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passive plant killer
- Thread starter delta9nxs
- Start date
Snook
Still Learning
I use gobs of GOOP in spaced intervals above the top row of holes will hold the screen (I agree with 5") in place untill it is filled slowly with the media concoction, which plasters it to the sides of the bucket. BTW, this is all much eaiser if you do it before you put the wick in... took me a couple before I worked that out... I get high, what can I say. Hey , I get that white 'fuzz' on the top layer of the media.. Looks like white mold to me.. doesnt seem to do any harm... can I stop it from happening???
disciple. here is a crude drawing of my flower area. it is roughly to scale as far as room dimensions and light placement are concerned.
6.5' x 18.5' 120 sq ft.
all lights are on the room center line.
i began with 40" centers, then 44" centers, and now have 48" centers for the vertical lights portrayed by the small circles.
i was trying to operate with nine plants in this space, lighting the end one in the corner where the res is shown now with only one lamp.
i did this at the same time i went to a 4 week veg.
since this move i have had trouble getting over 15 oz's per, with a lot of 13 and 14 oz ones.
so i have gone back to 8 positions and will just grow those bigger to compensate.
in conjunction with this i added a week to veg making it 5 now. at 4 weeks the average plant would be 28-32" going into flower. at 5 weeks i'm seeing 38-40" plants now.
this is just about the limit of vertical reach for a single 1K at 16".
previously in veg i've had 6-7-8 plants in the same space. What I found was that as I crowded more together they did not spread as much.
I'm trying to hit the perfect combination of height and width for each space in flower after I get the other set of lights installed.
My original scheme was to just stack the new bulbs vertically on top of the existing ones, dropping both fixtures down a little.
But the more I looked at the plants and how they were shaping up top I realized that a set of horizontal lights would work better.
Whereas before I was trying to suppress stretch now I want to encourage it.
I have all the shit to do it just haven't got to it yet. Soon
in the drawing you see that there are only 4 horizontal lights so I will either just vertically stack the last one or not run it at all for 6 hours.
This is another illustration of the silly gram per watt thing that people do.
When I first set up the room I had 3 1k's hanging between the 8 plants and was working my ass off dragging monsters around the room to rotate them into and out of the premium light positions.
So I install the end lights to equal it all out and although I was producing significantly more bud per week my gpw % went down. But my $ went up. Which way to go, which way to go, oh no!
Similarly, here I could just install the four horizontals and run the last vertical light 6 hours like the others, and my gpw will go up.
But screw it, i'll just run the last one stacked.
And put the reflectors back on them facing the grow.
.
6.5' x 18.5' 120 sq ft.
all lights are on the room center line.
i began with 40" centers, then 44" centers, and now have 48" centers for the vertical lights portrayed by the small circles.
i was trying to operate with nine plants in this space, lighting the end one in the corner where the res is shown now with only one lamp.
i did this at the same time i went to a 4 week veg.
since this move i have had trouble getting over 15 oz's per, with a lot of 13 and 14 oz ones.
so i have gone back to 8 positions and will just grow those bigger to compensate.
in conjunction with this i added a week to veg making it 5 now. at 4 weeks the average plant would be 28-32" going into flower. at 5 weeks i'm seeing 38-40" plants now.
this is just about the limit of vertical reach for a single 1K at 16".
previously in veg i've had 6-7-8 plants in the same space. What I found was that as I crowded more together they did not spread as much.
I'm trying to hit the perfect combination of height and width for each space in flower after I get the other set of lights installed.
My original scheme was to just stack the new bulbs vertically on top of the existing ones, dropping both fixtures down a little.
But the more I looked at the plants and how they were shaping up top I realized that a set of horizontal lights would work better.
Whereas before I was trying to suppress stretch now I want to encourage it.
I have all the shit to do it just haven't got to it yet. Soon
in the drawing you see that there are only 4 horizontal lights so I will either just vertically stack the last one or not run it at all for 6 hours.
This is another illustration of the silly gram per watt thing that people do.
When I first set up the room I had 3 1k's hanging between the 8 plants and was working my ass off dragging monsters around the room to rotate them into and out of the premium light positions.
So I install the end lights to equal it all out and although I was producing significantly more bud per week my gpw % went down. But my $ went up. Which way to go, which way to go, oh no!
Similarly, here I could just install the four horizontals and run the last vertical light 6 hours like the others, and my gpw will go up.
But screw it, i'll just run the last one stacked.
And put the reflectors back on them facing the grow.
.
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D
disciple
stagehand099
Member
For anybody wanting to get some idea of the costs involved in building a 4 unit system from scratch and assuming a lousy tool collection where you have to buy every frickin' drillbit, etc., here is a list of materials I have actually gotten so far. People who shop around can probably do a bit better than this...I am not one who has the patience to look all day for a dollar here or a dollar there. I did extensively look around for the best price/shipping on the pump and the recycling timer, though. Hope this will help somebody stumbling in here looking for a materials list, etc. Oh and I haven't bought the parts for the pulse pump manifold yet...probably another $15-$20. Finally, I didn't include the RO filter I bought because I was going to get that anyway...like a masochist, I've been hauling 15-20 gals of RO a week from the grocery store for the last 2 years....yeah, crazy, I know.....
stagehand
8 - 3.5 gal black buckets + 5 lids $67.00 w/shipping
1 - 5 gal Lowes bucket $3.00
1 - adjustable float valve $16.00
4 - 6" sink tailpieces @ $2.60 ea. $10.40
1 - 20 gal Brute trashcan w/lid $28.00
50 ft. - 1/4" OD dripline $7.50
30 - 8" cable/wire ties $3.00
1 - goop plumber's $4.75
1 - 10 pack 1/4" tees $5.30
1 - Sentinel DRT-1 cycle timer $105.00
2 - 5 kg blocks coco coir @ $10.95 $22.00
(going to use this 3-1 w/perlite on 1st run)
1 - Eco Plus 396gph pump $29.00
15 - Tire valves $15.00
1 - 10ft piece of latex tubing $11.00
1 - 1.5" holesaw $8.50
1 - 2.25" holesaw $11.00
1 - 7/16" paddle bit $3.50
1 - 5 lbs. Jack's Pro 5-12-26 w/sh $26.00
1 - 5 lbs. Jack's Calc Nitrate w/sh $26.00
__________
$334.95
stagehand
8 - 3.5 gal black buckets + 5 lids $67.00 w/shipping
1 - 5 gal Lowes bucket $3.00
1 - adjustable float valve $16.00
4 - 6" sink tailpieces @ $2.60 ea. $10.40
1 - 20 gal Brute trashcan w/lid $28.00
50 ft. - 1/4" OD dripline $7.50
30 - 8" cable/wire ties $3.00
1 - goop plumber's $4.75
1 - 10 pack 1/4" tees $5.30
1 - Sentinel DRT-1 cycle timer $105.00
2 - 5 kg blocks coco coir @ $10.95 $22.00
(going to use this 3-1 w/perlite on 1st run)
1 - Eco Plus 396gph pump $29.00
15 - Tire valves $15.00
1 - 10ft piece of latex tubing $11.00
1 - 1.5" holesaw $8.50
1 - 2.25" holesaw $11.00
1 - 7/16" paddle bit $3.50
1 - 5 lbs. Jack's Pro 5-12-26 w/sh $26.00
1 - 5 lbs. Jack's Calc Nitrate w/sh $26.00
__________
$334.95
Snook
Still Learning
I'm sure it 'will' help someone. I've been using a plastic manafold like this one> http://www.horticulturesource.com/s...manif&osCsid=a6a53750e27d1aea761347a328480e94
, for the manafold in my pulse bucket, cheap. Shit, I've been doing the same for 4 years! Just recieved the RO machine yesterday.. Good luck.. thanks.
Hope everything is well D9...I hate that feeling of your heart about to explode through your chest. Buy some liquid ONA and mix with Soil Moist to make your own ONA gel. Put it in the bottom of a bucket with a fan blowing down on it. Holes drilled in sides of bucket a few inches down from the top. Rez has a tutorial somewhere. Great for the occasional odor that makes it past the filters. Hope you're safe and okay!
Great to hear, typed out my response before I saw the update....ona is still a nice thing to have around.
highroller614
Active member
MAN do I ever know that feeling, i was at my house sitting on some weight. About 20 pounds of high quality mexican that you could smell out on the sidewalk. I looked out the window and see cops all out front, then to the backdoor and cops everywhere out back. I thought mt door was gonna get kicked in. Turns out 1 of the drunk neighbors was shooting at the other 1.......I was so tight in the asshole you couldn't even get a toothpick up there lmao! What a relieve to find out they're not there for you. Anyway I just got to checking your thread out and so far its very descriptive and informative. Stay toking my friend........
stagehand099
Member
Hey Snook, how do you hook that air manifold up to the pump? And does it deliver a strong enough pulse? Thanks.
stagehand
Playing around with drafting software and mspaint again.. This is all drawn to scale with length of the light rays from the bulb shown as 16'' and plants at a 2.25 foot diameter which I extrapolated from the drawing shown.
So, that'd be flipping between 6ks worth of bulbs with a 1k in the center always on for a 4k flip. Multi-sided lighting is definitely a significant reason why vertical scales well. My rational for the layout above is you seem to want 8 of the same size plant as possible and it would be best to get as much surface area as close to the 16'' reach as possible. 2 of the plants only get 60% of the siding of the best 4 while the remaining 2 are at 80%. The plants that do get more siding are a little further from the lights which compensates to an extent. It would be rather crowded which would suck because you'd have to be pruning the plants. Damn, I'd bet that spacing would make for super dense nugs all around tho.
Let's not forget bulbs work at any angle. I've seen several pictures from Heath where he's got a bulb at 30 degrees or some angle to presumably make the best use out of the light by angling it down.
Factors that influence stretch are strain, nutrient profile and strength, medium, lighting, variation between day/night temperatures, and other training practices or stress. From experimenting with many plants at once in a very small space I have noticed nitrogen makes plants taller, but with looser spaced nodes. No idea about the amount of nodes. I've experimented with very shallow containers and they didn't seem to reduce the height a plant would grow if I watered more often, but I'm pretty sure it produced less if not any difference in amount of nodes.
I'm a big believer of the importance of the "premium light zone" and defoliating in veg can contribute to more buds grouped together, but so can other forms of training which do not remove foliage and lighting. Lower levels of lighting over a longer period of time amounts to a plant with tighter node spacing than vise-versa. What training and lower light levels have in common with the plant is that growth is ultimately slower resulting in an older, more mature, and if nothing else a higher quantity of node to plant height ratio come flowering. People tend to focus too much on time and not enough about space. Ironic space and time are the same thing.
On a different note; you mentioned wanting roots in the tailpiece and this made me think of a difference between my passive buckets and d9's at the beginning of this thread. d9 theorized that creating enough air roots would make it so there could be a constant supply of submerged water roots, but he said we would rip the roots off. Maybe because they over-watered the plant. I haven't ripped off the roots on 2 of my girls and they've sat in stagnant water for at least 10 days with 1 or 2 top feeds added to the previous run off. d9 seemed to have been able to do the same, but we have done differently is that the solution level in my bottom bucket has never reached the height of the bottom of the tailpiece.
Anyway, just my 2 cents about things. I hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings and it would be nice to be treated kindly, if not otherwise ignored, in return. Peace.
So, that'd be flipping between 6ks worth of bulbs with a 1k in the center always on for a 4k flip. Multi-sided lighting is definitely a significant reason why vertical scales well. My rational for the layout above is you seem to want 8 of the same size plant as possible and it would be best to get as much surface area as close to the 16'' reach as possible. 2 of the plants only get 60% of the siding of the best 4 while the remaining 2 are at 80%. The plants that do get more siding are a little further from the lights which compensates to an extent. It would be rather crowded which would suck because you'd have to be pruning the plants. Damn, I'd bet that spacing would make for super dense nugs all around tho.
Let's not forget bulbs work at any angle. I've seen several pictures from Heath where he's got a bulb at 30 degrees or some angle to presumably make the best use out of the light by angling it down.
I agree we need to be speaking in more specific terms than stretch. Is stretch how tall the plant ultimately gets or does the spacing in-between nodes and/or the amount of nodes define stretch? It is also used relatively to how much larger a plant gets in flower compared to its size in veg.
Factors that influence stretch are strain, nutrient profile and strength, medium, lighting, variation between day/night temperatures, and other training practices or stress. From experimenting with many plants at once in a very small space I have noticed nitrogen makes plants taller, but with looser spaced nodes. No idea about the amount of nodes. I've experimented with very shallow containers and they didn't seem to reduce the height a plant would grow if I watered more often, but I'm pretty sure it produced less if not any difference in amount of nodes.
I'm a big believer of the importance of the "premium light zone" and defoliating in veg can contribute to more buds grouped together, but so can other forms of training which do not remove foliage and lighting. Lower levels of lighting over a longer period of time amounts to a plant with tighter node spacing than vise-versa. What training and lower light levels have in common with the plant is that growth is ultimately slower resulting in an older, more mature, and if nothing else a higher quantity of node to plant height ratio come flowering. People tend to focus too much on time and not enough about space. Ironic space and time are the same thing.
On a different note; you mentioned wanting roots in the tailpiece and this made me think of a difference between my passive buckets and d9's at the beginning of this thread. d9 theorized that creating enough air roots would make it so there could be a constant supply of submerged water roots, but he said we would rip the roots off. Maybe because they over-watered the plant. I haven't ripped off the roots on 2 of my girls and they've sat in stagnant water for at least 10 days with 1 or 2 top feeds added to the previous run off. d9 seemed to have been able to do the same, but we have done differently is that the solution level in my bottom bucket has never reached the height of the bottom of the tailpiece.
Anyway, just my 2 cents about things. I hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings and it would be nice to be treated kindly, if not otherwise ignored, in return. Peace.
D
disciple
D
disciple
i didn't realize i had one.
in flower i'm inputting ec 1.2 or 600 ppm.
all i've been doing is dumping the individual plant reservoirs one at a time when i move a plant out to harvest. the sub line is clamped off, the res contents poured into a bucket that is thrown out, and the res bucket is scrubbed with detergent and a nylon brush.
it is then put back on line and allowed to flood.
if the control or pump buckets were dirty i would scrub them in place with a brush and dump them also.
that's it. it usually happens weekly.
now with the "black box" i'm going to have to pump it out to dump it.
i do the same thing in veg.
whenever a plant is moved for any reason i'll dump it's res.
all of our circumstances will be a little different so i think that if you monitor your reservoir trends you can keep tds and ph at manageable levels.
D
disciple
Quotes by Disciple
“who cares about vertical profile right with that kind of space!”
i've got a 10' ceiling in there! I don't care how tall they get as long as I can light them adequately.
“wonder what my (or your) veg times will/would be with 4-sided lighting (full wattage) in veg???”
when I move I will probably go to staggered unit grows instead of perpetual for personal time management reasons. Maybe three rooms 3 weeks apart or something like that. In that situation I could veg in place with the same power. Maybe 3 or 4 lights around each plant but only one on at a time. I feel like there could be a net cumulative compounding effect as this would turn almost all plant parts into producers instead of sinks. More weight from the same watts. I'm reading about this whenever I can but the minimum light to make a plant part produce and use instead of just use is somewhere around 300 umols. This is probably a graded effect. There is a yet to be determined break even point somewhere. Maybe an application for the use of flourescents or leds intra-canopy as well as hids extra-canopy. You can get 900 umols from a 26 watt cfl 6500k at 3”. another way of dealing with energy robbers.
“As far as stretch, will that increase the size of buds at budsites? Will it increase bud-sites? the whole defol in veg argument is to increase bud-sites within the premium light zone.... so many variables... so little time”
not the size but the bud count. You have noticed that defoliating in flower after stretch does not create more bud sites as bud set is complete but defoliating at initiation of flower does. It is obvious to those of us using vertical lighting that vertical stretch is restricted by lack of light to the top of the plant. You could compensate by raising the single light up above the plant somewhat but it will cost you yield overall as the mid part of the plant won't develop as much.
“would love to hear your thoughts on full wattage veg...... (aka vegging with flower wattage)”
see above
“also, regarding the reflectors for the vertical bulbs at each end... have you considered adjust-a-wings? The copies would work just as well as the orginals for 1/3 the price.... double-parabolic (ridiculous physics on refraction, concentration and reflection!!) and allow maximum heat diffusion (beatable only by mechanically vented/cooled shades... but waaaaaay better in terms of light returned!!!) “
I already own both the internal cool tube reflectors and three sets of the external wings so I will probably use them. But i'll take some light measurements to see what i'm losing.
“here is a weird question for you... do you think that heat (as in ambient air temp) has anything to do with the reduction in yield over the past little while? There is no way you are not right on top of conditions in your garden but on the other hand it's winter and you are running bare bulbs. I'm always amazed at how much cooler bare bulbs run than ones in reflectors and no matter how vigilant I am, things just seem to grow better through the bottom half of the year....probably not relevant but thought I'd throw it out there. (heat = expansion... plus there may be less CO2 in ambient in the winter??)”
I think I should do some explaining here. The only place I run a bare bulb is in veg where I have a large room to use as a lung. In flower I still have the cooltubes but instead of ducting the air into the attic I am recirculating throughout the house. Night only. during lights on. The coldest part of the day. I took the 6” ducts off the tops of the lights and plugged them temporarily and installed 6” duct fans onto the bottoms of the fixtures to blow air up through them towards the 10' ceiling. Then I have other fans blowing air into and out of the room and the big air handler fan moving the air around the house. By shutting registers and closing doors I can run all 6k all night long and keep the main house heater off. This is in sub-freezing weather. 2400 sq ft. house.
I run the heater daytime only but it doesn't consume as much energy with only a 10-20f differential.
This has cut my bill by almost 2000 kwh per month versus the same month last year.
My lights on temps are between 77-80f and lights off 67-70f. rh stays between 50-60%.
so i'm going to run the vertical lights initially ½ the photoperiod and the horizontals ½. Later, this can be adjusted as needed. It might be better to run the lowers 8 hrs and the uppers for 4 hrs or something like that. We'll see.
“some plants growing in PPKs indoors.
Turface MVP : Perlite (3:1)
Lucas @ roughly 75%”
beautiful plants, thank you for the pics! What light period were they in when those pics were taken?
“who cares about vertical profile right with that kind of space!”
i've got a 10' ceiling in there! I don't care how tall they get as long as I can light them adequately.
“wonder what my (or your) veg times will/would be with 4-sided lighting (full wattage) in veg???”
when I move I will probably go to staggered unit grows instead of perpetual for personal time management reasons. Maybe three rooms 3 weeks apart or something like that. In that situation I could veg in place with the same power. Maybe 3 or 4 lights around each plant but only one on at a time. I feel like there could be a net cumulative compounding effect as this would turn almost all plant parts into producers instead of sinks. More weight from the same watts. I'm reading about this whenever I can but the minimum light to make a plant part produce and use instead of just use is somewhere around 300 umols. This is probably a graded effect. There is a yet to be determined break even point somewhere. Maybe an application for the use of flourescents or leds intra-canopy as well as hids extra-canopy. You can get 900 umols from a 26 watt cfl 6500k at 3”. another way of dealing with energy robbers.
“As far as stretch, will that increase the size of buds at budsites? Will it increase bud-sites? the whole defol in veg argument is to increase bud-sites within the premium light zone.... so many variables... so little time”
not the size but the bud count. You have noticed that defoliating in flower after stretch does not create more bud sites as bud set is complete but defoliating at initiation of flower does. It is obvious to those of us using vertical lighting that vertical stretch is restricted by lack of light to the top of the plant. You could compensate by raising the single light up above the plant somewhat but it will cost you yield overall as the mid part of the plant won't develop as much.
“would love to hear your thoughts on full wattage veg...... (aka vegging with flower wattage)”
see above
“also, regarding the reflectors for the vertical bulbs at each end... have you considered adjust-a-wings? The copies would work just as well as the orginals for 1/3 the price.... double-parabolic (ridiculous physics on refraction, concentration and reflection!!) and allow maximum heat diffusion (beatable only by mechanically vented/cooled shades... but waaaaaay better in terms of light returned!!!) “
I already own both the internal cool tube reflectors and three sets of the external wings so I will probably use them. But i'll take some light measurements to see what i'm losing.
“here is a weird question for you... do you think that heat (as in ambient air temp) has anything to do with the reduction in yield over the past little while? There is no way you are not right on top of conditions in your garden but on the other hand it's winter and you are running bare bulbs. I'm always amazed at how much cooler bare bulbs run than ones in reflectors and no matter how vigilant I am, things just seem to grow better through the bottom half of the year....probably not relevant but thought I'd throw it out there. (heat = expansion... plus there may be less CO2 in ambient in the winter??)”
I think I should do some explaining here. The only place I run a bare bulb is in veg where I have a large room to use as a lung. In flower I still have the cooltubes but instead of ducting the air into the attic I am recirculating throughout the house. Night only. during lights on. The coldest part of the day. I took the 6” ducts off the tops of the lights and plugged them temporarily and installed 6” duct fans onto the bottoms of the fixtures to blow air up through them towards the 10' ceiling. Then I have other fans blowing air into and out of the room and the big air handler fan moving the air around the house. By shutting registers and closing doors I can run all 6k all night long and keep the main house heater off. This is in sub-freezing weather. 2400 sq ft. house.
I run the heater daytime only but it doesn't consume as much energy with only a 10-20f differential.
This has cut my bill by almost 2000 kwh per month versus the same month last year.
My lights on temps are between 77-80f and lights off 67-70f. rh stays between 50-60%.
so i'm going to run the vertical lights initially ½ the photoperiod and the horizontals ½. Later, this can be adjusted as needed. It might be better to run the lowers 8 hrs and the uppers for 4 hrs or something like that. We'll see.
“some plants growing in PPKs indoors.
Turface MVP : Perlite (3:1)
Lucas @ roughly 75%”
beautiful plants, thank you for the pics! What light period were they in when those pics were taken?
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