1st Time Attempt at Aerotubes: Indoor SOG Kandy Kush 400W HPS

[Android]

I decided to start a journal of my upcoming grow. Right now I am drilling holes for sprayers and the army of clones is almost ready to inhabit the new 64 site SOG rig.

This is a test so far - mods: please let me know if I am out of line in any way.

Will update when I get the first set of pics uploaded.

Andre

Peace!

 

[Android]

The goal of the first hydro grow experiment will be - not to fail. I am not setting myself up for 1g/W threshold just yet. But that is in the plans for future grows

Meanwhile: in today's mail:

 

[Android]

This is where I'm currently at - in my basement bathroom figuring out how to eliminate leaks from places where sprayers screw into the pipe:

Paper towel test (you can see the angle the sprayers will be at):

 

[Android]

This is the master plan:

Now about the room where this will be located.
Let's start from the entrance (where is it?):

Sim-salabim-open-sesame:

...but it looks like someone is still flowering there? What do we do?

...most of these are about to get harvested tonight:

 

[Android]

So in the meanwhile- while my soil babies are still flowering in the intended room, I am assembling the rig in the temporary location - spare bedroom:

on the pic above you can see my main res in the top right corner. Here it is up close:

This here is the whole rig as it currently sits (without caps on and rail nr1):

6 inches between plants:

Here you can see the drains and the runoff catch-can, consisting of two side-by side underbed storage containers that will be joined together and have a return pump to pump out the discharge back into the main res as soon as certain level is reached:

The main res fill go right behind the washer here:

A part of the vent system that is cooling the light and pre-filtering the exhaust with the scrubber. This is a well room - the exhaust is in the ceiling, which comes in REALLY handy:

 

[Android]

I will type some words for my water supply:

the filter sits one floor above the basement (extra pressure bonus) under the kitchen sink:

fittings and plumbing supplies:

And a mcgyver type makeshift 5ga expansion res sits above the fridge:
(I drilled a hole in the fridge and installed 1.25ga water container with auto top-off valve inside (0ppm water is tasty - yum!))

This will control the res ph by automatically adding diluted bloom nutes to the res:

...using the peristaltic pump:

 

[Android]

Now let's talk about those clones, shall we?
they must be somewhere here:

sim-salabim:

is this a whong closet?:

let's not jump into conclusions:

On the bottom we can see the remainder of vegging potted plants. They will be gone to the flowering chamber as soon as there's room available.

three current Kandy Kush moms in square pots:

mom closet ventilation (on top again):

...on the bottom - I will take the middle shelf off and put three more moms on the bottom of the closet:

moms to be - future moms in a temporary location:

therefore I will have 6 moms total - this way I will take the 10 best clones off each one every time...


talking about clones- here they are, 2 full trays of 36 each:

the attack of the clones:

you can see the Sunleaves' plugs on this pic:

They are ready to go:

This means I really need to get back to work like - right now. More to come.

P.S. How do I post the link to this topic in my sig on this board? Or do I have to reach a certain level first?

 

[Android]

I am back after initial testing with some pics.

P.S.: By the way, I haven't bought any nutes yet, so (wink) please contact me if you wanted to sponsor my humble beginnings - doomed to fail or succeed - one of two. But I give a promise that I won't be blamed for not trying. I wanted to go organics (home-brewed worm castings tea as a base nute and aerating the main res for microorganisms, farming bacteria - taking care of business...), but I dare pure chemists to jump in and have me converted to the dark side. Otherwise please don't bother.
Thanks for reading

This is a float switch I am planning to use to control the pump that pumps water back to the main res:

I finally got my feet wet with hydroponics (sweet!)

the testing bench:

I made some modifications to the system, one of changes was to put inner rails in the middle where they belong:

Here is the manifold:

Slim Jim could be a little more rigid... in my dreams:

This is for draining the poles, I will have to make some changes:

It should say something else but made in china. I mean- I have the eyes, but I'm not Chinese,

Oh, one more thing - there will be lids on both reses- on the runoff catching res as well as the Fat Jim

 

[dragontoker]

Great start, lots of great pictures! Ive thrown one of these together but never grew in it, just ran tests. I think the only thing I would change on yours being that I only gave it a quick glance would be to run the PVC water lines on the outside of the rails, run 1/4inch tubing from the 1/2" pipe to the top of the rail, punch a big enough hole to use a grommet and mist from the top of the rail. Where you have the misters they are not easily serviceable plus they are going to be right in the middle of where the bulk of roots will be.

Just my thoughts from my own tests and seeing others setups where the rail gets pretty much packed with roots.

 

[Android]

Great start, lots of great pictures! Ive thrown one of these together but never grew in it, just ran tests. I think the only thing I would change on yours being that I only gave it a quick glance would be to run the PVC water lines on the outside of the rails, run 1/4inch tubing from the 1/2" pipe to the top of the rail, punch a big enough hole to use a grommet and mist from the top of the rail. Where you have the misters they are not easily serviceable plus they are going to be right in the middle of where the bulk of roots will be.

Just my thoughts from my own tests and seeing others setups where the rail gets pretty much packed with roots.

Thanks for sharing. running 1/4 to upside down sprayers was my A-plan, this is the B-plan. I was worried about loss of pressure leaks where 1/4 meets 1/2- I still don't know any easy ways of doing so.

On the topic of roots, I did what I did because of reasons:
1) I thought 2 inches of separation to every sprayer from the nearest net cup should be enough room to keep jets from becoming grown over.
2) I have seen ppl using rain gutters and 4" pvc, but these are 5x5 squares - there is plenty of volume for root development, especially given the next point:
3) In SOG clone2flower situation this kind of pot doesn't grow taller than ~2'.
Plants are faily small, so are their roots. I don't see a problem taking a rail out for mainenance.
Any of these make any sense?
And please do tell how did you run hoses off the 1/2"
Thanks\


P.S. One more ?: #What should I use to seal off the cap on the lower side so it doesn't leak - will plain transparent silicone work?

 

[Android]

0 ppm water handy and in abundance is SWEET

my nutes and the re-done manifold.

The whole setup has been moved to the garage for now (the testing showed how hard would it be to keep it 100% dry in a bedroom)

I barricaded the setup from the plain view with some junk, which luckily was laying around in sheer abundance:

..and taped the window with poly:

I ran into slight problem where because my res water level was higher than nozzles, the gravity teamed up with surface tension and were siphoning the res water through the nozzles. I had to put my crafty hat on this one. Here was how the problem was solved:

This is unrelated, just wanted to share what my next mini-project will be - can you guess what I am thinking of?

 

[Android]

It was unseasonably warm all this time, but last night was 28F, tonight they promise the same. So I am really relieved to see this high of survival rate in the morning:

this is the only one of 63 that did not make it:

The catch can this long won't fit in the space it is intended to, but otherwise - it's a perfect fit, especially for the pump float switch that I have:

right now the system survives on 1 min on / 12 min off (I don't have the cycle timer yet

Have 720 ppm (due to using too much baking soda to overcompensate for ph drop)

...and this is the return line's airvent to prevent the res water siphoning back to the lower res when the pump is off:

More to come

 

[dragontoker]

Not sure if I really understand the 1/4" to half inch leak question but all you do is use a thread tap into the half inch pipe to put fittings into the half inch pipe, wrap fittings with teflon tape.

For your end pieces, a non permanent solution would be to use silicone. A permanent solution, meaning you wouldnt be able to get them off again would be to use PLUMBERS GOOP, stuff goes on similar to silicone but hardens like a rock.

Better solution would be to incorporate a flat gasket that covers the inside of the cap and is somehow held in place tightly against the rail.

This guy did a good job with his build and shows @ the eleven minute mark how he attached his ends. 39 Pepper Aeroponic Rail System- Basic Overview - YouTube

 

[Sky Rocket]

Skyrocket is all aboard. I'm liking your setup.

 

[Android]

Thanks!

It would be great if I knew where to find clamping locks like on some older instrument cases and on ski boots and other similar ones - I'd use them to push caps against gaskets. Silicone works but is stinks and takes long time to cure (and still leaks in places) Plumber's Goop is the great stuff, but yeah, if you use it - have to be 100% sure you will never have to pull something apart.

I ran into expected problems of sprayers not reaching net cups (due to leaking or misalignment) And I have never come across any 1/2 to 1/4 fittings you were talking about)
To fight this problem, I will select a rail needed repairs and replace/fit better/put more sprayers in that place. It's nice that I am able to shut down one rail and move the refugees to temporary open spots for those that got KIA, do repairs, reconnect and reinhabit without shutting the system down.

I have a question: Do I need an airstone in the res or not? Roots should get their oxygen from the air when they dry out, and the nutes aren't organic - so no airstone is needed - is that true?


Got some pics today:

Juice for ph-down controller:

the peristaltic pump:

The controller is set to start pumping acid in the res as soon as ph goes over 6.1:

Day 3 survival. Added Rootbastic from Atama:

day 2 ppm at 780 (right after adding rootbastic. This morning I had it back to 680ppm)

In response to the video about guy growing peppers: Yes I saw it several times and saw how he attached the caps. In the video he said something that he was using fittings meant for electrical conduit - something I am not familiar with, plus I would had to have room in between posts for that to implement, so I screwed the idea to make it similar to the pepper guy.

Plus his spraying rails wer sitting on the floor. which is seems like a possible problem going forward.
I might change something about my rails placement inside a post as far as where the sprayers will be, but siliconed caps are fine with me - this is not a spaceship we are building here - gaskets are nice but not a necessity.

 

[dragontoker]

Good thinking on the latches, I actually have some here from making light canisters for diving, they hold the lid tight to a o-ring so the battery pack stays dry down to 500ft +.
They werent very cheap, like 10.50 a pair. I bet you could find cheaper ones doing a google search for DRAW LATCHES.

 

[dragontoker]

You should put multiple or one really good airstone in the res

 

[dragontoker]

I would imagine you would want quite a bit of turbulence in that res if your pumping acid in there, get it mixed up fast so that the controller can get a quick reading so that it doest over shoot.

 

[Android]

What is the logic behind res being humongous? Can someone clarify that for me?
As I'm guessing, it must be easier to keep it from swings in dissolveds levels and ph, plus if someone's running organics - then the bacteria breeding comes into play. I can also see how plants can consume large water quantities when they are stretching out, so extra water wouldn't hurt... And the temp doesn't get as warm (if the main res is outside of the grow space)... Anything else?

And why aerating the solution if it's chemical and not organic? I don't get it.

I tried playing with the controller and the acid, and how much would I need to drop the whole solution say by 0.5 ph. As the result, I opted out of diluting the acid and have the res mix up well because I found a better way of doing ph adjustment and not overshoot. Here is the secret: I attached the peristaltic pump exhaust piping directly over the ph sensor. As soon as any amount of acid hits the sensor - the pump stops right away. Sure, it will swing around for a while before mixing up and settling, but that's not a problem - the return pump stirs up the water in the res really nice (plus it has bubbles in it due to the breather in the system)
So to prevent overshooting - I use very small amounts of acid - it seems to do the trick just fine.

 

[Android]

Today I have noticed a troubling development: the res gets inhabited by some fine slimy seaweeds and now the sprayers pattern doesn't look the way it should = doomsday scenario. Need help