MY DIY 21st Century 'Flood' & Drain

PetFlora said:
TB, welcome! Years ago I replaced a number of incandescent interior bulbs with either CFL or halogens, but now upgrading them to leds
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I've replaced almost all my incadescents(never liked cfl's terrible dimming functions/ few due have it and the spectral shift is fugly)........I would also like to say that all my ecosmart (homedepot label) led bulbs have failed now(took 21months)! HD gave me store credit on all them. I also bought three philips brand(21months ago) and ZERO have failed, so obviously this is the brand I will continue to retrofit with.

PetFlora said:
Been discussing my pale green dilemma with SDS on his LED thread. He makes a valid scientific argument that is hard to refute. Although the pale has mostly changed to a healthy green, it coulld well have been the low ppm. They are now getting ~ 650ppm

OK, so my pale green problem could have been due to low ppm for this strain, and not low 5000K.

Just replaced the 5000K/850 lumen with a 3000K/450 lumen

Easy enough to swap back.

You can't do that with fixed panels
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With V&B fert I gather by its design/formulation if a def arises you just up the PPM's without worry of a lock or no???.....Also my guess Redoctober is the diff between their soft/RO and Hard water must be the cal/mag %...
 
Yeah I've had several of the Costco brand LED's fail as well! I thought it must have something to do with the wiring in my walls but I guess they must be shoddily made. Sounds like the the Home Depot brand ones are similar. The ones from Costco are made by a company called Feit Electric. I don't recommend them but on the upside, even if you use them for two years and they fail, Costco will replace them no questions asked - kind of a nice consolation.

PSUAGRO, are you demoing the V&B as well?
 
PetFlora said:
6" PVC, like a NFT system? MJ roots grow way too big for NFT. There are still a couple HPA active threads around. Check them for solenoids, etc. Instead of single buckets (each of which needs a drain back), why not go with one large tote and APs? I use small one liter APs, to start, then simply transfer into larger AS, and let the roots grow through the smaller into the larger I think my pump is ~ 300g. Keep in mind they are speced for how high they can push water. Since we're not doing that a small pump is sufficient
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Yeah it does get rather cramped in those 6" tubes after a few weeks. I even had one get plugged up and overflow one time. Didn't know until morning...cleanup was not cool at all! You are correct, it's basically a glorifies flood and drain with mist heads. I have a 3000 gph pump that cycles on for 30 seconds and sprays the crap out of the roots, then shuts off for about 6 minutes. I could probably bump up the off time a bit to let the roots breathe more between feedings. Like I said, it definitely has it's flaws without a doubt, but overall it's not a bad system.

So when you say: "Keep in mind they are speced for how high they can push water. Since we're not doing that a small pump is sufficient" I'm not entirely sure I understand then. If we aren't pushing water with the pump, what are we doing? Does the water basically just dribble out of the sprinkler heads? I was envisioning a spray of some kind coming out. If you wanted to connect another tote or two totes of plants, would you not need a stronger pump?
 
The pump is pushing water, but a small ~ 2-300gph pump is more than sufficient for a small grow. There is a lot of resistance in the < 10ft of 3/4" pvc tubing: the 4 mist heads are the only exit points. Assuming you are not using too many heads, then ample spray. I actually have too much with a single pipe. The nutes are overshooting my APs. Gonna try some different heads this morning

I am feeding ~ 23 sec/hr. Both are adjusted by how the plants look

Feit also makes the Utilitech bulbs, which now that I took the globes off (destroyed in the process) won't be returnable, BUT, my sense is drivers failed, and those are easily upgraded at the factory once they see a high return rate. Also keep in mind anything 21 months old is probably 36 months old, and think how many driver choices since then. My guess is the newer bulbs have upgraded drivers these days. Time will tell
 
Sir.Ganga said:
I love it when someone gets an idea and runs with it...Nice to see, keep up the experiments. I use rockwool in a ebb/flow and through trial and error I found the opposite of your statement. I found it very user friendly and the cheapest medium out there. A slab of RW is running about 8 bucks per, if you buy them single, I cut them into 3-12" pcs. and use the remaining for starting newbies. My medium costs me a little less than 3 bucks per site. As for issues...I have none because each girl is on their individual square of rock on a flood table and if anything was to happen you can individualize easily.


Keep it up man love the fact your playin around...hope my info instills some ideas for you.
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My medium is air... Can't get much cheaper than that! Chuckle... ;) But I agree, rockwool can be good, but you have to have a little experience with it and find the better brands that don't hold so much water such as B'Cuzz or Cultilene... i got lava cinder rocks everywhere around me here- maybe I should just grab a bagfull next time I visit one of the old lava fields...
 
I'm always kind of nervous investing in LEDs though, because the technology is moving along so quickly. It feels like I'm buying a Playstation 3 knowing the Playstation 4's are getting ready to come out. haha.

I think I might go pick up one or two of those Utilitech 23W 3000k bulbs and grow with just them. Do you recommend those among the other ones you're using, PetFlora? I love what you've been doing, btw.

Trichy Bastard said:
Lighting is really important to me, and I think so many people don't realize how much it affects ambiance and even your mood
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Totally agree with you there man.
 
There is so much new hitting the streets, there may be other choices on the shelves.

The others are Philips. Both are remote phosphor so you can't remove the globes. Not sure my DIY hood helps concentrate the lumens above 180*s (closer to the shaft)

We had 5 days of low 40s here, so things slowed down a bit. LED tent has ben going wide more than growing, but that could be too much blue.

New pics tomorrow.
 
Trichy Bastard said:
My medium is air... Can't get much cheaper than that! Chuckle... ;) But I agree, rockwool can be good, but you have to have a little experience with it and find the better brands that don't hold so much water such as B'Cuzz or Cultilene... i got lava cinder rocks everywhere around me here- maybe I should just grab a bagfull next time I visit one of the old lava fields...
Click to expand...

The ONLY air that's free in HPA is when ambient temps fall within desired parameters. If not, there is either a heating or cooling cost.

Widely fluctuating temps, as we have here in winter, are a problem. Over the last 10 days temps went from mid 80s to low 40s and now back to mid 80s. Either extreme is sufficient to kill root hairs within 4 hours.

Viva la MY DIY 21st Century Low Pressure Spray (from the top of the pot) and Drain system. The lava rock acts as a temperature buffer, while keeping sufficient moisture between feeds to keep the plants growing
 
LED Tent

Quick observation: Since replacing the NW with another WW, the plants are beginning to stretch between nodes, so they are growing, but not just from the top

HOT5

Last week temps were in the low 40s at night, high 0s mid day. Plants stopped growing. Mid 80s is back, so they started growing again. In addition, they are fattening up. Lots of early pistils, but no actual buds yet

Pics tomorrow
 
Manufacturers, why complicate your production/parts inventory...?

I think the majority of growers are personal use (or certainly enough to make a hell of a living supplying them/us).

'We' are looking for a small stealth light system that will cover a 2 X 4 - 4 X 4 grow tent, or possibly a small closet or ~ 2sft of a clothes closet.

A 150w fixture whose spectrum closely follows PAR (not just the peaks as monochromatic diodes) should be more than sufficient for any grow area up to 4 X 4.

Many led noobs might have a little dick and WANT (not need) a big ass panel. For you, get 2 identical ~ 150w panels... NOT one 300w+ fixture. Either would work for a 4 x 4 SCROG. For non-scroggers, one 150 on top, + a couple of low watt rails below the canopy for untrained plants will provide all the light you need.

The following was for that thread: I am doing a 2 plant grow using BrandX F1 cross; WHxWW using BG male pollen. Lights are/were 3000K + 5000K screw bulb leds (I have no equip/skills to make a fixture). As my followers know, the 5000K was replaced with a 3000K 2 days ago, so now plants are basking under 100% 3000K. I have a ufo 90, R/B ~ 9:1 in reserve just in case they need 660, but I doubt it as 630 provides 90% PS RS

Below is a ~ 2 years old guide I grow by:

CREE Neutral White (I call it 'Goldilocks', because it's almost 'just right'
wink.gif
) has a RSPD that still allows nearly ~25% of its total power in the blue range (and plants only really 'need' ~8-10%), and more that 1/3 of which (i.e. the area under the curve) is over ~580nm or so (which has a Photosynthetic RS of over 90%!)

(WWs are better choices today, or a combination of both. I think the Merkaba shape using 6WW + one NW in the center will be a happy medium )

I know it's hard to build what people need instead of what they want (due to programming that monochromatic lights are essential to simulate the PAR peaks, while completely overlooking the importance of the 'lessor' spectrums , SO, add ~ 10% 660 on a separate circuit. The NWs could be 3w on a dimmer, also just in case.

This seems like a simple fixture to me that will satisfy 90%+ of what we need to grow some awesome meds.

Got a few "Likes' from knowledgeable light manufacturers
 
It occurred to me that the taller plant (right side of all photos) is under the 22w Utilitech WW, while the shorter is under the 12w Philips WW, so ~ 30% more w and lumens. No wonder the main stem is thicker and that plant taller. DOH:wall:

I just took a picture (post later) and will flip the positions to see whether the shorter one catches up, or whether it's just a shorter F 1 expression
 
T5

Did a bit of house cleaning. The red tub doesn't fully drain due to my putting the bulkhead on the side instead of the bottom. Wanted a little reserve, just in case, but that water is very high in dissolved solids, so probably not a good idea in the end.

Since I was at it, I decided to drop 4 of the one-liter APs into one gallon APs and side fill will lava rock. This will provide more room for roots to spread.

LED

The big girls are overlapping each other. Need to move them into a bigger tote.:hump:

Tinkerbell continues to grow, but she only has ONE tiny root (with zero laterals). Probably due to the nutes being too hot for significant root growth

The tallest of the 2 is still outgrowing the smaller, even under the lower wattage bulb, so I can save a few bucks on another bulb.

I don't know about you guys, but I am blown away at how well they are growing under ~ 44w of screw bulbs. And looking at HiloReigns 28w grow I am stunned, though he is using high bin one-watt diodes + my idea to arrange them in a Merkaba cluster. First to do so, I expect many to follow
 
My apologies to whomever posted the extenders, but I bought 6 on line as no local big box hand them. The combination of extenders + Y splitters allow up to 6 bulbs off one 3 socket vanity fixture. Not only can I double the bulbs, I can double (or more) the foot print, PLUS, the ability to angle the bulbs eliminates shaded areas= more and bigger bud sites

Also an update on how well the girls are doing under only 45w of only WW bulbs

IMG_1357.jpgIMG_1358.jpgIMG_1359.jpgIMG_1360.jpg
 
How long are your extenders PF ?


If you have prime with Amazon they carry the extenders. They have 2 lengths.

They also have the splitters.

Cost a little more but shipping is free and arrives in 2 days.

23.6 "
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0057UHB6Y/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A1THAZDOWP300U

Shorter version
http://www.amazon.com/Light-Direction-Extension-Adapter-Extender/dp/B0053P1FPQ/ref=pd_bxgy_hi_text_y

Leviton splitter
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001ATG0JU/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
 
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