NEW NFT (nutrient film technique) SOG SETUP

[repvip]

revip...

lowes carries the RUGGEDTOTE tubs, which are the same thing... i think i might even like them more.

Super walmarts carry the rubbermaid line where i live.

Hope this helps.

Thanks! Do the ruggedtotes come larger than 30ish inches? I want something huge around 48" if I can find one in stock

You should be able to pre-sex your plant by the 8th internode during veg.. there is a good thread on it somewhere around here... see if I can find it. Like I mentioned earlier I have had hermies from seeds quite often and this method might not be 100% for that scenario...

https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/38684-micro-sexing-before-taking-clones.html

oh snap!! It's a thread by Earl Sorry Fatman
my favorite part is the shepards hook!!!

 

[fatman7574]

Thanks! Do the ruggedtotes come larger than 30ish inches? I want something huge around 48" if I can find one in stock

You should be able to pre-sex your plant by the 8th internode during veg.. there is a good thread on it somewhere around here... see if I can find it. Like I mentioned earlier I have had hermies from seeds quite often and this method might not be 100% for that scenario...

https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/38684-micro-sexing-before-taking-clones.html

oh snap!! It's a thread by Earl Sorry Fatman
my favorite part is the shepards hook!!!

Earl would be OK if just once he wrote something or did something original. I just don't think he is capable though. Just take what he finds and accept credit as if it is his. The few times he seems to try to step out on his own he is just flat ass wrong in what he writes. Oh well. He does post pictures. Not good pictures, but pictures anyway.

 

[repvip]

Earl would be OK if just once he wrote something or did something original. I just don't think he is capable though. Just take what he finds and accept credit as if it is his. The few times he seems to try to step out on his own he is just flat ass wrong in what he writes. Oh well. He does post pictures. Not good pictures, but pictures anyway.

fatman.. just know I was joking--I don't take anything on here seriously. But seriously what's your opinion on this technique? It seems legit to me, but more info is always better!

 

[fatman7574]

Yes it is just another case of Earl posting old stuff like he discovered it. That methodology was practiced in the 70's or earlier. It is considered an accepatable fairly accurate manner of presexing that is effective for many strains and their different phenotypes. I really don't find it worth the effort nor do I consider the small amount of possible gain in time as being important however I grow only occasional new stock from seeds so there is seldom ever any real rush to sex the plants started from seeds. I usually just grow them until I can clone them. I clone them heavily and just sex a newly rooted clone while the others veg. If the clone turns out male I simply thrown out the parent and the clones. If the clone turns out female then the other clones continue to be vegged untill they can be hacked up to produce clones. By the time those clones are ready the first clone will show whether it is worth budding the mass of clones. A week or two saved considering all that really does not really matter much as there are always at least four or five such new seed based clones being tried at once.

 

[repvip]

I could ask you questions all day

Is there ever a point with high pressure aero that you could do continuous fogging? Could you ever get the mist volume low enough, with a large enough chamber, to run constantly? Theoretical food for thought. Maybe have the air/mist "flow" with a small current of air from one source, through the root zone, and to an exit/waste/ or collect/recirculate.

 

[fatman7574]

I could ask you questions all day

Is there ever a point with high pressure aero that you could do continuous fogging? Could you ever get the mist volume low enough, with a large enough chamber, to run constantly? Theoretical food for thought. Maybe have the air/mist "flow" with a small current of air from one source, through the root zone, and to an exit/waste/ or collect/recirculate.

There is actually a number as for the volume of fluid, but itis quite small. The atomized fluid should be at levels between between 4 x 10^-4 % and 27 x 10^-9 % of the volume of the atmosphere in the chamber surrounding the plants roots. The top end is about what is typically injected every minute or every two mountes in a high pressure system by tree farmer. The minimal amount as suggested by the scientists is unfathomably small. It would take an air atomizer system with a very small nozzle and very high pressure to manintain such low levels. even with a very large chamber. I think the number is entirely theoretical in nature and not a tested level.

 

[repvip]

There is actually a number as for the volume of fluid, but itis quite small. The atomized fluid should be at levels between between 4 x 10^-4 % and 27 x 10^-9 % of the volume of the atmosphere in the chamber surrounding the plants roots. The top end is about what is typically injected every minute or every two mountes in a high pressure system by tree farmer. The minimal amount as suggested by the scientists is unfathomably small. It would take an air atomizer system with a very small nozzle and very high pressure to manintain such low levels. even with a very large chamber. I think the number is entirely theoretical in nature and not a tested level.

That was exactly the answer I was looking for

I finally figured out how to power my 12vdc pumps off my 120v recycle timer They require a decent amount of amperage. Ended up using an automotive relay with a 12v coil (attached to a 120vac->12vdc cheap plug) which connects a car battery to the pumps. It's convertible for power outage situations; plus I had all the parts. The relay is only 30amp but can handle 4 pumps probably with the start-up draw.

Modified 1 unit with 3gph sprayers, one at both ends of each post pointing inwards. It looks nice, but there won't be any fine hairs with the spray at this uncontrolled pressure! Still, this should work much better than before. I most post a pic later.

Also, since switching to RO I am having a nute problem for those ~5-6weeks flowering surely it is magnseium or calcium.. Having "rust spots" show up in older leaves, new leaves look great maybe a little light in color. A couple of things happened at once (RO water is new, now using chlorine (thanks fatman) , was adding extra magnesium + carbs). So It could be too much magnesium causing calcium problems, or not enough calcium, or possible not enough magnsieum? The chlorine didn't affect any other plants. I'll throw up a pic tonight.

ps - household bleach at 0.10mL/gallon for the RO storage tank refreshed every 3-4 days and 0.05mL/gallon for nutrient reservoirs (~10gal)every 3-4 days.. does that sound about right?

 

[fatman7574]

Yepper. 1 ml is roughly equivalent to 16 drops and you desire usually 1.6 drops per gallon.

 

[repvip]

Yepper. 1 ml is roughly equivalent to 16 drops and you desire usually 1.6 drops per gallon.

Great!

Here's a pic of what is going on. Changed the nutrient reservoir and double checked the measurements.. and realized I need a good reference book for this I'm not sure... it seems to match zinc/potassium deficiency descriptions, but I thought for sure it was from excess magnesium or not enough calcium. They were switched to RO halfway. The pH was still in range, ppm's on the higher end at ~1700.

 

[sherriberry]

so i started playing with that pump tonight...

here is the first reason why it is so cheap in price...

it doesnt come with a power cord!

you actually have to take the little black box on top appart, and splice your own wires together!

id recomend an extension cord and chopping off the female end... way cheaper and easier than building your own cord.

anyway... tomorrow, if i get a chance, i will test it and see how it spits.

As far as leaking goes... i doubt it honestly.

The pump motor and the pump turbine are kind of in 2 seperate areas with a gap in between. Hope the damn thing works, if so ill be buying 4 more just to have backups because theyve lowered the price down to 33 from 39... so its becoming more and more of a no brainer.

biggest problem im currently in debate about is this...

IF i just have the drain system on all my rubermaid tubs im going to use... just gravity feed back to the res...

that means it has to come in up high on the res, lets say a foot.

But the tubs have to gravity feed down to the main return pipe... and if the outlet spout on the tub is only a few inches fromt he bottom of the tub...

then the tub HAS TO BE ELEVATED up on some sort of a stand.

this isnt the end of the world, but im wondering just how tall my plants might end up getting and if they end up hitting the roof?

Luckily, im going to be hanging the lights down between plants vertically, but still...

Im debating putting the drain up higher on the tub, having a bit deeper of water in the bottom, that way i dont have to elevate the entire tub as much and still have the drain gravity feed.


.... and then the ultimate solution, that scares me... is to have a pick up pump, constantly shoot water from a low res, with the drain pipe coming in shallow, and then having that pump up into a big deeper main res

thoughts?

 

[sherriberry]

ive also thought about eliminating the res all together... and just daisy chaning all the tubs together... and just putting the high volume pump IN one of the tubs, or if it was an external pump, BETWEEN 2 of the tubs, and putting 5 in a loop.

not sure how this would work, but i could technically have a dedicated res tub, but i dont think its something i would have to have.

then you just add the nutes and water to any of the tubs, wait for it to circulate for a while, and then test the water after a few min and see where you are at.

Adding extra water to any tub, i would think would equalize across all the tubs, as they gravity feed back to equal with eachother due to pressure.

only drawback on a setup like this is where does one filter the water?

after the pump i suppose witha 20 micron canister... but still... how to stop debris from coming back into the pump from the tubs

... im still thinking about all this stuff obviously

 

[repvip]

So... I actually have that same pump. You will also need to prime it I had leaks around the cast iron input/outputs but maybe it was just mine--it was harbor freight after all

I'm already frustrated with 3gph sprayers and a 200mesh canister filter.. It's only been 2 days and I cant stop worrying about clogging, but I'm the dumbass using organics.

Been sitting here for 15 minutes and can't think of a solution to your drain problem. Maybe you could have all the drains feed into T-joints and connect into the input of the pump, and have the reservoir spread out over how many rubbermaids you have. Then they aren't really drains so to speak... so you wouldn't need to elevate. Otherwise a pump for every tub? Sorry not much help--looking forward to hearing what you figure out.

 

[fatman7574]

One thing that would stop a lot of the clogging issues and bacterial bloom issues of using organic fertilizers is to treat them as if the are waste water (sewage). By this I mean mix them and keep them in a esperate resrvoir with 24/7 air pumping for 2 to three weeks before use. They will go through the same cycle as if in an aquarium or sewage treatment plant. The (nitrogen) solids will break down into ammonia and the bacteria will then break that into nitrites and from nitrites to nitrates. Some biomass willbe careated. This being the actuall mass of the bacteria and the dead bacteria cells. Filter this out after two to three weeks then use the "clean" nutrients. This process use a lot of bacteria while it takes place. Getting it done before using it prevents that DO from be used by the bacteria, and it turns the naitrogen matter into nitrates which are stable and easily taken up by the roots. It also allows for a much more stable pH, less smell and the breakdown of particles into soluble compounds. so as to gretaer lessen clogging but also increase the availabilities of those nutrients to the plant roots.

 

[sherriberry]

eureka.... got it!!!


k, first off, repvip... i wasnt talking about putting a pump in each res, just 1 pump in one of the reses... and it would pump to the next one... and thus the next res would get fuller, and water would get higher than the level of the third res, so water would start to spill to the third res... then the 4th res... until it ends up back at the res that the pump is in.

each of these res's are tubs with plants in them...

now... i was wanting to do something like fatman is talking about and has talked about in the past where the excess runoff from the sprayers is drained to waste... and not recycled.

well... here might be the perfect setup for me and what im trying to do, so hopefully you guys follow.

There is a main res. All water and nutes in this res are fresh, there is no waste water that returns to this main res.

The only pump attached to this main res is the pump for the sprayers.

Sprayers spray once in a while.

Then we have the 5 or more tubs.

These tubs are all daisy chained together by holes and tubes that are all equal in height, about 2 inches up from the bottom of the tubs.

In one of these tubs, or in between 2 of these tubs... is a high volume pump.

it simply keeps the water going in a circle as described in my first paragraph to repvip about how gravity will cause the water to cascade from one tub to another once one gets fuller than another...

Each tub has an air stone in it.

1 of the tubs... or if you wanted to get ambitious, several of the tubs... have a WASTE DRAIN PORT.

This port is up higher than the other ports that allow the water to circulate from tub to tub.

This waste port... is an overflow port... so that as runoff from sprayers adds itself to the circulating nute water below...

it can overflow to waste.

cooler yet... the high volume circulating pump... its feed line to the next tub in the chain... has a T on it. Whenever you want to drain all the tubs completely, and start over... you open a valve,a nd your circulating pump is T'd off so that instead of the fluid in that tub going to the next tub... it just goes to waste... it might T into the waste line itself.

The waste line can go to a sump pump in a basement... so the waste line can run along the ground, and it will gravity feed to the sump pump hole, and the tubs can sit on the groun, and their waste drain port might be 4 inches high, so you wouldnt have any backfeed problems.

anyway, what i was getting at... when you want to do a complete flush of all the tubs old waters... you flip a valve... water from the high volume now gets expelled to waste...

you start with the first tub that the pump otherwise would pump to... you lift up one end of it so it cumps the majority of its water to the next tub due to water levels rising and tub tilting.

then you go to the next tub and do the same thing... eventually, all the fluid ends up back at the tub that has the pump in it... and all nutes get expelled to waste... so you can start over.


Then you just keep your main res HIGHER than all your tubs with plants in them.

You can then just put the sprayers on constant until the tubs fill back up again... or you can have a gravity line with a valve on it, and just open that valve, and REFILL all the tubs with the already pre mixed and tested nute water in the main res.

Once the tubs are all full enough again to where it almos comes out the drain waste drain port (which is a couple inches above all the otehr ports that attach each of the plant tubs together)...

then its back to business as usual... you close the valve that spills from the main res down to the plant tubs...

and now the only way that water gets to the plant tubs is through the sprayers every few minutes.

SO to recap, you have 1 high volume pump down in the plant tubs that keeps pushing water from one tub to the next.

you have 1 MP or HP srapyer pump attached to a main res that has no recycled nutes in it.

you have bubble stones in each tub attached to a compressor.

So, if power goes out, all youd need is the bubblers going.. and if you wanted to take it one step further, you sprayer pump on battery backup as well.

Everything else would be fine with the power out even if the high volume pump shut off for a few days.

booyah bitches

 

[sherriberry]

Tubbbb
l
Tubbbb
..........l
Tubbbb
l
Tubbbb
..........l
Tubbbb
l
pump ------> this line would go to top of page to first tub, and water would cycle back through all tubs


tubs are sitting side by side, all daisy chaned together.

Pump would have a line that goes back to the first tub. This is the high volume pump to circulate nute water (oxygenate)

All tubs are sitting on the floor, no raising necessary.

l = the line from one tub to anther

... = nothing. I just had to hit a letter so that the "l" would be at the end of the tub instead of the begining.

Main res is not pictured, but i think you get the idea.

 

[sherriberry]

technically, you could have each tub just have one port... and that be a waste drain port... and then they just all merge, and just all go to waste.

keep the bubblers in there to oxygenate things, and get rid of the high volume pump to circulate things. Each tub starts filling up and then excess drains off.



other idea is...

If you wanted to have a true recycling system and not drain anything to waste...

impliment the high volume pump again... and daisy chain the tubs together again..

and you could have some sort of a float sensor attached to one of your tubs with a small pump in there that every so often kicks the nutes back up to the main res where the sprayer pump is once enough excess has accumulated in the tubs from the sprayers and the main res.


... this last idea is probably what i will do... unless fatman can talk me out of it first




but either way... the idea of having all tubs gravity drain back to a main res... thats impossible and thus obsolete. (if you want to keep the tubs on the ground to maximize plant growth space)

 

[sherriberry]

ive got my next system drawn up.

im excited... its the best of all worlds i think..

how do i post a pic, ill draw you guys a diagram

 

[squarepush3r]

ive also thought about eliminating the res all together... and just daisy chaning all the tubs together... and just putting the high volume pump IN one of the tubs, or if it was an external pump, BETWEEN 2 of the tubs, and putting 5 in a loop.

not sure how this would work, but i could technically have a dedicated res tub, but i dont think its something i would have to have.

then you just add the nutes and water to any of the tubs, wait for it to circulate for a while, and then test the water after a few min and see where you are at.

Adding extra water to any tub, i would think would equalize across all the tubs, as they gravity feed back to equal with eachother due to pressure.

only drawback on a setup like this is where does one filter the water?

after the pump i suppose witha 20 micron canister... but still... how to stop debris from coming back into the pump from the tubs

... im still thinking about all this stuff obviously

i actually have this concept kind of down pat. PM me if you would like details..

 

[sherriberry]

thanks, im all for new knowledge

for the rest of you, i will finally post up pics of what im talking about for the tubs...

and my newest idea...

vertical wall aero chambers, that mimic the idea "heath vertical grow tubes" thread uses... just aero chambers instead of skinny pipes.

i will be doing the basic tubs in the first drawing first, and then experiment and figure out the best way to make these wall chambers later.

peace

 

[sherriberry]

Thats the tubs idea... i showed it in different configurations, but id use 2 rows of these setups side by side, and jsut hang lights down in plants down the length of it


now for the med pressure or high pressure aero chamber walls that will be ablut 5 ft high, and have lights in the middle of the walls. Plant sites would be all up and down the walls, and ive figured out how to mount the netpots up and down the wall. The wall would be white pvc panel, and have a bladder at the bottom, along with a rigid frame at the bottom, and a drain hose out of the bladder.

this will drain out the drain hose to a main lateral drain pipe that comes by, and takes it to the main res, or to the sewer, one of the 2.