a ppk for a 6 plant limit

[420ish]

Feel free to mock my amazing drawing skills.

Pictured is a diagram showing the flow operation. At least I hope it does. Mix your nutes in the typical bulk/stock tank but ensure that it's elevated as DHF suggested. I use a Goodyear or continental rubber hose to go from the stock tank to each line of ppk sites. From there you put a threaded male 1/2" hose barb in it with a 1/2" pvc threaded cap attached. Drill a hole in the cap and pop a 1/4" vinyl tube in. From there, Daisy chain each bucket site with the same 1/4" tube. You can use the quick disconnect push fittings to T the 1/4" feed line coming.off the Goodyear hose to plum the successive three bucket sites or you can T the Goodyear hose. That's up to the builder. I use the Goodyear hose because I'm dealing with larger plants and a lot of them so they demand a large flow of water. Smaller systems can get by with just the 1/4" tubing throughout. We have a couple 8 plant rooms that don't use hose and instead only use 1/4" tube. Anything 12 sites and above seem more suited for a larger diameter feed line, hence the hose.

Did that clear things up?

another great design!your drawing skills are better then mine!

 

[Grow4Flow]

Feel free to mock my amazing drawing skills.

Pictured is a diagram showing the flow operation. At least I hope it does. Mix your nutes in the typical bulk/stock tank but ensure that it's elevated as DHF suggested. I use a Goodyear or continental rubber hose to go from the stock tank to each line of ppk sites. From there you put a threaded male 1/2" hose barb in it with a 1/2" pvc threaded cap attached. Drill a hole in the cap and pop a 1/4" vinyl tube in. From there, Daisy chain each bucket site with the same 1/4" tube. You can use the quick disconnect push fittings to T the 1/4" feed line coming.off the Goodyear hose to plum the successive three bucket sites or you can T the Goodyear hose. That's up to the builder. I use the Goodyear hose because I'm dealing with larger plants and a lot of them so they demand a large flow of water. Smaller systems can get by with just the 1/4" tubing throughout. We have a couple 8 plant rooms that don't use hose and instead only use 1/4" tube. Anything 12 sites and above seem more suited for a larger diameter feed line, hence the hose.

Did that clear things up?

i see exactly how thats working together now, thanks for clearing it up. Just didnt see the main hose in previous pics. youve got a hybrid between the new and old tire valve setup....kinda

 

[DunHav`nFun]

Feel free to mock my amazing drawing skills.

Pictured is a diagram showing the flow operation. At least I hope it does. Mix your nutes in the typical bulk/stock tank but ensure that it's elevated as DHF suggested. I use a Goodyear or continental rubber hose to go from the stock tank to each line of ppk sites. From there you put a threaded male 1/2" hose barb in it with a 1/2" pvc threaded cap attached. Drill a hole in the cap and pop a 1/4" vinyl tube in. From there, Daisy chain each bucket site with the same 1/4" tube. You can use the quick disconnect push fittings to T the 1/4" feed line coming.off the Goodyear hose to plum the successive three bucket sites or you can T the Goodyear hose. That's up to the builder. I use the Goodyear hose because I'm dealing with larger plants and a lot of them so they demand a large flow of water. Smaller systems can get by with just the 1/4" tubing throughout. We have a couple 8 plant rooms that don't use hose and instead only use 1/4" tube. Anything 12 sites and above seem more suited for a larger diameter feed line, hence the hose.

Did that clear things up?

I didn`t notice the main feed daisy chained to all the units either G4F , but just as I suspected the 3rd
bucket acts as the controller bucket to set the air gap via float valve......aight....

Thanks Av8....Tell D9 not ta be a stranger........

Peace....DHF........

 

[McKush]

i really think Av should have topped those massive trees a couple of times though, he would get much better stick figure results....

 

[av8or]

i really think Av should have topped those massive trees a couple of times though, he would get much better stick figure results....

Haha! Those massive stick figure trees didn't shape nearly as well as I had hoped. I guess it's a good thing that in real life I can shape a plant better than I can draw one. Or maybe that just indicates the serious lack of drawing skill. I'll go with the former!

 

[JamesFarmer]

Sudden stretch in PPK Veg:

Hey Everyone,

I have a 6 plant PPK system in my Veg room under 2 x 600 watt MH. I have been running these lights in this space for about a year. I started in RDWC then drank the PPK coolaid...

I replaced the bulbs about 4 months ago.

I recently changed the feeding schedule in an effort to encourage more vigorous root development. At the same time I drained, flushed & filled the nutes. I am running 600-620ppm with Jack's.

Over the last few days I have noticed that the plants (3 different strains) have all stretched significantly and at least one look unhealthy on the lower portion of the plant.

I have never seen sudden stretch like this in Veg. Any thoughts?

Thanks

FJ

 

[Mrrite008]

It's hard to tell from your pic, but a lack of wattage in a grow room will lead to both of the problems that you are experiencing.

 

[Snook]

Feel free to mock my amazing drawing skills.

Pictured is a diagram showing the flow operation. At least I hope it does. Mix your nutes in the typical bulk/stock tank but ensure that it's elevated as DHF suggested. I use a Goodyear or continental rubber hose to go from the stock tank to each line of ppk sites. From there you put a threaded male 1/2" hose barb in it with a 1/2" pvc threaded cap attached. Drill a hole in the cap and pop a 1/4" vinyl tube in. From there, Daisy chain each bucket site with the same 1/4" tube. You can use the quick disconnect push fittings to T the 1/4" feed line coming.off the Goodyear hose to plum the successive three bucket sites or you can T the Goodyear hose. That's up to the builder. I use the Goodyear hose because I'm dealing with larger plants and a lot of them so they demand a large flow of water. Smaller systems can get by with just the 1/4" tubing throughout. We have a couple 8 plant rooms that don't use hose and instead only use 1/4" tube. Anything 12 sites and above seem more suited for a larger diameter feed line, hence the hose.

Did that clear things up?

mock you! HA! see if D9 still has the first (as I remember) 'graphic' he put up with the colored circles, that showed a much more simple version.
OH and u2 are OOC!

 

[JamesFarmer]

It's hard to tell from your pic, but a lack of wattage in a grow room will lead to both of the problems that you are experiencing.

Thanks for the input & sorry for the lousy pic. The camera in my phone sucks.

I have been running these lights in this space for a year. I replaced both bulbs less than four months ago.

My plants are in two rows of three plants under the two lights. The two end plants on each end depend on different lights. The two in the middle "share" both lights.

All 6 plants are affected.

If one of the lights was malfunctioning I could see low light causing the problem on the plants that depend on that light. It seems unlikely that both lights would fail identically at the same time.

The things that I can identify that have changed are: Feeding schedule, nutes "refreshed" and it has gotten a bit warmer in the room. High temps were in the low to mid 70's until about ten days ago and have climbed to 81-82F.

Thoughts?

 

[Boutique Manettino]

Thoughts?

yes:

High temps were in the low to mid 70's until about ten days ago and have climbed to 81-82F.

you have plenty of light.

It looks like there might be slight signs of heat stress in the following parts of your pictures:







Heat can stretch out a plant. So can PPM being too low (or way too high) when other garden parameters are cranked up (in this case heat, high light levels).

note: you can use high PPM to limit stretch (like some tomato growers) but your temps have to be very cool in order to avoid heat stress.

If you can lower heat any way that's a great place to start.

You might want to bump up your irrigation frequency too. You could cut back the PPM a bit and see if the serrated edges of your leaves straining upwards (especially on new growth as it comes in) calm down a bit.

Lowering PPM will make more water available to the plant to deal with the heat.... but watch for yellowing because the plant needs the nutrients you're cutting back to build structure etc. and you need higher ppm to feed plants.

Tricky balancing act as far as bumping up or reducing PPM. Best way to manage potential PPM problem is to reduce heat in the garden.

You might get away with higher frequency of irrigations and making sure you've got a strong breeze from a circulation fan blowing across the tops under under the lights.

If nutes aren't there in solution then they (especially N) come out of lower and inner shaded leaves.

When you see issues on the lower parts of the plant, it can mean so many things.

In this case it's "probably" a combination of the plant translocating mobile nutes to the new growth as well as the plant grabbing moisture from wherever it can. If it's not by the roots it gets "sucked" out of the leaves with the least light.

I would immediately pinch all the tops a few nodes down from the highest set of leaves. Crush the stem so the whole top folds over (try not to break it).

Another note is I always find MH bulbs seem to make the garden way hotter than HPS... so not sure if you switch to HPS for flower but that's going to drop heat a few degrees.

 

[JamesFarmer]

yes:



you have plenty of light.

It looks like there might be slight signs of heat stress in the following parts of your pictures:

[URL="https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=63672&pictureid=1562017&thumb=0"]View Image[/URL]

[URL="https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=63672&pictureid=1562018&thumb=0"]View Image[/URL]

[URL="https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=63672&pictureid=1562019&thumb=0"]View Image[/URL]

Heat can stretch out a plant. So can PPM being too low (or way too high) when other garden parameters are cranked up (in this case heat, high light levels).

note: you can use high PPM to limit stretch (like some tomato growers) but your temps have to be very cool in order to avoid heat stress.

If you can lower heat any way that's a great place to start.

You might want to bump up your irrigation frequency too. You could cut back the PPM a bit and see if the serrated edges of your leaves straining upwards (especially on new growth as it comes in) calm down a bit.

Lowering PPM will make more water available to the plant to deal with the heat.... but watch for yellowing because the plant needs the nutrients you're cutting back to build structure etc. and you need higher ppm to feed plants.

Tricky balancing act as far as bumping up or reducing PPM. Best way to manage potential PPM problem is to reduce heat in the garden.

You might get away with higher frequency of irrigations and making sure you've got a strong breeze from a circulation fan blowing across the tops under under the lights.

If nutes aren't there in solution then they (especially N) come out of lower and inner shaded leaves.

When you see issues on the lower parts of the plant, it can mean so many things.

In this case it's "probably" a combination of the plant translocating mobile nutes to the new growth as well as the plant grabbing moisture from wherever it can. If it's not by the roots it gets "sucked" out of the leaves with the least light.

I would immediately pinch all the tops a few nodes down from the highest set of leaves. Crush the stem so the whole top folds over (try not to break it).

Another note is I always find MH bulbs seem to make the garden way hotter than HPS... so not sure if you switch to HPS for flower but that's going to drop heat a few degrees.

Thank you!

That makes good sense. I have been playing with PPM. If I mix strictly to the level discussed in the PPK threads, 600 PPM over base water PPM, I see N and Mg deficiencies start to creep in so I have been varying PPM on addback from 600-680PPM.

As the temps have increased I may be under ideal on the nute strength.

I have adjusted the thermostat on my exhaust fan to kick on a bit sooner and will focus on closer to 680 PPM.

As to the MH/HPS question: I have three spaces. Clone, Veg and Flower. Clone is a mix of 400w MH, CFL and LED. Veg is 2x600w MH and Flower is 3x 1000w HPS.

I have been running this configuration as far as light and plant placement for a year. I did change the grow method from RDWC to PPK several months ago. This is the first time that I have seen this kind of stretch.

As we increase one "growth factor", light, nutrients, CO2 or temp, we have to have to increase the others to maintain a balanced growing environment.

As my temps have increased my nute levels have stayed the same or may have dropped a small amount.

 

[JamesFarmer]

I had in mind to add some Jack's directly to the reservoir and then became concerned that adding additional concentrated nutes could cause issues.

When I first started using Jack's I had a terrible time. Nearly killed my garden with a simple (stupid) mistake. I was adding the Cal-Nit first then the Jack's. Once I drained, flushed and refilled with nutes mixed in the correct order everything was fine.

Am I ok to mix concentrated solutions of each and add them directly to my reservoir one at a time in appropriate proportions to bring the ppm up?

On a side note: I have a flood & drain system that I keep my future PPK clones in. I use the same nute solution as I do for the PPK system. I flushed and drained this one with the same mix as my "stretchy" PPK system on the same day. Now most of my clones destined for PPK have stretched extremely.

Thanks Everyone for the assistance.

 

[av8or]

What do you mean by adding concentrated solutition to bring ppm up? You can add more dry jacks and calnit into a res that's already mixed with nutes, so long as the concentration isn't strong but 600 ppm is nowhere near strong enough to precipitate more jacks and calnit. I wouldn't add any concentrated solutions of anything. Only increase ppm if you notice yellowing from the plants outgrowing their nutes. Otherwise 600 ppm is fine. Seriously, you can grow 3-4 pounders with 600 ppm so if you think you need more nutes, there might be another issue afoot. Unless your nuking your plants with tons of light, heat and co2. But I don't think I've heard of anyone ever going above 900 ppm in a ppk. Not intentionally anyway.

 

[JamesFarmer]

What do you mean by adding concentrated solutition to bring ppm up? You can add more dry jacks and calnit into a res that's already mixed with nutes, so long as the concentration isn't strong but 600 ppm is nowhere near strong enough to precipitate more jacks and calnit. I wouldn't add any concentrated solutions of anything. Only increase ppm if you notice yellowing from the plants outgrowing their nutes. Otherwise 600 ppm is fine. Seriously, you can grow 3-4 pounders with 600 ppm so if you think you need more nutes, there might be another issue afoot. Unless your nuking your plants with tons of light, heat and co2. But I don't think I've heard of anyone ever going above 900 ppm in a ppk. Not intentionally anyway.

Thanks av8or,

Boutique Manettino suggested that my stretch issue in Veg amy be due to low nutrient levels.

That made some sense to me as I have had no lighting changes, the affected plants are in two different rooms and running two different methods. PPK in Veg and F&D in my clone/preveg space.

Both systems saw very unusual stretch in veg shortly after changing out the nutes. Complete drain, flush and refill.

My reason for wanting to raise the ppm's was to try and reduce this bad behavior.

Also, due to apparent N and Mg deficiencies early on I had been running about 660ppm. When I mixed the nutes for the change out I overshot my water fill mark and wound up with with about 595ppm. I didn't think that it was a big deal being near spot on what is recommended and only 10% lower than what I had been running.

What do you think?

Thanks again,

FJ

 

[Boutique Manettino]

.......
Boutique Manettino suggested that my stretch issue in Veg amy be due to low nutrient levels.....


......Both systems saw very unusual stretch in veg shortly after changing out the nutes. Complete drain, flush and refill.....

I had listed a range of possibilities that "may" be contributing to the issue....

It looks like heat levels are higher than you might want, at least in the veg area w/the horti blue and the plants in your pics.

One thing it looks like I forgot to mention is crowding... if you have more vigorous robust growth this round in both the F&D and PPK Veg, and the spacing is the same... plants will begin to stretch more at a certain point.

 

[av8or]

I think Mr. Manettino is correct. Your picture indicates crowding, causing a shade avoidance response in the plant. You have a lot of lower growth that isn't in the light field that could be cleaned out. Work on shaping the canopy and cleaning out the insides...that'll help slow stretching. Also, get light down on the canopy at 1200-1500 umol if you can, while not inducing more heat stress. It's always a give and take, it seems.

 

[JamesFarmer]

I think Mr. Manettino is correct. Your picture indicates crowding, causing a shade avoidance response in the plant. You have a lot of lower growth that isn't in the light field that could be cleaned out. Work on shaping the canopy and cleaning out the insides...that'll help slow stretching. Also, get light down on the canopy at 1200-1500 umol if you can, while not inducing more heat stress. It's always a give and take, it seems.

Thank you.

I appreciate your input and am here to learn. The light/crowding suggestions make sense.

However, the root of my concern is that I have been growing the same strains in the same space under the same lights for a year.

The stretch issue I am seeing came on like somebody threw a switch. The poor looking undergrowth occurred at the same time.

I have 4 separate/ isolated systems. 3 PPK and 1 F&D. They are in 3 different rooms. Only plants in two of them are affected.

To clarify the "concentrated" comment: I usually don't add dry nutes to my res. I fill two jugs with warm water and add my nutes to the jugs and shake vigorously. Then I pour the contents of the first jug into the res (pump running) and then wait 15 minutes and add the second jug.

I will try and get some better pictures that show the spacing between plants.

Thank you both for taking the time to assist!!

FJ

 

[av8or]

Are you positive all three rooms have the same exact environmental conditions?

I'd be interested to know what your tap water ph and ppm is. Do this for us: measure ph and ppm of tap water. Mix dry jacks to 360 ppm above existing tap water ppm. Then add 240 ppm calnit dry on top of that, giving you 600 ppm above tap water. Don't adjust ph. Let it sit for a day and re-measure ph and ppm. Try this in a small container and see what you get. It'll help diagnose the issue depending on the result.

 

[av8or]

Oregon is changing regs and definitions to the cannabis laws once again. Looking like the indoor medical plant is limited to 6 pounds. Haha! I'm going to start a thread in a week or two titled, "a ppk for a six pound limit" then grow a single six pound plant in a room. There. I've said it. Now I better do it. It's only three times bigger than my biggest so far.

 

[Oysters]

...then grow a single six pound plant in a room.

Hey, who here doesn't want to see that?