KBS extreme NFT: soaker hose vs. porous tube? pump vs. regenerative blower?

[~SYK~]

basilfarmer, I always love pictures, thanks for sharing...

We all do :wink:

 

[~SYK~]

I too was once all over the Kman's Nutz, trying to follow his every post to the letter.

You can see some of my earlier posts/dealings with him by searching this site for my other handle ( SomeoneYouKnow ) if you want to see some posts from the KBS past...

Looks like all my picts are gone though - too bad - there were some good ones :grin:

 

[~SYK~]

Question #4: Feeding schedule

Do I still feed 24/7 with perlite? Two feedlines per bucket?

Was planning to have my feedlines positioned in the top bucket at the beginning. Then move them into the middle bucket once I had root growth throw the holes in the top bucket. That logic comes from krusty's advice below...I welcome feedback...

krusty on feed line position and 24/7 feeding
• you have the feed lines pointing at the bottom where the roots reach...like i am serious...you have it so the nutrient lines will hit a lava rock that will barely wet the end of the root.. like i am saying MAYBE 1/4" of the roots ends are getting water....then each day you pull the feed lines back....if you don’t do this the roots will not try and reach/grow out.. this is where a lot of folks run into problems...i wont mention any names but the one person who is trolling e NEVER learned this...i watched all his threads and he never grasped this:/
• you jsut cannot keep the top portion of the root mass wet...as in the tap root...you want the area JUST BELOW the stem to keep dry ALWAYS...the OBJECT is to keep the end of the roots WET..the tap root or top portion of roots or the area under the stem DRY. what dires out faster?? the ends of the roots or the tap root???? well cum on answer you fucking einstiens??? the fucking end roots that are sooo smal will OBVIOUSLY dry out faster...that is why we MUST keep them wet 24/7 but we want them to grow away from the tap root....and we want the tap root dry all the time...we want the tap root to look like a big ole solid oak...
• you want it so that just the very tip ends of the roots are getting wet from nutrients. NOTHING ELSE
• if you have a system where you are providing nutrients to the roots it should ALWYAS be 24/7....this is to maintain not only nute levels but also to maintain temps in the root area....if you turn off the nutrients at night and the roots don’t get any food that is bad...they do take in food at night...but also now you have changed the temps of the roots...again you will stunt the plant EACH DAY by doing this

OK - The following is just all my opinion (I'm not sure it is fact) that is based on my experience ...

You dont want the top layer of roots to go dry. You dont want any roots to go dry - then they die. Its called air pruning. What you DO want, is to avoid crown rot by keeping the center stalk from getting too wet. This was very hard to do with lava as you had to have constant flow, and the lava was less than stellar at wicking moisture.

Perlite on the other hand - has an excellent water to air ratio - even when fully saturated. Especially the big and chunky stuff as it is able to hold even more air due to its size. Perlite is also awesome when it comes to wicking moisture, so you are able to place the feedlines away from the root crown (even on first planting) yet still get moisture where it needs to be to encourage new root growth in your buckets.

So I ended up designing my systems to always be top fed (and yes, I tried every variation of timed feeds for top bucket with lava, moving my feedlines down, adding sprayers to my bottom buckets, etc...)

Two 1/4" drippers work well and resist clogging even with repeated harvests.

DIY Drip rings IMO also work well. I would suggest 3/8" poly pipe in a circle with 4-5 small holes drilled in each.

24/7 watering is fine with Perlite. I have found perlite extremely hard to overwater. That being said, when my plants were small, I would feed them 15 on, 15 off, then when they got to the larger warmer flowering room, they were connected to a cyclestat with more frequent watering cycles to help maintain their root zone temps.

Hope it Helps

SomeoneYouKnow

 

[snowkitty]

A friend of mine came up with a neat suggestion for this as well. Put up all your yo's before you plant, then take a 6' dowel and attach a cup hook to the end (or pvc and duct tape (or end cap) and cup hook) then use this to retrieve your hooks from their location. Trying to move a step stool is not too nice, when your room is grown out properly :grin:

Brilliant! I have plenty of spare rods and tube and crap...just need to find the right hook. This is just the thing to make...in whatever length I need to reach the yo-yos and move things...

Makes me happy that a little less stuff is going to waste...lol...and yeah that does seem way easier than dragging my ladder into far corners...

C) I would think more like 40+ per plant.

Story of my life...I purchased $100 worth of trellis netting in bulk (that's only like 12 nets...stuff is hella expensive)... I have some yo-yos left from my last grows but I was mostly using netting so that's what I got in bulk...guess I'll be asking them to accept a return in exchange for 200 yo-yos...teehee

40 x 4 plants = 160 yo-yos
And I don't like to be running to the store at 4 am for substitutes so I need my extras...200 is the minimum i want to start with...I'd get more if I could afford them...

 

[~SYK~]

200 should be fine to start you off.

Good Luck!

 

[snowkitty]

B) I weave 1/2" pvc every 10' in and out of the chicken wire. I then predrill it and use anchor bolts (if drywall) or screws if plywood.

That is another suggestion - for those of you building your room from scratch - you may want to consider a plywood ceiling - for all the things you are going to have to mount, and for the times you are crawling around playing with ballasts, you are going to want the added strength of wood over drywall.

Especially when one of your Hydrofoggers controllers fail and it floods your rooms, making your drywall soaked with water - and your lights and filters and such pull out of the ceiling and start falling on your plants - not much fun!

Yeah...I have way less experience but I have already learned that the more thick plywood you put up...anywhere in the room...the better. I didn't do it on my windows at first....just used plastic...and I regretted it in more ways than one. Than I cursed while we tried to monkey around in there between harvests and do what should have been done in the first place and put a sheet of plywood over the entire window. Now we can attach fans and any other equipment willy nilly on the outside.

Hadn't thought of a plywood ceiling but I can see the benefits for sure.

Ended up renting a pneumatic staple gun to put the chicken wire up into the studs. I tried to argue that my handy dandy $40 electric staple gun would work but my partner was able to beat some sense into me...lol...so we're using a rented the air compressor and staple gun. It delivers 1- 1/2 inch staples to get the chicken wire up there,

I already had an electrician come in and do very nice work delivering power to my ceilings and walls so it's too late for me to modify my ceiling much other than the chicken wire. Maybe not too late, but too late in my book because I don't wanna re-do all of that..

We'd be knocking down a wall between two rooms if we didn't have such nice electrical work in fact...it would give me the room geometry that we should have for this set-up...but I am stuck with the 10x10 for now

 

[~SYK~]

Oh - and you should SERIOUSLY consider getting a rez that is larger than 20g.

I know you have a passive attached as well, however you are really gonna want the benefits that come from having a larger rez (easier to keep temp, ph, tds correct)

Hope it Helps

SYK

 

[HellaFella420]

Interesting new product,

diffuser hoses i have NEVER liked, they ALWAYS crap out on me

I like the looks of that silicone tubing one, liek the other guy said, if I HAD to try something new, methinx it would be that!


As is, 8in sand airstone works for me $2.50 each, they get replaced or downgraded to the veg room after 2 cycles

 

[basilfarmer]

wow SYK

have you ever saved me a bundle of grief. No lava rock and no hydroton!

thank you so much, I have never liked that whole krusty platform, if it werent for his massive wattage ($1000 per month 10 years ago) and BC BIg bud (which yields buds the size of my head but couldnt get my granny high), I doubt his results with lava rock, air compressers & soaker hose would have been so dramatic.

same to you Snowkitty! thanks for helping refine this idea.

My permit has to he approved, filed, and a shed built with a 200 amp service, so Im sorry, but dont expect anything soon, just so you know. the inside wood walls will be competely sprayed by that sealant insulation foam they are now doing basement walls with where they used to use fiberglass and vapor barriers which of course traps moisture and grows mold. I would never do a 10, 000 watt grow in a shed without a permit, the thing is going to glow like a jackolantern on flir.

the real issue on my mind is I wish perlite came in hydroton sized chunks! chunky perlite will do I guess but its a fortune and not available in my area. however I guess its a matter of mail ordering. once i'm legal I wouldnt care about ordering something like that across customs.

*however* there IS a thing called "sponge rock" for orchids thats huge chunks but if it isnt the same exact thing as perlite, I dont want it. I will have to do some research on that one. I have been told my a greenhouse operator that it isnt, yet others in the manufacturing business say it is. It boiles down to chemical composition and trying it I guess.

http://www.repotme.com/orchid-potting-media/Sponge-Rock-Large.html

"Sponge rock, also known by the name Perlite"

a sweetwater pump is expensive but well worth it and could work wonders with that silicone hose i bet

I have a lot of respect for your experience SYK as I have none in this method but I wonder(?) if a powerful sweetwater pump and those silicone hoses Snowkitty is gonna try would make a nice froth out of an inch of nutes.

Its probably a crazy idea but there are wetting agents out there that will increase froth exponentially; just an random idea though, not a suggestion.

 

[basilfarmer]

most people already know thins i'm sure, but

another thing I forgot to mention is that when a bubble pops the walls of the bubble beak into a mist, so with enough bubbles, you would have aeroponics and mad air, without those damned aeropinic misters clogging (death sentence for roots) or the ultimate nighmare of a high pressure water hose coming loose /bursting and hosing down the whole room

 

[~SYK~]

Yeah, Froth and NFT are GREAT in theory ....

Hopefully that new latex tubing will do the trick.

Good Luck

SYK

 

[snowkitty]

another thing I forgot to mention is that when a bubble pops the walls of the bubble beak into a mist, so with enough bubbles, you would have aeroponics and mad air, without those damned aeropinic misters clogging (death sentence for roots) or the ultimate nighmare of a high pressure water hose coming loose /bursting and hosing down the whole room

Very nice...and actually, no, I didn't know this so it was helpful to me. Before we settled on going with a kbs set-up (or kbs + 10 years of grower improvements on the internet), we were considering misters and aeroponics and so forth. Or combining methods here and there...and then realized that K.I.S.S. is best and just decided to follow krusty to the letter. That quickly evolved into following krusty to the letter with modifications accepted only from seasoned grower with years+ of forum presence.

Anyway...aeroponics....

I've had enough bad luck...and dumb bad luck...and dumbness on my part...managing my aeroponic cloner. It just doesn't make me comfortable to have 3 months of hard fucking work and electric bills sunk into something as unstable as aeroponics. Aeroponics might be perfectly stable in someone else's world or super scientists growing shit in outer space or whatever but my grow room is run by stoners and I want something more foolproof than aeroponics. But I understand the concept and the potential there...and enjoy watching other people succeed.

So it's cool to know that the bubble bursting effect is the lazy man's version of aeroponics...that's just what I want...lol

 

[~SYK~]

I've had enough bad luck...and dumb bad luck...and dumbness on my part...managing my aeroponic cloner. It just doesn't make me comfortable to have 3 months of hard fucking work and electric bills sunk into something as unstable as aeroponics. Aeroponics might be perfectly stable in someone else's world or super scientists growing shit in outer space or whatever but my grow room is run by stoners and I want something more foolproof than aeroponics. But I understand the concept and the potential there...and enjoy watching other people succeed.

One of the Evolutions of KBS into a version of Killer Buckets ... was because of this very issue.

A KBS room done properly is like a Ferrari - extremely high performance. HOWEVER, like the Ferrari, it needs meticulous maintenance, and without it, its high performance parts can grind to a halt.

The KBS growers in AZ wanted a high performance system with a LOW FAILURE rate. In order to achieve this, a grower basically has to take his water pump running all the time out of the equation - since this is the most likely thing to fail (run out of water, pump failure, etc) The way to do this ... is to change the buckets, and change the media.

This was EXTREMELY successful for them. Basically what they did was increase the root zone by 3+ times, then made a media mix of long fiber coir and hydroton 40/60 mixture. I'm not sure if these posts were made here or at my board, but try searching here for coir and vertical lighting ... and go from there. Other than this mix Hydroton is not successful in KBS growing. Ask me how I know ....

Good Luck and I Hope it Helps!

SomeoneYouKnow

 

[basilfarmer]

SYK, is your websight still up? i would like to check it out, if it is.

have you considered making a short book for sale on the final and best KBS systems?

I would buy it. That would sell like mad, if advertised in the right places.

People (like me) were turned off in the past by the negative threads/a certain personality and also the obviously assinine system (especially the air compressor). The law (including med grows in my area) seems to be all about plant numbers and I dont know of a better system than this.

KBS sounds to close to krusty bucket system tho lol. Its like comparing a popeller plane to a modern jet. call it mega tree buckets... MTB systems

SnowKitty, I deeply dislike aeroponics too, but like the concept. High pressure air hoses that make mist are fine by me but not high pressure water hoses and cloggable nozzels!
I would never have an aero cloner, a bubbler cloner is as far as i'd venture away from rapid rooters

what i like about this sytem is it takes advantage of things like aero and nft (with the right apparantus) but is a hybrid so not so risky and touchy

pure aero is just a nightmare with temp & sensitivities, even if there isnt a failure which kills off a crop

cheers

 

[snowkitty]

SnowKitty is still prowling around the aisles of her local Home Depot. Getting the final bucket design ironed out with the regenerative blower. Here's a pic of one of our prototypes. The air feed is gonna change from this most likely, but I know people wanted pics, so here you go.

You can see the Hydrofogger in the background. Getting the upper rez for that set up is one of the things we've been working on...lots of leaks my first time around...ugh. It is just sitting on the sidelines in this picture. Also that cord running through the background is probably a drill or something, and this bucket isn't in its final spot.

 

[snowkitty]

Calling SYK! We're listening and switching out the bottom bucket. The 10 gallon Brute looks great. You gave me the answer a few weeks back but I guess we had to come to it on our own... At first glance I saw it sold without the lid everywhere...but you are right, ebay has plenty of sources for all colors with lids. Thanks!!

I'm listening to your advice... Perlite, screen to hold it in, 24/7 feeding, don't let any part of the roots get dry, yo-yos, etc.

The final straw for the bucket design change was the problems we had plumbing the regenerative blower into the 2 lower 5-gallon buckets. So now I plan to go into the 10-gallon Brute with 1 inch PVC.

 

[been]

Aw cool! You're going with the 10 gallon Rubbermaids. That'll be a lot better for you and your plants. Looking forward to an update.

 

[antimatter]

Why doesn't anyone just add multiple 1 1/4" drain lines so if 1 gets clogged you still got a 1 or 3 others to pick up the slack and add a little door on the side so you can manually unclog them? never run the system but from all ive read that seems to be the main problem you all are having.

 

[100PoundHarvest]

You guys should check out this guy DoubleDs version of this system on *********.com. It is a high speed recirculating DWC but he claims to grow 3+ pounds per plant with vertical lighting.