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a ppk for a 6 plant limit
- Thread starter delta9nxs
- Start date
av8or
Member
Hahaha well played.
av8or
Member
Ever since I started using Perlite in the tailpipe the clogging ceased entirely. I just got inside from making up a few ppk sites so I took a few pics so illustrate.
Yes on the set screws if you do want to remove them but I haven't had to in a long time.
Pic 1: rinsing turface with a garden hose. I drilled a hole or 4 (3/4" I think) and covered it on the inside with vent screen to block the turface from pouring out of the holes while water drained through. I do this for about 3-4 minutes and then on to pic two...
Pic 2: same as above but with perlite
Pic 3: mix up equal volumes of turface and perlite.
Pic 4: fill the tailpipe with perlite and leave a little mound over the entrance.
Pic 5: dump your turface/perlite mix in and transplant. It helps if you've got a cane corso to supervise your rinse station. She's a great boss. Always makes sure the rinse is thorough but doesn't let me dally.
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Av8or, thanks for the pictures. It helps.
Is that all the perlite you put on top of the tailpiece? I thought you covered the bottom with an inch or so than screen than mixed medium.
you never had an issue with roots coming out the tailpipe with perlite?
I am wondering why the hell I did. Can the air gap be an issue? I feed for 30sec every 1.5hrs.
Is that all the perlite you put on top of the tailpiece? I thought you covered the bottom with an inch or so than screen than mixed medium.
you never had an issue with roots coming out the tailpipe with perlite?
I am wondering why the hell I did. Can the air gap be an issue? I feed for 30sec every 1.5hrs.
av8or
Member
D9 layers it like that. I don't. Roots always grow down the tailpipe but it doesn't clog. What's the issue you're having? Clogging or drowning?
After I my first round of plants vegged for 4 months I had roots coming out the tailpipe and into the water. I have some photos on my thread near the end pages.
I pulled them off and threw into flower and hoped they don't grow down again. I did have to adjust the air gap from 3" to 4".
They don't seem to drain like you seasoned ppk growers.
All though I did try to put more medium in the buckets of the next batch with an extra screen over the perlite filled tailpipe.
feeding 30sec every 1.5hrs.
Hi all !
Well my plants are nearing the end of flower and all is still well with my 'no central res' standalone PPKs
Plants will easily yield double what my hand watered hempies did.
I getting my next round setup, some will still be in coco perlite
And I found that the kitty litter here is made from some kind of diatomaceous chunks that look a lot like calcined clay but it isn't
I think this stuff will work for a PPK
It varies in particle size from as large as 1/2 inch down to about 1/8 inch
I am temped not to screen it except for removing the finest stuff ( 1/8 and below)
The larger stuff ranging from 1/4 to 1/2 inch is about 1/2 the volume of the bag and it seems a waster to me to toss it
So two questions
Given That 1/2 of the volume is less than 1/4 inch it seems to me that it won't drain so fast that it will have to be watered so often that a pump failure would cause it to dry out so fast
Comments?
But will so much large stuff mean there is so much less volume for roots that using it is a bad idea?
Well my plants are nearing the end of flower and all is still well with my 'no central res' standalone PPKs
Plants will easily yield double what my hand watered hempies did.
I getting my next round setup, some will still be in coco perlite
And I found that the kitty litter here is made from some kind of diatomaceous chunks that look a lot like calcined clay but it isn't
I think this stuff will work for a PPK
It varies in particle size from as large as 1/2 inch down to about 1/8 inch
I am temped not to screen it except for removing the finest stuff ( 1/8 and below)
The larger stuff ranging from 1/4 to 1/2 inch is about 1/2 the volume of the bag and it seems a waster to me to toss it
So two questions
Given That 1/2 of the volume is less than 1/4 inch it seems to me that it won't drain so fast that it will have to be watered so often that a pump failure would cause it to dry out so fast
Comments?
But will so much large stuff mean there is so much less volume for roots that using it is a bad idea?
av8or
Member
4 month veg?! How big you growing these things? Hahaha
So, I've only vegged a couple plants that long and I did have issues but not from clogging. At that size they were actually drawing water up from the wick and eating all the top feed, too. I'll have to see what you're plants look like to make a better guess as to your issue. I usually only veg for 4-6 weeks depending on desired finish weight (1.25-2.5 lbs). D9 seems to be liking the screen jobby over the perlite but I don't fuss with it. I'm still waiting on one of you guys using the screen to report that the roots trying to grow through the screen is what causes the clog...but don't tell D9 I said that. Ha!
Another thing you can do (and I've done very successfully) is lift the plant out of the pot by its stem, root ball attached, and chop the tailpiece plug off. Then, while the plant is removed, refill the tailpiece with perlite (or even easier, just have a fresh top bucket with perlite in the tailpiece handy and swap them bitches out). Then put the plant back in. If you're vegging for more than two months, you'll have plenty of root ball to do hold together.
Av8or; I didn't mean to veg that long it just happen cause I can't get my slow ass from working on this project....there is always a room that needs harvesting or flipping or something...
As soon as I harvest one of the rooms I will take pictures of the root mass and the screens. They are not really clogging but slowing the water through the top medium/root mass.
As soon as I harvest one of the rooms I will take pictures of the root mass and the screens. They are not really clogging but slowing the water through the top medium/root mass.
av8or
Member
Yeah OK, I could see that happening. What media are you using? Perhaps increasing the air filled porosity will alleviate that condition. Another thought....is slow absorbing water a problem?
You mean slow draining? Yes.
What do you mean increasing the air filled porosity. Do you mean making holes in the bottom of the bucket or in the tailpipe?
av8or
Member
If you take a container, say a 1000 ml beaker, and fill it to the top with media, you'll be able to pour water in to full up the voids between the media particles. Measure how much water goes in. Turface will allow 200 to 230 ml (written: 20-23% air porosity) by itself, if I remember correctly. I cut it with perlite until I can get 350 to 400 ml of water in the beaker, or 35-40%. I have great success right there. So, air filled porosity is how much volume is not being used by the media in a given container so that water and air can occupy those spaces. Make sense?
capeesh, but do you throw it all away when the grow is finished? I doubt it but when you clean it, thinking the pearlite floats but so do old roots and other stuff do you then clean that used pearlite or throw away and mix to your %P:%T with new? I'm reluctant to try pearlite although I have some on hand for that reason. not arguing but wouldn't the pearlite fill space too? It has mass. it is lighter which is desirable.
then OTOH, seems the porosity the of turface can be improved some if screened (I know you do not screen) with a bigger screen opening dimension (is there a word for that dimension?) leaving larger granules of turface and by your definition above increase porosity but maybe not as much as perlite? I mean your talking only a 17% improvement over straight turface which makes me believe that every % counts.
and at what % is there is too much porosity in PPKs?
actually the reason i was using a screen above the tailpiece was because i was using coco fiber. using turface and perlite the screen probably isn't necessary.
i used screened turface alone for years and it got better with age.
turface mvp has an air filled porosity of about 22% right out of the bag but by screening over aluminum window screen you can get it up to 33-35%. you will lose approx 1/3 of the volume screening.
but i have just cut it with perlite or rice hulls before to get the porosity up.
i consider the "ideal" afp for the ppk to be 35% but anything between 30-40% can work very well too. the ppk is tunable to adjust for media air and water characteristics. it's possible to keep the moisture content about right by adjusting the air gap up or down to make the overall medium wetter or drier. also, you can vary the duration of the top watering event and the interval between them.
av8or
Member
Actually yeah, I throw the whole root ball in the trash, media and all. Turface is $12/bag and perlite is $23 a bag. It costs somewhere around $8-9 per plant for new media and that's completely worth it to me as I get a pound or two out of each plant.
Perlite is lighter and floats, yes, but for those reasons it also has a LOT more air pockets in it vs turface. It's also a lot larger so it leaves larger voids between particles whereas the turface is small and can stack up together really tight. So by adding perlite, you vastly increase the air filled porosity of your media in the same volume of space.
If you insist on reusing your turface, then you best get to screening it. At the very least, stuff perlite only down your tailpipes and toss your turface on top of that. Window screen will do the trick for screening but I've screened every which way and my advice is to use new stuff each time and cut with perlite. It's incredibly simple and less labor intensive.
I screen to a bit larger size with my method but its not very scalable. I reject 40% of a bag and keep 60%. I screen much larger than window screen since i want more AFP and im using window screen to retain it.
I try to get the roots out but i dont stress about it or kill myself trying to wash it clean. Pic in my albums somewhere
Quarter inch size is about perfect imho. Havent had a clog in over a year
I try to get the roots out but i dont stress about it or kill myself trying to wash it clean. Pic in my albums somewhere
Quarter inch size is about perfect imho. Havent had a clog in over a year
Gonna take ya`ll waaaaay back ta krusty bucket school when the end result in the rootzone was a constant "nutrient rich fog" like D9 stated from Lucas speak back in the day , but it was and still is a complicated system to re-create just for the benefits with all the bells and whistles it took/takes to dial said setup....but...
Rootzone air porosity was based on the lava rocks we used that were boiled and tumbled regular to prevent silt and sediment while maintaining all those irregular edges and sizes that held O2 in the rootzones constantly while the big bitches were fed at a trickle and recirculated 24/7/365 with monsters using the right hybrids...
People were amazed at the size plants it pumped out with the proper 50/50 hybrids tailor made for the system with jacked up ppms and weekly flushes to control lockout while jamming nutes right back up their ass to make em jump with proper watts per sq ft and environment.....that said....
Why ANYONE would chase the dragon with krusty buckets SWC or the RDWC reasonable facsimile thereof these days with chillers and air compressors , plus the rest of everything needed to control environment is beyond me since the onset of a decent understanding on PPK`s and their ability to grow big plants and keep the majority of the plant`s "rootzone" as "air roots" above the juice with only a small percentage of remaining rootmass deemed as water roots in the lower container with nothing but bare minimum equipment.....anyways....
My 2 cents from all them yrs of fuckin up and finally getting it right....
D9...Respect...and...Happy Turkey Day....
Peace....DHF.....
.....
Rootzone air porosity was based on the lava rocks we used that were boiled and tumbled regular to prevent silt and sediment while maintaining all those irregular edges and sizes that held O2 in the rootzones constantly while the big bitches were fed at a trickle and recirculated 24/7/365 with monsters using the right hybrids...
People were amazed at the size plants it pumped out with the proper 50/50 hybrids tailor made for the system with jacked up ppms and weekly flushes to control lockout while jamming nutes right back up their ass to make em jump with proper watts per sq ft and environment.....that said....
Why ANYONE would chase the dragon with krusty buckets SWC or the RDWC reasonable facsimile thereof these days with chillers and air compressors , plus the rest of everything needed to control environment is beyond me since the onset of a decent understanding on PPK`s and their ability to grow big plants and keep the majority of the plant`s "rootzone" as "air roots" above the juice with only a small percentage of remaining rootmass deemed as water roots in the lower container with nothing but bare minimum equipment.....anyways....
My 2 cents from all them yrs of fuckin up and finally getting it right....
D9...Respect...and...Happy Turkey Day....
Peace....DHF.....
.....
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