Taking the plunge: HP Aero Drain to Waste

AeroPonicsWizaRd said:

tap has pythium in it! and ten billion other bacteria and viruses and i am a firm believer any pathogen from tap in that harsh environment is mutating to cope with the increased chlorination and in theory is hardening it to survive better in harsher places maybe your reservoir, bacteria do it all the time for antibiotics. and fast ! scary shit, our fear of germs is leading to antimicrobial everything and breeds super germs, google it , it's worth a google.. just pure science, i don't want to hear it as much as the next guy but my mind won't allow me to overlook it.

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Municipal water at 1 ppm chlorine will kill all pythium. Pathogens cannot mutate to tolerate chlorine. My tap water is essentially RO water.

Of course low PPM tap water is not always good. My friend lives in a little town that has a municipal well. His tap water comes out at 40 or 50 ppm, which should be good for his DWC setup. He was all excited when he first tested it. After a couple weeks the plants started showing discoloration and definite signs of deficiency. I have read that well water can contain weird exotic minerals in it. Something in his water was locking out a trace nutrient. He switched to rain water and the deficiency disappeared.

Ya never know.

hammer21 said:

Any progress pics green

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Doing some changes tonight, then pics.

1. Add chiller
2. Change from black tubing to white
3. Insulating the crap out of the pods
4. Put the HID lamps in cool tubes
5. Shorten the distance (tubing) from the pump to the sprayers

That's about all I can think of right now.

My main goal right now is cooling the pods.

My next thing I would like to try is a stainless finned heat exchanger in my reservoir with a small water proof fan. This would chill my air being pumped to my tubes and then I could reduce the amount of spray cycle times. Right now if I increase my cycle times beyond 5 mins and less than 10 seconds spray my tube air temps reach about 72-75 degrees. Right now every 4 minutes for 15 seconds spray keeps air temp in tubes 66-68 degrees. Chiller is key to success. Also really look into a pelican case you my be able to pick one up cheap on eBay. Sealed system is also key.

moisture probe can solve that, i was planning on programming a microcontroller to do something like that myself i use a mcu to control my lights right now with a 40 amp solid state relay and i use same setup for cycle timer works bad ass, im working on a lcd programmable cycle timer with intregral calender function and programmable dosing with peristallic pumps with Real time clock, imagine a system that does your aero on a programmed feeding schedule and auto ph adjustment im talking take a week off and not worry about it, i made prototype shit with my engineer father years ago what was primitive by today's standards and it rocked, backlit color screen with android interface style menu system for far less than 5000 usd lol it can be a reality i hope to someday market such a device for an affordable price i love growing and it's like carl sagan said if your in love with something you want to tell the world about it.

you would not believe how effective rain towers are pump your fluid to the top of a tall tube and let it rain down through the air like out of a shower head,it's all about increasing the surface to be cooled by the air passing by, people use it to remove heat from fancy water cooled rot rodded pc's, i have experience with this technique it works! i had 2 water cooled pc's best method for low maintenance and simplicity at the costs of a few watts from a very small aquarium pump to recirculate it and it aerates the water, because air stones and fine holes DO NOT have anything on "flooming" the water where u put a small pump in the reservoir facing upwards and the large meniscus formed by the water being forced upwards increases surface area of the water and hence ability of the solution to accept the o2. there are plenty of articles that show how it is way more efficient and way less energy then compressing air to be pushed in any volume to create tiny bubbles and mildy increasing the surface area vs flooming's large meniscus, it's science, and it's a beautiful solution to an age old problem. i had no need for cooling i hoped by using a "plastic beer cooler" i mean fancy "thermally protective nutrient vessel" lol for a res it regulates my temps well i have a water probe to monitor the temp and it's always within perfect parameters for my taste. ultimately you got to use what works for you, so many variables would be crazy to assume same thing can work for everyone with same results i love to see everyone's interest your all a bunch of tinkerer's like me i wish we had physical growing clubs

after seeing the same thing dwc city water high ppm 200 plus not far from me and his whole crop was screaming at me when i seen it beautiful genetics and they all looked like hell lol and then he got horrible slime pythium root rotted evil roots and could not control it no matter what he was a total askhole would not listen to what others had to say to fix it then cried like a bitch when his biggest yield with 60 plants was like 6 oz's not even kidding and he spent thousands on everything he thought would just be the best and could not possibly go wrong... forget that logic this kid thought he was gonna do high pressure aero with an aquarium pump... hmm ,you can have every resource on earth if you can't use them properly it don't mean shit! if you cant afford cheap RO water system or distilled water stay away from water culture it will haunt your sleep trust me

oh yeah and why in the hell would you ever run nutrient water through other than black tubing ? that's a serious mistake might as well put a skylight in your reservoir lol

Trichy Bastard said:

total starting ppm for aero is 150ppm, you already are running hot.

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lol i don't use tap for water culture anything not my style i like the trouble free life

i would try insulation around the chambers insulation works wonders

AeroPonicsWizaRd said:

i would try insulation around the chambers insulation works wonders

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I insulated the bottom of the pods. Will put more insulation on the sides and top tomorrow. Have solution chilled at 42 degrees. Lights are now in cool tubes. Room temperature is at 73 degrees now. The pods are at 64 degrees now. Yay.

Wish my solenoids would hurry up and get here.

AeroPonicsWizaRd said:

moisture probe can solve that, i was planning on programming a microcontroller to do something like that myself i use a mcu to control my lights right now with a 40 amp solid state relay and i use same setup for cycle timer works bad ass, im working on a lcd programmable cycle timer with intregral calender function and programmable dosing with peristallic pumps with Real time clock, imagine a system that does your aero on a programmed feeding schedule and auto ph adjustment im talking take a week off and not worry about it, i made prototype shit with my engineer father years ago what was primitive by today's standards and it rocked, backlit color screen with android interface style menu system for far less than 5000 usd lol it can be a reality i hope to someday market such a device for an affordable price i love growing and it's like carl sagan said if your in love with something you want to tell the world about it.

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Just Size your rez in a DTW situation for a weeks worth of spray, -then take it off too- I certainly do... It would be cool however to make an automated rez refiller that could control the ppm and ph via phone app, and a webcam looking at the plants... You could pretty much take off the whole grow if you are familiar with your system and strain...

lol, Carl Sagan, one of my heroes... Now I have that damn Cosmos theme song by Vangelis stuck in my head- bahahahah...

AeroPonicsWizaRd said:

oh yeah and why in the hell would you ever run nutrient water through other than black tubing ? that's a serious mistake might as well put a skylight in your reservoir lol

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yeah, you're inviting algea. Also, only the black John guest tubing has UV stabilisers. Better idea is to put the black tubing in a conduit, perhaps a slightly larger diameter white tubing, or even better, some sort of foam surround tubing like they use to insulate water pipes or roll bars. It's super cheap at the local hardware, and they even have some made for smaller diameter tubing...

Trichy Bastard said:

yeah, you're inviting algea. Also, only the black John guest tubing has UV stabilisers. Better idea is to put the black tubing in a conduit, perhaps a slightly larger diameter white tubing, or even better, some sort of foam surround tubing like they use to insulate water pipes or roll bars. It's super cheap at the local hardware, and they even have some made for smaller diameter tubing...

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The white tubing I have is John Guest. Fear of algae is the reason I ultimately went with the black tubing. I will get some insulation tape today and wrap my tubing with it.

The 24 hours with two lights and hot room did a number on my roots. Most of the original roots turned yellowish brownish. Soon as I addressed the heat, new white roots started popping again. They have tripled size in a few days. They definitely do not like really warm pods, even with drenching.

The combination of cool tubes, better insulation and chilled reservoir did the trick. Today I will insulate them to death and be done with that part of it. I am beginning to see why people say using dead chest freezers is the way to go. Makes cooling a non issue I suppose. Ice chests would be good too. A while back I saw an ad on Craigslist where a guy had hundreds of blue igloo 15 gallon ice chests, selling them for $8 apiece. Next time I see something like that I will pick up a bunch of them.

Nice, sounds like you're getting it under control... Heat issues were my biggest issue, and now my designs focus on dealing with the heat head on... My newest chamber design will be made from 2" foamboard and has cooling lines running through the interior...

oxanaca said:

ive only grown basil in my system so far, but ive heard alot of people say they start at around 400ppm and work there way up based on the strain they are working with. one menber on here recently told me they were reaching 1000ppm at the end of flowering. i guess you kind of have to just tweak it until things are optimal.

i was at 500ppm with my basil and they looked great, before the power went out and my plants died.

im really into this whole hp aero thing myself. im thinking the only way this things gonna work out for me though is if i can learn to machine my own 0.025" and 0.016" stainless steel impingement nozzles

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Why wouldn't u guys just turn them into flood tables during power outage? I mean I am thinking of trying this and power loss was a worry but then I figured in case I lose power I'll cap the ends and put enough water in there to keep all roots wet. In a few hours tops you have power again so not like you'll have root rot... Idk that's just my plan if i was in that scenario. Don't see why that wouldn't work. Gl with future grows.

P.S.
im planning on trying this method with strawberries! Wanna try and get apple size strawberries! Omg that would be INSANE!!!

SpectatorFernFirm said:

Why wouldn't u guys just turn them into flood tables during power outage? I mean I am thinking of trying this and power loss was a worry but then I figured in case I lose power I'll cap the ends and put enough water in there to keep all roots wet. In a few hours tops you have power again so not like you'll have root rot... Idk that's just my plan if i was in that scenario. Don't see why that wouldn't work. Gl with future grows.

P.S.
im planning on trying this method with strawberries! Wanna try and get apple size strawberries! Omg that would be INSANE!!!

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Well, if the power did go out, the lights would go out too so they would stop transpiring. That would give you an hour or more to do something. I would probably grab a spray bottle and start misting the roots.

i made battery backup with a mechanical relay, inverter and industrial johnson control charging controller i got from my bro for scrap,and a use a 12 volt power supply to keep your Normally Open relay closed when the power is on and switch over to the inverter when the power cuts out i have something for the pump for now and working on it for lights down the road. did that make sense pretty smoked up right now lol

Trichy Bastard said:

Better idea is to put the black tubing in a conduit, perhaps a slightly larger diameter white tubing, or even better, some sort of foam surround tubing like they use to insulate water pipes or roll bars. It's super cheap at the local hardware, and they even have some made for smaller diameter tubing...

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great idea with conduit line sheathing and totally corecto mucho about the black being only uv resistant one and they also make thin wall and thick wall 1/4 inch OD for higher pressure ldpe tubing i learned its better to use the high pressure line for my system if the standard stuff gets bent and has stress lines it will fatigue and fail with a jet of high pressure water stream at the unfortunate spot, lucky mine was in the tub diagnosed it right away with a camera from my security system watching the pressure gauge at my desk cut a new piece of tubing and it was back up in seconds thank the weed gods and john guest style fittings lol

not all nutes meter the same i think of it like gun powders you got to start slow with what ever random nutes ur using i start at 200 ppm with botanicaire gns17 and they look great and start ramping up the dose slowly if you see gnarly leaves start to form twisted and cut looking then add more water to res or dump it run just distilled for a bit then back to nutes but lower then what burned them obviously lol as plants use water ppm will rise with loss of water so equals increase in ppm if they drink faster then they feed, and careful how long you go between ranges i seen people nute up seeing deficiencies and then bring ph back to bio availability range and nuke em with nutes when they got back to 5.5 and the plants could start ion exchange again efficiently, i usually just add ro water or distilled and bring it back to 5.5 - 5.8 and try to not let it go above 6.5 and mine look great everyone has such darticle veryifferent variables that come into play from g room to g room, it's what works for you ultimately but the better informed you are friends the better you do, knowledge is power. i got to dig out a link i found in cannibis culture for aeroponics and weed and it was a good informative. aeroponic supersonic is the name if you haven't seen it already.

running coolant lines is cool idea too i heard of this fella running em through a small fridge in a radiator and pumped em through a coil in his res im sure using it to cool chamber would be elite.