VERTICAL AERO - 6" White pipe

What's up fellow Connoisseurs.... I am starting this little thread in tribute of Earl for always being there when I have a question and not charging me a per diem... I was born and raised in Humboldt and have been attempting to grow herb for quite a few years now.... This thread that i'm starting now is going to focus on where I am at lately with my attempts at Vertical growing and getting my system perfected (WHICH I AM SO FAR FROM).... but my trials over the last couple years have taught me a lot and maybe some of it will help you.... These pics are showing the entrance into my garden.... it's a 7.5 x7.5x7.5 room lit vertically by 2 Lumatek Digital Ballasts.. One that is a dual 600 powering 2 eye hortilux HPS bulbs and the other is a 1k Lumatek running a 1k Eye HPS... the 1k sits in the middle of the 2 600's,,, They are in cased in 2 cooltubes,,, One that is 48" and one that is 19"... They are all cooled by a 6" Vortex that runs directly from outside throught the lights and out the room... I also have a 6" vortex that pulls straight fresh air in and an 8" vortex for exhaust... System is an encased mist system running through half inch pipe inside of 6 inch pipe... Two rows powered by two different pumps and spraying out of micro sprayers.... Plants are heald in 2" net pots with the botooms cut out and heald by neo plugs... No rocks, no nothing.... Just roots, air, nutes and water... Earl, this is largely a tribute to you and also those of you that have heard of him, Green Bastard.... I will add more pics soon...

I start the plants in tubs under T%'s untill they are ready to go in vert room... Base nutes for vedge are AN sensi grow and then I use some additives.... You will notice from pics that I germinate untill sprouts are very formed.... Just old school paper towel in a container mixed with tap water and a dark warm place... I put hot wet towels over the top and sprouts are ready to go into sytem within 7 days

I gotta try germing them like that.

Man you got a jungle in there.

How long did you veg ?

Earl said:

I gotta try germing them like that.

Man you got a jungle in there.

How long did you veg ?

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I tried to get pics from inside the room to show how walls are wrapped from floor to ceiling all around, but it's so grown in that I can't get an angle with my lens to show enough dimension ( need a fish eye lens ).... I vegged for only 5 weeks, but that wasn't long enough.. Plants weren't mature enough.. With 9 different strains going I was worried about what might have height issues... I never reccommend growing multiple strains in a contained system, I just did this so I could find mothers with the best phenotypes of which strains I wanted to focus on in the future and so I went early by a week..... There are two rows of plants and you know how fast and luscious plants grow in aero. Another week of vedge and most strains would have been way oversize for the room ... I know you know this Earl, just letting the rest know...

subscribed for sure. Man its nice to see some people around here finally gettin it on vertical style. you got to give more details of your setup how many plants? do you have pics of it empty?
I run a shelf hydro like flojo had and am really thinking of switching to a vert tube like Heath robinson's But yours looks killer too congrats

It is running a total number of 30 but that is too many.. Like I was telling Earl, I am going to switch it to an Octagon after this run... The square shape is just unefficient... I have been doing a square vert room now for the last couple years and trying various styles, but now that I have the space to change it, I am going to... And I think I may switch to NFT instead of mist.... Not sure yet, but I do seem to have a lot of trouble with heads clogging... We'll see what happens when I get there

Can't wait to see it !
.

lovely. best of luck

ok guys, more pics soon, but for now, some more details of what's currently going on..... I am in my final weeks of flower now and am running Connoisseur as my base, with additives here and there..... I use 24/7 digital meters to read my ph, tds/ppm, and my water temps... I try to keep my ph around 5.6 and my tds I try to keep under a max of 600 and water temp is always between 60 and 70 degrees... my internal temps are between 70 and 75 when lights are on and humidity is at 30% when lights are on, but ventures into the 70's during dark cycle.... I will be adding a dehumdifier next week to keep humidity down for the last 2 weeks.... I have been having a lot of issues with my PH tanking during flower, so I change my water very often... anybody that knows why ph goes down instead of up.. I would be stoked to hear from you

Usually when the pH falls it indicates some root rot.

Have you looked at the roots ?

What other additives are you using ?

Earl said:

Usually when the pH falls it indicates some root rot.

Have you looked at the roots ?

What other additives are you using ?

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shouldn't be any root rot with how low I keep my rez, plus I use Hygrozyme and it usually cleans up any root messes... I have been having this problem for the last few grows and only during flower... I use F1 sometimes and B-52 sometimes and big bud every once in a while... Then just barricade to up if needed, that's about it... Oh yeah, I use 29% h2o2 to clean up every few weeks when I change res, about every 3rd change

If you add some calmag plus, about 50ppm,
that will help buffer your rez.

.

Earl said:

If you add some calmag plus, about 50ppm,
that will help buffer your rez.

.

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what brand of Calmag do you recommend Earl.... I am wondering if my PH issues are linked to the Connoisseur... Only seems to happen when in flower with Conn.... Also, anybody know of a good flushing solution/carb loader... I know of a few, but would love to hear some other thoughts....

LOSTCOASTLOCAL said:

ok guys, more pics soon, but for now, some more details of what's currently going on..... I am in my final weeks of flower now and am running Connoisseur as my base, with additives here and there..... I use 24/7 digital meters to read my ph, tds/ppm, and my water temps... I try to keep my ph around 5.6 and my tds I try to keep under a max of 600 and water temp is always between 60 and 70 degrees... my internal temps are between 70 and 75 when lights are on and humidity is at 30% when lights are on, but ventures into the 70's during dark cycle.... I will be adding a dehumdifier next week to keep humidity down for the last 2 weeks.... I have been having a lot of issues with my PH tanking during flower, so I change my water very often... anybody that knows why ph goes down instead of up.. I would be stoked to hear from you

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My pH goes down also. But once I add water back in to the res, it goes right back to where I like it (about 5.5). I notice it drop to about 5.3 each day. My plants are also in flower, and are drinking about a gallon of water a night.

I assumed that as they use up the available nutrients the pH was changing (dropping). This may be wrong. But, since my pH goes right back to 5.5 with the addition of water, I don't worry about...

And now that I think about it more, it does seem like as the nutrients are used, the pH should rise, not lower....Right???

time to do some reading...

Everything looks really good man.

snutter said:

My pH goes down also. But once I add water back in to the res, it goes right back to where I like it (about 5.5). I notice it drop to about 5.3 each day. My plants are also in flower, and are drinking about a gallon of water a night.

I assumed that as they use up the available nutrients the pH was changing (dropping). This may be wrong. But, since my pH goes right back to 5.5 with the addition of water, I don't worry about...

And now that I think about it more, it does seem like as the nutrients are used, the pH should rise, not lower....Right???

time to do some reading...

Everything looks really good man.

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Thanks for the input, I have had every thought imaginable... including the good one you just had.... especially if you see your tds number go down, which means they are eating more then they are drinking.... It just causes a lot of ph burn in my leaves because of the fluxuation and not knowing why it happens drives me crazy

I am using botanicare calmag pus

I bought a gallon of it a couple of years ago.

If you really want to stabilize your pH
then you need a float valve in your rez connected to a RO supply.

Add about 1ml/gl of calmag before you add nutes
and then use Silica Blast to raise the pH to 5.5
and it should drift up.

You need a fast pH meter and a new probe.

Preferably a dual junction probe.
add just enough silica blast with an eyedropper until the pH is 5.3-5.5
about 1 drop per gallon.

If the pH still falls ,
then switch to potassium hydroxide for up
and do the eye dropper thing again to 5.5

Be sure the rez is freshly topped off with RO
before measuring or adjusting the pH.
.

Any chemical based fertilizer formualtion that has any significant amount of nitrogen but no calcium or very little calcium is using ammonium nitrate as a nitrogen source. Horticulturalists use to recommend in hydroponics that at most only 15% of the total nitrogen ever be provided by an ammonical nitrogen. During budding it is reccomended that this be lowered to 5%. Some now go so far as to say no ammonical nitrogen should be used as a source of nitrogen, that enough is present yin the different fertilzers used as sources of tother nutrients to assure a small amount is present. The only time ammonical nitrogen is an advantage over nitrate is under low light conditions. Ie seedling stage for most growers. At any other time its impact on the pH tends to make its use a debit. It is occasionally purposely added to nutrients used with very hard waters. i.e. see GH hard water Micro formula.

Ammonium in nutrient solution tends to be acidfying, as firstly unlike nitrate it is a positive ion, and when taken up by plants is replaced by hydrogen ions (H+) reducing pH in the roots zone, and secondly ammonium forms ammonium hydroxide and hydrogen ions (H+) which produces a mild acifying effect when in solution.

So use a fertilizer with little to no ammonical nitrogen or buffer the hell out of your solution. Most horticulturalists recomend if your havinf=g a daily drop in your pH beyond about 0.05 units that before you add nutrients to your water that you have at least 100 to 150 ppm of alkalinity in your water. Alaklinity is carbonay te buffers, Not calcium carbonate, but Magnesium carbonate, potassium carbonate and even a little, sodium carbonate (baked bicarbonate of soda). A mixture of all works best. Then add your regular nutrients. Basically it is like using same hard tap water but without more soluble calcium or calcium carbonate. Personally I would change fertilizers.

Thanks Earl, My meter is actually on point and sits in my res all the time... I check it against a gh test kit everyday and it is always spot on... as for fatman... As soon as I go get a degree in science I will give a listen to what you said... Untill then guys, let's keep it in stoner terms...... I am in no way impressed with the scientific breakdown of things, just want the cut and dry simple suggestions.... Oh yeah Earl, one more thing, I think Iwas using too much Barricade.... I need to stick to using PH up more often

LOSTCOASTLOCAL said:

Thanks Earl, My meter is actually on point and sits in my res all the time... I check it against a gh test kit everyday and it is always spot on... as for fatman... As soon as I go get a degree in science I will give a listen to what you said... Untill then guys, let's keep it in stoner terms...... I am in no way impressed with the scientific breakdown of things, just want the cut and dry simple suggestions.... Oh yeah Earl, one more thing, I think Iwas using too much Barricade.... I need to stick to using PH up more often

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Fine I will let Earl convert what I write into stoner terms for you. I could care less if he gets credit for it as long as it gets out. I did not know there were so many dumb ass sheep that actually prefer to be sheep. I do not believe that is stoner terms but lazy ass ignorant terms you wish. Like they say a brain is a r terrible thing to waste. You obviously prefer the watsted brain state. Don't want to learn why, but just be told what to do. Maybe you should join the Army. No, they do not allow drug use. There are always fast food jobs, like fry cook at McDonalds. Dumb ass.

fatman7574 said:

Fine I will let Earl convert what I write into stoner terms for you. I could care less if he gets credit for it as long as it gets out. I did not know there were so many dumb ass sheep that actually prefer to be sheep. I do not believe that is stoner terms but lazy ass ignorant terms you wish. Like they say a brain is a r terrible thing to waste. You obviously prefer the watsted brain state. Don't want to learn why, but just be told what to do. Maybe you should join the Army. No, they do not allow drug use. There are always fast food jobs, like fry cook at McDonalds. Dumb ass.

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Comedy!!!.... I promise this guy wouldn't open his mouth to me in real life, but get's butt hurt and talks tough on the computer because I don't want to listen to his brain flexing knowledge... Earl is the man, that's why I listen to him... Go play with your lab kit Fatty