Heaths latest tree grow

[41hope]

Hey Billy about to set my top feed 4 site Rwdc. Using 17 gallon outer tub and 4 gallon inner tub filled with hydroton. Have not decided on size of controller & res for 4 plants (Trees). open to suggestions.
These tubs are wide, the 4 gallon hydroton tub will sit low in the outer tub meaning water level will be low in outer tub (using less water but allowing roots to grow side ways in outer tub.
My plan is to use .5" top feed & 1.5 return using 1 pump size & brand to be determined.
Question should I go bigger than 1/2 feed? like 1 1/2?
Should I use more than 1 pump? 1 pump feed 1 pump return? If I use one pump will the pump need adapters since feed & return pipe is different size?
Which pump should I buy?
Thanks I truly appreciate your advice!

 

[41hope]

Hey Billy how much water can I expect to use? I have 4 plants in 17 gallon containers holding 10 gallons each. The controller holds 40 plus gallons. No res yet not sure on size yet. I'm filling the controller up with about 8 to 10 gallons a day. I live in the desert.
Is this normal?

 

[41hope]

I have a 10 x10 x8 room running 4 plants under 5 lights in x pattern 4 600hps & 1 1000w mh or hps. I see you have flip flop lights with 2 plants will I haVe the same success with 4 plants? Should I upgrade to0 1000w's on out side?

 

[smokestack23]

Well I'm no Heath and..I read a lot of this thread quite a while back and just returned and read the last few pages so I could be missing a lot and I could be backtracking/repeating but I'd like to chime in.

I'm in the middle of switching up my stuff a bit. Before I start...I don't think it was mentioned but..was it Bernouille or Pascal's law that states that "as flow increases pressure decreases". That's a LAW not a theory. It's what makes hydraulic systems work (that and the other guy's law that says you cant compress water and that energy is exerted in all directions blah blah blah).
So...
My old systems were 4-5gal pails per res. I installed dual 3/4" drains at the bottom of each pail. Those drains led around to the front of the pails where they joined together and attached to the main 3/4" drain line that ran the length of the room.
Feed was a 1/2" main line coming out of the res (in a cool room) by means of a 350(?) gph little giant. Off the main feedline I put a 1/8" line to feed the top of each pail's netpot.
Turned on the pump and found that the little threaded inserts that I installed into the 1/2" feedline (to feed the 1/8") were leaking. Too much pressure? I decided to increase the flow (thus decreasing pressure) by adding a second 1/8" feedline to each basket. Problem solved.

New problem! The last pail of the 4 (in series) couldn't drain fast enough. I dialed down the voltage of the little giant and fixed that problem.

So off I went. I knew that with such small (though 2) drains I'd probably get some clogging eventually. My roots were the size and shape of the pails.
Oh...I heard from an electrician that it isnt good to run a pump or motor with decreased voltage only..so...I ordered some like $14 160gph pumps off eBay.
They worked great. The feedlines (2 of 1/8" in each netpot) were pouring and the res had water movement from the drainback.

It worked perfectly and they never DID clog. Was running a crap strain and got like an elbow and a half off each. Was running 3200w.

So I did a few like that and I wanted to build a new system. Mainly because I can't see myself re-using all that plumbing too many times. Seems like ASKING for trouble. I also decided that rather than have 4 plants in each room I should have 6 but in pairs of 3. So I do 3 plants and a month later I add 3 more to the other independent system in the same room.
I built the forst 3 "pod" system and made everything bigger. Went from 5gal pails to 18gal tubs, 1-1/2 bottom drains with uniseals, and 3 of the 1/8" feeds per tub with the same wee 160gph pumps.

Now HERE is the thing. I don't have power for any chillers. Things have expanded and rooms have more light..
With the large tubs and the very large drainpipes, I have a lot more volume in the flower room at any given time. It is easy math to figure out the volume of the 1-1/2" pipe at my lengths but I'm lazy. I KNOW it's quite a bit.
All that volume in that warm room raises the nute temp quite a bit. All my pipes are insulated btw.

SO..I'm switching again. I'm gonna go with some 9 or 10 gal totes, still with 1-1/2 drains but those drainpipes will be reduced to 1-1/4" to return to the res. That way I'll be back to having more volume in the cool res room than in the growroom and the water'll stay cooler.
Not that I'm having any root problems at all...I just like to prevent stuff..or reduce it's likelihood. I run sterile with Zone/SM-90.

The morals of the story are:
-More flow = less pressure
-I have had great success with low volume pumps.
-Try to keep most of the nute solution volume out of the warmer rooms.
PEACE

 

[Shafto]

Great thread, lots of great info.

I remember looking at Heath's threads back on OG when I was just a kid, along with Krusty's buckets.

I just read this whole thread as soon as I saw Heath authored it. Was a great throw back to read about the tree growing and RDWC pioneers.

When I saw the autocad designs near the beginning of the thread, I realize now that I built myself a Heath style RDWC system without knowing it. I went the route where the outlets overflow at the water level, no float valve. When I first built it, I wondered why I had never seen it before, seems like the easiest and simplest way to do RDWC.

If you had this going lager scale, might just want to go with bottom returns and a float valve so you don't have to worry about grading all the level returns on an angle back to the control res, but small scale, overflow returns at water level are so simple and easy to implement.

One thing I noticed a lot of through this thread is air pumps being blamed for really heating up the water, which they can really do quite quickly, especially the powerful ones. It is quite easy however, to avoid this issue. One good thing to start with is to suck air from outside your grow room, but I don't even bother with that, and have no solution heating issues with my 45W 70 litre/hour pump and only 80L of total res (way overkill on air) for my 2 girls in my personal grow closet. I have a PC heatsink fan on either side of my air pump to keep it cool, and also a long run of air hose coiled on the ground before it goes up and into the plants. I also use camping coolers as reservoirs, 1 for both my girls, and the control res. I've found this has been the biggest help with controlling res temperature, on the hottest summer days it gets a little over 20C, so I throw an ice pack in from the freezer and it's down to 18-19 again.

Another helpful hint for large air pumps is to use an accumulator. With a large linear motor pumping air at 60 or 50hz (120/240 US/EU mains frequency) you get a lot of vibrations and noise right in the bass and rumble area of the hearing spectrum. Air pulses are sent violently down the air line at 50-60 times a second, shaking apart cheap airstones and vibrating your floor. Adding in 1L or air volume to the system right at the pump absorbs these pressure pulses and allows the air to flow out of the accumulator much more smoothly, the difference is night and day. insulate the walls of the accumulator to absorb the vibrations there, and you'll barely be able to hear it either.

 

[Kanz]

A bit late , but rather late than never .

Simply put wow , just wow.

It really is almost a work of art to see such great result's.

I mean it's one thing to have ac unit's, chillers and 1000's of watt's of hps lighting , and get great yields.

However achieving those sort of yields with just a simple system/simple neut's, and relatively low lighting is just insane and changes the game man.

Like most people plant count is the biggest fear I have about this hobby, last thing you want is to get raided with like 100 cutting's or something. Even if you only planned on useing the 10 best , try getting them to believe that one.

Imagine tho, the police come threw the door , and you can actually laugh as well being honest I don't see you doing much jail time for under 5 plant's no matter how big they where.

Long live heath x10

 

[bren]

been looking a flip flops and building one but how do you get it to do 6/6 cos i thought they where ment to do 2 rooms each for 12hours would you plug the ballst in a contactor timer set for 12 hour then the plug the lead that goes to the bulbs in the flip flop set at 6/18 and the first timer switches of the ballast after 6 of the 18 hours

is this possible or is there an easier way ...............?

please help uk grower

 

[budshoteyes]

Just use an individual timer for each light.....way cheaper too!

 

[Evergreen CO]

Life changing

Life changing

This thread changed my life. Thank you Heath!

 

[cyat]

bout to run another tree machine
gonna use igloo ice chests
2- 1.5 in. returns
hydro halo plus half in. feed at the water line
higromite
floranova, subculture b, and sea minerals from ocean water
mosquito net
strain - marley wreck (marley's lambsbread x trainwreck)

 

[~Shhh~]

keep us posted cyat

 

[gunslinger]

insane trees buddys thumbs up from here

 

[TGT]

Hi Heath, nice to see you around again!

TGT

 

[azad]

Im planing to setting up a tree grow.Im thinking 10 plants,each with a 45 litre tank,connected to a 200 litre res.. with 10-14, 600w lights.
Im thinking to buy a 8,000 lph water pump.would a external pump be better to combat heat probs in my res?? ThankYou!
peace..

 

[cyat]

Azad, I used an 1800 gph pump for four units, just barely enough. It really humped on just three plants. just remember how big they get in this system,fast. I got 10ft tall x 6ft around in 7 weeks with an indica. i guess an external pump might help, I had mine in the res tho.
good luck watch out for gnats and aphids they love this system

 

[alexie1]

man i want to buy something from mr heath robinson,maybe the ufo from 2009? or pimped aquafarm,dont have time or skills to build right now

i am close to the U.K so if heath or anybody heath knows has one of theese moduls for sale PM me please

so fucking impressed !hm like everyone else,i want to be like him someday ,just being honest

peace to ya´ll

 

[Devlove]

I am about to embark on setting this system up with 4 6's and a 1000. I plan to use 10$ 18 gal rubbermaid tough totes with panda plastic for light leaks, they seem as if they can handle weight of tree and water.
I am about to put some 1.5" rockwool in a 6" net pot (because I can fit four in 18 gal tote for veg) and was wondering if anyone can weigh in on doing trees in 6" nets?
I was also thinking about placing the 6" into 8 or 10" nets after a week or two of veg.

But my real question is do I need two external res's? One "active" that gets topped up by float valve to set water level from a bigger "passive" one that is full of nutes? or just water?
It seems the "active" one can be size of totes and passive can be whatever I want.

Thanks!

 

[cyat]

I am about to embark on setting this system up with 4 6's and a 1000. I plan to use 10$ 18 gal rubbermaid tough totes with panda plastic for light leaks, they seem as if they can handle weight of tree and water.
I am about to put some 1.5" rockwool in a 6" net pot (because I can fit four in 18 gal tote for veg) and was wondering if anyone can weigh in on doing trees in 6" nets?
I was also thinking about placing the 6" into 8 or 10" nets after a week or two of veg.

But my real question is do I need two external res's? One "active" that gets topped up by float valve to set water level from a bigger "passive" one that is full of nutes? or just water?
It seems the "active" one can be size of totes and passive can be whatever I want.

Thanks!

I would stick to buckets, not net pots.
one res if return sets the water level
two res if a float valve sets the water level
it's all in heaths autocad
good luck

 

[captaincanabis]

cyat how much did you end up pulling down from that big ass bubba kush. what was the stretch like with that plant i am running that strain now

 

[Devlove]

Hey thanks cyat, dig your set-up. Cut a hole in a 14 gal tote and the 10 inch net pot goes down pretty far so I think I'll put it in the 18 gal and water level to bottom of net. first pic 18 gal, second in two 14 stacked.