Irish Boys Return Of The Inferno With The Spectra 180's

Sweet looking irish

so the plant is bottom fed in the saucer and it soaks up water all the way to the top? how many gallons is your reservoir, what kind of pump are you using what is your "heavy soiless mix" exactly and also what do you mean by drilling a hole in the saucer to hold the thing in place?

hellraizer30 said:

Sweet looking irish

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thanks bro

dapio said:

so the plant is bottom fed in the saucer and it soaks up water all the way to the top? how many gallons is your reservoir, what kind of pump are you using what is your "heavy soiless mix" exactly and also what do you mean by drilling a hole in the saucer to hold the thing in place?

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yup wicks it up threw the medium. i still have to dial in things and will be doing that over the next few days. the key is to not let the medium wick all the way up top so that way the top stays dry for the air roots. in ideal wicking should never let your plants get over watered and give optium air/water ratios. my res is 10 gal but i am only gonna use maybe about 6gals? theirs no wasted water in this system so you can save up to 75% on water if things are dialed in. i have a 250gph pump and also just bought a 400gph pump i havent used, i need to test things out and see what works best? i have a heavy perlite soilees mix, meaning lots of perlite. my medium is SunShine#4 with a 50/50 SS#4/perlite ratio
i am gonna drill a hole at the top of the sauce and run the drip hose threw it so it stays on place and dosent flop out and not water the plant.

Interested to see your grow I want to grow with LED's.

Ah, I see makes since now I have been wanting to start hydro for some time now but just am confused about a few things... scared to not do something right catch a water leakage and I am renting cant afford to cause any property damage truthfully so I stick to the old school hand watering do you know of any good guides that would show me how to go to home depot grab a pump some spaghetti tubes and get something relatively small set up?

irishboy said:

heres some pics to get the idea of the setup i am making. this isnt done still have work to do but gives the idea of what i am doing. i am gonna drill a small hole on the top of each of the saucers and run the drip line threw it to make sure it stays in place. i have a digi timer that will run for a minute or so and fill each saucer and they the medium will wick the water up to the plant. the bottom fed wicking with the fabric pots and the heavy soiless mix with lots of perlite should give great air to the roots. each saucer will be allowed to dry out so roots are not sitting in water the whole time, then when they get hungry again the timer will go off and flood the saucer again.

simple cheap and should be effective

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I was wondering 'why' you are doing things this way? And I don't mean like I have a better idea or something. I just mean, what was the thinking/ reasons behind the ideas here. I know I have a bunch of reasons I like my setup and was hoping to get an insight into the mind of another creative grower. Maybe it's all in that last line, simple, cheap, and effective.

DAKUSHMAN 49 said:

Interested to see your grow I want to grow with LED's.

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welcome bro. i have a ton of led grows a few on here in my sig and a ton of the web is you Google my name

dapio said:

Ah, I see makes since now I have been wanting to start hydro for some time now but just am confused about a few things... scared to not do something right catch a water leakage and I am renting cant afford to cause any property damage truthfully so I stick to the old school hand watering do you know of any good guides that would show me how to go to home depot grab a pump some spaghetti tubes and get something relatively small set up?

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i have no guide just reading 100's of journals over the years, google, youtube and just putting things ive learned with my grows. hand watering works great done it for years, i just cant be home all the time and need a automatic running system and dose not have allot of moving parts and that is cheap. nothing will flood with my setup because i have that 4x4 tray and not a big res of water

jigfresh said:

I was wondering 'why' you are doing things this way? And I don't mean like I have a better idea or something. I just mean, what was the thinking/ reasons behind the ideas here. I know I have a bunch of reasons I like my setup and was hoping to get an insight into the mind of another creative grower. Maybe it's all in that last line, simple, cheap, and effective.

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i am doing things this way for a few reasons, main reasons so i can leave town and have my girls watered... but feeding this way give some of the best air ratios, and its very simple and very cheap to do. wicking never lets the medium get over watered saves a ton on nutes and give the feeder roots what they want while allowing the air roots to get air witch is harder to do by top watered, your medium dose not compact when bottom feeding. simple with only one moving part the pump and thats it. these fabric pots should only help even more allowing tons of air to the roots keep my medium cooler in the summer heat and air prune the roots for a massive root system.

my ideal setup is a flood table but i dont have the funds so this is the cheapest most effective thing i can come up with so i can leave town for a week at a time if needed. change the res once a week and thats it.

i am always up for suggestions brother! this is just something that i haven't really scene done this way and wanted to try it out.. i know the SIP's and wick systems work great for other growers and i just tried to perfect things to my liking with the easy to clean mini res, and the air pots to allow better roots and medium condition's.

irishboy said:

i am doing things this way for a few reasons, main reasons so i can leave town and have my girls watered... but feeding this way give some of the best air ratios, and its very simple and very cheap to do. wicking never lets the medium get over watered saves a ton on nutes and give the feeder roots what they want while allowing the air roots to get air witch is harder to do by top watered, your medium dose not compact when bottom feeding. simple with only one moving part the pump and thats it. these fabric pots should only help even more allowing tons of air to the roots keep my medium cooler in the summer heat and air prune the roots for a massive root system.

my ideal setup is a flood table but i dont have the funds so this is the cheapest most effective thing i can come up with so i can leave town for a week at a time if needed. change the res once a week and thats it.

i am always up for suggestions brother! this is just something that i haven't really scene done this way and wanted to try it out.. i know the SIP's and wick systems work great for other growers and i just tried to perfect things to my liking with the easy to clean mini res, and the air pots to allow better roots and medium condition's.

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Thanks for the explanation. I don't have any suggestions as yet. If I think of anything along the way I'll bring it up. I can tell you aren't one to be butthurt by suggesting a change or two. It's so great when peeps are open to new ideas, doesn't mean you have to do anything with them. Anyways, I like the reasons for the setup. One of the biggest reasons I run the setup I do is that I can leave the plants for a long time on their own. I've left them absolutely alone, not a soul opening the door or being around, for 12 days. Cheap is good too. I try, but fail.

Looking forward to the progress!

A friend of mine loves to bottom feed. I suggested airstones for his saucers, I bet the root balls would blaze right out of those effers!

jigfresh said:

Thanks for the explanation. I don't have any suggestions as yet. If I think of anything along the way I'll bring it up. I can tell you aren't one to be butthurt by suggesting a change or two. It's so great when peeps are open to new ideas, doesn't mean you have to do anything with them. Anyways, I like the reasons for the setup. One of the biggest reasons I run the setup I do is that I can leave the plants for a long time on their own. I've left them absolutely alone, not a soul opening the door or being around, for 12 days. Cheap is good too. I try, but fail.

Looking forward to the progress!

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always up for better ideas. ya leaving for 12 days and coming home to healthy plants is what i like. who knows if this system will do good? i will play around with this and see how it gose?

Shwagbag said:

A friend of mine loves to bottom feed. I suggested airstones for his saucers, I bet the root balls would blaze right out of those effers!

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if the saucers were not going to go dry i would put air stones in their

GD that would be awesome to be able to leave for more than 2 days! lol

thats the idea. leave for a week at a time and everything be ok.

heres my test run i did, still have to dial in the times because i am thinking it might be best to not let the whole tray feel up and just water a little but more often? i dont want to bottom to sit into allot of water. i will have to let the medium dry out and test how long it takes to wick everything and go from their..

one very cool thing about these pots is that i can see how far things are wicking because of the wet sides, check out the pics and see what i mean. this is just after a few minutes after watering it wicked that high.

ok i talked to mike for you guys! He said if you guys want the 2010 spectra's Mike will special order them for you. he will throw in free shipping on the 2010 lights..

the prices are

(2010) 380w $999.99
180w $ 749.99
120w 499.99

these will not be sold on the site only as a special order deal for those who really want them. its the same exact light that was for sale in 2010 no difference. same light i used on all of those past grows.

you have to e-mail him about this @ [email protected]

the brighter 2011 lights are whats being sold on the site, but if your looking for a light that is proven and you can keep them closer to ur plants then this is the model you want, the 2011 are much brighter and stronger but have to be used higher. allot of people just want the same light that i used in my past led grows so spectra (Mike) brought them back for those people. these are custom order only and you have to e-mail him about these lights.

wow i missed a lot in the past few days!!! all auto watering!!! that is awesome!! i like the containers getting wet so you can see the wicking like you said!!! looks like they are working out great!

stoneyluv said:

wow i missed a lot in the past few days!!! all auto watering!!! that is awesome!! i like the containers getting wet so you can see the wicking like you said!!! looks like they are working out great!

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so far so good, just have to dial in the feed times.

Lookin great so far, man! That system will be the shit once you get it dialed in. This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this so I'll be watching closely. I've sent a few people having LED questions over to your old journals to see that they work and I just sent a few more over to this one. Trying to let the world know they work!

Jman305 said:

Lookin great so far, man! That system will be the shit once you get it dialed in. This is the first time I've ever seen anything like this so I'll be watching closely. I've sent a few people having LED questions over to your old journals to see that they work and I just sent a few more over to this one. Trying to let the world know they work!

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ya i am the 1st ive seen run this system, just wanted to try something new and see if it works good? try to make growing/life easier with our plants and feeding.lol. so far so good.

as with the leds working ive show the 2010's worked great on many journals but i havent been able to test the new 2011's and give my opinion yet until i finish this grow. soon lets hope the heat dosent get to the girls again and we can flowering with no issues. its still at least 100F in their each day, cant wait for winter.lol

Damn irish checked out your 600w DAMN SON! between you and stoney im getting psyched about LEDs, Gonna be following this closely. Hopefully we see some price drops in the next couple months theyre still a bit pricey for me.

BlazedMonkey said:

Damn irish checked out your 600w DAMN SON! between you and stoney im getting psyched about LEDs, Gonna be following this closely. Hopefully we see some price drops in the next couple months theyre still a bit pricey for me.

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thanks bro, i have lots of other grow on the web if you Google my name, the ones on here were my small journals.

i really dont think prices will drop but i think the tech will only get better for the price. remember not any led light is the same everyone makes a different one so you must do your homework my friend. 99% company's are scams out their.