MY True HP Aero Plug&Play Pods

yeah, this bio ball thing really has my head wrenching...

i know fatman is going to want to eat me after even suggesting this...

but, consider the following...

in a hp aero setup (which i dont have) once the root ball gets big, i dont see how the mist can actually get inside it... it hits the outer pom pom, and gets absorbed.

So in my feeble little mind, im seeing the middle roots becoming almost useless.

With hydroton, i have seen great results over on thcfarmer.com with doublD's hydroton buckets, which are suspended above another tub, with fast rushing dwc in the bottom, and the plants grow to tree size and yeild over 4 lbs a plant in 11 weeks from seed... Thats not shabby.

WHen you think of the surface area of a hydroton pellet, vs one of these bioballs... its a no brainer the bioball has a lot more.

In addition to having a lot more surface area...

If you were to compare a bucket of hydroton, and measure the left over air gaps between the pellets...

and then compare that to a bucket of bioballs, and measure the left over air still in the bucket... i think the difference would be HUGE. I would say well over double air space in a bucket filled with bio balls.

So whats that mean? First of all it means more air.

Second, it means more area for root mass.

And the bio balls allow the roots to spread laterally, which, might not be as good as hp aero...

but its gotta be better than lp aero, bc in lp aero, the roots just dangle down, dont bush out, and root mass is root mass.

Im really contemplating filling a big vertical tube with these bio balls, ordering them in bulk from a suplier in china, and putting a constant drip feed up top

And having a duel against a mp aero vertical chamber as well, and seeing which one would prevail.

My gut right now is saying these bio balls would

essentially, its 3 dimensional nft.. and 2 dimansional nft is well proven to do a good job.

A 1mm x 1mm hole is like a barn door to a 50 micron droplet, upto 400 could fit through it in one go.

Atomizer said:

You could always compost the roots and pick out the bioballs when its rotted down. Pity the bioballs don`t come in stainless thenyou could incinerate the rootball to get them back.

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The plastic is able to easily handle treatment wth acids or bases or any oxidizer. ie throw in a perforated bucket and put this bucket in a strong solution of of base such as a toilet bowl cleaner that contains hodroxides such as sodium hydroxide or potasium hydroxide and soak, pull out perforated bucket then rinse. Now out bucket in a bucket with a strong solution of an acid like muriatic acid and soak. Pull out and rinse.

Or oxidize the roots with a strong chlorine solution. But as the roots are organic there will be a strong release of ammonia gas so do this outside. This will cause putrefication of the roots and they will literally fall apart.

well fatman...

im sitting here trying to figure out the simplest system for quick turn arounds.

I know that hp aero makes a plant grow the fastest...

but, when i realize i can make infinite clones pretty much... quantity of plants can overcome one super large plant i think.

This whole bio ball thing got my brain going, and i just made heaths spiral tube obsolete i think...


instead of a tube spiraling...

just make a perfect ring.

And then another ring of pipe down a foot or so from it.

Then connect all the perfect rings with a vertical pipe that comes straight down to the res.

Give each ring a slight slight tilt so that the vertical pipe is at the lowest point of the ring.

Put the plant sites all around each ring.

Put a light bulb in the middle of the rings.


Now... take it one step further... heaths setup is a bitch to get in and out of im sure...

So now get rid of the ring and just do a C... or a ring with a small gap in it.

Put 2 endcaps, one on each end of the C.

Put the vertical pipe down the middle of the c's and give the c's a tilt.

Now... bioballs...


instead of having deep water inside the pipe like heath does...

all one would have to do is put sprayers.. or better yet... a lazer cut aeration hose in each ring of pipe.. and lay it up on top of the bioballs.

Then put it on a timer on off, or do a constant trickle like they do over at thcfarmer.com with the doubleD setup.

IF there were large enough pipes... one could do this with HP aero. At that point i think i would just make the pipes vertical pilars, and have a horizontal line at the bottom of the pilars connection them all, and a bit of dwc at the bottom of each pilar... and have 4 or 5 plants up a pilar... and then just add more pilars to the circle if the plants are too close to the light, or subtract pilars from the circle if the plants are too far away.

If i was HP this si the way id go...

But the perfect large diameter pipe is yet to be discovered.

However, since its vertical, one could use that black ribbed plastic pipe that they put under the ground...

Or you can go with those bin totes that stack, that they sell at home depot now.

The totes would pobably be better.

Technically, one could fill those totes from top to bottom, and cut the bottoms out so they make a pilar.... and fill those with bioballs, and jsut have a lazer cut aeration line spiral its way down through the balls.. or maybe youd only need to drip from the very top, and it would work its way down evenly across all the balls, who knows.

I know hp aero is the best... but im still exploring all options as far as simplicity and cost are concerened

PetFlora said:

I am using 18G totes (15" deep). I am looking for cylinders that can be used vertically, like pilars. No dead spots.

My roots grew so damn fast that I had to get additional totes and stack them, cutting way tops and bottoms. I now have 30" depth, and some roots have gathered on the bottom.

I think the problem comes from waiting too long to flip. I waited until all plants were 12". At 72 days the plants are 3ft tall, and that after being pinched.

Next time I will flip at 6". Hopefully, the plants will respond and stop making gorw roots and concentrate on bloom roots , which are new and shorter.

Time will tell

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Here is what you want...

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xr5/R-100669782/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

they stack bottom to top, and leave potential plant sites to be cut out of the diagonal flap.

The middle of the lid can be cut out, and the bottom on the next one, and THEY DONT LEAK!

you can stack these infinitely high...

They come in a 4 pack, or buy them for 9.99 at home depot one at a time.

If a person put a sprayer in the back wall f each of these, or maybe every other one... i think its the future of hp aero and vertical growing.

Even if a person found a large vertical tube, you still have the plant site issue to deal with... These tubs make it a piece of cake to drill a hole in the diagonal flap and put in a netpot.

@ Petflora. Your reply makes no sense.

A mathematical statement:
A 1mm x 1mm hole is like a barn door to a 50 micron droplet, upto 400 could fit through it in one go.

PetFlora said:

Wrong. As soon as the fog hits the bottom, it combines into ever larger droplets which combine into a liquid.

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Fog, gravity and coalescence have absolutely nothing to do with the theoretical number of 50 micron droplets that will fit into a 1mm x 1mm area

PetFlora said:

I am using 18G totes (15" deep). I am looking for cylinders that can be used vertically, like pilars. No dead spots.

My roots grew so damn fast that I had to get additional totes and stack them, cutting way tops and bottoms. I now have 30" depth, and some roots have gathered on the bottom.

I think the problem comes from waiting too long to flip. I waited until all plants were 12". At 72 days the plants are 3ft tall, and that after being pinched.

Next time I will flip at 6". Hopefully, the plants will respond and stop making gorw roots and concentrate on bloom roots , which are new and shorter.

Time will tell

Click to expand...

if you look back a couple pages you can see my 6 and 12 day old roots. these roots are the same as the 8 week old roots from last round in all aspects. ive seen no difference beween grow roots and bloom roots. theres nothing to support that idea that im aware of.

i also dont have any live bacteria colonizing the root system cause i run a sterile root zone so i dont think there is any bacteria feeding the roots. that happens in soil and organic hydro systems. H2o kills the bacteria.

my roots also grow along the bottom of the chamber and the walls and the ceiling of the chamber. i dont see much if any difference between the roots on the floor, walls or ceiling. there is never enough water to drench the floor roots so they develop in a similar fashion to the rest.

i could run the system where by almost no droplets would form anywhere including the roots but at this time im trying to encourage the roots to fill the bottom of the chamber before heading up the walls and ceiling and slightly overmisting seems to keep them from developing to much fluff. ill save that for later if possible.

Glad you could stop by but here we make the info up as we go and dont rely on the info contained in the TAG thread as the absolute truth. some of it may indeed be true but ive found alot of stuff from there that doesnt correlate to real world examination.

PetFlora said:

I am using 18G totes (15" deep). I am looking for cylinders that can be used vertically, like pilars. No dead spots.

My roots grew so damn fast that I had to get additional totes and stack them, cutting way tops and bottoms. I now have 30" depth, and some roots have gathered on the bottom.

I think the problem comes from waiting too long to flip. I waited until all plants were 12". At 72 days the plants are 3ft tall, and that after being pinched.

Next time I will flip at 6". Hopefully, the plants will respond and stop making gorw roots and concentrate on bloom roots , which are new and shorter.

Time will tell

Click to expand...

If you want cylinders that size, cut down 55g plastic drums to the depth you need. I think that's the way I'm headed next.

PetFlora said:

I got my MDT 1 timer a week ago, and am still nailing down the on/pause times. Currently 6 seconds on/8 min pause. I am running longer on because the line pressure drops (no accum) and was getting a lot of spit (large droplets hanging on the roots).

My fog heads are 0.9gph. I think 0.5 would help a lot. Investigating check valves to keep line pressure up.

My hp non-accum journal (using Reptile Basics components and Aquatek 8800 pump) has over 11K visits. I am entering week 4 of bloom

Drop by and say high. Also feel free to contribute

[URL="http://www.icmag.com/modules/Journal/viewentry.php?journalid=328"]http://www.icmag.com/modules/Journal/viewentry.php?journalid=328[/URL]

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Hey it's the Troll from IC come to talk nonsense and run back home to IC. Wow, now your even trying to pretend to know something about HP aero. This should be fun. Save your self some embarrassment now and go back to IC. In case you have not been tod lately linking to your write up in another forum is against forum rules here. Maybe if you get reported enough the moderators here will finally bar your IP address.

PetFlora said:

Wrong. As soon as the fog hits the bottom, it combines into ever larger droplets which combine into a liquid.

Click to expand...

Wow, you are quite a goof. Have you researched HP or air atomized chamber grows at all. I thought not. Have you completed a single HP or air atomized chamber grow. I thought not.

PetFlora said:

I am using 18G totes (15" deep). I am looking for cylinders that can be used vertically, like pilars. No dead spots.

My roots grew so damn fast that I had to get additional totes and stack them, cutting way tops and bottoms. I now have 30" depth, and some roots have gathered on the bottom.

I think the problem comes from waiting too long to flip. I waited until all plants were 12". At 72 days the plants are 3ft tall, and that after being pinched.

Next time I will flip at 6". Hopefully, the plants will respond and stop making gorw roots and concentrate on bloom roots , which are new and shorter.

Time will tell

Click to expand...

How about some photos of your three foot tall plants child.

OregonMeds said:

If you want cylinders that size, cut down 55g plastic drums to the depth you need. I think that's the way I'm headed next.

Click to expand...

you lost me with that verbage...

cut them down to the size you need?

a 55g drum is not tall enough to begin with.

Why would you cut it down?

If they stack on top of eachother and you can cut the bottom and top out of them, and thats what you meant, then maybe you are onto something.

How do you think you would go about creating a plant site and securing the netpot or plant for that matter... to a vertical wall?

We are talking about putting plants up a vertical wall, around a light in pilars, like heaths flooded vertical tube... only using hp aero instead.

The pilar, is a way to allow for the roots to get long,a nd have one large chamber where you shoot in the hp aero mist.

Just making sure everyone is on the same page

Ok I wasn't on the same page I have missed quite a few, nevermind. I was thinking he just wanted taller round 18-25 gallon size is all.

I see those big green plastic drainage culvert things on craigslist from time to time in all sizes and lengths, I guess if you capped the ends maybe but that's stuff is so expensive new... I have used that stuff before for subwoofer tubes, heavy heavy heavy duty. Is that more what you're looking for?

You actually are onto something.

In heaths grow, the plants stay short, prob due to genetics, and root limiations.

In ours, plants will obviously get taller.

The tallest point on the pilar only has to be at the netpot site of the plant.

If a plant got to 4 ft, then there would be no reason to get a taller drum.

I think, the drum is actually a great idea.

If a person put 2 plants up on top of the drum, on each side, and then put 4 more plants down the wall of it, 2 at each level. clocked 90 degress from eachtoehr, 45 degrees from center..

That would be 6 plants per drum.

I guess the real question is how quick does the strain grow and how big do its roots get and how quick?

Technically... i think if you had 1 plant that filled the whole drum with roots, vs 20 plants that were root locked, and filled the whole drum with roots, i bet overall end total yeild would still be about the same.

IF thats the case, then understand that the only thing gained is the light that hits the drum, is now hitting leaves instead if you have plants up the side of it.

The only trick is how to keep the netpot secured on a vertical wall.

The plants on the bottom levels will pretty much just be dwc, as there will be 2 or more inches of rushing water going by as it flows from drum to drum via the bulkhead fittins i put at the bottom so that there is dwc water at the bottom to catch excess mist. But hey, dwc grows plants, and a plant catching the light of the bottom 2 ft of the drum vs a plant not catching light at the bottom 2 feet of the drum?...

its a no brainer that A PLANT is better than NO PLANT... no matter what the roots are growing in.

Where do you think the best price on these drums would be? Used obviously.

Craigslist is the place for any of that stuff cheap usually. Used plastic drums/barrels/stock tanks/buckets/water towers, you'll see tons of them, cheap if you are in a large city. There are many different styles, pickle barrels are really really nice too, but they're a bit more expensive. There are also container recycling companies in the yellow pages or closest shipyard/large rail drop off area if you are more in the middle of nowhere.

Like this:
http://www.rinenterprises.com/OTPD230STG.htm

Tree farmer
Atomizer
Fatman,

Looks like this thread has gained some attention since i have been gone
Hope all is well with yalls grows and tree farmer i cant wait to see results from this second grow!

well i got my new timers installed. iwas going to have them switch between night and day with a photo eye but deceided to use a timer instead. this way i can switch over a little sooner before lights out to the night setting and switch to the day setting a little sooner before lights on if need be. i have it wired so if the relay or timer failes it will default to the day setting. Currently trying 1 sec every three minutes to see how the 1 sec pulse works out since i was at 2sec every 6 minutes. the control pod is running out of places to mount things. it keeps morphing.

the little timer way in the bottom right corner controls the day-night cycle. so the whole timer setup was about 185 and does what most timers you can buy dont do. have both night and day adjustments.

tree farmer said:

well i got my new timers installed. iwas going to have them switch between night and day with a photo eye but deceided to use a timer instead. this way i can switch over a little sooner before lights out to the night setting and switch to the day setting a little sooner before lights on if need be. i have it wired so if the relay or timer failes it will default to the day setting. Currently trying 1 sec every three minutes to see how the 1 sec pulse works out since i was at 2sec every 6 minutes. the control pod is running out of places to mount things. it keeps morphing.

the little timer way in the bottom right corner controls the day-night cycle. so the whole timer setup was about 185 and does what most timers you can buy dont do. have both night and day adjustments.

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Thats awesome Looks like something id throw together... just keep adding things till it works the way you need it too You should get TMH to write you a program once you know what timing cycle and all your specs are... Anyway i just wanted to stop by and say hi. I touched on the subject before, but i was doing a little rehabing.
38 days opiate free! I finally feel like getting started on my project again. Ill have it finished before long, I hope

travish413 said:

Thats awesome Looks like something id throw together... just keep adding things till it works the way you need it too You should get TMH to write you a program once you know what timing cycle and all your specs are... Anyway i just wanted to stop by and say hi. I touched on the subject before, but i was doing a little rehabing.
38 days opiate free! I finally feel like getting started on my project again. Ill have it finished before long, I hope

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glad to hear your off those. they can be fun but as you know will make a slave out of you. stay busy and good luck.