a ppk for a 6 plant limit

[McKush]

^^^ "turface, the profile company, also produces it now as a dedicated hydro medium, amended with zeolite."

?

 

[Dready_jake]

Always were lol, I enjoy scholarly debates

 

[delta9nxs]

but, as enamored as i am with this superb, lovely stuff i'm about to leave it sobbing in the dust with my other exes. that's right, i selfishly used it for my own needs and then i'm gonna ditch it. another one bites the dust!
quote]

where are you heading now, D9??

my best results with turface were achieved by screening over an aluminum window screen and washing really well. or by a long wash in a cement mixer.

this produces an air filled porosity of 30-35% depending on how well you do it.

i think that 35% is the ideal figure for the ppk. right out of the bag it's about 22%.

so it takes a lot of careful prepping to get the best results. this is not too bad as almost any medium needs some work before using.

but it is also very heavy and sometimes hard to source.

doing a full flood you must have a substance that doesn't float. so thus far only turface and de qualify.

but as we scale up the full flood becomes harder to achieve because of pump and plumbing requirements.

and we have growers here where i am that are reliably getting large, heavy yielding plants using a wave pulse. 2-3 lb+ plants.

using a wave pulse i have grown some nice plants in coco and perlite.

but my friends here are using pumice very successfully with the wave pulse.

where i lived before i could not get bulk pumice but here on the west coast it's sold by the bulk landscape places.

i tested some last year and got an airfilled porosity of about 45% so it's quite a bit more "airy" than turface or de.

but there is a danger in that it is borderline on capillary rise capability and won't be able to back feed the plant. i think 45% is too much.

so yesterday i took a sample from a friends pile that he has screened and washed and got 40%.

i have been reading research papers on plant growth rates using pumice and found that it is the larger pieces that drive up the porosity.

the researchers in one study used 0-4mm, 0-8mm, 2-8mm and 4-8mm particle sizing and got the best overall growth rate with the 0-8mm on three species of plants, none cannabis.

8mm is exactly 5/16" so if you were to screen out everything over 3/8" but not screen the fines as my friend did i think you could get to about 35%.

you would still wash the hell out of it. it's full of dust from crushing and grinding.

i don't know about capillary rise yet but i'm about to check it today. i'll do the sample from my friend first, the 40% sample, and then get some straight from the yard and prep it and check it.

it may be that we would have to add a little coco fiber to it also to increase capillarity.

 

[delta9nxs]

http://www.profilegrow.com/category-s/100.htm?gclid=CJzQm4GE1MUCFQWUfgodmLwA_w

http://email.swansonrussell.com/profile/037430/documents/Hydroponic-Growth-Medium-Sell-Sheet.pdf

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=298002 most of my plants were grown in turface. try to find a spot on one of them.


"In short, the PPK is a passive wick hydroponics method combined with a quick top feed flash flood. The wick (the pipe filled with media you see sticking down into the lower container) is a fail safe in case the top feed pump were to fail as well as functioning as a mechanism to lower/remove the "perched water table" from your upper container.. leaving an optimal zone for excellent root growth. It also offers some other benefits such as preventing nutes/salts accumulating in the root zone and so forth.. you control the moisture in the upper container both with the water level (set via float valve in your "pulse" rez) and your top feed watering volume/intervals. There is a hydraulic "hook-up" action which occurs during a flash flood of the upper container. As to not starve the feed pump of water it'll suck water back from the plant containers. This in turn sucks tons of oxygen down into the rootzone."

this is one of the best short descriptions of the ppk. credit to icmag member FlowerFarmer. thanks buddy!

the ppk is not a big deal, it's simply a really nice way to grow big, healthy plants with minimum maintenance and hassle. have a nice day!

check the links, mckush!

 

[McKush]

cheers D9. I was aware of the profile media just not sure if that was where you were going or not. zeolite is used alot in aquarium filters for its ability to lock up ammonia.

 

[Ttystikk]

D9, my plan is to try this system with six to eight ladies that my goal is up to two each with. It seems from my initial read thru that designing for a wave pulse might be easier than trying to get a full flood.

Another wrinkle is that my plants would be coming from a veg zone RDWC system and thus would have quite a beard of roots on them. How BIG a plant can be transplanted into PPK? Currently, I transplant from one RDWC system to another and flip concurrently. This way bloom rooms stay bloom rooms, with no time wasted on veg. Can I maintain this approach?

Av8or is indeed an impressively quick study! It seems he's already solved some of these problems, so I'd be interested in your input too!

 

[delta9nxs]

D9, my plan is to try this system with six to eight ladies that my goal is up to two each with. It seems from my initial read thru that designing for a wave pulse might be easier than trying to get a full flood.

Another wrinkle is that my plants would be coming from a veg zone RDWC system and thus would have quite a beard of roots on them. How BIG a plant can be transplanted into PPK? Currently, I transplant from one RDWC system to another and flip concurrently. This way bloom rooms stay bloom rooms, with no time wasted on veg. Can I maintain this approach?

Av8or is indeed an impressively quick study! It seems he's already solved some of these problems, so I'd be interested in your input too!

howdy! i started with a wave pulse and it works as well as a complete flood. these guys here are regularly getting 2.5-3 lb's per plant. with a wave pulse you can apply the same total amount of water but in short, intermittent bursts. into 5 gals of medium with ideal environmental conditions, using turface or de as the medium, i found that between a quart to a half gal every 30-45 minutes kept the medium in top shape.

never lets it dry down too far so no salt build up. still mass availability of water and nutrients 24/7. good gas exchange.

you can accomplish this with much smaller pumps. based on our past experience i would say at least 100 gph capability per plant site is adequate but it doesn't hurt to get the water out onto the surface of the medium as fast as possible so maybe a little more capability is nice. say up to about 150-200 gph per site. i have run 24 3.5 gal buckets with one 2400 gph mag drive. but it doesn't cost much to run a big pump 12-16 minutes per day.

transplanting from a water cloner to the ppk is what the folks here are doing. it can be done and they are good at it, getting the aforementioned big assed plants quite regularly now.

but i hate it personally and i know it causes a slight stall as the roots adapt. i like "no-stall" growing. where the plant is "turned on" from the get go and grows aggressively with zero slowdowns.

this can be accomplished by cloning in the same medium you grow in using the same pulse and drain tech. i have cloned right in the main grow container so no transplant was required but it wastes a lot of space in a veg room.

the aero cloners are nice and compact and i've seen some really large clones (18-24" or so) from them do well in the ppk. maybe someone who uses one will come along and talk to us about it soon. i hope.

but look back in this thread somewhere and you will see a full on ppk cloner at work. it does take up more space per cutting than an aero cloner but the transplant doesn't stall at all when done at the right time. ideally when the container is fully occupied but the roots have not spun out is the perfect time.

it's hard to hit the timing just right though and i usually end up roughing the root ball and speading, splaying roots out. done carefully this won't stall much either.

back to strategy for a second i ran a dedicated veg room also and after transplant to the final container i would power veg the plants using hid lighting and full strength nutes. using a ppk it's easy to lift the plant out of one system and move it to another in the flower room.

but i don't think you can take a large rdwc rootball and transplant it without a major stall while it grows the right root structure.

 

[Dready_jake]

Agreed except I've found aero to have the least stall. Air roots are stronger than water roots like from a bubble cloner and handle transplants better. Plus there's no medium to handle upon first transplant. No nutes in my cloner, no hormones either. Just cut plug and play

 

[DunHav`nFun]

Way back when I was runnin Krusty buckets , we were taught to root in 50/50 verm/perl in red solo cups while taking what most folks these days call limbs from the mid-lower sections of the big plants for bigger initial starts once roots were finally established....then.....

It was take the upper krusty buckets and clean off the roots gently and nestle em down in said buckets while filling and positioning the lava rock medium below , around , and above till just the tops of the plants stuck out....and then....

We were taught to veg "horizontally" with the lights as close to the tops as the plants could stand to shorten internodes and stack lateral limbs as close together as possible , so when they were introduced into the bloom rooms they wouldn't stretch out and fall over the first few weeks of blastoff......

I vegged each plant under 400 watt MH reflectors with a recirculating waterfarm type setup where the juice continuously trickled around the outside perimeters of the upper containers and back to rez till they were "tits" high that usually took 2 1/2-3 weeks with my mex skunk hybrid , and then it was put top buckets in their final home in the bloom rooms and it was off to the races.....now....

I know you prefer to veg with bare bulbs D9 , but we were also taught and learned quickly that pot don`t grow/veg the same with sideways light as it does with horizontal reflected light cuz they grow "toward" the light source sideways instead of truly growing up WHILE growin out that worked so well with our 50/50 Sat/Ind hybrids for plants hittin the ceilings by end of stretch in 8' rooms....but......

These days , 9-10 big plant grows are with Indica dominant hybrids and don`t stretch UP for shit and take 2+/ months to veg , so I`m thinking your bare bulb veg might be best to get em as big as possible to end of stretch , as long as the bare bulbs are kept just "at plant level height" to induce as much vertical stretch as possible for as much foliage and budsites as possible when swellage begins.....that said....

PPK ftw....Can`t wait to pick my pheno and install the lil bitch at my lil lake house....my beans are veggin outside in composted cowshit and I`m gonna top a few and not top a few to see what type plant growth structure these Chem D x SFV OG take on so I can best fit the final pick in it`s final resting place....time will tell.....

Gonna be using 8822 washed to fuck and back with a drilled out hydro halo of sorts I made way back with my Krusty buckets to saturate and fill the upper container more equally during feed sequences , and go from there on timer setting......

Goin to the lake for July 4th and gonna stay up there till I get the feeding sequences as close as needed for max gas exchange and O2 replenishment to rootzone , and then it`s set it and ferget it....Weekly visits and maintenance and that`s it....

Got a 10KW Generac propane generator if the power goes out which is rare , but there if needed ....anyways....sorry for rambling bro , just excited I`m actually able to grow some headies with a setup that don`t haveta be babysat and hovered over 24/7....

Coulda done it with 1 of my old ebb and flow buckets and fed more often with my lavarocks , but I like the idea of topfed/gravity fed/waterfall effect forcing all the stagnant unused juice and O2 straight down and out to be remixed , instead of bottom fed pushing up then draining out , but time will tell and I`ve already run E&F buckets , so where`s the fun in that....aight....

Thanks again D9.....you da man....

Peace.....Freds..........

 

[RamCTD1027]

wow....I never expected to cause a shit storm here by asking plant health questions in the infirmary and the ppk thread.

Thanks to Delta and everyone else here that provided help with my issue. I wasn't trying to cause a debate about PPK vs. XYZ or turface vs. XYZ. I was just looking for help to solve my problem. Turface is new to me and I'm glad I came here to get the advice I needed. In the end, I think the issue was related to low O2 in the rootzone. Turface does have a perched water table that was keeping water suck in the rootzone. I added a wick to the pots and it really seemed to help out. I did not adjust nutrient strength or pH and everything has worked itself out.

At this point, I'm committed to PPK. I have all the pots and supplies I need to get going, as well as all the turface. I see the benefits of the growth systems and it should work perfectly for my situation.

I bought all the PVC needed to set up the fill and drain aspects of the system. I bought a variety of fittings, step-down bushings, etc to connect the goodyear hose to the PVC, however, it looks like D9 accomplishes this connection in a much simplier manner in this picture below. How did you do this D9?

Anyway, thanks again for all the help!

 

[av8or]

D9, my plan is to try this system with six to eight ladies that my goal is up to two each with. It seems from my initial read thru that designing for a wave pulse might be easier than trying to get a full flood.

Another wrinkle is that my plants would be coming from a veg zone RDWC system and thus would have quite a beard of roots on them. How BIG a plant can be transplanted into PPK? Currently, I transplant from one RDWC system to another and flip concurrently. This way bloom rooms stay bloom rooms, with no time wasted on veg. Can I maintain this approach?

Av8or is indeed an impressively quick study! It seems he's already solved some of these problems, so I'd be interested in your input too!

Hey T,

I've transplanted teens up to 24" into the ppk from soil before but not from rdwc. Like D9 said, you'll likely get some stall but I've just accepted the few day loss and enjoy watching them explode for the rest of their life.

I'm doing the full flood right now but I'm about to switch to a pulse. I won't bother rewriting what the boss just posted about that. As for moving plants around in this system to maintain flower and veg rooms....these suckers get pretty heavy with turface and big vegged plants ready to flip. I have to use extreme care when moving the veg plants into my perpetual flower room. The girls already in there are too big to move around most times so it becomes a puzzle to get everything in place. I am loving the perpetual harvest but that is the ONLY thing I like about it. Otherwise I recommend (and will be doing myself) transplanting your rooted clone in the big ppk system and then leave it there till chop. if you figure out an easy way to get plants in and out, maybe you'll be in better shape.

I hope that gives you a little more insight!

 

[av8or]

I have to put a 30" plant in her 7 gallon ppk container in the back left behind that vertical light. The Lemons are a little fat in the cola to be bothered to move at all so I'll be lifting over my head while a buddy gently holds the Lemons back. This is the problem with perpetual flower rooms. And bugs, if you don't keep on a regular spray regimen.

 

[Ttystikk]

I have to put a 30" plant in her 7 gallon ppk container in the back left behind that vertical light. The Lemons are a little fat in the cola to be bothered to move at all so I'll be lifting over my head while a buddy gently holds the Lemons back. This is the problem with perpetual flower rooms. And bugs, if you don't keep on a regular spray regimen.

I'm perpetual too, and so I did some planning to make my life easier when moving plants. Since it's RDWC, the roots just come right out and into the next site, no problem- water is water. The pots are netpot bucket lids with hydroton, all of which goes with the plant. Topfeed irrigation lines remain behind at each tubsite. I have sizeable aisles around my trellises to allow for ease of movement and maintenance.

And because it came up, it turns out that one of my ladies transports very easily indeed, once she's clipped onto a trellis!

What you guys are saying about PPK and its lack of transportability is troubling. I'll have to think on this.

 

[RamCTD1027]

Does anyone know how the hose is connected to the PVC in this picture? It looks like just a barb x pipe thread fitting into the PVC but I can't imagine that seals well.

I bought a T fitting and a slip x pipe thread reducer bushing to connect the fill and drain hose for each site. If I can avoid all the glue and expense for the parts, I wouldn't complain.

 

[av8or]

Does anyone know how the hose is connected to the PVC in this picture? It looks like just a barb x pipe thread fitting into the PVC but I can't imagine that seals well.

I bought a T fitting and a slip x pipe thread reducer bushing to connect the fill and drain hose for each site. If I can avoid all the glue and expense for the parts, I wouldn't complain.

No fittings. Use a step bit (unibit) and drill out a 3/4" (maybe 13/16", but start with 3/4 just in case...it's been 8 months since I put mine together). Pop the hose in. You might have to cut the end of the hose at a slight angle to get it to jam in there. But, 8 months down and not a single drop of water even after kicking and stomping on my hoses accidentally almost every day. Whenever you use this neoprene or rubberized hose, don't use fittings.

 

[av8or]

What you guys are saying about PPK and its lack of transportability is troubling. I'll have to think on this.

The only reason they get difficult to move is because they get big so fast. It's akin to people complaining that ppk is boring because once it's set up . . . you do nothing! Great problems to have. " Yeah, I can't move my plants because they're so damn big." Damn. First world problems!

 

[RamCTD1027]

No fittings. Use a step bit (unibit) and drill out a 3/4" (maybe 13/16", but start with 3/4 just in case...it's been 8 months since I put mine together). Pop the hose in. You might have to cut the end of the hose at a slight angle to get it to jam in there. But, 8 months down and not a single drop of water even after kicking and stomping on my hoses accidentally almost every day. Whenever you use this neoprene or rubberized hose, don't use fittings.

Hi av8or,

Thanks for the reply.

I plan to do it that way with the drain lines into the buckets, however, I'm more interested in the connection at the other ends. I am making a feed loop and drain loop out of PVC that will run around the perimeter of my room. I need to connect a length of hose for feed and a length of hose for drain to the PVC for each module.

 

[gregor_mendel]

CMI Kwikmesh 4.5-in x 4.5-in Gable Vent Screen?

CMI Kwikmesh 4.5-in x 4.5-in Gable Vent Screen?

Is this the vent screen you use for the bottom now?

 

[DoubleTripleOG]

Does anyone know how the hose is connected to the PVC in this picture? It looks like just a barb x pipe thread fitting into the PVC but I can't imagine that seals well.

I bought a T fitting and a slip x pipe thread reducer bushing to connect the fill and drain hose for each site. If I can avoid all the glue and expense for the parts, I wouldn't complain.

If you look real close, you can see the metal hose clamps. Which I have done before and it works well. When ppk's first started to gain popularity on this site, I built one. Used hose connected to pvc with a hose clamp. Never had a single leak.

 

[av8or]

Hi av8or,

Thanks for the reply.

I plan to do it that way with the drain lines into the buckets, however, I'm more interested in the connection at the other ends. I am making a feed loop and drain loop out of PVC that will run around the perimeter of my room. I need to connect a length of hose for feed and a length of hose for drain to the PVC for each module.

Ah ok. My mistake. For my feed lines I used pvc elbows without any glue. Just popped 'em on. Same deal....no leaks. I imagine the there way would do you just fine to connect into your pvc perimeter line.