NFT questions

Hot Diggity Sog said:

There are a few things to consider:

Plants can only be moved around up until a point. Their roots soon get really long and tangled up with one another and it becomes virtually impossible to move without doing damage. The way that I would approach this would be to start your seeds or clones in the same space ahead of time and time it so when the main crop is finished, the new batch is ready to go in.

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I always flower clones. I grow from seed and take my own cuttings. Thats why I was thinking I could do something like think this and be able to make use of smaller plants.

Im not sure home this nft works at all.
Could I grow perpetually vertically if I placed the plants in rows or colloms?

simply_slide said:

I always flower clones. I grow from seed and take my own cuttings. Thats why I was thinking I could do something like think this and be able to make use of smaller plants.

Im not sure home this nft works at all.
Could I grow perpetually vertically if I placed the plants in rows or colloms?

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You certainly could. Trying to do one side spanning multiple rows will be difficult due to the root issue I mentioned but if you were to isolate your rotation by rows then yes, totally doable. If you were to place rooted clones into a similar contraption that was always on 12/12, reducing the inner diameter to something like 48" might very well work perfectly. Some things to consider:
Upper rows tend to shade lower rows a little bit with dropping fan leaves. These can be tucked behind or removed but is something to think about. Lower rows can grow up beyond their immediate row above them so another thing to consider. Your best bet would probably be to bring in the new plants on the bottom row so you have youngest on the bottom and oldest on the top but be aware that the youngest have no girth - the amount of space extending inward so lighting them can be a little challenging.

Having been completely inspired by @Growmau5 this evening, I'm now completely rethinking my approach and looking at doing NFT in the tubes but instead of using HID's in a vertical fashion, go back to the standard layout of overhead lighting but with LED's.

That was my plan. But like you mentioned with shading and the roots growing together I may setup 4 walls with feed and drain lines on seperate valves and and t'd into one res that way each"season" can have it's own wall.

I may only do 3 walls and have a two span of no work. I can already see myself getting burned out having to harvest every two weeks.

I'm also really drunk do I hope this makes since. Happy Halloween!

I'll make a diagram tomorrow

Haha just read that again. I have no idea what I'm doing with myself.

I say I'm doing 4 walls... no wait 3... fuck!

I blame the Guinness

simply_slide said:

That was my plan. But like you mentioned with shading and the roots growing together I may setup 4 walls with feed and drain lines on seperate valves and and t'd into one res that way each"season" can have it's own wall.

I may only do 3 walls and have a two span of no work. I can already see myself getting burned out having to harvest every two weeks.

I'm also really drunk do I hope this makes since. Happy Halloween!

I'll make a diagram tomorrow

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It does make total sense and that's a great idea. Whatever you decide, I'm sure it will be awesome. NFT is the way to go...I am convinced. From soil to coco to rockwool, I've tried several and this is hands down the most efficient and least wasteful method I've tried. To think about returning to drain to waste....hand watering...disposing of used medium after the harvest, etc. Never again.

I reuse my coco. Just give it a very good cleaning after afterwards and my waste water hours to my vegi garden. I try and conserve add much as possible.

I'm only considering this because it seems like a more effective use of space and the efficiency and cleanliness of it has mr2 very a attracted to the idea

simply_slide said:

How often are you doing a res change? Weekly? Thats what keeps getting to me.

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i change res and nutrient ratios every two weeks. sometimes the girls will drink the whole res before the two week mark, in which case, i estimate how much ill need to hold them over until then and refil the res to that point.

Makes since. Maybe the water conservation isn't a concern. I guess I'm used to using the gh weekly change thing

Frequency of water changes might vary. I use well water and maybe it gets a little yucky quicker than say...RO water. Really hard to say. I was advised to change my rez weekly for my 1st hydro run and that was great advice. Now that I've done a whole round once I feel more confident in what I'm doing so I'm changing it about every 2 to 3 weeks. I just watch for the signs...in my case, the signs are a dropping PH and a general funky odor start to emerge.

for sure. what are you getting out of your octagon setup?

simply_slide said:

for sure. what are you getting out of your octagon setup?

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I'll let you know once this round finishes. I still don't have final weights on the last round.

looking into this vert is hurting my head haha