a ppk for a 6 plant limit

[delta9nxs]

Was the purpose of these holes ever explained? I looked through the whole thread again and didn't see an explanation of these holes but there is a strong possibility that I missed the explanation.

primarily for the reason snook mentions but also to break the water surface tension in the res below in order to minimize surface precipitates which tend to form on top of the protein layer.

in any closed water system containing life forms there will form a protein layer formed by animal wastes or plant exudate.

in the ppk the tailpiece by itself does not break the tension as it ends below the surface.

another way to do it would be to use a small air stone or diffuser in each plant res.

 

[RamCTD1027]

Thanks guys. Makes perfect sense.

I know we are trying to leave nutrient discussions out of this thread but it seems most people running PPK are using jacks and calnit, which I too will be using. My question is about jacks and calnit with sm90. I come from a coco background and would always use sm90. I'd like to run sm90 with the jacks as well for root zone health. Does anyone see any problems with this?

 

[Snook]

Thanks guys. Makes perfect sense.

I know we are trying to leave nutrient discussions out of this thread but it seems most people running PPK are using jacks and calnit, which I too will be using. My question is about jacks and calnit with sm90. I come from a coco background and would always use sm90. I'd like to run sm90 with the jacks as well for root zone health. Does anyone see any problems with this?

One can 'manage' their PPK in any manner they wish but you will never know if the addition of sm90 is better unless you try a run without it.. you already know what you can do in your current manner of growing. if you start with the addition, to the Jacks+C, of sm90 and your grow is a bust, you'll naturally blame the PPK.. You do not say if you are going to use the coco in the ppk or switch to turface for your media.

if its better, then you can tell us if we have a problem with not using it.

 

[funnymath]

primarily for the reason snook mentions but also to break the water surface tension in the res below in order to minimize surface precipitates which tend to form on top of the protein layer.

in any closed water system containing life forms there will form a protein layer formed by animal wastes or plant exudate.

in the ppk the tailpiece by itself does not break the tension as it ends below the surface.

another way to do it would be to use a small air stone or diffuser in each plant res.

What would happen if you didn't have those holes (in terms of surface precipitation, not draining). The system I'm planning will be a lot of small pots with turface. I'm not so much worried about them draining in time but now I'm trying to think of ways to break the surface tension. I could drill one hole on the bottom of each pot like that, but then I'd have to drill an extra hole for each pot on the tray. I could do airstones but that's one more thing to power and that can fail/clog. The easiest thing then seems like just adding an extra line off the pump that gives the pulse and just having that go right back into the res. A solid 30-60 seconds of that each time I set a wave. Could I also drill a hole in the side of the tailpiece that's in the airgap? I'm not sure if that would have any flow out of it or if it would even have enough flow to break the surface tension.

 

[delta9nxs]

What would happen if you didn't have those holes (in terms of surface precipitation, not draining). The system I'm planning will be a lot of small pots with turface. I'm not so much worried about them draining in time but now I'm trying to think of ways to break the surface tension. I could drill one hole on the bottom of each pot like that, but then I'd have to drill an extra hole for each pot on the tray. I could do airstones but that's one more thing to power and that can fail/clog. The easiest thing then seems like just adding an extra line off the pump that gives the pulse and just having that go right back into the res. A solid 30-60 seconds of that each time I set a wave. Could I also drill a hole in the side of the tailpiece that's in the airgap? I'm not sure if that would have any flow out of it or if it would even have enough flow to break the surface tension.

well, the surface precip has never actually caused any issues that i'm aware of. the solution remains stable anyway but i just don't like the way it looks, mostly.

but it is there because of the protein layer. the protein layer acts just like a piece of plastic wrap laid on the surface of the solution.

this layer slows the exchange of gases from the solution to the atmosphere and vice versa.

the solution in a ppk does not have much bio demand for o2 being placed on it as the roots are not in constant contact with it.

so this allows simple atmospheric partial pressures to equalize dissolved gases in the solution to ambient air percentages

this is why you never get root rot. the solution, though not typically aerated, contains sufficient o2 to ward off anaerobes.

breaking the protein layer is just a little help in the right direction but not critical.

but also we are seeing what looks like hormonal signaling affecting the way roots grow down the tailpiece when doing a full flood.

it seems that the faster you drain the top container the less roots will grow down the drain.

not proven but some of us think we have observed this.

so the holes speed up the gravity driven portion of the drain event.

this gravity draining occurs to whatever height the perched water table forms in your medium and then the tailpiece switches over to a capillary drain to complete the event.

building the idea into a system with a bunch of small containers is more difficult.

what are you using for a tailpiece? what size containers?

 

[funnymath]

what are you using for a tailpiece? what size containers?

Well that's good to know it's not something critical, I was figuring I'd change the res every once in a while anyway, like every 2-4 months, or even just burping it to take out some older stuff.

I'll be using the same pots and tailpiece as DocCrow did in 2012 (https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=248868). Mine look exactly like this but the tailpiece is white https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=40744&pictureid=977904 . I'll be running turface (all sport from john deer, so it's basically mvp in a different bag) that I'll filter out over window screening. I've been delayed on building my cabinet but I'll be running 16 of those pots in a sog with about 1.2L of turface in each pot.

I keep trying to think of what to do for the pulse feed but I can't really do much until I get it built and can test out how much my pumps really do. And I'm really looking forward to figuring out clones. I'd like to do my sog with 4 in and 4 out every other week and I feel like I could use my pots as wick cloners as well, but it would be easiest if I could have them go off the same res as the mothers (which I was planning on running at 600ppm) but I saw that you were running your cloners at 300ppm. I read earlier how plants in veg lower the ppm in the res though so I'm kind of hoping the mothers and clones would balance each other out.

 

[funnymath]

Evidently I can't edit my last post but the pots are approx 3"x3"x8" with a 6" tailpiece 1.5" diameter.

 

[theplaya]

Hey delta would those bulbs work with with a 1k ballast? I have been using sylvania bt56 bulbs and I can confirm that the blue spectrum does produce more resin

 

[delta9nxs]

Evidently I can't edit my last post but the pots are approx 3"x3"x8" with a 6" tailpiece 1.5" diameter.

i know doc crow grew plants in this arrangement successfully but the 1.5" tailpiece is really a llittle bit too large for a container that small.

in a ppk the tailpiece does not eliminate the pwt. it moves it out of the main pot and greatly reduces it's size and therefore it's effect on the plant.

so using turface as an example because i know it's pwt is about 1.5" the pwt volume in the 3 x 3 pot is about 5.8 oz's and the 1.5" tailpiece only reduces it to approx 1.46 oz's. approx 25% of original size.

anything is an improvement but i feel it should be .75" for greater effectiveness. this would make the pwt .28 of an oz. or not quite 5% of original size.

the pulse feed arrangement in the cloner i showed earlier would work great on a setup like yours.

 

[delta9nxs]

Hey delta would those bulbs work with with a 1k ballast? I have been using sylvania bt56 bulbs and I can confirm that the blue spectrum does produce more resin

if you mean the 1500 watt mh stadium light no, it must have a 1500 watt ballast.

yep, i was shocked at the difference. two rooms right next to each other with the same cut, four plants in each. x pattern vertical lighting with 1k hps in the corners and a 1k mh in the center in one and a 1k hps in the center in the other.

large, obvious difference!

 

[funnymath]

i know doc crow grew plants in this arrangement successfully but the 1.5" tailpiece is really a llittle bit too large for a container that small.

in a ppk the tailpiece does not eliminate the pwt. it moves it out of the main pot and greatly reduces it's size and therefore it's effect on the plant.

so using turface as an example because i know it's pwt is about 1.5" the pwt volume in the 3 x 3 pot is about 5.8 oz's and the 1.5" tailpiece only reduces it to approx 1.46 oz's. approx 25% of original size.

anything is an improvement but i feel it should be .75" for greater effectiveness. this would make the pwt .28 of an oz. or not quite 5% of original size.

the pulse feed arrangement in the cloner i showed earlier would work great on a setup like yours.

What you said makes me second guess how well I understand the pwt. I always thought it was used to hold the pwt so that whatever container you used is 100% available as root space. So I was going to have an airgap of about 2" so all of the 3x3x8 pot I'm using would be available for roots and then even .5" of the tailpipe would be available for roots. So with the way I understand it a thinner tailpiece and a thicker one would leave the pwt at the same height. But with how you say half the radius tailpiece reduces volume of the pwt by 95% then I've obviously missed something.

 

[Grow4Flow]

anyone ever have gnat issues? i have had a great many flawless runs until the current grow. Gnat infestation that i just cannot get rid of resulting in the destruction of 3 trees.

What have you used in the past if you have had gnats in this media? close to running coco for the summer and go back to ppk after.

 

[Weed Killer]

SM-90 has worked for me in sunshine, coco and hydroton, don't see any reason it wouldn't work in turface

 

[Chrondiddle O]

can someone please explain?

can someone please explain?

What is a 'ppk'?








Thanks

 

[RockinRobot]

What is a 'ppk'?


Thanks

PPK Stands for Passive Plant Killer.

 

[delta9nxs]

What you said makes me second guess how well I understand the pwt. I always thought it was used to hold the pwt so that whatever container you used is 100% available as root space. So I was going to have an airgap of about 2" so all of the 3x3x8 pot I'm using would be available for roots and then even .5" of the tailpipe would be available for roots. So with the way I understand it a thinner tailpiece and a thicker one would leave the pwt at the same height. But with how you say half the radius tailpiece reduces volume of the pwt by 95% then I've obviously missed something.

my mistake, i was very tired when i did this.

the formula is pi x radius squared x height in inches so for the 1.5" tube it's .75 x .75 = .5625 x 3.1416 = 1.7671 x 1.5" = 2.65 cu in vol. or 1.4683 oz's

for the .75 diameter tube it's .375 x .375 = .1406 x 3.1416 = .4417 x 1.5" = .6626 cu in volume or .3671 oz's.

the volume of the pot pwt alone would be 3 x 3 x 1.5 = 13.5 cu in or 7.4805 oz's

so the reduction of the pwt using the 1.5" tube is 1.4683 / 7.4805 = .1962 of original volume.

and in the .75 tube it's .3671 / 7.4805 = .0490 of original volume so 4.9% of original pwt volume in the .75 tube as opposed to 19.62% of original volume in the 1.5" tube.

i hope this is more clear and accurate, sorry for the confusion.

you are correct in that the purpose of the tailpiece is to hold the pwt below the main pot keeping as much of the pwt as possible away from the roots.

but it is still there, affecting plant growth and behavior, and the smaller the better while still draining the pot after each pulse and supplying it between pulses.

the pots you are using are very small so even the 3/4" tube is a little large.

the 2" air gap you propose is fine for bottom feeding only but too close for a pulse feed also. i would start at 3" in turface.

and if i'm not mistaken the allsport is a smaller overall particle size than mvp.

 

[gmanwho]

Hey delta i got a question for you. I dont remember reading any where in particular, but in the light of reading a plant an determining proper nute dosing based on plants health an schedule. I thought i may have read somehwere that tips of the leaves can he help show whether a plant needs more food, or is it just in the case of over fert? just the final tip of the leaf blade ,the furthest tip on each blade. Not the leafs edge or serration along the whole blade ...... u know, " just the tip"!!!


be well an bsafe

 

[delta9nxs]

anyone ever have gnat issues? i have had a great many flawless runs until the current grow. Gnat infestation that i just cannot get rid of resulting in the destruction of 3 trees.

What have you used in the past if you have had gnats in this media? close to running coco for the summer and go back to ppk after.

gnats actually killing plants don't sound like gnats. they sound like root aphids in the flying form.

 

[delta9nxs]

Hey delta i got a question for you. I dont remember reading any where in particular, but in the light of reading a plant an determining proper nute dosing based on plants health an schedule. I thought i may have read somehwere that tips of the leaves can he help show whether a plant needs more food, or is it just in the case of over fert? just the final tip of the leaf blade ,the furthest tip on each blade. Not the leafs edge or serration along the whole blade ...... u know, " just the tip"!!!


be well an bsafe

tip burn. can be caused by over ferting, too much air movement, or low humidity.

a little is common among us weed growers because we tend to push the plants too hard. it's mostly caused by high salt concentrations. i see it as a sign to back off on the nutes a little.

 

[Miraculous Meds]

anyone ever have gnat issues? i have had a great many flawless runs until the current grow. Gnat infestation that i just cannot get rid of resulting in the destruction of 3 trees.

What have you used in the past if you have had gnats in this media? close to running coco for the summer and go back to ppk after.

Fg are even tougher to tackle in coir. They like constantly moist conditions which u have to provide for coir for the most part. Just got to reduce excess moisture, use bti products, and maybe a layer of DE, or the likes on top of pots. Yellow sticky traps help with the adults along with pyrethrum sprays on the medium surface. Cut potential sources of decaying foliage and algae cause those are their food sources.

The FG in general don't do to much plant damage. The larvae feed off the root system and that's the only real damage they cause. I believe the resulting negative effects come from a weakened root system that makes it easy for overwatering to occur.

Id like to know if anybodys had FG while using 8822 as a medium since it is basically DE I believe.