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Hi Heath, good to see you on here posting away, I have been busy m8 for the last few months or so, break was good but now just starting to get into the swing of things myself again, got a big plant on the go myself, will post up a thread and when you got the time m8 you can pop in and have a look, really sorry i missed your thread but i have not been posting much anywhere in the last few months tbh, very nice tree again Heath, wish i could grow buds as big as that i wont be letting that chiesel go no shit, a keeper for sure, over the next month or so i will post up a thread on the other chiesel pheno that i kept also, different from the other 1 that was entered into the cup but the 1 that was entered was my personal fav out of the 2 but i will get the other pheno thread posted up soon, good to see you here Heath and I will look forward to reading some more of your posts and threads, tc m8. will send you a message over the next few days.
He Likes the Vita-LinkMax Too which is completely different too, gotta love the Ionic man, soo simple & plants love the shit. where you gone Heath, just teasing us all lol! Come back man!
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First off let me apologise for the long break between posts but I have been busy enjoying myself! lol. Secondly I would like to apologise for not replying to you all individually, its my fault for not being around much. ps its great to see so many people here who I have known from other forums throughout the years and a big welcome to all who haven't seen any of my grows before.
Ok to answer a few of the questions the lights are 600w hps and I run an EC of 1.0 to 1.2 in veg and 1.2 in flower.
Here are some of the tree systems I use hopefully some of you will find the info useful
In the early nineties I was growing and experimenting with dripper systems, after running things for a while I noticed that if I increased the flow rate to the drippers the plants grew and flowered more quickly.
This led me to install bigger and larger bore dripper pipes, I had just modified one system before I went away for a week, when I came back the plants were all much larger as expected but what I didn't expect was the flow rate had been too high and as the roots had grown the roots had blocked the drain and were growing fully flooded! that's when I had a eureka moment and went and bought some brewing and builders buckets and started experimenting.
The basic idea is very very simple you basically have a bubbler bucket but instead of having the nutrients just sat in the tub you recirculate them at a high rate from a external rez so the nutrients are in continual motion.
Here is a Waterfarm bottom modified to recirculate the nutrients.
in this picture you can see the water entering the bucket from the right through a half inch fitting and exiting through a 1 1/2" fitting this picture shows nicely the sort of flow I like to have through the buckets.
The level in the rez is set so that the water level in the bucket is touching or a couple of inches above the bottom of the the inner bucket (the one with the holes drilled in it). The reason for this is I dont like cord roots (the type you see in bubbler bucket grows) to me this is wasting root space.
Here are some pics showing what I mean, these aren't my pics I am only using them to illustrate my point. If you look closely you can see that the roots nearest the bottom of the pot are like cords, this type of root develops when you have a gap between your nutrient level and the pot. I prefer not to have this type of root system as the cords do very little other than support the weight of the roots below.
Here are the roots in a Aquafarm and as you can see they are quite different, this is due to the level being set higher than the pot, and the recirculating nutrient solution. You might notice in the next two pics you can see the water level on the pots. This is the type of root system you should strive for.
In 2007 DLA used the system and posted the pics in my thread, his pictures illustrate well how the recirculating system can be used to grow smaller plants. (Thanks DLA).
In this first pic you can see clearly the small bore pipe feeding the bucket and the larger bore pipe returning to the rez.
Inner buckets fitted.
Plants newly installed.
And 2 weeks of veg and 2 weeks of 12/12.
And here is (Kilo or kerosene sorry I cant remember which!) growing out my Viking using the recirculating system in 2006.
And here is the set-up I used to grow Mr Nice "Shit" from seed I surrounded 2 x 600w vertical bulbs with 8 tubs, in the pics you will see I have added a dripper system as these were vegged in the system from seed.
And here is the system set up to grow the two large Critical Mass plants. On this grow I only used 3 x 600w hung vertically.
Note the twin outlets to stop the roots blocking the drains.
Ok here are a few of my plans which might give you a clue as to how the recycling system works, it is a very simple system. The first drawing shows the level in the grow bucket set by a external rez, this is useful if you want to drain your system as it simply drains to the rez by gravity.
And the second plan shows a system which is easier to set up as the liquid hight in the bucket is set by the return pipe from the rez, the system is slightly less versatile than the system above because you cannot change the liquid level in the tank and its a little more difficult to drain for cleaning etc but performance wise its identical.
Ok here are some pics of me building a tank ready to take a tree. Im just going to thank Billy Liar again for pointing out these storage tanks to me, billy uses the smaller version which would probably be more suited for most tree growing but I like the bigger size because it has a inspection hole built into it.
Ok this first two pics are of the tank I am going to use, obviously you can use whatever tank you like.
Here is the 4 gallon header tank I am going to use as the inner pot (the one the plant goes in).
The left hand hole is the one I have cut to take the 4 gallon tank.
4 gallon tank drilled.
And dropped into the hole I cut earlier.
Next measure from the bottom of the 4 gallon tank to the bottom of the Large tank, in this case its 6 1/2"
Then get a hole cutter
Now we need to cut a hole in the side of the bottom tub this will be for the return to the rez. Earlier we took a measurement that was 6 1/2" to the bottom of the inner tub so wee need for the bottom of the hole to be 6 1/2" so the water level will touch the bottom of the 4 gallon tub. (If the height of water is to be set using a ballcock in the external rez then simply drill this hole at the bottom)
Then fit the 1 1/2" (or whatever you can get hold of) tank connector.
Like this.
view of tank connector from inside the bottom tank.
Return Pipe fitted to 1 1/2" return to rez.
And here is a simple feed to the top just a simple open pipe running 24/7 its a very easy way of introducing Dissolved Oxygen without any real effort as it becomes part of the recirculating system adding DO as it falls through the pebbles and into the bottom tub.
This might interest some of you its the root system from my flip flop SOG grow, using the same recirculating system I use in the tree grows, in the second, third and fourth pic you can still see the recirculating feed running.
I hope that helps I will be posting up the latest tree grows over the next few days I hope you will like and if you have any questions fire away and I will try answer them.
so the water has to be circulating at all times because stagnant water has no oxygen and roots need to recieve oxygen in order for plant to survive.
so, what if you just built a small pool say 10 feet long, 5 feet wide and 3 feet high. and put a lid on the pool. and in the lid you have openings for net pots to sit it. put a bunch of pumps in the water to circulate the water and tubes in the water releasing oxygen from air pumps.
and if a waterfall is needed for further oxygenaton you could do that at one end of the pool or add feed lines from the tank to each of the tops of the plant sites.
then you could do away with the plumbing and the reservoir and just have one huge recantular area for root growth. it just seems like all the separate tubs and tubes that connenct the pots are unecessary somehow.
I guess you would call it a hydro bed but it also has similarities to a fish tank. nutes can be stirred in a separate container then added or they can be put straight into the main tank.
Diamond......You`re prolly talkin bout minimum 5-600 gals of nutrient solution in a container that size , and then.........How to keep said solution 65-68 degrees to prevent root rot in a room with enough light for minimum 50 watts per sq ft.............
All the SM-90 , Zone , and Hygrozyme on earth wouldn`t help yas when things go south in a rootzone of that magnitude , not to mention the initial cash outlay to fill it up and maintain it with add backs/topoffs with even the cheapest GH 3 part nutes.......then there`s flushing and refillin it.......recipe for disaster IMO , but I suppose anything`s possible within reason.....
Heathie........welcome back Brutha........figured you were on "Hols"........Now then Cone.........You know he comes back sooner or later.......Hope your anxiety is in check now Bro and you`re feelin better these days.......
I like that inspection hole in those containers...what size are they that the 4 gal sits in , like 10-12 gals ?.....roots make shoots and those gotta be the biggest containers I`ve ever seen yas use , ya better hang some chicken wire on the ceilings for those plants ta be tied off to fer sure.....LOL......Your autocad skills are improving as well.......