It's A Fuct World

[defcomexperiment]

howdy, i just had a couple questions for you. first beginning with the use of chlorine bleach agents for cleaning your hydroponic water. excluding the use of laundry bleach, i am wondering if calcium hypochlorite can be used with cannabis without a negative impact. i've done a fair amount of reading on commercial hydroponic facilitys, and procedures so i am aware that a very very large amount of commercial agro uses chlorine for keeping water clean, and cleaning fruits and vegetables... calcium hypochlorite has been reported to be beneficial to the plant as well.

Calcium hypochlorite (CaCl2O2) -- the most common source of chlorine used for disinfection
of produce and produce process water. Registered formulations are 65 percent or 68 percent
active ingredient (a.i.). It is available as a granulated powder, compressed tablets, or large
slow-release tablets. In dry storage, calcium hypochlorite is more stable than liquid sodium
hypochlorite. Phytotoxicity (bleaching or burning) of produce can occur if calcium
hypochlorite granules fail to dissolve in cool wash tank water or in a hydrocooler system. A
“nurse-tank” of warm water is used to fully dissolve granules before adding them to cooling
or wash water. Calcium hypochlorite, beyond disinfection benefits, is reported to improve
the shelf-life and disease resistance of fruits and vegetables by adding calcium to the cell
wall.

source- http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/filelibrary/5453/4369.pdf

you may wonder why i care, but for the shelf life stability, and cost effectiveness it would be very beneficial to me personally. it is also an variable that i would be able to monitor with ease. currently i use h2o2, and am eliminating hygrozyme from my system to stick with base nutes, and a sterilization agent. i was also pondering using an intake/inline ozone unit instead as i know they are used as well...



edited to add:
my first experience with h2o2 was not good btw, i had added 2.5ml/gal of 35% food grade h2o2 purchased from a health store to see the effect it would have on a suspected bacteria issue i had. the plants were 7.5 weeks into flower, and pretty healthy otherwise. i had pumped all the water out, and added the h2o2 into the water, and pumped it back into my 25g dwc res. smoked a few bowls, passed out on the couch, came back 7 hours later and just about every single leaf was drooping and looked heavily shocked. i very literally almost threw up over this, now i just add very very small amounts of h2o2. i was wondering if you have ever heard anything like this, there was nothing irregular about my nute soup, or anything, i was @1.4ec at the time.


edited to add:
also want to thank you for the work you did in your tutorial on perpetual growing, it is the absolute basis for the perpetual system i am designing right now, although the system is different.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

howdy, i just had a couple questions for you. first beginning with the use of chlorine bleach agents for cleaning your hydroponic water. excluding the use of laundry bleach, i am wondering if calcium hypochlorite can be used with cannabis without a negative impact. i've done a fair amount of reading on commercial hydroponic facilitys, and procedures so i am aware that a very very large amount of commercial agro uses chlorine for keeping water clean, and cleaning fruits and vegetables... calcium hypochlorite has been reported to be beneficial to the plant as well.

you may wonder why i care, but for the shelf life stability, and cost effectiveness it would be very beneficial to me personally. it is also an variable that i would be able to monitor with ease. currently i use h2o2, and am eliminating hygrozyme from my system to stick with base nutes, and a sterilization agent. i was also pondering using an intake/inline ozone unit instead as i know they are used as well...

If you can successfully emulate the calcium hypochlorite processes used in large scale commercial hydroponics & veg production, more power to you. I have no experience with using calcium hypochlorite, so I can't comment. Mind you, the shelf life of high strength (50%) H2O2 is measured in years.

As regards inline ozonators, they can be very useful, both for pathogen reduction and scent control. However, even at the airflow rates of a modest cannabis grow op, producing enough O3 to do the job can be expensive and heroic. It's often most cost effective to control scent with carbon filters.

my first experience with h2o2 was not good btw, i had added 2.5ml/gal of 35% food grade h2o2 purchased from a health store to see the effect it would have on a suspected bacteria issue i had. the plants were 7.5 weeks into flower, and pretty healthy otherwise. i had pumped all the water out, and added the h2o2 into the water, and pumped it back into my 25g dwc res. smoked a few bowls, passed out on the couch, came back 7 hours later and just about every single leaf was drooping and looked heavily shocked. i very literally almost threw up over this, now i just add very very small amounts of h2o2. i was wondering if you have ever heard anything like this, there was nothing irregular about my nute soup, or anything, i was @1.4ec at the time.

1.4EC is about 700ppm, so that's fine.

First, I'm a bit frightened that you were able to buy 35% H2O2 at a 'health store.' This implies to me that these were a bunch of dangerous idiots that were selling it for people to drink. There's a cult of 'alternative medicine' morons out there who think that drinking H2O2 is good for you. It's NOT. H2O2 is highly corrosive and can cause chemical burns in a New York minute. Wise folks handle high-strength H2O2 with rubber gloves and eye protection.

Moreover, there's no such thing as 'alternative medicine.' If it works, i.e it's safe and effective, it's called medicine. Anyone who peddles 'big pharma' conspiracy theories or 'miracle cure that THEY don't want you to know about' nonsense is both a fool and a liar- and the purveyors probably have a financial interest in making you very sick. Colloidal silver and "MMS" aka 'Miracle Mineral Solution' are other assloads of dangerous cult crap that are making the rounds on the internet at the moment... but that's another story.

Now, on to what may have happened in your case. I suspect that the H2O2 you got had a stabiliser like sodium silicate (aka sodium metasilicate, Na2SiO3) in it. 35% doesn't usually have it, but considering where you got the stuff, anything's possible (which is scarier yet, considering human consumption was probably intended). Na2SiO3 is not plant friendly. Plants tolerate straight H2O2 just fine, and as I've said in an earlier post, will handle 10x the dosage I normally cite, which is 1ml/L (or 3.78ml/US gal). Know what you're buying. Ask if the H2O2 contains a stabiliser. If they don't know, you don't want it. 'Food grade' 35% H2O2 is used for sterilising foodservice equipment and doesn't usually contain stabilisers. I prefer 50% grade for economy, but high strength H2O2 doesn't really need stabiliser and as such doesn't generally have it.

also want to thank you for the work you did in your tutorial on perpetual growing, it is the absolute basis for the perpetual system i am designing right now, although the system is different.

Thanks. Glad to know my ramblings were of use to you. The 'Get a Harvest Every 2 weeks' plan was the result of meeting my particular needs for the op. So it happens, it's also highly scaleable. The workflow is the main advantage to the plan, not the specific number of tables, lights, etc. Good luck with your new op.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

BTW, something's a bit funky with the theme RIU is using. Post text is all appearing in bold. Kinda messes with my use of bold for emphasis. Links also don't appear in a highlighting colour. I've looked in my profile for theme settings but am not finding anything that can fix these probs.

Advice?

Thanks.

 

[drgreentm]

hey al thanks for the info on the nutes think i will try out the canna nutes like i said i have no bitch with the gh flora's product but the aftermath is ridiculous. me and the old lady are moving into a bigger house and im upgrading to 2 4x8 trays and prably going to run 2 1000w's over each tray perpetual 4 week harvest's and use my systems now for veg. anyway here are some pics any input is welcome on the new setup (soon to come) cant think of anymore ?'s right now but what all canna nutes do you use (dont want to buy unnecessary products) if you dont mind me asking and thanks again man very appreciated.

 

[Saerimmner]

hiya, any advice you can give me on Fytocell would be appreciated, ive got the spiel off the manufacturers website but can find directions on how much to use or how etc.

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/398448-fytocell.html

cheers

 

[Japanfreak]

There was a guy at PG who did pretty impressive E&D grows in pots filled with perlite for his medium which can be reused for years.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

hey al thanks for the info on the nutes think i will try out the canna nutes like i said i have no bitch with the gh flora's product but the aftermath is ridiculous. me and the old lady are moving into a bigger house and im upgrading to 2 4x8 trays and prably going to run 2 1000w's over each tray perpetual 4 week harvest's and use my systems now for veg. anyway here are some pics any input is welcome on the new setup (soon to come) cant think of anymore ?'s right now but what all canna nutes do you use (dont want to buy unnecessary products) if you dont mind me asking and thanks again man very appreciated.

Very noice work. Neat, tidy setup, looks very easy to work with. Well done.

One suggestion, tho. You're getting some fairly tall, stretchy plants. Are you vegging before flowering? Kinda looks like it. Downside is that your plants get too tall and the major bud mass isn't contained within the light's max intensity area. We're looking for something a bit more like this:



This is what you get when you chuck freshly rooted clones into 12/12 lighting with no veg period in between.

4x1000 over a pair of 4x8 trays sounds great. However, I'd do the costing of your pair of 4x8s compared to 4x 4x4 trays. You may find that biiiig trays are pretty expensive compared to a couple of smaller ones that prvide the same area. 4 trays also allows you to run 4 rez tanks, should you wish to tailor the nute mix to plants in certain trays, such as in biweekly segments. Also builds in a bit of redundancy as you'll have 4 pumps. More is better in this case; limits the impact on the op in the case of one pump failing.

The Canna products I use may be peculiar to Australia. Labelled only as 'Vega' and 'Flores,' I suspect the Nth America equivalent is the Substra line. See: http://www.canna.com.au/hydro

There's great things in your future, keep at it.

 

[flamdrags420]

Al I noticed you are running much lowered PPMs compared to what you used to. How did you come abouts to this change? R&D or Canna input?

I would also like to add my own experience on top of the advice of shopping around for h2o2 from chemical supply companies here in the US. Shop cautiously. All it took was one phone to a chem supply company to ask them if they had food grade in stock. Needless to say i had a very nice man from ATF 3 days later at my house because of my inquiries. It was enough for me to shut down all progress I had at the time. I've been laying low for 2 years waiting to come back up and continue again. I would advise people to recheck their security measures and such. *67 could have saved me from this hassle. It didn't even occur to me at the time, because h202 isn't illegal, but it's on a watch list none the less. Green backs and the hour trip to my nearest hydro store is all I will do from now on.

Hope you are having a good vacation AL. be blessed man.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

hiya, any advice you can give me on Fytocell would be appreciated, ive got the spiel off the manufacturers website but can find directions on how much to use or how etc.

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/398448-fytocell.html

cheers

Fytocell is a resin foam material, similar to styrofoam, but doesn't repel water or float the way styro does, although Fytocell does float. It holds a moderate amount of water; much less than rockwool but more than clay pellets. It has a high air content and is difficult to overwater. Unfortunately, it's a little messy to use. The finer granules of the stuff will escape pot drain holes, so I pack about 1" of RW in the bottom of each pot to keep the Fytocell in. It's sold in 100L bags. If I recall correctly, it takes about 1.5-2L to stuff a 175mm dia x 175mm tall pot.

The maker instructs you to flood the stuff, in the 100L plastic bag it is packaged in, for 24h before use. Unless you have a spare bathtub and want to slop wet Fytocell around, this is impractical and is an instruction I ignore. I pack my pots, put them in the tray and flood each pot with a length of hose and a spare pump dipped into that tray's rez tank. Then I plug the freshly rooted clones in and water them in for good measure. Automated watering via timer from then on out.

Fytocell is good for flowering plants as they don't tend to get as large nor develop as much rootmass as do my mother plants, which may live for a few months and do get rather woody and tree-like after several passes of cuttings. I keep my mums in plain rockwool as the highly developed mums will use the high water holding capacity of plain rockwool in 24h. The flowering plants don't need as much water and as such are more prone to overwatering if grown in plain RW floc.

Flooding pots packed the way I do takes only about 3 mins. More than that and the pots tend to float. The pots only need to be flooded to about 3". The RW in the bottom of the pot will instantly saturate & wick water into the Fytocell. Works pretty well for me.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Al I noticed you are running much lowered PPMs compared to what you used to. How did you come abouts to this change? R&D or Canna input?

R&D, which around here is also T&E... trial & error. I wound it back until I saw N deficiency then raised the dose about 20%.

I would also like to add my own experience on top of the advice of shopping around for h2o2 from chemical supply companies here in the US. Shop cautiously. All it took was one phone to a chem supply company to ask them if they had food grade in stock. Needless to say i had a very nice man from ATF 3 days later at my house because of my inquiries.

Holy shit.

Well, H2O2 IS used in the manufacture of the explosive TATP... but if you read anything about TATP, you'll find that it's very nasty stuff to try to make. You're as likely to splatter yourself all over nearby walls as successfully make any. Still, YIPES.

It was enough for me to shut down all progress I had at the time. I've been laying low for 2 years waiting to come back up and continue again. I would advise people to recheck their security measures and such. *67 could have saved me from this hassle. It didn't even occur to me at the time, because h202 isn't illegal, but it's on a watch list none the less. Green backs and the hour trip to my nearest hydro store is all I will do from now on.

Yeah, I'd have done the same thing. I didn't approach a chem co. directly, I got my local hydro shop to order in a palletload of 25L jugs of 50%, but I DID do the shopping and quoting for my beloved hydro supplier.

Hope you are having a good vacation AL. be blessed man.

Thanks.

 

[Saerimmner]

Fytocell is a resin foam material, similar to styrofoam, but doesn't repel water or float the way styro does, although Fytocell does float. It holds a moderate amount of water; much less than rockwool but more than clay pellets. It has a high air content and is difficult to overwater. Unfortunately, it's a little messy to use. The finer granules of the stuff will escape pot drain holes, so I pack about 1" of RW in the bottom of each pot to keep the Fytocell in. It's sold in 100L bags. If I recall correctly, it takes about 1.5-2L to stuff a 175mm dia x 175mm tall pot.

The maker instructs you to flood the stuff, in the 100L plastic bag it is packaged in, for 24h before use. Unless you have a spare bathtub and want to slop wet Fytocell around, this is impractical and is an instruction I ignore. I pack my pots, put them in the tray and flood each pot with a length of hose and a spare pump dipped into that tray's rez tank. Then I plug the freshly rooted clones in and water them in for good measure. Automated watering via timer from then on out.

Fytocell is good for flowering plants as they don't tend to get as large nor develop as much rootmass as do my mother plants, which may live for a few months and do get rather woody and tree-like after several passes of cuttings. I keep my mums in plain rockwool as the highly developed mums will use the high water holding capacity of plain rockwool in 24h. The flowering plants don't need as much water and as such are more prone to overwatering if grown in plain RW floc.

Flooding pots packed the way I do takes only about 3 mins. More than that and the pots tend to float. The pots only need to be flooded to about 3". The RW in the bottom of the pot will instantly saturate & wick water into the Fytocell. Works pretty well for me.

any idea as to what ratio i should mix it with coco?

 

[cali-high]

Hey Al

Its been Awhile! Glad to See your Here!

Just Checking In..

Cali

 

[Al B. Fuct]

any idea as to what ratio i should mix it with coco?

Why would you want to mix it with coco?

Hey Al

Its been Awhile! Glad to See your Here!

Just Checking In..

Cali

Sup?

 

[drgreentm]

Very noice work. Neat, tidy setup, looks very easy to work with. Well done.

One suggestion, tho. You're getting some fairly tall, stretchy plants. Are you vegging before flowering? Kinda looks like it. Downside is that your plants get too tall and the major bud mass isn't contained within the light's max intensity area. We're looking for something a bit more like this:

View attachment 1377052

This is what you get when you chuck freshly rooted clones into 12/12 lighting with no veg period in between.

4x1000 over a pair of 4x8 trays sounds great. However, I'd do the costing of your pair of 4x8s compared to 4x 4x4 trays. You may find that biiiig trays are pretty expensive compared to a couple of smaller ones that prvide the same area. 4 trays also allows you to run 4 rez tanks, should you wish to tailor the nute mix to plants in certain trays, such as in biweekly segments. Also builds in a bit of redundancy as you'll have 4 pumps. More is better in this case; limits the impact on the op in the case of one pump failing.

The Canna products I use may be peculiar to Australia. Labelled only as 'Vega' and 'Flores,' I suspect the Nth America equivalent is the Substra line. See: http://www.canna.com.au/hydro

There's great things in your future, keep at it.

awesome info man ya i think i might take your advice and do bi weekly harvests with 4x4 trays it would be very nice but doesnt it become a pain harvesting, manicuring etc lol im up for the challenge for sure just a thought although i think i enjoy that quite a bit. you run 1k's over each of your 4x4's correct? i am actually vegging for about 2 weeks so your saying if i dont veg at all i could get some tighter node spacing that would be great. thanks again man i really dont even know if you are a man im thinking a machine with your quick replies to all these ?'s haha.
thanks again

 

[Saerimmner]

Why would you want to mix it with coco?


well ive been told its to replace perlite in coco, he didnt have any perlite so sent me this out as a freebie to try instead

 

[potroast]

Hey palomine, nice to see you!

I don't have any questions for you, heehee, so I'll answer yours. Rollitup did a software upgrade a couple of weeks back, and the bugs are still flying around. Heh heh, and Rollie is still trying to recover from the holidaze.

Best wishes to you down there.

 

[homebrewer]

'Sweet' is on the top of my 'does nothing' magic sauce list. It's a sugar solution; plants can't eat sugars and if you've ever inhaled burning sugar smoke, you'd wonder why anyone would put sugar (or worse, molasses) in a hydroponic nute soln which is feeding plants you're going to smoke.

The sugars would be for the microbes if you're running them but if you're not, it still has a healthy dose of secondary macro nutrients (magnesium and sulfur) which could be desirable for people who use RO water. People use Sweet for the wrong reasons and hydro stores sell it under false pretenses. There are situations where you'd want it and situations were you wouldn't, the key is knowing the difference.

 

[DEVIOUZ0NE]

hey ALB sick post, can you peep a problem I had?? Same strain dro/soil.. not sure if my dro finished up early.. lacked nutes.. or burned.. any advice or pointers would be cool.. only main things I did was stop calmag @ week 7-8 of 11..

and I did use about 70ml of sweetner once a week per the 5gal res. didnt think that was it they loved it, but you said nono on molasses so I figured could have affected it somewhere??

heres links to spread out photos~ https://www.rollitup.org/harvesting-curing/328642-want-know-if-your-plants-511.html#post5072530...

an here was some of them at harvest https://www.rollitup.org/harvesting-curing/398620-harvest-time-pics-soil-dro.html#post5143026

an right before https://www.rollitup.org/harvesting-curing/328642-want-know-if-your-plants-529.html#post5138383...

had some problems especially in my head because they are no where near as close as dense/trichy as the soils.. but eh first attempt at dro an it was actually an aero system so I was verrrry vague an had no mentor. but yo shoot me some criticism.!!

 

[devero420]

Hi Al - I posted on page 4, but it was right before a big answer so I think yo missed it, any help would be appreciated!

Hi Al, great thread, thx for sharing your eperiences. I recently fell for the jargin and bought sweet I dont think I am going to use it though.

How do you feel about Hygrozyme and Cal-Mag?

Thanks!

 

[frogster]

Devero,,, odd question,,, Al doesnt eat or drink cal-mag... Im sure your plants would not need it if you use good nutes, decent tap water (not r/o) .And change your rez. on a regular basis. ..and if you review Al's initial post he goes over this very plainly.... "While I'm here, I've got to comment on 'magic sauces.' I was in my local hydro shop the other day and noticed they've expanded the range of magical rubbish by a factor of 2, at least. If you're using a good quality inorganic nutrient (I use Canna nutes), you simply will have no need for anything else beyond H2O2 and perhaps some phosphoric acid based pH Down. You'll find that good nutes already include pH buffers that will set the pH of most tapwater to 5.8-6.0 when you mix for 1000-1100ppm. However, when you top up tanks (always with plain tapwater), the pH may wander upward somewhat. Correct it carefully with pH Down- and don't overshoot. Too low is as bad as too high.

Dump your tanks every 2 weeks and mix entirely new solution. Don't try to add nute concentrates to a half-eaten tank of nutes. You'll have no way of knowing if the NPK ratios are correct- but I can guarantee you that they won't be." And here he mentions cal-mag directly.. " Cal-Mag is almost always unnecessary unless you're using rainwater. There's usually enough Ca & Mg in tapwater to suit plants in hydroponics. " and this from Al!! " Ca & Mg are essential micronutes and if they weren't there, you'd have to put them in." goodgrief , no wonder why the guy hasnt been here in awhile ,,,, nobody wants to LEARN by reading, its a modern miracle!!!
so Read . Read . read some more!