Vertical Flooded Tube v 3.0

Hey guys, I'm back for another one. Still experimenting, trying to find the best way to optimize yield with minimal light/energy use, such as Heath Robinson has proven to us is possible. After my last grow, I've decided that there is a certain yield per square foot of canopy that has a limit, strain dependent of course, so I decided to take my previous flooded tube system and almost triple the size of it with the same 2 600w HPS bulbs still in use. Also, I have done away with the cool tube, as I feel it gets too dirty and is extremely hard to clean, which can diminish the light intensity quite a bit. I also added another level, so there are 4 now. Check the links in my signature to see the previous flooded tube system, and we'll see how this one compares. I'm one week into flower now. Here's my complete grow setup:

Clone: DIY EZ cloner under 46w T5 flourescent
Veg: horizontal flooded tube under 2 92w T5 flourescents
Flower: 4 level vertical flooded tube system, 60 sites, surrounding 2 vertically hung 600w HPS bulbs, CO2 sensor, thermostat to control venting through carbon filter

Nutrients: General Hydroponics complete Flora Series + Rapidstart and Humbolt County's Own Bushmaster, changed out every 5-7 days depending
ph:5.1-5.9, try to keep it around 5.3-5.5
ppm: No higher than 1000ppm at .71 scale in flower,
700ppm max in veg, i start at 350 for the first 3-4 days then up it to 700
temps: room temp max 84 with co2, water temp kept at 70 using res heater and keep it highly oxygenated through rapid water movement/splashing back into the res and airstone in the res


Here's a video link that shows pretty much everything.
http://youtu.be/U_NaYCocFgI

Love it.... just starting a build on my first vertical system.
Not going with tubes, going top fed drip. but that's a sweet set up in the vid.. how much were you pulling off 3 levels?

was getting just over 2 pounds, but I really think the key is in maximizing light vs canopy area. I think max yield comes around 20w/sq ft in a vertical setup. This time I'm dead on at about 20w per square foot of canopy space (1200w at about 58 sq ft) where as the last was about 45w per square foot, using the same lighting.

sweet dude, mines similar. im about to do some monsters in there. scrog too probably. im subscribed


[youtube]t6uA9yD9b2o&[/youtube]

Nice Rzza, how big's your room and is that a 1000w?

[video=youtube;U_NaYCocFgI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_NaYCocFgI&feature=youtu.be[/video]

thanks rzza, didnt know i could add video, haha.

its two 1k but im adding 2 more when the room gets full. i built the room 8x12 x8high.

Yo Rzza, i like where your head is at. Two things from my experience that I think could be of use to you are 1) By the looks of it, you plan to have some larger plants. That is 4" pvc, correct? If you have big plants, they will have huge root masses that can potentially get too big for the tube, causing flooding out of the plant sites, so be mindful of that and 2) The 90 elbows can cause some flow issues. Two thoughts I had to prevent this are either to hang the tube on a slight incline all the way around or to simply replace the corners with angled pieces using 45 degree elbows to create an octagonal shape. I switched from a square to an octagon for this reason, you get much better flow.

So it's day 13 of flower. As you can see in this video, about half of the plants, the purple kush in particular, are slightly wilted. I initially thought it might be heat stress since my last thermostat took a shit about 3 days into flower, but I later found out that many people using Humboldt County's Own Bushmaster have had similar issues of wilting. It doesn't seem to be causing any issues other than looking a little sad. The plants are chugging through nutrients, staying green, and budding up quick. If anyone has any experience with this problem and has any insights, please let me know! I think everything will be ok, but the way they look stresses me out a little bit. Perky green leaves ease my mind, haha.

Also, I added a screen at about day 8 to spread the plants apart a little more. The Bushmaster really did completely halt all stretching, as is advertised. These plants haven't stretched hardly at all, maybe 1-2 inches. I was planning on a little more stretch as I didn't really believe it would completely stop stretching, but it did. Now I'm left with hopes for fatter, denser nugs that will compensate for the wasted space. So far, the bud development is promising. We shall see.

[video=youtube;E5BwIog5EMY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5BwIog5EMY[/video]

Thanks for the tips bro, its actually six inch and i love the octagon idea. for now i plan to keep the four corners empty of plants so that might help on the corners flowing well.

sick track bro

Haha yeah, its Quasimoto - Greenery. Yeah that's money with the 6 inch, you might even be good with the 90 elbows since you have wider tubes, but just keep an eye on it. It will allow you to grow much larger plants

Hey guys, whats crackin? So it's day 22, the plants are packing on budsites. The leaf curling is still present in some of the plants and gone in others, but it doesn't seem to have had any negative impact on bud development. In fact, the Purple Kush plants that seemed to be affected the most are showing the most developed buds at this point. The Pure Power Plant looks amazing, with resin glands forming all over the leaves and on the buds. All in all, it seems as though the buds are further along than they would have been without using Bushmaster.
I also decided to raise the ph back to 5.5 - 5.8. I was keeping it about 5.2-5.5 as I remember Heath Robinson saying something about keeping his at 5.2 (5.1-5.9) but my plants seem to run through more water and nutrients in the 5.5-5.8 range, which seems like a good thing to me. The pH tends to level out around 5.8 anyway, with a very slow upward drift, so by adjusting it to 5.5 it never goes out of range before I need to change the water. The plants are running through about 80 gallons a week. I am keeping the ppm at approximately 1000, or 1.4 EC.
Here are some photos and another video update. I also took some photos and video of the 'upstairs' veg area and cloner. Check it out The clones that are rooted are Purple Kush and were taken on October 31. The other cuttings are Golden Goat and were taken November 13th, and are starting to show pre-roots.
DIY Veg table

DIY EZ Cloner

Rooted Purple Kush

Roots!!!

1/2" PVC Manifold with 360 Degree Misters attached to 800GPH pump

Pre 98 Bubba Kush

G13 Haze

Curled leaves??? Any ideas?

Canopy shot


[video=youtube;EQNRlENkhks]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQNRlENkhks[/video]

great update, man my tubes are impressing the shit outta me! yours too!!!

so are you encountering any problems vegging in the nft and transplanting them to another room? are the roots getting tangled in veg? im vegging in buckets and moving to nft....

rzza said:

great update, man my tubes are impressing the shit outta me! yours too!!!

so are you encountering any problems vegging in the nft and transplanting them to another room? are the roots getting tangled in veg? im vegging in buckets and moving to nft....

Click to expand...

thanks rzza, IMHO this system is the way to go. Are you doing a journal on yours? I looked last night but didn't see one.
The roots do get a slight bit tangled in veg, but they come apart just fine with a little patience. I probably don't veg mine as long as you will with your system either, only about 2 weeks after transplant, then it's into flower.

no journal yet. i have been busy and i hate taking photos and video with lights on.

Awesome setup snowgrow, I really liked the wide-angled commando crawl into the room too haha.

I love that im not the only one who has to commando crawl under tubes to get to their jungle

WesternBotany said:

Awesome setup snowgrow, I really liked the wide-angled commando crawl into the room too haha.

Click to expand...

rzza said:

I love that im not the only one who has to commando crawl under tubes to get to their jungle

Click to expand...

Thanks WesternBotany! Yeah the army crawl seemed like the easiest way in so I just raised the tubes off the ground a few more inches than I had originally planned.


So here's the latest update. I just took some pictures because the video takes forever to upload. I need to get a better camera, right now I'm just using the photo function on a GoPro, which is ok, but doesn't do anything justice.

2 things that have happened since last update:
1) I got some powdery mildew again on the white widow. It had showed up previously in the grow, but I sprayed everything with No Tolerance and it went away, but at this point, I decided not to risk it coming back again later and fucking my crop up, so I just chopped the 5 white widows down. Maybe a few oz's lost, but still got my crop.
2) I switched out the GH Liquid Koolbloom for Advanced Nutrients Big Bud concentrate a few days ago on the 29th. So far the buds have developed rather rapidly in the last 3 days, but it is also about that time in bloom where I can't really tell if it is due to the Big Bud, or simply because its time for them to swell up. Basically, I just decided I needed a higher K ratio. Liquid KoolBloom is 0-10-10 and Big Bug is 1-17-38. I'm running all my nutrients at 60% of the recommended dosage, so it stays about 1000ppm rather than 14-1500. I'll have a review for Big Bud this time next crop.

You'll notice the gaps in the canopy, my goal for the next harvest is to have a more complete canopy through topping and training. There are also some shots of the next round of plants. These are actually all going to be used as mothers. Next round I'll be growing Mostly Purple Kush and some Golden Goat again. They both produce well, respond well to topping, and don't really get too leafy. The Goat is a great uplifting sativa, and the Purple is a heavy indica. They also grow well in this system using the same nutrient combination. As sativas tend to respond better in more intense light, I'll have the Golden Goat sitting closest to the bulb, and the purple at the far ends. That's just some insight into how I'm planning this...

looking good, snow! gotta hand it to you, i'm always impressed by your constant dialling in for perfection. big +1