ElDoctore's Self Watering Coco - Candy Kush AF - Pineapple Chunk PP - VIVA Sativa PP

[ElDoctore]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

The next upgrade would just be a stronger output pump to drain everything straight out rather then in a bucket.
For the E'f of it, i decided to dabble in some Alexa technology after i got the dot as a gift. I got 2 switches which are Alexa controlled, so its "pump in on""pump out off".
Not a necessity, just an itch to try it out. Would save me the hassle of going around the tent to switch on the electricity everytime

 

[Scientific]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

What about just one pump at the bottom of the system with gravity draining everything else? (I guess that assumes a single, recirculating reservoir and not a separate feed reservoir and drain reservoir.)

 

[ElDoctore]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

Currently I have 2 pumps, one to push in, and another to pull out. Using gravity would take ages to drain to be honest. With this system all I need to do is put the output in the tea bucket and I have a recirculating system, I can time it for 30min 4 times a day, I just don't know if I should...

 

[ElDoctore]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

So here is currently how the whole set up looks like with the lights and everything.
Its a mixture of the 450w Viparspectar. Plus a mixture of CFL and LED lightbulbs.
Let me know if there is anything else that can be done to make things better.

 

[Scientific]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

I love the little genius loci peering down from above.

Your tent is looking like a pretty serious grow operation!

If it was my setup, I'd have aluminum foil or aluminum pie pan reflectors on all the light bulbs to double the brightness at the plant at no extra cost.

I'd move all of the LED/CFLs down within inches of the plants (but not blocking the big LED light).

I would find a way to have all four pots directly under the big light, rather than leaving the sweet spot under the grow light for the manifold head.

Those three changes could easily double or more your total light.

I would eventually double or triple the size of the grow bags to give more room for roots.

I suspect that you are going to want another or a bigger circulation fan eventually.

But that's all tuning at this point. Your setup is looking good, and your plants look healthy. They are leaving the seedling stage, so now things start getting interesting!

 

[ElDoctore]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

Hey Scientific,
I will take your advise on using the aluminium foil over the plants.
I wish i could push my plants to the center, but due to me premature "due to excitement" installation of the drain system, i cant get them closer.

So i decided i will take the leap and go for a recirculating system. I have been doing alot of research about it, and here are the main points.

The biggest worry in such systems is the "salt build up" and the main 2 reasons are 1. Over cal-mag feeding. The Ca is taken up by the plants very slowly, and a pH of 5.8 or under is the most required. This is why pH management is very critical at this stage.

I read in a forum as follows:-
PPM goes up, Ph goes down=plants require less nutes.
PPM goes down, Ph goes up=Plants require more nutes
PPM stable, Ph goes up=Equilibrium=Good thing.

It sounds like a solid algorithm to go by. I will use a 4 Gallon reservoir, probably third the nutes recommend by GH products, and wait and watch, Once i get the mixture right, and a stable Nute ratio, i'll probably be topping off the reservoir daily, managing the ph, and changing the water once every 4-5 days, I'll flush the pots with pH'ed water for 10 minutes, then make a new tea.

I'll be saving up on nutes and water, plus the plants get a nice flow of water running through them. My grow tent temperature is almost 30 degrees, so frequent watering would be desired.

As for frequency, currently i am opting for 4 times a day "when lights are on" 30 min per run.

What do you think?

I'll send pictures tmrw.

 

[Scientific]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

Cool.

A few thoughts. (I always have a few thoughts... )

I don't know that Ca is taken up by plants "very slowly." I would expect that at a reasonable pH and if the plant needs it, they'd just suck it right up. Is there some new folklore out there that I've missed? I fall behind occasionally.

pH management is important, but I'd be wary of calling it "very critical." pH can vary though a range. Fertilizers are compounded (if that's the word--sounds more like a pharmacy) with nutrients that become available at different pH's just to help with that, and some nutrients are also "chelated" in a very cool process that further increases availability beyond what a pH chart would show.

And chasing a particular pH number can be frustrating and a lot of of unnecessary work.

My .02 is to pay attention to pH, but don't let it make you crazy. This article from GH is good:
Advanced Nutrient Management — General Hydroponics

I read in a forum as follows:-
PPM goes up, Ph goes down=plants require less nutes.
PPM goes down, Ph goes up=Plants require more nutes
PPM stable, Ph goes up=Equilibrium=Good thing.​

Those sets of rules are interesting. I have a chart in my notes (you might too) that lists 18 different conditions. I think they are interesting to look at and think about, but are not to be swallowed whole. Biochemical systems can be really complicated, and unless you have instruments a lot more sophisticated than the typical grower has, it's hard to know with certainty exactly what's going on. So I'd suggest proceeding with caution and common sense, and trying to keep it as simple as you can.

I suspect after my experiences with a small hydroponic reservoir that the bigger the better for stability.

If I may make a request, please don't flush the pots! There is an absolute mania for flushing here on the forums. It reminds me sometimes of the popularity of bleeding patients in earlier times. Flushing is an emergency treatment that can be hard on plants. Even if you keep the pH steady, you're changing the osmotic pressure of the nutrient solution. I would strongly suggest just giving your plants a steady supply of not-overstrong nutrient mixture in the ratios suggested by the manufacturer and never to "flush" until at the very end of the grow (and the jury is still out even on that).

Turning the pumps on 4x a day sounds reasonable to me. I would guess that they'd only need to be on for a fraction of 30 minutes unless the flow is very slow. The coco grow in my sig file got nutes to 10% runoff once a day and that worked great.

OK, that's my .02 (or .03). I have a good feeling about how your grow is going and I think your careful, planned approach is going to work well. I also think that once you get your system up and running you will have a really low maintenance system.

OK, back to less interesting matters...

 

[Scientific]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

due to me premature "due to excitement" installation of the drain system, i cant get them closer.

I understand evolving designs. My last indoor grow went through major changes throughout the 11 week grow. We learn as we go!

 

[ElDoctore]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

So i finally finished the recirculating system.
The reservoir is 4 gallons, and it takes 4 minutes to empty it, so 5 times a day the timer goes on for 4 minutes.
The other timer is the drainage and aeration, and it switches on 8 times a day, 1. some of the trays dont empty completely so the extra cycles is to facilitate drainage, and to keep the bubbles flowing and not keep the water stagnant.
The first time i ran the water, i prepared my mixture with half strength GH nutes, PPM was 600 with pH being 5.6.
The runout was a ppm of 1200 with pH of 5.9. So i prepared a brand new mixture of ppm 600 and ran it through it again, this time the ppm back was 650 and the pH was 5.5.

So after 24 hours, the reservoir ph was 5.6, and the ppm was 800. So i just topped it with a couple of liters of water, and adjusted the ph to 5.5.

Now my following questions.
1- How often do i change the reservoir water? "i was planning every 3-5 days"
2- Do i just need to top up with water or do i have to add nutes?
3- Is watering it 5 times a day "so 1gallon x 5 times per plant" enough or too much or can i go more?
4- Do i need to add a sterilization agent to the water?

The plants look normal after the 24 hour cycle, i realized i lose almost 2 -3 litres of water form the reservoir every 24 hours, transpiration, respiration and evaporation i am presuming.

Final lighting arrangement. Last step is to change all the CFL to LED

The Reservoir draining

Note the 3 pipes, 2 on either side connected to the aeration system, and the one in the middle to pump in the recycled water.

Another question i had, currently i am running 2 AF and 2 photo period plants. My plan is after harvesting the AF plants, i will switch to a 12/12 cycle "depending on size of photo period"

Right now all my bulbs are 2000 Lumen LED, and there are 4 big LED's of 4000 Lumens, but they are all in the 6500k zone, when the AF plants start flowering, do i need to put them under 2700k bulbs?

Another Q, is with a 20/4 cycle, can i split them up, like 5 hours on and 1 off 4 times a day, or does it have to be 20 hours continuous?

Thanks

UPDATE
after 36 hours, I had to totally add 3 litres to the mixture to top it up. The reservoir has gone from a dark brown colour to a much lighter colour. The ppm is around 600, pH at 5.5. I realized when the mixture is complete with a full batch, it takes 6 drops to get it down to 0.1, now it took 4 drops to get it down to 0.1. Usually this is an indicator to me that the amount of nutes is not as much, so you can drop the pH much quicker.
I am worried I am under nutritioning them.

My main indicator is the leaves and new growth, as of yet they all look healthy and they are loving the new irrigation system, growth in last 24 hours is noticeable.

So again, do I top up with nutes, or since I am changing the reservoir every 3 days it should be fine? If I should top up nutes, which ones? There are like 12 with the GH series

Thanks

 

[Stillalive420]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

Over doing

 

[Scientific]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

1- How often do i change the reservoir water? "i was planning every 3-5 days"
2- Do i just need to top up with water or do i have to add nutes?
3- Is watering it 5 times a day "so 1gallon x 5 times per plant" enough or too much or can i go more?
4- Do i need to add a sterilization agent to the water?

(5) Another question i had, currently i am running 2 AF and 2 photo period plants. My plan is after harvesting the AF plants, i will switch to a 12/12 cycle "depending on size of photo period"

(6) Right now all my bulbs are 2000 Lumen LED, and there are 4 big LED's of 4000 Lumens, but they are all in the 6500k zone, when the AF plants start flowering, do i need to put them under 2700k bulbs?

(7) Another Q, is with a 20/4 cycle, can i split them up, like 5 hours on and 1 off 4 times a day, or does it have to be 20 hours continuous?

(8)So again, do I top up with nutes, or since I am changing the reservoir every 3 days it should be fine? (8a) If I should top up nutes, which ones? There are like 12 with the GH series

1: I think we've talked about this before. I changed my hydroponic reservoir once a week when the GH schedule usually called for a new nutrient ratio.

2: People do it both ways. I ended up topping up my hydro reservoir with that week's nute mix, but I read a post from a guy once who said that was crazy and the right way to do hydro was to top off with water and coast (you might need/be able to use more concentrated nutes that way). I think this might be a "religious" debate. My reasoning was that I wanted to keep the roots bathed in the ideal nutrient environment at all times and to give the plant a really consistent environment, but that might be overkill.

3: It's hard to overwater coco. Like I said earlier, I gave my little outdoor deck plant one watering to 10% runoff once a day and that worked fine, but who's to say that more isn't better. Experiment and take good notes!

4: You're watering a weed, not mixing up a solution for kidney dialysis.

5: I don't know what that means. Photoperiod plants need about 14 h of light a day or less to flower, from what's I've read, though 12 is the nominal amount. AFs can flower from 12/12 to 24/0.

6: The consensus on this seems to be that longer wavelengths (i.e. lower kelvins) is good for flowering, but you can grow all the way through with 6500 or 2700. (I just read a post this morning in the lighting forum that made a good case for 2700 only all the way through.) The most important thing by far is lots of light. The color is really less important in my experience.

7: No! (Does the sun do that? You're trying to at least approximate the natural conditions under which the plant evolved.)

8: I'm sure you could just coast for 3 days, but your workload will be less and I'll guess your results will be similar by mixing a 7 day batch and going with that.

8a: Give GH FloraSeris plus Ca/Mg if needed (very soft or RO water). Add the other 8 bottles if you own stock in GH and want to boost their bottom line. (I realize that's a minority opinion around here, but really, it shouldn't be forgotten that cannabis grows well in cow shi*t. Unless someone can prove to me that boosting silca or adding B vitamins is worth the money, I'm going to keep it in my pocket.)

 

[ElDoctore]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

Hahahaha
4: You're watering a weed, not mixing up a solution for kidney dialysis.
You killed me with this one.
One thing I did notice, even though the ppm stays relatively constant at 600/700, the EC is constantly going up. It started at 0.9, now the ppm has gone up by 100 "after dilution", the EC has gone up by 0.3. Is this normal?

 

[Scientific]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

Hahahaha
4: You're watering a weed, not mixing up a solution for kidney dialysis.
You killed me with this one.
One thing I did notice, even though the ppm stays relatively constant at 600/700, the EC is constantly going up. It started at 0.9, now the ppm has gone up by 100 "after dilution", the EC has gone up by 0.3. Is this normal?

Always happy to get a laugh. We baby the hell out of our plants, but with all the pampering and optimizing (which has increased both yield and quality enormously over the decades I have been fooling with this), ya gotta keep your perspective.

As for your question, an electroconductivity meter does its job simply by measuring how much electric current flows between two metal pins. It's hard to think of an instrument that's much simpler. The more ions there are in the solution, the more electrical current the solution conducts, so higher "electroconductivity."

I forget what the exact units of measure, but the meter gives us an EC number. That number, however, is kinda abstract, so the meter can perform a simple multiplication of the EC number to give the number off parts per million of a simple ionic solution. (My calibration solution is 1000 PPM table salt.) The important thing to remember is that EC and PPM are really the same thing, it's just that the meter has multiplied the EC value by some constant that I also can't remember and that gives us PPM.

Just Google "EC PPM" and I imagine the gory details will appear if you're interested...

 

[ElDoctore]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

Yup, already on it. I'll do some research, but so far, I am glad I did the switch

 

[Stillalive420]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

Make your nutrient solution over the course of several days and make small adjustments, it will give you a more stable solution.

 

[ElDoctore]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

Updates so far:
The system is working like a charm.
I made a small modification to the drainage system, which is rather then having the control valve next to each collecting tray, i put one switch for them all outside the tent, this way i can control them much easier then having to step into the tent to adjust it.

I am keeping my ppm between 500-600, even though the GH chart favours 750-900, but the plants are loving it.
All of the 4 plants exploded, i can see a noticeable difference in growth, could it be the water, or could it be the growth stage.

I top up the reservoir "20 litres" with 2-3 liters of water a day, the ph fluctuation is barely between 5.4-5.6.

I am changing the water every 5 days, i know the allowed is when u replaced the water with same amount of reservoir, i am changing it at 10 liters, i have the resources, so why not.

Here are some pictures of the plants, lemme know what you think!

Candy Kush AF "3rd week":-

Pineapple Chunk PP "second week:

Viva Sativa PP "second week":

Candy Kush AF "2.5 weeks"

4-
Way valve switch:

 

[Scientific]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

Plants look fantastic!
That is some high-tech lookin' hosing you've got going there.

I'm a little bit nervous about GH FloraSeries nutes > 450 PPM or so on plants that size. Please do keep a really close watch on the tips of the newest leaves for any yellowing and dial back immediately if you see any. I guess my dwarf was well into flower and out of its vigorous growth stage when it OD'd, while yours are full-size, growing vigorously in veg stage, and getting more light, so my comparison might be apples and oranges...

My incident: Scientific's Coconut Coir Dwarf Low Flyer Summer Pot In An Air Pot Grow

First warning sign...

 

[ElDoctore]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

I have come to realise that the nute values recommended by GH on their feeding charts, can be abit on the higher side, even with PPM 600 the plants are thriving really well.
I just went through your journal, lobe the job your have done.
In my next grow i am considering incorporating LST as well, i am not sure if it too late with these.
But i can understand behind the logic of coco being watered on a daily basis, they tend to dry up very quick, and if the plant gets thirsty, u end up drying your coco in a matter of 24-48 hours.
This constant water supply with nutes and air seems to be working very well with coco.
Next time i'll also make a ppm/ pH In/out chart like urs, the more data, the more "golden ratio" of nutes/coco in a recirculating system

 

[Scientific]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

Plenty of time for LST yet! Really, it's just using wires to yank on the branches to get them where you think they're best. Couple that with a little judicious defoliation and your plants will be happier and produce more.

 

[Scientific]

Re: A minute for your thoughts!

This constant water supply with nutes and air seems to be working very well with coco.

Yes! I am watching your evolving system with interest and will be cloning/adapting/stealing something like it for my next grow....