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

Cold$moke

Well-Known Member
So..... when are we going to get to see some pics of this new mystery system??????? Inquiring minds, etc etc :)

Also, I cant imagine anything simpler than hempy buckets filled with perlite and fed with Mega Crop and a dash of CalMag :)
Haha sorry bud been way busy
And that experiment is onl hold at the moment
As i have seedlings that need immediate attention haha.


But the mini mock up still has plants in them haha they where supposed to be flowered long ago so ill probably.just strip the plants out for outdoor fun.:)
 

Cold$moke

Well-Known Member
Currently im trying to design a seed running table that i can grow high numbers of seeds out to find genetics for projects.

I want it to be able to hold the plant with no media (but i might have to)

I also want to be able to pull the plant out of the system (this is whats stumping me)

Was thinking a multi top feed dwc system that recirculate through over flow ,areated by air exposure and waterfall on the return.

At least in my head haha

I already pulled one rdwc out i habent decided to pull out the main one yet but i might just cause of summer heat

I will still use the meniscus nft eventually but i think it will work best for clones then seeds as the roots will grow together too much to pull males plant ect.
 

Larry3215

Well-Known Member
Oh oh! I was checking the roots tonight and found this crap growing on a couple of the roots in the Membrane tote. I snipped off all I could find and gave the rez an additional dose of Hydro Guard.

Any idea what this stuff is? Looks like some kind of mold to me.

I plucked out all of it I could find and added some extra Hydro Guard to the rez and put some directly in the Membrane tote.

Fingers crossed....



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Larry3215

Well-Known Member
I just ran across this thread with ideas on stopping roots from going into bad places like drains. The copper idea seems easy to test.

https://www.rollitup.org/t/stop-roots-traveling-back-down-system-simple-fix.965160/#post-14271791

The silk screen I am using to block the drains in the NFT tote was working perfectly - until the roots found a flaw in where I had it sealed to the tote bottom. I had to cut through the silk screen to get in and cut the roots back. Im just going to lay a piece of copper wire in on top of the drain holes and see how it does.0526181752.jpg 0525182231.jpg
 

Larry3215

Well-Known Member
Well, its becoming more and more obvious my ideas about root mass are not matching up to reality


All three plants continue to grow at the pretty much the same rate as near as I can tell despite the large difference in root mass between the totes.

The NFT tote still has the smallest root mass. I would guess it has roughly 1/5th as many roots as the Membrane tote. I cant see down into the lava rock in the E/F tote, but that plant has put down at least three very thick roots = 1/4" or more. They are growing into the siphon and require trimming almost daily, so Im sure it also has more roots than the NFT tote.

But the NFT buds are keeping up with the Membrane buds easily now. The Membrane buds are still maybe a little larger, but its getting hard to tell the difference. The E/F buds are catching up fast too. Its largest buds are on par with the other totes, but it still has several that are smaller.
 

Larry3215

Well-Known Member
Well crap. Ive got little flying fuckers in my root zone. They almost look like fungus gnats, but they wont hold still long enough for me to get a decent pic.

Do they look like fungus gnats to you guys?

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Larry3215

Well-Known Member
Hello guys !

I have an issue with my exploading plants. I am in week 4 and have done non training.

Now they are really growing like weed and there is budsites everywhere. I need some advice on how to keep the amazing results i have so far in my first RDWC.

Pleace take a quick look on my thread. Im new here and havent figuerd out how to link my thread from my cellphone.

Sorry for borrowing the thread
Hi friend, I dont mind you jumping in too much, or the occasional off topic discussion, but it is considered impolite to hijack someone else's thread. You probably wont get much help doing this - especially if you dont have a link to "your thread". Cant really give any advice if we dont have all the info and pictures to look at. You need to get your thread posted in the proper place and wait for some replies. Most folks check these forums fairly often, so if your questions attract any interest, you will get help. Unfortunately, that doesnt always happen.

I would suggest you put your thread and questions here:

https://www.rollitup.org/f/dwc-bubbleponics.92/

or here:

https://www.rollitup.org/f/hydroponics-aeroponics.50/



Good luck!!
 

Larry3215

Well-Known Member
Those bugs may be regular fruit flies, but I still have not caught one to get a decent pic. I put a DIY trap with some soda in a jar to see if I can get one.

Up-date on the copper test.

The wire I am using is some 14ga copper electrical wire. I stripped it and sanded the entire thing with some 400 grit sand paper to get rid of any existing corrosion, discoloration, etc and get down to fresh, bare copper. One end of the wire has been sitting in the nute solution for roughly 36 hours. I stir it every once in a while.

Here are some pics of the wire. The first pic is just the setup so far.

0528182151.jpg


This is a closeup of the line between dry and wet in the nute solution. There is obvious discoloration, but I can feel no ridge. At this point there is no telling if any copper is getting into the solution or if this is just discoloration. The test kit will be here late this week or early next.

Mon May 28 21-44-23.jpg
 

Larry3215

Well-Known Member
Copper test results - short version.

1)The copper did absolutely nothing to stop the roots growing into my drain. If anything, the roots seemed to be attracted to the copper!! They certainly did not even slow down their growth rates.
2) Copper pieces sitting in a nute solution does increase the dissolved copper in solution. If you have a large rez, this may not be a problem if you do rez changes on a regular basis.

Conclusion - it does nothing to stop root growth, so why take the risk?
 

Larry3215

Well-Known Member
Progress up-date.

The good - all three plants look happy, and are very frosty, and are still more or less evenly matched. I cant see any significant differences between them. Visually, the only issues are some leaf tacoing on the top leaves that are most in the fan breeze, and some purple stems. Ive started adding cal mag again. Other than that, they look very happy to me.

The bad #1 - all three have gone hermie and Im making a bunch of seeds!!!

The bad #2- I have root rot!!!

I suspect the hermie issue may be due to the root problems, but who knows.

I think I have at least one to two weeks until Im ready to harvest, so I just hope I can keep them going that long with the root issues. Ive started using Southern Ag Garden Friendly Fungicide instead of Hydro Guard and that is helping some. New root growth seems to be whiter and the rate of PH drop is slowed down a lot.

The Southern Ag stuff is the same beneficial bacteria but its about 100,000 times as concentrated for about the same cost as Hydro Guard. Makes Hydro Guard look like a scam.

Some pics.
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Larry3215

Well-Known Member
Well, I think this experiment is about done. I think I have lost the root rot war.

At 1AM this morning the rez was at 5.6 (down from 6.2 at 9PM last night), so I added tap water to bring it up to 6.3. By 6AM it was down to 5.4 again. The runoff from the NFT tote was at 5.3 and the runnoff from the membrane tote was at 5.1. I added tap water and a big chunk of GFF and did exactly what you suggest - top feed all three plants plus flood the nft and membrane root balls with the extra strength mix. By 10 am the rez was down to 5.3 - repeat as above. By 1PM it was down to 5.4 again - repeat as above.

As of 5 PM the rez was down from 6.4 to 5.4 and the nft tote runnoff was down to 5.1 and the membrane tote runnoff was down to 4.3.

I think Im done.

My trichomes are about 70% milky with about 1% amber, so still a bit early to harvest, but I dont think I have much choice.

I will post weights, etc when I have the data.
 

Larry3215

Well-Known Member
I just finished cutting and trimming all three plants, and it turns out the E/F tote wins! Not by much - about 10% over the NFT - but its a win. These are "wet" weights. I will post an up-date after drying.

E/F tote = 996 gms
NFT tote = 902 gms
Membrane tote = 736 gms.

If this follows my first grow, I expect to see a little less than 25% of that total for a dry weight = roughly 600 gms or 21 oz total dry weight. My first soil grow in this same tent with the same lights (at a lower wattage) netted me just under 16 oz from 4 plants, so I guess over all, Im happy with the results.

I am disappointed that the Membrane tote came in last, but - thanks to the root rot and my poor design of the system, and the sneekyness of the roots, this was NOT a fair test - of any of them really.

In addition to the root rot, I discovered that the roots in the Membrane tote found a small hole or tear in the dacron ripstop fabric and made it down into the sub-layer. That pretty much voids the results as far as testing the meniscus effect if the roots were down there sitting in nutes the whole time. That is exactly what you do NOT want with this technique. Im afraid I have to call that a fail as far as the experiment goes.

The membrane tote was a clear leader early on, and I suspect it lost that lead after the roots got into the sub-layer - but who knows. I think that was also around the time the root rot started in, and Im fairly sure it started in the Membrane tote.

I still think the Membrane technique has potential as a grow technique. Maybe a lot of potential. However, I think Im done with it. Its a fair amount of extra trouble to set up initially and Im not sure how to keep the roots from drying out or getting through the membrane. You will have to be extremely careful with the membrane fabric selection and installation.

Of the other two, I really didnt like the NFT setup either, but thats because my roots really didnt like the fabric batting I chose. They were quite happy to grow under it or to a lesser degree, over it, but not IN it like we saw in that video I posted early on in the thread. Maybe a different brand of fabric would work better or maybe I didnt clean it well enough or?? In any case, I dont like it so Im not doing it again, and you cant make me


I saw a setup on here (KLX?) where he was doing E/F with no medium. I like that idea, so Im going to try that (with some slight variations) next - hopefully without the root rot!!

Oh - I have decided that, even with the problems I have had, I really really like hydro a lot better than soil growing
 

Larry3215

Well-Known Member
Dry weights as follows. This is a little dryer than I have been getting at the local dispensary, but I dont trim as close or neatly as they do. I keep anything with frosting on it.

Dry weights E/F = 195/6.8
NFT = 189/6.6
Membrane = 175/6.17
Total = 559 gm / 19.7 oz

Thats roughly 25% more than I netted in my soil grow, so Im happy.

I wont get to make any Green Dragon or capsules for several days, so a report on effectiveness and how it "smokes" will come later
 

Dreddd

Well-Known Member
Hey bro, you still ended up with very nice looking plants ;-)
I decided to test the membrane system myself so i built one according to Andrews instructions in the book, went the whole 9 yards, buffer mat/sub layer/nylon membrane, theres been no change in ph/ec for the past week, no pumps used, just gravity, every 4 days i dump the collection bucket back into the res.
Didnt have any indoor room for it so im testing it with tomatoes outdoors, so far so good but its still early.. :p

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Larry3215

Well-Known Member
Hey bro, you still ended up with very nice looking plants ;-)
I decided to test the membrane system myself so i built one according to Andrews instructions in the book, went the whole 9 yards, buffer mat/sub layer/nylon membrane, theres been no change in ph/ec for the past week, no pumps used, just gravity, every 4 days i dump the collection bucket back into the res.
Didnt have any indoor room for it so im testing it with tomatoes outdoors, so far so good but its still early.. :p

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Thats awesome! If you have them, Id love to see pics of how you did all the details - the sublayer and what exact materials you used, etc. etc. I could maybe be talked back into trying this technique again.....
 

Dreddd

Well-Known Member
Sure i got a few pics laying around, but i gotta say this thing was a hassle to get just right, had to deconstruct and rebuild it like 3-4 times until it worked, the biggest issue was the even distribution of water across the membrane, if one of the layers are not sitting flat you'll get water pooling on one of the sides, if the whole system isnt sitting perfectly level you'll get water pooling again, then theres flow rate adjustments to consider, but when it works it works well.

anyways, the base is just a flood tray, according to Andrews instructions the water input/output must be under all the layers and for that he suggests drilling the sides of the tray near the bottom so that the connections are still technically drilled in the walls of the tray but low enough that they are under the drainage bumps that most trays have, my tray is a cheap one so i didnt have the luxury of raised draining bumps at the bottom, i had to connect the water input/output by drilling the flat floor instead.

for the buffer layer i used a 5mm thick synthetic polyester felt, since my tray had a flat bottom i cut up 4 strips and placed them close to each other but not touching so water can flow between them, then placed a larger piece on top of them to make things even, the cut places on both ends are where the water input/output is connected, not sure if you can see it..
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learned the hard way that if the layer was covering the input/output it really slowed down the water flow, in the picture above i already cut a piece on each side so it doesn't cover the input/output, the picture under this post is a bit older so you see its still uncut where im holding it.
4.jpg

i wish i took pictures of the sublayer but i cant find any... i used this thin semi rigid plastic sheet to make it, looks like this:
779020262_tp.jpg 779020275_tp.jpg
only i bought a much larger one from an arts supply store, but its 100% the same stuff used for these kitchen mats.

to make the sub layer out of it i first measured the flood tray floor and walls, then marked with a sharpie on the plastic mat a rectangle just a tiny bit smaller then size of the tray floor, then added marking for the tray walls, these will be bent by hand upward later to create a tray, this tray will be the sublayer and will sit inside the flood tray ontop of the buffer mat, i dont have a picture but it kinda looks like this:
cut.png
The solid lines are bend lines, the cut lines are where you cut the flaps that are later tucked behind the light gray wall flaps after bending to shape.

before bending everything though you need to puncture tiny holes in it to allow small amounts of water through (white dots in the drawing), i did it with a sharp poker and by forcing it in it creates a tiny indent that pushes the plastic inward before making the actual hole, after poking all the holes flip the mat over and bend it to shape, its important to flip it over first because you want the tiny indents to protrude upward, this makes it hard for water to seep back down once it goes through, you can see in this image where the nylon membrane is already sitting on the sublayer, the tiny indents where the holes were punctured are visibly pushing the fabric up:

5.jpg

the membrane is just a simple nylon fabric i got from a local fabric store, the plain white ones tend to be uncoated and not water resistant.

the cover of the system and the holders of the plants are the easiest part.. just a black plastic sheet from an art store, i cut square holes for the plastic electrical channel i used to hold the rockwool cubes, they fit perfectly in these plastic channels.

6.jpg

the rest is nothing special, 30L barrel as the res, some black tubing with a small flow valve in the middle of it to control the flow of water and a 20L bucket on the other end to catch the excess.

hope this helps :p
 
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Larry3215

Well-Known Member
Nicely done! I notice you are not using any 'disposable medium' on top of the membrane. I tried fabric batting and perlite. Neither one worked very well.

I also see the water wicking up the sides of the membrane. My roots insisted on growing up the sides of the membrane where it was wet, and then drying out. It doesnt look like you are having that problem though.

Im looking forward to seeing how your babies do. Please keep us posted. Here is fine or if you start a new thread, post a link here if you would.
 

Keesje

Well-Known Member
I saw a setup on here (KLX?) where he was doing E/F with no medium. I like that idea, so Im going to try that (with some slight variations) next - hopefully without the root rot!!
Yes, it is by KLX and his system is one of the best and most simple set-ups that I have seen here.
I will follow your new plans.
 
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