops to take nitrogen from the air rather than expensive and environmentally damaging fertilisers."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130725125024.htm
Hot Diggity Sog
Well-Known Member
Chapter 4 Update
Day 63
Flowering ~ Day 19
Yesterday I decided to thin out the plants and remove a bunch of fan leaves. Most of this was concentrated on the top row. I will be addressing the middle row next. They look pretty butchered but I'm pretty confident it will be for the best and in 10 days or so you won't even be able to tell it was done.
One other big item to mention. Slot #1 (Top row, 1st plant) started to leak. As I inspected it, the water level has simply risen to the very top of the tubes. I'm not sure if the resistance of the roots is causing this or what. So for now I turned one of the two feed pumps off and the situation is resolved. The sheer amount of roots in the tubes is so much more than last time it's pretty crazy.
After the big thinning out, I treated the plants to a fresh rez change and toned the nutes back to 500 PPM.
Day 63
Flowering ~ Day 19
Yesterday I decided to thin out the plants and remove a bunch of fan leaves. Most of this was concentrated on the top row. I will be addressing the middle row next. They look pretty butchered but I'm pretty confident it will be for the best and in 10 days or so you won't even be able to tell it was done.
One other big item to mention. Slot #1 (Top row, 1st plant) started to leak. As I inspected it, the water level has simply risen to the very top of the tubes. I'm not sure if the resistance of the roots is causing this or what. So for now I turned one of the two feed pumps off and the situation is resolved. The sheer amount of roots in the tubes is so much more than last time it's pretty crazy.
After the big thinning out, I treated the plants to a fresh rez change and toned the nutes back to 500 PPM.
Mohican
Well-Known Member
It is going to get thick in there!
I believe if your plants are healthy, you can chop and train the shit out of them and they will just bounce back even stronger.
I had a lower branch rip off of the main trunk and it was only connected by a strip of the trunk. It turned darker green than the other branches and put out some of the nicest flowers.
When I was pheno hunting I mainlined 40 plants to slow them down until I had time to flower them. They did just fine.
@Sativied - I know the chemistry. I also know that it isn't all 100% of one kind of nitrogen, and that there are free radical oxygen reactions along with others going on in the water. The growth seen in bubbling water can't be explained by oxygen only. I would like to see an experiment with only O2 used in the bubbles and see if it is as effective as air. That is the only way I can see of proving that none of the atmospheric nitrogen is being used. Now I must add another experiment to my long list! I can't wait to get my botany lab built!
HASH!!!
Cheers,
Mo
I believe if your plants are healthy, you can chop and train the shit out of them and they will just bounce back even stronger.
I had a lower branch rip off of the main trunk and it was only connected by a strip of the trunk. It turned darker green than the other branches and put out some of the nicest flowers.
When I was pheno hunting I mainlined 40 plants to slow them down until I had time to flower them. They did just fine.
@Sativied - I know the chemistry. I also know that it isn't all 100% of one kind of nitrogen, and that there are free radical oxygen reactions along with others going on in the water. The growth seen in bubbling water can't be explained by oxygen only. I would like to see an experiment with only O2 used in the bubbles and see if it is as effective as air. That is the only way I can see of proving that none of the atmospheric nitrogen is being used. Now I must add another experiment to my long list! I can't wait to get my botany lab built!
HASH!!!
Cheers,
Mo
Sativied
Well-Known Member
There's no exceptional growth in "bubbling water" unless you add nutrients and you still get that growth if you don't have bubbles (but have other means of oxygenation the nutrient solution) so nobody is trying to explain that growth by oxygen alone. See skunkd0c's plants or my tube run from clones to see what growth looks like without bubbles. There's no mystery as to what causes the veg rates in hydro and it isn't bubbles or atmospheric nitrogen or an N boost specifically, it's the constant availability of the required elements in a form the plant can take up directly.
Hot Diggity Sog
Well-Known Member
Chapter 4 Update
Day 66
Flowering ~ Day 22
Things are going great. Nothing to report so just a few pictures.
Day 66
Flowering ~ Day 22
Things are going great. Nothing to report so just a few pictures.