Greenhouse hydro grow #1

[Hydrophile]

hey man! Thanks! The sandy soil is great for a lot of things! Especially digging lol. but it’s pretty alkaline, and baron of nitrogen. I’m in western central Michigan so it gets pretty hot in the greenhouse at times, 98 degrees is the highest it’s been in there so far this summer. My water cycles are kind of long to most peoples standards. It takes about an hour to complete a flood and drain. I’m watering 7 times a day. Oh hotter days I’ll increase each cycle by 15 minutes and vice versa on cooler days. I’m able to keep my res and root zone 70-72 degrees with the use of a coil chiller only occasionally. Roots are beautiful white and abundant!! I haven’t gotten too serious about figuring out exactly what they’re drinking each day, but some quick calculations say I’m losing about 25-30 gallons of volume a day. Honestly I was worried about all those roots hanging there too, but I thought worst case I run the pump continuously like a RDWC set up. Lol. I appreciate your questions and comments! Don’t hesitate if you have any more. Also if you have a link to your grow I would love to check it out!

 

[Hydrophile]

10 days growth

 

[Hydrophile]

great setup, how it cost per setup

I haven’t really tallied everything up, but I’m guessing I have about 2500$ into everything, but I also had all the net pots, and controllers, a lot of other bits and prices from past grows.

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

I strongly recommend rabbit poop, solids or tea, for any nitrogen issues in soil. No idea yet on how to use hydro lol. Awesome setup and kudos on the chiller or it'd be a different story.

 

[Coconaut81]

Wow! That's amazing! Can't wait to see them at harvest time!

 

[Hydrophile]

I strongly recommend rabbit poop, solids or tea, for any nitrogen issues. Awesome setup and kudos on the chiller or it'd be a different story.

Rabbit poop soup and homemade fish emulsion is my go to in soil, and has produced some decent results. I have ran the chiller overnight on only two occasions this grow. I can actually cool it down without the chiller by running a long flood cycle. The pic below is my 2020 soil grow

 

[Hydrophile]

Wow! That's amazing! Can't wait to see them at harvest time!

Meeee tooooo!! Lol

 

[iTarzan]

This is insane. They went from small clones to huge plants in 34 days of veg. How is that possible? Where is the 1000 gallon tank?

So you have a reservoir. Then you have pvc pipes going in the bottom of each 68 gallon flood/grow tank and pvc pipes going in the mid area of each 68 gallon tank. Are the pipes the same size? Are the lower ones the drain and the top the overflow and they all lead back to the reservoir? Then the 12 tubes coming out of the little blue box that go to each tank are what fills the 68 gallon grow tanks? Is there a pump that makes them fill the grow tanks? What is the big blue barrel that is in the one pic and then it is gone? Then there is that crate like thing there instead. What is that?
Do you just mix the reservoir tank with nutrients and ph it by hand? How often do you change the reservoir solution? How long does it take to fill all the 68 gallon grow tanks? Do they all fill up at the same time?

Sorry for all the questions but I have greenhouses, space and time and this set-up is incredible.

 

[Chunkypigs]

looks really nice! when are you going to start pulling tarp?

 

[Hydrophile]

This is insane. They went from small clones to huge plants in 34 days of veg. How is that possible? Where is the 1000 gallon tank?

So you have a reservoir. Then you have pvc pipes going in the bottom of each 68 gallon flood/grow tank and pvc pipes going in the mid area of each 68 gallon tank. Are the pipes the same size? Are the lower ones the drain and the top the overflow and they all lead back to the reservoir? Then the 12 tubes coming out of the little blue box that go to each tank are what fills the 68 gallon grow tanks? Is there a pump that makes them fill the grow tanks? What is the big blue barrel that is in the one pic and then it is gone? Then there is that crate like thing there instead. What is that?
Do you just mix the reservoir tank with nutrients and ph it by hand? How often do you change the reservoir solution? How long does it take to fill all the 68 gallon grow tanks? Do they all fill up at the same time?

Sorry for all the questions but I have greenhouses, space and time and this set-up is incredible.

Hey man appreciate your interest! How is it possible?? Science!! Lol. I’m pretty blown away by the growth rates myself. I’ll try to answer all your questions. The reservoir is underground, dug out from a 2x2 hole I cut in the concrete inside my pole barn! I have two 1 1/4” pipes leaving the res one splits off to the bottom of each site, the other just below the bottom of my net pots in the top of each site. I flood with a 4500ghp sump pump through the lower pipe into all sites when full they overflow back to the reservoir through the upper pipe. When the timer kicks off all water drains back through the pump to the res. The 12 tubes you saw going to each site are running air stones. The big blue barrel I use to top water each net pot once a week or so. The crate you see has a circulation fan pointing straight up. I do mix and ph each reservoir by hand, no controls just a blue lab guardian ph/ex/temp meter. I try to stretch each reservoir for 3 weeks or a little longer if i can get away with it. They all fill at the same time but the barrels closer to the reservoir fill slightly faster than the far end. It takes about 15 -20 minutes for all sites to fill to the point of overflow. I really appreciate your interest. Don’t hesitate if you have more questions

 

[Hydrophile]

looks really nice! when are you going to start pulling tarp?

I plan on keeping them covered, as long as I can at least. But I’m quickly running out of room! Lol

 

[CrushnYuba]

Chunky pigs means when are you gonna light dep them. Are you going to? It seems like if you are running out of room you need to start tarping them. I fRked up the round i got going now. I set my depp timer wrong and my plants weren't getting blacked out at the right time. Took me almost a month to realize it. They are waaaay to big for the space now. They probably will have to run till mid aug. Consider depping them. It's not even August. My organic outdoor will be 3x the size they are now by the end. My greenhouse that gets salts would be much bigger if they weren't depped. Your plants are already pretty big. But you know your climate better then me.

Try to keep updates with how much water you use if you can. I find it interesting because you have zero evaporation or run off. But your climate is so different from mine, i really don't have a reference point unfortunately. But it's still interesting. Have you ever done a grow like this?

I don't have grow threads. I got an old greenhouse building thread that's stickied in the greenhouse section. I usually throw some grow pics in there once a year. I should probably put some in for this year.

I have never grown somewhere with native soil that i could make work. All we have is clay. I think it would be hard to make sand work with organics also. I would love to try salts in sand though. At the very least dig a hole and fill it with some coco. Have you ever used salts in that sand?

 

[Hydrophile]

Chunky pigs means when are you gonna light dep them. Are you going to? It seems like if you are running out of room you need to start tarping them. I fRked up the round i got going now. I set my depp timer wrong and my plants weren't getting blacked out at the right time. Took me almost a month to realize it. They are waaaay to big for the space now. They probably will have to run till mid aug. Consider depping them. It's not even August. My organic outdoor will be 3x the size they are now by the end. My greenhouse that gets salts would be much bigger if they weren't depped. Your plants are already pretty big. But you know your climate better then me.

Try to keep updates with how much water you use if you can. I find it interesting because you have zero evaporation or run off. But your climate is so different from mine, i really don't have a reference point unfortunately. But it's still interesting. Have you ever done a grow like this?

I don't have grow threads. I got an old greenhouse building thread that's stickied in the greenhouse section. I usually throw some grow pics in there once a year. I should probably put some in for this year.

I have never grown somewhere with native soil that i could make work. All we have is clay. I think it would be hard to make sand work with organics also. I would love to try salts in sand though. At the very least dig a hole and fill it with some coco. Have you ever used salts in that sand?

Hey, thanks for the clarification. I thought I may have been misunderstanding the question. I am definitely running into an overgrow situation, but we’re already down to 14 hours daylight. I’m not really sure tarping would benefit me much. Had I started a couple weeks or a month ago may be a different story.. lol what are your thoughts? Where are you roughly? I’ve been loosely keeping track of res levels for the past week or so. Going to get a little more scientific with it when I next change the res. But my rough calculations are that my reservoir has dropped about 12 inches over the last 10 days. Which equates to about 300 gallons down. 30 a day. When I change the res I’ll get some more accurate dimensions and volume calculations. I think I’m low balling my volume a little. I’ll have some more solid numbers in a week or so. I have grown ebb and flow buckets before, and this system is modeled after that. But never on this scale. I’m not sure how salts would perform on this sand as it’s pretty alkaline.. like 8.4 I believe. I dig a hole like you said, and use a soil mix. Which suits them just fine until the feeder roots get into that damn sand.. i have attempted to top dress with salts to correct nitrogen deficiency but half heartedly.. lol

 

[CrushnYuba]

Yea. I guess you are a good bit farther north then me, so it cycles will be different. I am in California. I don't know what is worth it for you personally either. I can say that with natural light, flowering is this slow transition that plants keep growing through With depp its like indoor. A strain finishes in x days. You would be finished in about 2 months from now. In my area that would be about a month earlier.
If you put up an automated system, it's just good infra structure to have for the next season. The quality is definitely better. Potentially more weed. For a small greenhouse like that, it would be easy to do.
You could manually black out but that's a real commitment. I don't do it. U have to do it every day at the same time. At this time of year, you wouldn't need to do it for long.

 

[Hydrophile]

Hmm.. what does an automated system consist of? Also, what makes you feel that the quality would be better?

 

[CrushnYuba]

Check my diy greenhouse thread. Its stickied. I wish i knew of hand what pages. It goes into how to build one. If you look on YouTube, some company will have videos.
Not very complicated. Couple of rolling bars like people do automated roll up sidewall vents.
The quality is usually better because you are flowering earlier when the weather is better and more uv. Depp and indoor overlap in quality. Not always. But usually

 

[Hydrophile]

Hey guys! It’s been a couple weeks. Time for an update. Everything has been going sooo smoothly! Been stretching my reservoir out for about a month without any problems, and I’ve actually been able to stop using any kind of sterilization products. Initially I was using hypochlorous acid but everything is dialed right in and I haven’t needed it! I’m running at 2.1 ec and my ph is rock solid at 5.9. Just switched over to transition nutes and these lady’s are drinking like mad! I re calculated the volume of my reservoir, it appears that I’m losing about 30 gallons a day conservatively..

 

[CrushnYuba]

That still seems very efficient on water!
So when you say you no longer need any chlorine, what do you mean? How do you know? Is there just old left over free chlorine from before? Or you just haven't been using it and roots are still ok.

 

[Hydrophile]

That still seems very efficient on water!
So when you say you no longer need any chlorine, what do you mean? How do you know? Is there just old left over free chlorine from before? Or you just haven't been using it and roots are still ok.

I’m pretty familiar with a funky reservoir.. I go by smell, the way bubbles form and break on the surface, foam, and the way my ph fluctuates. It’s pretty easy to tell if your res is going south and in need of sterilization

 

[Hydrophile]

That still seems very efficient on water!
So when you say you no longer need any chlorine, what do you mean? How do you know? Is there just old left over free chlorine from before? Or you just haven't been using it and roots are still ok.

I think the real key to getting away from hypochlorous was the addition of mammoth P to my reservoir.. I had been not using it because it’s pointless if your just google to kill it off. I added it to a fresh res a while back and haven’t used hypochlorous since. Had an explosion of new roots out of the net pots after I top watered with it too.. I don’t usually plug products but I like this one..