New Experimental Organic Hydro Technique!

[dR. HerbLove]

I let the medium sit in the dark during incubation.

I am not familiar with the specifics of your Fox Farm nutes and I assume that they are organically derived. I was simply trying to break down the basics of what goes on nutrient-wise with my OBBTs. You will need to achieve similar nutritional rates with what you have on hand. Nitrogen-heavy during veg (with a bit of extra potassium) 100% pre-loaded into the medium. Then go heavy on the phosphorus, reduce nitrogen while still maintaining good potassium through flower.

You mention that your nutes reccomend weekly changes. Those instructions where designed for grows with weak or nonexistant microlife. In such a setting the majority of the nutritional content of the nutes are going to get rinsed away through the overflow. This does not happen with the OBBTs, almost all of the nutrients get used. Therefore, nute dosages come few and far between. Some experimentation on your part is going to be neccessary to make it work. Without a deatailed chemical and nutritional breakdown of the nutes you have I cannot make any reccomendations reguarding your specific nutritional regime. All I can do is teach you the underlying theory and warn that less is more when it comes to nutrients in the OBBTs.

Your proposed containers (cut 2 liter bottles) do not sound voluminous enough to me. You are going to have to run something silly, like a 1 week veg to keep the plants from getting root bound in such tiny containers. The OBBT is a wonderous technique, but in my expirience it doesn't scale up in numbers very well. With induvidual dump and overflow falves they are better suited to fewer, larger containers maintaining bigger, larger-yield plants. Your small containers lend themselves better to an en masse' SOG with many small 'budsicle' style plants. The OBBTs may be overkill for this appliacation.

Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

Thanks for your expertise. As a matter of fact, I was planning on a very small scale (3-4) SoG setup. My problem last time I was using organics is the constant fluctuations in pH. I think it was from the growth of stuff, but what do you think I could do about that? To control pH with my synthetics I used h2o2, but that is no good with organics, right?

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

Benefits of Aerobic Bacteria

Benefits of Aerobic Bacteria

dR. HerbLove

Sounds like you are going through similar organic growing pains that I have in the past! Development of the mature OBBT configuration is the result of many iterations of experimental grows. My first ever stab at indoor cannabis cultivation was an all-organic grow and the results it yielded are still a standard that I would judge newly hewn buds by today. I didn't really understand the process that drove the spectacular results of that foray into cultivation at the time. It would take me years to get anything like it again. This sounds silly but let me explain:


Previously in this thread I have tied the methodology behind my grow style to the study of the life cycle of certain animal kingdoms. Fungus perhaps. Delving into previously-mentioned-as-important but as-of-yet-unexplained biological niches we arrive at aerobic bacteria. Those familiar with the process of active composting already know exactly what I'm about to be on about. As for the rest of you:

Usually it takes quite some time for things to decompose or 'rot'. Certain biologically-derived substances can go hilarious amounts of time with no apparent decomposition at all. (perfect honey in the oldest tombs of egyptian kings, still-edible grass in the stomach of a frozen mammoth) On the other hand; a little prodding can get certain basic organic materials to be reduced to their base components (compost) in a matter of months. This is active composting. It hinges on the action of a bacteria colony gone wild. A proper ratio of nitrogen-bearing (grass clippings, manure, coffee grounds) and carbon-carrying (chopped dry leaves, hay, shredded corncob) material tossed together into a nice aerated heap will spontaneously begin to heat up and break down rapidly (grass clippings will happily do this on their own, but they never are able to sustain it). Allowed to go about its business a good compost heap will remain hot (at least 110 degrees, all the way up to a peak of 155-160 at times where the bacteria that drive the process begin to kill themselves off) for a good couple of months. After this time it cools off and coasts down, still carrying a great deal of biological inertia as the bacteria present run out of super-raw food and then go about the process of biological refinement to draw sustenance. Its around here that the volume of the initial compost ingredients will have halved. (my compost source; the proposed source of the amazing results of my first grow, ran two initial and identical piles up to this point and then their halved volumes would be flopped into a third pen identical to the first two which would be at this point full. If desired we could fill the first 2 again to begin a new batch) If you do like I did the resulting mass will halve itself again over another few months. Some compost users like to do weird tonics during this time, I don't think it necessary. At this point you have 'compost': an odd, deep black, sweet-smelling, strangely granular, mushy-yet-oxygenated substance that is a beauty to behold. Freshly finished active compost carries some of the most complex and active bacterial cultures to be found in nature. I simply mixed my acquired version of this substance with 25% pearlite/vermiculite and fed with a Lowe's-sourced dosage of Bloom Burst (10-55-6) only once during flower at the dosage recommended on the label for potted plants. Guided by the wisdom of the at-the-time-still-existent OG and using only a concave ScrOG with six 48 inch normally-driven (IF ONLY I had known about overdriving at the time!! ) GE plant and aquarium T-12 floro tubes I yielded some of the most potent, smooth-smoking buds with the most complex and amusing highs I have yet experienced to this day. (which was a good thing because they didn't weigh very much)

My long-winded point is basically the power of micro-life and how it can be sourced from so many different materials. I desired to explain active composting in depth because it is such a reliable provider of aerobic (oxygen-loving) bacteria. The unique conditions of an active compost heap can only result from these guys. This is why grass clippings alone behave how they do. When freshly cut and acquired the clippings are fluffy and there is a good bit of oxygen mixed in them. This makes a temporary aerobic colony go shooting off, which is why a fresh clippings pile can for a brief time get extremely hot as anyone with certain very unique burn scars can explain. However, the oxygen is rapidly used up and the pile compresses just a little bit which makes it repel any new oxygen trying to get in. This is why certain more rigid parts of the carbonous material are necessary. (leaf stems, small twigs and such all contain remnants of a xylem, which consist of long-dead cells that where once included in the living plant. These rigid components remain as such right up until the compost is finished and they give the pile a consistency that is just spongy enough for new air to constantly get in)

These special bacteria truly need to be put under the spotlight for growers! The biological actions that they are involved in yield benefits for terrestrial plants that are so numerous it is difficult to expound them to completion. When they are teamed up with the incredible nutritional content found in some finished composts it is a cannabis-growing force that I am convinced is impossible to match in the world of non-assisted medium growing. Now, with these miraculous claims put down it must be mentioned that aerobic bacteria are part of a team. Active compost is cool because it goes through a sterilizing process. You can toss in seeded fruit husks and voracious weeds and knarly fungus-covered rotting organic crap which could potentially yield problems. All is well because the heat generated from the biological process of a good organic compost pile kills everything. Seeds are made sterile, pathogens are killed and leftover root nodes are rapidly consumed. It leaves only a hardy batch of aerobic bacteria that should be teamed up with new Mychorrizae fungus; as any that was in there before will have been killed. If these two are placed together and given an environment that is constructed with their flourishing in mind (namely: the OBBTs) they provide the benefits that I have been preaching about since my very first post.

dR. HerbLove
Among those benefits are solutions to all of your organic medium issues. Your problems lie with the proliferation of biological processes that are less fitting to the growth of terrestrial plants. Anaerobic (oxygen hating) bacteria create an environment that breeds all sorts of issues. Going organic gives them food to eat and a less-than-perfect medium setup gives them a niche to begin living in. Slowed or non-existent growth of strong beneficial microbes means that your pH will fluctuate whenever you add nutes, and that you have to add much, much higher doses of those nutes to get the job done which just multiplies your problems. This can all lead to many infections, the worst of all being Phytophthora; better known as the dreaded 'root rot'. I have personal and very painful experience with this issue which lead me to be a proponent of H2O2 for a while. Peroxide diluted down to below 100 PPM eliminates microbes without prejudice, destroying all single-celled organisms in its path while doing no harm to the plant. In fact, regular dosing of H2O2 in this concentration adds dissolved free-radical oxygen into the soil which can make stubborn nutrients rapidly available. I did this for a while in my early coco growing days.

H2O2 therefore is a stop-gap solution. It will make the medium more livable for you plants but at the cost of any potential for beneficial microlife whatsoever. The OBBTs harbor only beneficial microbes and the special combination of fungus and bacteria maintains the Ph at a rock-steady 6.5 Nutrient availability goes up while needed fertilizer dosages go down. You could use the technique for a quick and simple SOG, but I think your 2 liter approach will disappoint (that's a cut 2 liter, which is maybe 1.6 litters at best, that just isn't enough). I've been convinced that the OBBT approach requires at least a gallon sized container for the medium (more that 4 liters). Square is the way to go for space-efficiency and it is helpful to have most of its size arranged in depth (we really want at least 8 inches of depth). I think 6 1 gallon OBBTs for a small SOG would yield in spectacular fashion in a minuscule space given a very short (think 11 day) veg. I'm only thinking of you HerbLove. I know the capabilities of the OBBT and I really want you to get something that resembles the best of what the technique has to offer. That said, I am a firm believer in forced-oxygen injection for organic medium grows and think that any adaptation of the practice could yield some benefits over a non-oxygenated alternative.

Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

 

[dR. HerbLove]

DrunkenMessiah,

I am truly appreciative of the breath of knowledge that you are sharing! I do have a few more questions, if I may...

1. You note that the 2 ltr bottles will be insufficient. Is this due to rootboundness? Right now, I have a couple of flowering plants in 100% perlite hempy buckets that are in cut 2 ltr bottles and they seem to be fine. In fact, I had to chop 'em a couple of times because they were growing too much. I did want large plants (due to size constraints) so I stuck them in the what I thought would be size constricting containers. Now, they are in week 3 of flowering and almost 4" tall. The containers are only about 9 - 10 inches tall so I have some tipping problems sometimes.

2. In regards to my pH fluctuations, as long as I have enough oxygen the pH shouldn't budge? In addition to my hempy buckets, I am experimenting with DWC again. Again, I don't want a huge plant so it's a small scale 1 gallon bucket (w/ synthetic nutes). I have a couple of airstones going in the res, but the pH is always changing. If there's a ton of o2 preventing anaerobic microbes, then what's changing my pH?

3. You mentioned that your pH is 6.5. From what I've read that seems to be the pH range of soil growing. I've always been told that 5.8 is what I should aim for with a hydroponic setup. If I am planning on using hydroton and perlite, what pH level do you recommend I shoot for?

Many Thanks!

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

DrunkenMessiah,

I am truly appreciative of the breath of knowledge that you are sharing! I do have a few more questions, if I may...

1. You note that the 2 ltr bottles will be insufficient. Is this due to rootboundness? Right now, I have a couple of flowering plants in 100% perlite hempy buckets that are in cut 2 ltr bottles and they seem to be fine. In fact, I had to chop 'em a couple of times because they were growing too much. I did want large plants (due to size constraints) so I stuck them in the what I thought would be size constricting containers. Now, they are in week 3 of flowering and almost 4" tall. The containers are only about 9 - 10 inches tall so I have some tipping problems sometimes.

Wow! Week 3 of flower and 4 inches tall? Yikes! I am familiar with low-headroom but that is insane. If you are trying to yield out of that kind of space then SOG isn't really for you. What you need is an intense ScrOG regime. I would recommend larger containers because you need a decent amount of space for the bath. Additionally, the medium we are using is so incredibly low in density that you need a pretty large volume of it for nutrient holding purposes in comparison to normal soil. With that sort of space I would try just 2 or 3 1-2 gallon OBBTs under a very low 2-inch diamater hexagonal screen (poultry net). Run closer to a 2 week veg and use supercropping techniques to rigorously weave the plants into the screen. Keep fan leaves under and buds over. This will eliminate height issues and can let you yield well in a soil-to-lamp gap (assuming you use floros) of as little as 7 inches. Despite the incredibly low headroom it is easy to crack .75 grams per watt with this grow technique, assisted by the fully mature OBBTs you could get even more.

DrunkenMessiah,
2. In regards to my pH fluctuations, as long as I have enough oxygen the pH shouldn't budge? In addition to my hempy buckets, I am experimenting with DWC again. Again, I don't want a huge plant so it's a small scale 1 gallon bucket (w/ synthetic nutes). I have a couple of airstones going in the res, but the pH is always changing. If there's a ton of o2 preventing anaerobic microbes, then what's changing my pH?
Many Thanks!

High oxygen levels are not enough! It is only part of the equation, and that is an equation that has very little room for synthetic nutes. You mentioned running salt nutes in the DWC. That is why the pH fluctuates. Hydro growers who use salt nutes have to carefully track the pH and adjust it with buffing agents (calcium to raise it, sulfur to lower it). The salt nutes they use will kill any microbes that may want to live in the water, no matter how much oxygen there is. Even if you used all organics in DWC however you could never get the pH stability of the OBBTs. The incredibly low pH maintenance of the OBBTs is attributed to the combined life cycles of the mycorrhizae fungus and aerobic bacteria. Mycorrhizae fungus needs a solid substrate to colonize and cannot flourish in water alone. They need an organic medium, something difficult to obtain in DWC. The point is that you need both fungus and bacteria to reap the benefits of the OBBT technique. This takes special conditions and preparation which is, as far as I know, best provided for by the OBBT design. If there is a better grow method for cultivating powerful beneficial fungus and bacteria I do not know of it. It is not the oxygen injection that causes the OBBT's benefits, it is the strong presence of all this microlife.

3. You mentioned that your pH is 6.5. From what I've read that seems to be the pH range of soil growing. I've always been told that 5.8 is what I should aim for with a hydroponic setup. If I am planning on using hydroton and perlite, what pH level do you recommend I shoot for?

Many Thanks!

Hydroton and perlite alone could never constitute an OBBT. I cannot advise you on what pH to 'shoot for' if you are to use the OBBT method. It is impossible to 'shoot for' any pH at all when maintaining a proper OBBT. As I have previously mentioned, if you do everything correctly there is not a goddamn thing you can do to shift the pH of an OBBT without harming the plants. The pH of an OBBT is going to stabilize at whatever value your chosen mix of Mycorrhizae spores are tuned for. I sourced my origional spores from Hydro Organics and they where tuned to grow cannabis which means the pH always sat at 6.5 The spores I use now, those found in Bio Tone Starter Plus, yield similar results. A pH of 5.8 is more suitable for hydro because hydroponic grows have no micro-life to assist in the chemistry that delivers nutrients to the plants. Hydroponics relies purely on osmosis to make nutrients available and the more acidic pH helps speed this process. Soil (read: microbialy-assisted) grows need a pH of 6.5 because that is what is best for the microlife. Strong micro organisms kick the living shit out of osmosis when it comes to liberating nutrients from the medium and piping them into the plant.

If you want to go the route of microbe assistance then you will have to stick fairly rigorously to my reccomendations as they are the only method that I know of which can produce the desired conditions in a repeatable way. Sheer dumb luck got me the perfect conditions for beneficial micro-life in my first grow (as I explained at length in my last post) when I used the active compost. The OBBTs are a way of getting this kind of microlife in a reliable manner while using any sort of organic nutrients one may have at hand. It is the only way that I know of and is the limit of my expertise. If you want advice on how to best tune your pH for a pearlite and hydroton DWC grow I am not the person to ask. The OBBT concept is fairly specific in its parameters and I do not want to dole out advice on grow techniques that fall outside the bounds of what I have discovered because I do not fully understand how the life cycle processes might be changed by different environments. I have experienced first-hand the sort if damage that undesirable yet naturally-occurring microbes can do to a cannabis grow. Using organic nutes can totally fuck up your plants just as easily as it can create an environment for them that is so good I see it as without an equal. Feel free to use the knowledge that I have presented in this forum to make your own experimental offshoots of my OBBT technique, but please do not ask me for direct advice regarding the executions of said experiments. I am not comfortable speculating on what might happen when the processes that drive the OBBTs are given different parameters to operate under as they are so incredibly powerful. I have a huge respect for the complexity of what goes on in the countless life cycles that my plants ride upon to greatness. I freely admit that what exactly is going on in the OBBTs is a complete mystery to me and that I only claim to understand a methodology for reproducing this excellence in a predictable manner. I do like to think that my scientific grasp of the processes at work is strong, but I am not so arrogant as to believe that my knolege of them is complete.

Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

This is very intertesting.

Think i will hava a bash at making similar setup. Saw a 24" bendable bubbler on ebay that looks made for the job

I have got a max growing area of around 20" x 30". Could probably go 10" depth with the lavarocks at 4"? Do you recommend these vs hydroton?

How many plants do you reckon would fit that kinda box?

Cheers. Just need to find source of right fungi...

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

SilverSurfer! I'm very glad to have you on board. The whole point of starting this thread was to get a few experienced gardeners to give the OBBTs a whirl. PrayForPistils has already fabbed up his take on the design and we should be seeing some of his early results on this thread before too much longer. I am always happy to talk to an Overgrow refugee, that fabulous community is what started me on this path and it's former members still hold a special place for me. On to your questions:

I've always used red lava rock to support the bath because it is cheap, reliable, effective and easily obtained. I have never actually run hydroton down there but I know that in principle it should work just as well, if not a little better. Hydroton is surely better for being re-used through several grows. A 10 inch depth with 4 inch bath is a perfect ratio, no problems there. You could try for four to six plants in a 20" by 30" area depending on how much headroom you have. If you are trying to get in around 1 foot of headroom then you should grow with fewer (3 or 4) plants in larger tubs with a longer veg under a nice agressive ScrOG. if you have 2 feet or more of headroom then go with more plants (6 or 8), smaller containers, a shorter veg and shoot for more of a SOG style. As for sourcing fungi, Espoma's Bio Tone Starter Plus contains everything you need. It contains several breeds of mycorrhizae fungus along with a half dozen kinds of beneficial bacteria. On top of that it is a good strong organic nute to boot. I used to buy all kinds of fancy powdered dormant pro-biotics but have come to use nothing but Bio Tone with great results. I buy 3 pound bags from Lowe's Home Improvement and it is generally easy to get a hold of. Can't wait to see you get it started, I would love to see some pictures of what the OBBTs can do for cannabis posted on this thread.

Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Thanks mate happy to be aboard!

I have read that lava rock may be better for bio buckets because they are more porous... but i dont think i have ever seen any down under in Oz. I have searched out the espoma range but it isnt available here... i am not prepared to pay for shipping so havta search some out.

I do have some fungi starter for organic teas that i never had much luck with. It doesnt specify which type is present but i will phone the company and try to find out. There is a 500g mychorz. pack i can order here for $77 plus shipping. I also have a few pine trees on my property i could have a wee dig under and see whats lurking around.

I will be growing in my 800w cabinet with CMH in cooltubes. Should have around 2 foot of total headroom above my biobox. Thinking i should go with 6 plants and have my first bash at a ScrOG right enough!

Cheers!

 

[dR. HerbLove]

Wow! Week 3 of flower and 4 inches tall? Yikes! I am familiar with low-headroom but that is insane.
-DM

Hehe, sorry, I meant to type 4' (feet). I wanted to keep my next plants small (2' max), so I stuck them in small containers, but now they are tough to work with.

I was also wondering though, why can a OBBT not be sustained on just perlite and hydroton? It has to be coco?

SilverSurfer_OG;

I noticed that you plan to grow with a CMH. What have your experiences with it been? I would love to try one out, but I read that you need to wear long sleeves while working with it so I was spooked. How convenient has it been for you?

Thanks!

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

dR HerbLove,

Ahhhh! Four feet. That sounds more like it. You can indeed use smaller containers to limit the overall heigt of the finished plant, but doing this also limits your yield. The idea here is to maximize our yields. You do not have to use small pots to get short plants. The practice of supercropping, which I have already described at length on this thread, can keep plants very low to the ground without sacrificing yield. Using this technique a sub-2-foot-plant can easily bear 50 canopy-level-colas with no need for topping, trimming or any other form of training. I would reccomend this over using small containers for height-control. It is even more effective than small containers and doesn't limit your yield. I've seen an average of more than four ounces per plant under 24 inches of height and that was before I had perfected the OBBTs. Now about your proposed medium:

The OBBTs are unique because their medium is designed to harbor strong micro-life. I have no doubt that if you where to fertilize a pearlite/hydroton mix with all organics and use pro-biotic suppliments you would indeed yield sustained microlife. Beneficial pro-biotics are not exclusive to the OBBT technique. What the technique does get us is to be able to combine organic soil (compost) with forced oxygen injection. This would be impossible in a straight 100% soil mix. The point of the coco and vermiculite and perlite and all the other constituents is to support the compost. Dirt particles are suspended in the water-insoluable constituents that make up the other 75% of the medium. The runoff from an OBBT is completely clear even though it contains a lot of dirt. Use of coco fiber specifically is irrelivent to the principles that drive the OBBT. We are only interested in it because it does such an amazing job at what we need it to do. Pearlite, vermiculite and coco moss all have different grains and consistencies. This allows them to work together as a very effective sponge which is meant to hold the soil. The indert constituents alone (such as your proposed hydro/pearlite mix) could never support a fungal colony anywhere near as good as the ones found in my OBBT because they lack soil. What inerts get used along with it are of little concern to us so long as they are able to grip and suspend the soil, allowing air to push through it easily and water to drain past it quickly without carrying all the important sediment away. The fact that actual dirt is used in the medium is really what sets the OBBTs apart from other forms of organic hydro, not the coco or the bubblers or any of the other contrivences that are required to make the system work. It is the fact that we can get active oxygen injection into an environment featuring organic soil (nevermind that its only 25%, it makes no difference to the fungus) that makes the OBBTs unique. Skipping out on this would be to create a new technique entirely. I am sure that what you describe would be capable of growing cannabis, but I can make no comment nor dole out any advice concerning it because it cannot be classified as an OBBT. I certainly encourage you to experiment, but what you propose is beyond the bounds of my expirience and I cannot guerentee that the results would please you. Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

 

[plumbum]

hi, just would like to give a quick update.. my test is running, unfortunately my camera is stolen so there are no pictures.. so far out of six plants in OBBT only four made it.. the possible reason is that level of hydroton was bit too low and the soil was touching the liquid so they just got overwatered and wilted.. another possibility is that my top drain valve got clogged.. it's only 1/4" with some mesh.. i've also added the bountea humus tea to help with micro-life and it was growing there like crazy.. in the units that didn't make it the bubbles were coming up through even perlite.. not good.. i've tried to drain it from the bottom, but not that much liquid was coming out.. the other 4 look good and greener compared to straight coco without added air.. but as far as overall i don't see difference yet.. plants in coco first couple weeks look a bit yellow due to coco being new.. and withholding some elements.. they usually catch up on color by week three.. we will see.. they get so far transition mix of cutting edge solution nuts.. i give plants in OBBT also once in a while little bit of cutting edge solutions feed.. raising the ppm.. i am shopping for peruvian bat guano now.. but can't find it.. is it possible there were mistake and it is peruvian seabird guano? or it is bat guano, but not peruvian.. having hard time to find corn cob ash also.. any advice on that? thank you..

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

High guys

So i have my biobox that im gonna use, it holds about 50 litres or so. Decided on hydroton as i didnt realise how heavy the lavarocks are! Sources of mychorz. are proving expensive and hard to find so im gonna be digging away under all available pine trees. Will have plenty space in my cab for a few other plants in seperate pots so will be interesting to see the difference in growth...

dR HerbLove: I have only good things to say about the CMH. Havent had a good chance yet to see what they can really do as i have had issues with heatstress due to poor ventilation. This should now be fixed. They do run much cooler than HPS and sposed to last longer. They are very bright but have had no issues with bare skin. Just havta wear shades.

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

so far out of six plants in OBBT only four made it..

"Uh oh!" I thought. "there is some yet-undiscovered flaw in my design, FFFFFFFFFuuuuuuuuuuuuUUU"

in the units that didn't make it the bubbles were coming up through even perlite.. not good..

"UU- Oh." Huzzah for self-explanatory issues. Let us go back to an earlier post in this thread a response of mine to the questions of hempy bucket veteran pray4pistils:

Your vermiculite/pearlite mixture will work, but you will expirience bubbling and frothing at the surface of the medium. The mix you currently use is just too dense.

-DM

Though I've not experienced the issue myself, I figured a while ago that any bubbling at the surface would be a good threshold observation for medium density. Seeing this means that the air is not dispersing into the medium, but simply pushing past it on its way out. The whole idea of the OBBT is for the bubbles to come out the stone, be thoroughly broken up on their way up the (as I've said, preferably deep) completely rock-filled bath and then break at the surface of the bath, releasing the contained air in gaseous form to peculate up through the loose spongy medium. This process is everything. It forces the medium to be at full moisture saturation all of the time without being 'wet'. The medium doesn't actually have to have a lot of water 'holding' capability. Don't mix it like something you would happily drop alone into a lone pot to successfully grow a plant. OBBT medium is just that, a medium, despite the fact that it is very organic and contains soil and so on it is more aggressively set up than any kind of stand-alone potting mix. The high percentage of coco (50% is basically the minimum, but it is still my preferred quantity) is meant to make it extremely 'fast draining'. The medium doesn't actually 'hold' water very well. That's totally fine though as we have a gallon or more of water kicking it down in the bath. As long as the water line stays above the air stone the effect continues to work, keeping the entire medium totally saturated with moisture and oxygen.

That water line is important. It needs to always stay under the 'line' where the coco medium comes to rest on whatever chosen 'rock' you use. That is the purpose of the overflow drain; it must always remain free-flowing and be placed at a location sufficiently low to keep the water from completely saturating any of the organic medium. It sounds like this is your stumbling block plembum!

As for the guano, I apologize, I was mixing the names of 2 things. It is bat guano you are looking for but I was thinking of Indonesian bat guano and Peruvian seabird guano.

Corn cob ash on the other hand I doubt you could buy anywhere. Here in the Midwest its a simple matter of walking out into the nearest field in the fall and picking up the chunks of cobs left by the harvesters. I use a little oak strip kindling and burn down a few pounds of cobs into several mason jars full of excellent potash. You may have to get more or less creative depending on where you are. Organic ash of pretty much any form will provide some measure of potassium providing material. But some are stronger than others and all of it raises your pH to some measure. Corn cob ash is very potent and so the small amount needed is nice for negating a lot of pH buffing.

Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

High guys

So i have my biobox that im gonna use, it holds about 50 litres or so. Decided on hydroton as i didnt realise how heavy the lavarocks are! Sources of mychorz. are proving expensive and hard to find so im gonna be digging away under all available pine trees. Will have plenty space in my cab for a few other plants in seperate pots so will be interesting to see the difference in growth...

Haha, yea, red lava rocks are lightwight for a rock but still heavy for a grow medium! I've never used hydroton in the bath but I do suspect that it could preform even better than lava rock at the desired tasks.

Pure concentrate of pro-biotics are stupidly overpriced. I've fallen in love with Espoma's Bio Tone Starter plus, which is a nice mixed organic fert that comes loaded with tons of beneficial fungus and aerobic bacteria. Other more natural methods such as Lacto Bactilli cultures, good active compost or your chosen digging about pine trees can be just as reliable. However be sure to maintain a good and long culturing period (the bit where you mix up the medium and nutes and set it all in the tubs to bubble away in the dark for a good week before covering with pearlite and sticking plants in then). This will assure that only beneficials survive and that all nutes are nicely captured so as not to shock baby plants.

Be sure to keep the density of the medium down for the OBBTs, see my rant above for any details on that. Otherwise you sound right on track, I'm stoked to hear about any progress. Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

 

[GreenThumbBumb]

Haha, yea, red lava rocks are lightwight for a rock but still heavy for a grow medium! I've never used hydroton in the bath but I do suspect that it could preform even better than lava rock at the desired tasks.

Pure concentrate of pro-biotics are stupidly overpriced. I've fallen in love with Espoma's Bio Tone Starter plus, which is a nice mixed organic fert that comes loaded with tons of beneficial fungus and aerobic bacteria. Other more natural methods such as Lacto Bactilli cultures, good active compost or your chosen digging about pine trees can be just as reliable. However be sure to maintain a good and long culturing period (the bit where you mix up the medium and nutes and set it all in the tubs to bubble away in the dark for a good week before covering with pearlite and sticking plants in then). This will assure that only beneficials survive and that all nutes are nicely captured so as not to shock baby plants.

Be sure to keep the density of the medium down for the OBBTs, see my rant above for any details on that. Otherwise you sound right on track, I'm stoked to hear about any progress. Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

Lets me start off by saying i have really enjoyed this thread, i was looking for something in between in between hempy and bubbler with an organic twist and you have nailed it. Im about to wrap up my hempy grow and am going to try your bucket. I will be using bio-tone because i can buy it at lowes and its cheap and has everything, i was buying this stuff before i realized how important it really was. My main question is the organic medium. I was planning on a mix like yours but was wondering if a mix like Organicare Aeration would work. It OMRI listed and contains

Ingredients: Coir fiber, composted forest product, compost, pumice, perlite, humic acid (Humex)(derived from leonardite ore), seaweed (Seaplex) (derived from Ascophyllum nodosum), fish meal, alfalfa meal, composted poultry litter (Pure), earthworm castings.

I was going to buy a bag of coir and a bag of EW castings but the only size bag of ewc my shop carries cost $20 and the Organicare is only $15 and has ewc along with lots of other stuff. I was thinking about still cutting it will 50% coco for a nice airy mix. Any feedback on this medium would be appreciated. I would still mix in biotone, lime, and maybe some blood meal or guano for N.

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

Holy balls!

Organicare Aeration you say?

I'm gonna have to check that stuff out myself, sounds amazing! Fuckin everything on it's ingredient list is something you want. Its got goddamn Ascophyllum Nodosum seaweed. That is a specific breed of kelp harvested only in the north Atlantic which contains a natural hormone cocktail that has the greatest effect on cannabis out of any of the breeds of seaweed. Ho. Lee. Shit. I normally have to drive hours to just get that breed of kelp (in powdered form for adding to the medium, liquid for foliar feeding) by itself! You've apparently tripped over an organic medley that looks to me a perfect companion to the OBBTs. Some of its ingredients balance out the Bio Tone Starter Plus very nicely. Honestly, between that stuff and the Bio Tone I'm not sure I would add much more to the medium for the pre-loaded nutes. Epsom Salts and a little Fast Acting Lime, perhaps a little bit of blood meal to top off the nitrogen (I like a ratio of 3 parts nitrogen for 1 part phosphate and 1 part potash to get from start to flower).

Now as amazing as it sounds, I'm not personally familiar with Organicare Aeration's consistency (IE: I've never run my hand through it. As much as I try to describe the perfect OBBT mixture I could only personally identify when it is mixed 'right' by it's smell and feel) and so can't advise you on how exactly to mix it. What would you guage the coco percentage of the Organicare to be? I'll assume about half? Figure on cutting the organicare with coco moss at around 50/50 as you thought, maybe even a little heavier towards the organicare. I would still then add to this mix a significant amount of vermiculite and a judicious amount of pearlite (your organicare says it has some, once again I don't know at what percentage it contains). Count on adding some real compost in there as well. I know that the organicare is packing worm castings and 'composted forest product' but its been sitting in a bag for who knows how long and I doubt there is enough of it in relation to the rest of the medium. Some good, fresh, microbally active compost may still be in order, although my originally recommended 25% should be lowered based on how good you judge the compost content of the organicare to be. As I've mentioned, OBBTs are cool and work because they are basically DWC hydro with the added benefit of dirt. The whole point of this venture is to create a medium with a good amount of excellent soil in it that is still able to pass and handle air like a hydro medium (straight choir for example). Its a simple concept but the more I, and others like you, experiment the more I think that it is a fairly delicate balance. It doesn't matter so much what the base constituents are, only that a certain consistency is achieved. The problem is I don't know a universal way to get this consistency, or even how to adequately describe it.

Frankly, I'm a little envious of this Organicare Aeration business, it sounds perfect. I'm going to have to check it out for myself, but it combined with Bio Tone could dramatically reduce the complexity of assembling a good OBBT medium. Very pleased to have you on board Green Thumb, I look forward to your future output.

Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

 

[GreenThumbBumb]

Organicare is by Botanicare they just came out with this line of OMRI products. An aeration mix, retention mix, slow feed granules, and a whole line of additives. here a link to most of them
http://www.thebigtomato.com/catalog/organicare.htm

and i just saw this in a mag today Just Right Xtra contains
GH coctek coco
alaskin humus
perlite
ewc
silica stone
GH Rare Earth
GH Subculture M&B

with the subculture you wouldnt even need biotone
https://ssl.cgicafe.com/clients/hmoonhydro.com/just_right_xtra.html

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

A very impressive lineup, I have a few concerns though:

The just right Xtra and the Organicare Aeration are fairly similar, both having their strengths in comparison. The Xtra features large chunky pearlite, sulfate of potash, rare earth elements, silica and both beneficial fungus and bacteria. The Organicare features the very desirable Ascophyllum Nodosum kelp, humic acid and fish meal. On balance I would choose the Xtra over the Organicare. The Aeration stuff's only real advantage is the kelp and that can be added on your own. Because of redundancy in materials I would not use both of them simply because of cost and complexity. I doubt you could go wrong choosing either one of them, but keep in mind that neither has enough nitrogen for aggressive development in veg. They will need to be supplemented with an organic source of N as well as additional pearlite/vermiculite and organic compost to get to our desired consistency.

The only real hesitation I have about either of these frankly excellent bagged organic mediums are their consistency. I have not had personal expirience with either one and so cannot make specific reccomendations on what to add and at what rate so as to reach the 'desirable' consistency. I've always known that this is very important to the operation of the OBBTs; but with user plumbum's reports of a failed 2 out of 6 OBBTs with bubbling and frothing pushing up through the pearlite cap I have begun to fully realize just how important and perhaps difficult to achieve the 'perfect' consistency for an OBBT's medium really is. I cannot stress enough that the spongey, aerated nature of the medium has to be just so. I've not yet cranked out enough OBBTs to know how to get just so using any constituents at hand. All I know is my own recepie which I know to be successful. You will have to use experimentation and a green thumb's intuition to get it right for yourself.

The process here isn't compliacated and as much as it annoys me to admit it at this point success seems to be based on your ability to feel. I HATE going by my gut and feeling for a solution. I would much rather be guided by hard, fast and predictable scientific principals. Sadly all I can give you is a deep description of the ideas behind my method (which I have don through this thread) and the best description I can muster of the 'perfect' medium consistency. If you truly understand the principals that guide the OBBT methodology you shouldn't have too much trouble re-creating this on your own. You seem to have a very good intuition for what is good in the world of organics GreenThumbBumb, I trust that you will have an easy time discovering the perfect OBBT medium on your own.

Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

Hey there organic danksters

Got my box up and running with the dirt getting bubbled. Got 4" of hydroton balls and then mix of 50% coco, 25% perlite and 25% compost/castings. Which is very similar consistency to my normal organic mix.

Added to that handful each of composted chicken manure and 2 aussie ferts Dynamic lifter and Organic link, both slow release dry. Together have all kinds of goodies like zeolite, soft rock phosphate, blood n bone, kelp, silica and potash etc. Also added bout handfull char i cooked up with garden scraps.

I dug around few pine trees and found some grey/white stuff in patches and a more solid looking white/yellow fungi. Got about a couple litres and sieved the soil/fungi into mix.

Sprayed it all with lacto b and other goodies and now fingers crossed maybe get some mychorrzeee going, yeah!

My pump has 2 x 200litre p/h outlets connected to 24" bendy bubblers. Not sure exactly how im gonna put my bottom drain in but will figure
it out...

I reckon four of these puppies will make it in the box in a weeks time.

 

[DrunkenMessiah]

SilverSurfer!

I am endlessly pleased to finally see pictures of someone puting my method to work. From what you've shown it looks like you have managed to construct an OBBT perfectly. Your execution appears flawless and the elements you've chosen to bring together should work well. The hydroton may be an improvement over my chosen lava rock for the task at hand and those bendy bubble wands look so good that it seems as though they where designed with this purpose in mind. This is easily the largest OBBT yet constructed and I am interested to see how it gets on at this scale. Your medium looks nice and spongy, although I don't see any wispy red coconut hairs sticking out like I can in mine (could just be the image). All things considered a perfect 10 performance on the construction front.

Now, with all of this praise made I do have a few concerns reguarding your work so far, primarily about your planned planting configuration.

The OBBT technique is the result of years of experimentation. It has been a long and difficult gestation. Along the way I discovered many many ways that you shouldn't grow cannabis. Early on in my experimentation I worked on something that I had tentatively dubbed 'The Trough Method'. At the time I was trying to get the maximum amount of space for the plant roots in the minimum exterior size. I determined that individual pots where a waste of space and that it would be more efficient to grow all of the plants out of a single container. I fabbed up an open-topped wood box that was the desired size and then lined it with a thick puncture-resistant vinyl. At this point I was also experimenting with coconut based mediums, natural hormone treatment and forced oxygen injection. This means that the final product very much resembled my modern OBBT except that it didn't have a lower dump valve. The method was not perfect and I did not understand microlife very well at the time but despite this it delivered on much of the OBBTs potential. It was the fastest, most vigorous veg I had yet expirienced and things where looking good as I flipped the switch and sent them into flower.

Troubles started shortly after strech began. Though the plants where of several different breeds they had all been growing at similar rates up until this point. However, inexplicably, some of the plants stopped growing. They didn't die back, they didn't get nutrient deficient, they where not burned, they just stopped. Other plants continued to grow quickly but more more of them tapered off and halted in their development. In the end only an average of 1 out of 6 plants swelled up their buds properly and yielded a decent harvest. The rest of them went on living pathetically, producing only a few calyx hairs and seed locations that where so sparse you couldn't really call them 'buds'. And then things got even weirder.

When I cut down my first (and coincidentally largest) mature plant "Bertha" she was on the far left side of the trough with only one other plant between her and the left edge of the container. This other plant was one of the first ones to 'stop' its growth and had changed very little since the beginning of flower. However, within days of having cut Bertha down this other plant resumed growth. Actually 'resumed' is an understatement. The little fucker exploded and would go on to become "Violet"; one of the largest, highest-yielding and most interesting plants to come out of this grow. It was so good in fact that I still have her genetics in storage waiting for the day I can again have my own garden.
Turned out my problem was root strangulation! For every plant that recovered like Violet there where many others that never did and the grow, as interesting as it was, ended up producing an absolutely dismal yield: 0.35 grams per watt, my lowest yield efficiency ever.

It is for this reason that I have been wary of common root zones ever since. I have subsequently been told by experienced gardeners that growing multiple cannabis plants (especially different breeds) with roots in a common medium-filled container is asking for trouble. It appears that the super-aggressive root development encouraged by the OBBT technique only exacerbates this issue.

SilverSurfer

Therefore I would be wary of your plan to set 4 plants into the single OBBT that you have built even if it is quite large. I believe that the plants would have a stupendous veg that would blow you away, only to disappoint you when they slow down and fail to yield well during flower. I must strongly recommend that you reconsider this course of action. One thing I thought of when my Trough method failed but never tried: dividers. I thought that some kind of plastic sheet could be useful for divvying up a large sort of OBBT to prevent root strangulation. Make sure the sheet spans from top to bottom all the way across the tub. Cut a couple of notches in the bottom of it so that the water level stays the same in all of the newly created 'cells'. In theory you could use 2 sheets with a deep cut halfway down the both of them to interlock together into a sort of symmetrical cross shape. Inserting this into the middle of your tub would create 4 separate cells that are all serviced by the same medium and bubblers and such. Given the size of your tub each cell would still be several gallons in volume and could easily support a moderately sized cannabis plant to full maturity. I think that this would net you a much better yeild than if you stuck four plants in a common OBBT medium and left them to their own devices.

Also keep in mind that even if you use deviders each cell will have exactly the same soil chemistry, nute concentration, feeding schedule and flush/starve regime as all of the others. This leaves very little flexibility for differences between the plants. If the plants are the same breed and their roots stay isolated from each other then this should not be a problem. If you let them all go with a common root zone I cannot help but think that some will surge ahead while others are left behind. This parity will fast make it impossible for you to treat the medium in a way that keeps all of the plants happy. The bigger ones will end up nute deficient and the smaller ones will end up burned.

I do not mean to discourage you from experimentation, by all means use the knowledge that I have provided on this thread to concoct your own cannabis growing technique. I am simply sharing my past expirience and trying to save you from disappointing results from your initial foray into the OBBT method. I want everyone to have a good first experience using my technique, after that they can feel free to experiment away. I just want to make sure that any poor results get attributed to the grower's unwise experimentation as opposed to a fundamental issue with my method. Keep this in mind SilverSurfer and see if you can't find a way to divide your massive OBBT into individual sections for each of your 4 plants.

Good luck and happy gardening!

-DM

 

[GreenThumbBumb]

Hey nice job Silver Surfer, looks great. Hey DM i finally picked up some of the Organicare medium, pretty fluffy going to cut it with coco and perlite anyways. I wanted to get your opinion on 1 more thing before i started. Instead of using the blood meal i was going to try the Organicare slow release granules. They are OMRI and only about $5 for 1liter bag. Just wondering if you preferred blood meal for any reason other than it being a cheap available organic nitrogen supplement. Its made for coco or soil.
6-6-5 + 8%Ca
Fish meal, sulfate of potash, alfalfa meal, composted poultry litter, and seaweed(Ascophyllum nodosum) also contains 3% humic acid from leonardite.

Sounds like some great stuff to me, just wanted to get any thoughts you might have, and i know its just your opinion, so please share anything, thanks!