Rookie Aero Flo Grow Together

[hempyftw]

I like to see all the lp aero!

I like to see all the lp aero!

I'm very happy to see a thread of people all doing aerflo and diy lp aero setups! Thank you for encouraging others to show there work, an stop reading and start seeding!

I actually just finished up my first lp aero run about a month ago. Things went well to say the least. I was however some what let down by the the overall yield. After growing this strain for a little over 2 years in many mehtods, I think it's the strain, not me! (Certainly the aeroponics is not to blame!)

Enough words I suppose.... Let me get you caught up to what I got going on....

Can I get some clones please?

 

[hempyftw]

Wow...

Wow...

I had a thread typed up with like 26 pics an then I tried to post it... Apparently there is a 5 pic limit. So I'm going to have to multi post, sorry.

Now onto the Veg unit I say! (1-3 weeks)



Then they get to see the big system/lights!

1 week veg under big light (2-4 total)

 

[hempyftw]

and then....

and then....

2-3 week of veg (time to flip hurry!)

1st week of flowering!

https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=41676&pictureid=985454https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=41676&pictureid=985455https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=41676&pictureid=985456

 

[hempyftw]

and then....

and then....

 

[hempyftw]

Wow....

Wow....

Now were up to date.... It wasn't as pretty as it originally was... Damn this site and there rules!

Beginning of 4th week of flower.

 

[SouthernHaze]

Not seeing your pics. Maybe just me

 

[hempyftw]

Hmmmm..

Hmmmm..

I had the album they were in set to private..... I unchecked it, hope that lets ya see it.

Lemme know if it's still not working....

They show up for me.

for the heads up though

 

[aerokrafter]

Pix are working now!

Looks like you are going to have some monsters!

What nutes are you running?

If you have any questions - post em up. We have a pretty good group here that are quite helpful.

Welcome to the thread!


-AK

 

[SouthernHaze]

See them now . What's the genetics or strain if I may ask?

 

[hempyftw]

Can't wait to show an learn with everyone!

Can't wait to show an learn with everyone!

I started 2 years ago in ebb an flow with the 3 part GH and have never stopped using them. I chose them mostly for the cost, and the lucas formula which I have used.

M B V
Run 5-5-5 in veg as soon as they come out of the cloner.
Run 6-8-5 first 2-3 weeks of flower.
Run 8-14-2 weeks 4-5.
Run 8-16-0 week 6-7
Flush week 8 and harvest

I'm a well read gardener, with limited (3-4 years) experience. At the beginning I thought I knew everything! Which I had spent a couple years reading a couple hours a day, so I did "Know" a lot about growing. However having recently(1 year) taken the plunge from closet gardener to 100 sq ft.+ gardener, I have really appreciated the limit of my EXPERIENCE!

I have battled powdery mildew, spider mites, fungus gnats, "damping off" slime, etc... In just the last year! Having grown 2 years before that with no issues.

So I very much appreciate the ability to have some people to bounce some of this stuff off of.

I'm actually battling some slime in one of my cloners as we speak! I thought I had killed that stuff off with the cold temps and using a chlorine solution in the water. Which these things have helped dramatically. It just seems that one cloner that got the damping off seems to never root cuts anymore, just grows slime on them. Got another DIY cloner right next to it that pumps out the clones all day! Granite the DIY cloner has never seen the slime yet.

I am very vigilant in cleaning the units as well. I know that you have to disinfect them in-between runs. I usually run a 1 cup bleach per 5 gal water solution for awhile and wipe down the walls and pump as well as possible. I also disassemble the pvc and clean out the sprayers as well as possible.

I currently run the cloners at 70-73 with a mild chlorine solution as outlined in the thread about using pool shock. Hope yall got some more idea for me to battle that nasty slime!

Would love to put more down, but on my way to bar with some buds....

Look forward to learning from the group

 

[hempyftw]

Wow...

Wow...

Just saw I labeled the nutes M B V... I ment to say MBG Micro, bloom, grow and that is in ml/gal.

I also forgot to address the strain.. Space bomb by tga subcool.

Can you edit after posting?

Sorry! New to the forum!

 

[hempyftw]

Quadruple post!

Quadruple post!

Hope it's okay to triple, or quadruple post! I left out a couple pics yesterday I thought I would add in.

I also want to take a second to let some people learn from my mistake! Just recently I built a second aero rig very similar to my first, with only one difference. I picked a 1500gph 1/4hp sump pump instead of the 5-700 gph pump I have used on my other system and cloner.

I wanted to get a bigger pump because I know that the pressure will/did cause the droplet size to become very fine and much more of a mist then dribble. I also wanted to oversize it so I could use it to run 2 systems when I'm ready to get the third assembled. Unfortunately this idea had some very negative unintended side effects!

I put some very healthy and booming clones in that had vegged for 3 weeks or so. I let it run overnight and checked on it, everything seemed fine. Unfortunately I had to leave town that day for the weekend and leave the new system unattended. When I arrived back home that Sunday night ( gone for (36-48hrs) half of the plants had wilted!

The first thing I did was stick my hand in the water to check the temp. I almost shit myself when I instantly realized the water was almost body temperature! (85+). All of the pretty white roots I had set in there just a day ago had all turned brown an died! It doesn't help they also went from being under cfl's to under a 1000 watt hps at the exact same time.

To battle this issue I immediately took the pump out of the rez and added one of my smaller 500gph back up pumps. I also added about 3 oz of chlorine solution/gal of rez (1 gram pool shock/gal water). Fast forward 3 days to today and all but 2 of the worst wilted plants have recovered very well. The roots stay dead unfortunately and new ones grow as far as I can tell. These two steps were effective because the new pump lowered the rez temp from 85+ back to room temp 65. Then the chlorine solution killed the root rot that had started to take over the plants.

Hopefully if you read this you can learn from my mistake and properly size your pump beforehand. I could have also tried putting a relief valve in to stop the backup pressure in my manifold. Who knows, maybe if I would of built both systems like I had planned on it may not have heated up the water so much with back pressure! This was with a 30-40 gal reservoir if anyone is wondering.

I'm all ears on more powerful pumps if anyone has looked at any. I would like to get something like a shurflo or flojet and use it in my lp aero setup until I eventually try hp with it. Powering these sprayers with more powerful pumps really makes a difference in the sprayers output. And I like the idea of those pumps since they are outside the reservoir rather then in it.

Luckily the big girls didn't suffer from this silly pump selection of mine!

Here is a couple of the system empty. An some hash for those of you who are angry with book I just wrote!

 

[SouthernHaze]

Hempy-

Don't apologize . Any of your experience or mistakes are greatly appreciated around here. Might save one of us from repeating others mistakes. Keep it up ! I'm interested n pumps as well . I'd like to take my submerged and swap it with one that outside the res. feel like I might push my luck in the hotter months with temps in the res.

 

[oldergrower]

I wonder if you are trying for higher pressure if you used a pressure tank to hold to nutrient solution the pump would not run constantly and maybe get lower temps that way. Just a thought OG

 

[g33kdro]

- hempy - 1 on 5-10 off on a pump timer... as long as the room temps are good and the res has a lid you shouldnt have any heat issues. they dont need continuous water. they like to breathe too. i have a 1/3 hp and a 1/10 hp pump for my two best aero nft systems similar to yours. other thing i do is chill my res(in my UC system) with a stainless steel wort chiller(custom) il be posting a thread here soon of my grow as i am very proud of this current run. only a few hiccups. keep up the good work guys, data sheets are very useful and i need to start mine -_-

 

[hempyftw]

Good to get some feedback!

Good to get some feedback!

Ya I don't know why I didn't think of just using a timer... I'm sure that would have helped significantly! An then I would of got that sexy fine mist I was getting without the hot temps.

The room temp is fine! 65 consistently this time of year. The rez also has a lid although it is not fully fastened. It was really just that pump working too hard and constantly. I think 3 x 4' lengths of 1/2" pvc with only 5 sprayers each, hooked up to a 1500 gph pump with a 1 1/2" output port was just a bit overkill. Although there are ways to make it work, I already returned that beastly pump!

I know I"m eventually going to try some bigger containers rather then fence posts and when I do that, I'm thinking of using a pump that will do 30-60 psi or so. Although I'm kinda getting off the point of the thread, but if you got any suggestions on pumps of this nature pms are welcome!

Another great idea from oldergrower! I can tell you have done some reading similar to me. I will eventually take the plunge into the tank and solenoids and all the bells and whistles. I want to take an intermediary step between lp and hp call it mp if you will. I won't have the fine tuned fraction of a second bursts, but I plan to see if the fine mist makes that much of a difference and is worth the extra expenses/hassle.

I will most certainly invest in a chiller at one point. Before I grow my arsenal of equipment and construction too much, I need to start owning! Investors welcome! lol (certainly got the monthly payments!)

You guys gave me some great feed back though, great to be around like minded individuals

Plants are really starting to pack on the buds! I'm gonna hold out a few days to show ya though so it's more shocking. Hope to borrow a camera.

Ordered some dry koolbloom today because of AK. I was rereading some of his posts on nutes, couldn't agree more about GH giving deficiencies come flower. I first saw it in my ebb and flow tables, it showed even more in my last run which was aero. My current run hasn't shown much def luckily, I attribute that to feeding heavier this round, and changing the rez out weekly rather then biweekly like last time. I do learn from my mistakes, although I can't wait to add kool bloom to my arsenal.

If I hadn't literally just re-uped on gallon GH nutes, I woulda got DM to match you AK, I swear.

 

[SouthernHaze]

It has been advised on here also to leave pumps going 24/7. Just for people who weren't here . But maybe tht works too. I'm also gunna see if a pressure pot woul ba realistic option as I am starting to work out the numbers for a hp system. I no I go 24/7 bc I fear on and off cycles are going to destroy my pump faster. Kinda like a light bulb that get turned on and off too frequently. Maybe I'm wrong but made sense to me.

 

[hempyftw]

Woot.

Woot.

Ya AK suggested that cycling the pumps would shorten the life of said pump. Which I certainly believe.

Although plenty of people are doing it! If you read about stinkbud and his followers they use pretty much the exact same setup but run the pump 1on/5off. I think this was more to deal with the heat issues some of them had then anything. I can verify 24/7 works great though, it's what I use! An then you don't need a expensive cycle timer. (you can mod a reg timer to be a cycle timer with shorter intervals if you are a DIY kinda person)

However when you get to the HP world. You will notice not a single (well maybe one or two crazies!) person uses the pump 24/7. Usually when your running a hp system it's all about efficiency and control. Most of the hp systems that are achieving what I will call "ideal" results are only "running" their pumps for fractions of a second (up to a few seconds). In fact the real nice systems include a tank (accumulator) like oldgrower pointed out. The accumulator tank holds the water under pressure so the pump doesn't even need to run until the tank has been depleted below a certain cut on point for the pump to re-pressurize.

At this point they usually use a solenoid right at the sprayer to control the pulses of water so they can have the spray time down to .1sec-.5sec on/3-5min off or so. I even saw a guy that had a crazy manual pump that could pressurize a system up to like 200psi or something and then the tank would run for like a week without needing to be refilled. Talk about saving electricity! I think he only had to pump it like a few hundred times lol. But getting a properly sized and rated tank will ease the issue of the pump cycling often. Get a big enough and strong enough accumulator/pump combo to go up to 300 psi and you might only have to run the pump once a week/month depending on the size of your rig, timing of spray, and flo rate of nozzels of course. (but seriously, don't buy a accumulator tank and pump that big, even if they do exist, they will be super expensive!)

Before Petflora comes up in here and rips my head off for saying you need a accumulator, YOU DON"T NEED A TANK. He had great results with just a high pressure pump on cycle timer hooked up to his sprayers. Although some die hard hp guy will be right behind him telling him that his roots weren't true hp roots, they weren't hairy/fuzzy enough! LOL (Alot of the hp guys think they are gods gift to man, an they know EVERYTHING!) Exactly one of the reasons Id rather talk with you guys then them! I'm smart enough to know, that I'll NEVER know everything.

I'm gonna guess AK prolly doesn't want all this talk about these other methods gumming up his Rookie aeroflo thread though. Maybe I'll start up a new one to talk about some hp stuff. Although it all started because I wanted to find a pump to get a better spray pattern out of these ezclone sprayers. I swear it relates to the topic at hand! haha

After typing that sentence out, it struck me! Why not maybe look for a better sprayer? Although I'm already thinking that for water to come out at a faster pace given the same pump, the hole is gonna have to be smaller, eventually causing clogs. So maybe that's not the way to go.

Hope everyone's plants are doing well!

Southern, those girls look like they are about to hit some explosive growth! Well I mean they already filled in hella fast, but wait for that aero stretch! Not to mention how healthy they look.

Who is your amazing mentor? hehe

Ohh and Oldergrower, your harvest looks amazing! It's sad to say, but you over doubled my last yield in my aero system . How are the fruits of your labor treating you?

 

[usda101]

Got behind on tending the garden and before i knew it i had a forest of three different strains LOl . Height was going to be and issue . Took some scaffould work bending and tieing and cloning but got it under control and a week since flip . Almost even canopy throwing screen over them tomo . Had to remove some of the slow veggers built a tote system for them . Also will be finish fabricating other systems soon . Next run i will be ready to try suggested nutes and keep detailed notes .

 

[SouthernHaze]

hempy- yeah i feel what ur sayin id love to get into one of those setups later on.
anyways im at the two week mark in flowering and the ladies are looking beautiful. its starting to get snowy all around the bud sites and on the stems. this strain seems like it can take the nute hit, i was playing around and ramped the nutes up to 600+ and i saw no negative effects, however i have brought them back down to more recommended levels. ill get a data pic later was lazy and forgot to snap one. overall getting very excited i see the stretching strarting and all the little budsites blooming so great vibes coming from the bloomroom. i have added the first dose of floralicious and kool bloom with my res change heading into week three.

DAY 14










sorry quality isnt the best hope you can make out something ....