Hail Hydro 2.0: New Beginnings

[PetFlora]

Getting ready for the new seeds that I will start in the bubbler (all 6 shells have cracked), I moved the remaining 2 bubbler plants; one to the lpa, the other outside.

I removed most of the bottom branches on all remaining plants as they didn't have any buds worth keeping

The roots in the lower left are from the bubbler

The plant moved outside from the bubbler looks healthy but again too small to produce much

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[PetFlora]

1/15/2019: Dropped cracked seeds into coco pellets with a very dilute MegaCrop just to give them something to feed on

 

[PetFlora]

LPA is doing OK, but not seeing new root hairs. Outdoor plant looks healthier, has more crystals

Observing thelpa roots, they MAY be too wet right before each 15 minute spray, so I increased pause to 18 minutes

 

[PetFlora]

Thinking over my previous comment, I decided to flush the lpa roots in ~ 5% h2o2: I let them soak completely submerged for ~ 10 minutes, giggling them every couple minutes

 

[PetFlora]

Although I am seeing buds getting bigger, I am still not happy with root wetting times. This because my Sentinel timer is not accurate to ONE second, so I decided to increase ON time from 2 to 3 seconds, assuring ~ 2 second spray. I also increased pause to 21 minutes

 

[PetFlora]

Aha.

Checking plants this morning. Nuggz are more solid AND I see evidence of new root hairs

 

[PetFlora]

Oops forgot pictures. Natural morning light is awesome

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[PetFlora]

5/6 Triple berry gifted seeds have broken through the coco

 

[PetFlora]

Most of you realize this grow is a huge disappointment BUT a lot can be learned by attempting to salvage as much as possible. I think I figured out the problem: I side filled the coco inserts with more coco instead of small stones, which drain easily, whereas the coco stays wet, which Im pretty sure caused the root rot. In that vain...

Here's an interesting observation: The plant with the smallest root structure (more like a thin string) naturally has the fewest buds which are mostly tight balls with very little smell.

Well, a couple days ago I decided to loop the root across the bottom of the net pot and stick the end in the other side. Yesterday I noticed a new root exiting the loop and today, (not able to focus in the dark) one of the low buds has new pistils

Say high to the Triple Berry babies. I've been feeding them a very diluted grow liquid with a dropper. Will start spraying the leafs with a dilute mix of Emerald Harvest Pro A + Emerald Gold + Root Wizard
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[PetFlora]

Yesterday I checked the 18 minute pause to see the wetness of roots just prior to the next spray cycle the roots were still too wet, so I increased to 21 minutes. checking today, that is close to what they need to develop new root hairs

I also sucked ut 1- 1.5G of ~ 800 ppm and replaced with water, bringing ppm down to ~ 450

The buds are much bigger under the light than outdoors, but, the outdoors plant has a lot more aroma

Triple Berrys are 3-3+" tall, so I increased height under them getting them closer to the light. The are now ~ 2.5ft below he ight, but am going to raise them closer

 

[PetFlora]

It occurred to me that since the youngun's are this tall, their tap roots have probably already reached the bottom. Yes, in all 5

I went ahead and loaded them into their individual net pots, but this time no coco insert and no coco surrounding each coco pellet. I believe doing those two things caused the root rot problems I had with my last two grows. Before outsmarting myself, I did it this way with no root rot issues

You can see the progression

First I center each coco pelet inside then I place 3-4 stones to center the pellets, then sidefill with more stones, capping the tops

Although I placed them in the bubbler, I have not filled it or inserted the air stones. I will hand feed for a few days, letting the runoff collect in the 3 gallon tote

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[NUGneighbor]

What's up Petflora ? I understand the pain you are going through with your roots being to wet. It has been driving me nuts for years. Even with getting great results it still drives me crazy.
I think our main problem is droplet size. Because whatever my on off times are. the roots are still getting to wet. And this causes them to bunch up into a ball. Instead of having all those little white hairs sticking out all over the place.
With this said I am switching everything over to fogponics. I have studied all the pros and cons. And almost all the cons were do to human mistakes. Like all their on off time were all screwed up or they were not cleaning enough or heat problems.
So I am going to give it a shot. Even though I got my best results with lpa this last grow. with over a oz per plant with a 1/2 oz plus big bud on top. They were all blueberries.
I have been growing these blueberries for a few years now. But for some reason these took 12 weeks. And all my other grows were 8 to 9 weeks.
But I might be screwing up. Cause I finally made it to what I have been shooting for all these years. Three pounds in a 3x3 area.
Also in regards to clay pebbles or clay anything. You are correct in regards to your root rot problem. All I use is a 2" net pot with those little foam inserts. And that holds up my plants with no problem. Anyway good luck and take care.

 

[PetFlora]

What's up Petflora ? I understand the pain you are going through with your roots being to wet. It has been driving me nuts for years. Even with getting great results it still drives me crazy.
I think our main problem is droplet size. Because whatever my on off times are. the roots are still getting to wet. And this causes them to bunch up into a ball. Instead of having all those little white hairs sticking out all over the place.
With this said I am switching everything over to fogponics. I have studied all the pros and cons. And almost all the cons were do to human mistakes. Like all their on off time were all screwed up or they were not cleaning enough or heat problems.
So I am going to give it a shot. Even though I got my best results with lpa this last grow. with over a oz per plant with a 1/2 oz plus big bud on top. They were all blueberries.
I have been growing these blueberries for a few years now. But for some reason these took 12 weeks. And all my other grows were 8 to 9 weeks.
But I might be screwing up. Cause I finally made it to what I have been shooting for all these years. Three pounds in a 3x3 area.
Also in regards to clay pebbles or clay anything. You are correct in regards to your root rot problem. All I use is a 2" net pot with those little foam inserts. And that holds up my plants with no problem. Anyway good luck and take care.

Thanks!

Absolutely the larger drops do cause the roots to collect instead of bloom into root hairs (which is why I first used hpa mist heads) and had pretty good result, but I then went to coco inserts and then coco infill and had constantly clogging heads and those 2 grows went to shit.

Going back to no coco insert and infill with rocks this time (hopefully no more hpa mist heads clogging), to determine if the lpa with hpa mist heads (assuming they don't clog again) are better than DWC (at least to start babies)?

Well, it uses a lot less water AND the roots do get to dry some, whereas they don't in DWC

Hopefully, I figured out where I screwed up, though I still haven't figured out how I had such nice roots the first time I tried the LPA with HPA mist heads (see pic)

>

You might suspect that I tried fogponics, too. Two problems with ultrasonic foggers:

* above ~250 ppm the ceramic diaphragm dies fast
* the water and nutes get HOT

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[PetFlora]

Babies

They look fine with 2 a day hand watering, but I haven't yet seen the tap roots escape the net pot (but it is early).

These seeds are too valuable to F with

Still, thinking a problem could be lack of water inside the tote, I added 1/2 g water and 2 air stones to create a humid environment, which roots love

If this doesn't work, I wll fill to the net pot and add 2 more stones:

 

[Drop That Sound]

IMO the bubbles themselves popping in a dwc bucket creates the ideal micron size for the roots, even better than HPA, just considerably less effeciently.

I've though about adding a fan blade onto a longer sealed shaft, to keep the fans motor remotely out of the res, and keeping the level way down in the bucket. Then churn the heck out of it with plenty of air, while the funnel looking fan forces the mist up into the roots. Crazy I know, but so is trying to run a true HPA system with way more parts to deal with

 

[PetFlora]

IMO the bubbles themselves popping in a dwc bucket creates the ideal micron size for the roots, even better than HPA, just considerably less effeciently.

I've though about adding a fan blade onto a longer sealed shaft, to keep the fans motor remotely out of the res, and keeping the level way down in the bucket. Then churn the heck out of it with plenty of air, while the funnel looking fan forces the mist up into the roots. Crazy I know, but so is trying to run a true HPA system with way more parts to deal with

Yes and no to the bubbles having ideal micron size, possibly, but they still need to be propelled into the root chamber as a mist in order to seek out the roots.

When I gave HPA a go, some 7-8 years ago, I completely bypassed the whole storage tank and associated hardware. Obviously that took away my ability to fine tune the mist times, but as my physics teacher used to say just get in the ballpark, so I used my Sentinel digital timer set between 2 -3 seconds on, which might be closer to one or 2 seconds. I placed my rez above the 4 mist heads keeping tubing full between mistings. It worked really well, but...

The big problem for me is due to high heat and high humidity ~ 7 months each year baking through my open beam ceilings, turning that room into a sauna. running ac 24/7 for that room, plus the rest of my house is not worth it as I grow for personal use, be different if the state ever tells big P to F off, but no doubt BP have long since bought the key NO votes

 

[PoweredByLove]

hey there guy who copied my thread name in i guess an attempt to ridicule me at the time.

do you have an air gap between the bottom of your pots and the water?

 

[PetFlora]

hey there guy who copied my thread name in i guess an attempt to ridicule me at the time.

do you have an air gap between the bottom of your pots and the water?

Your opening sentence makes no sense. If someone copied then in which post? Please explain

This morning I added a gallon of nutes to bring water line just below the net pots

 

[PetFlora]

My intended use for the O2G 2020 is to put each of the 2 plates into 2 different rezes. I just put one in the bubbler, the other remains in the lpa system

 

[PoweredByLove]

too close. there needs to be space between bottom of pots and top of water.