New Grower - Der Kommissar

Thanks for your concise response. I have something to chew on now.

Some improvements on the design I can see are:

Instead of using a single pump, 2 pumps set to go on and off at slightly different times. I could further reduce my nutrient pool because it would only be running half the table at a shot. (this one's just a thought...)

This bad boy here:

IMG_20100202_034455.jpg

By using this ( and making sure the nipples point up...lol..tits up) AND cutting each hose to exactly the same length I could imagine that tuning/trimming would almost be unnecessary, especially if I was to use a a larger pump as you suggest.

I'm still going to flood and drain in the bloom area. Simply put it will be much easier on me in the short term.

I guess I will start shopping around for this crap in the coming days.... 25 halos, a mile of tubing, pumps, manifolds, better timers, etc.

Well shit!
 
derkommissar said:
TInstead of using a single pump, 2 pumps set to go on and off at slightly different times. I could further reduce my nutrient pool because it would only be running half the table at a shot. (this one's just a thought...)
Click to expand...
why would 2 pumps running at different times would reduce the amount of water you use in your res?

derkommissar said:
This bad boy here:

IMG_20100202_034455.jpg

By using this ( and making sure the nipples point up...lol..tits up) AND cutting each hose to exactly the same length I could imagine that tuning/trimming would almost be unnecessary, especially if I was to use a a larger pump as you suggest.
Click to expand...
Equal lengths of tubing might work, I can see that happening, only one way to find out, though.
Anyway, I don't think you should be concerning so much about the same amount of liters of nutrient solution flowing through every plant. If one of the plants gets fed at 500ml/s and another at 800ml/s is not going to matter as long as the slowest outlet pumps more than the minimum required by the plant, everything else is just going to flow back to the res. That's why I'm suggesting a bigger pump, so you don't have to worry about tuning the output, and this way you can keep the res size to a minimum. However you can only go so small when it comes to the res, after all it still has to feed the somewhat 20 plants you want to have for a whole week, so I probably wouldn't go under 25gl.

derkommissar said:
I'm still going to flood and drain in the bloom area. Simply put it will be much easier on me in the short term.
Click to expand...
I agree, it's a very good way to flower, but I don't recommend flooding in the same way you are doing it right now with all that open space, you either flood each bucket on its own or choose some other planter. Or again you're gonna bleed money on nutrients.
You could have several smaller flood trays, each accommodating 4 plants, for instance,

What I chose to do, if you look at my journal, instead of going for one big square tray I chose two long one and each holds two plantss, they have more than enough room for the roots to grow lose in the pellets without causing bound problems, I use about 1/4 the material (clay pellets) I'd use with a big tray and save space and is easier to work with. Also I don't need to have a big res as I don't have to fill unnecessary space with nutrient solution, thus allowing me to save money, I'm already saving 50% nutrients by reducing the res size because had one that was too big.

derkommissar said:
Well shit!
Click to expand...
That's what you're going to say after you first harvest!
 
derkommissar said:
GLR?

Gas Lantern Routine

makes sense. Going to stick to tried and true for right now. Especially considering I'm a new grower.
Click to expand...

Yeap, that's the one, 12/5.5/1/5.5 will allow you to save a lot on electricity that you can use, for instance, in climate control, the steadier you can get the environmentals to be the better your plant will be.
I'm doing it and the plants are responding well, or no different, they are not flowering and they seem happy.
 
Electricity isn't really issue, read prior post (running nat gas gen from my own gas well)

My flood area for bloom is pretty slick, in case you didn't see pics, I'll post one:
IMG_0340_1024x768_.JPG
 
I had seen your pics but this last one is good. I like it. I can see you have tubing coming out the bottom of the buckets, may I ask what are your plans?
I like to a pic when you finish setting everything up!
 
the buckets in the veg room are 'males', they nest into the females that are semi-hard plumbed....gimme a minute and i'll snap a pic
 
I've been bu$y in the past few days. Got generator and conversion kit. Built a trailer for the generator, converted it over (to NG) and got the house covertly wired to accept it. Granted no one goes behind my house but if you did it wouldn't look out of the ordinary except for a new outlet and there. Hidden in the conduit is a 10-4 generator cord that is snaked into the grow room. What a pain in the ass that was. I had to make it look not-so-unusual by using the smallest conduit possible, 1" in this case. let me tell you the nightmare of snaking thick ass cable through almost to small conduit, 3 elbows, a cinder block wall, etc. No fun.
going to test the gen on reg gas tomorrow, change the oil on it and then hopefully have it running on NG by Monday.

I have a problem with the autopounders, they are growing to fucking fast! hence the panic to get the gen in so I can pull them and get them in the bloom room. Theyre already blooming in the veg room. Man do they stink! My wife says it smells great. Me, not so much.

I'll try yo get some pics up tomorrow.
 
:thumb:
 
Just ran the whole grow room, as it is right now, under it's own power. Very cool...
Ran about 1500 watts and didn't miss a beat. Going to try it's first complete 12 hour run tomorrow night. Very excited to see an idea I had back in June culminate in a real running machine. Much more work ahead but it was a major relief to throw that transfer switch and not not blow up my house. (no shit, had fire extinguisher ready)
I realized now I need to get some cinder blocks as noise baffles around the generator. Going to put a step regulator on the gas line as I think I am over pressured but that's all fairly easy stuff. The fact that I can now run the room at a net zero electrical cost is very relieving. I think we'll use that generator (7500w) 5 days a week and run my monster generator (17kw) and run it and the whole house for 1 day a week and then just run household current 1 day. I think it would actually lower the electric bill if we do all the chores, laundry, vacuuming, fill my barns compressor etc. and stuff on the big gen day.

So many possibilities.....
 
Been to busy to post and I apologize for that. Progress has been made to say the least.

First, for 12 hours a day the room is under it's own power via a generator. day 12 of doing it, no problems. Kind of a learning curve on powering the generator with nat gas but I've got it figured out. Working on sound proofing now, cinder blocks seem to help.

Second, the plants have grown. a lot. I ran into another financial brick wall so things almost go out of hand. But I loosened up some cash and went shopping yesterday. Its' funny how quickly a thousand dollars vanishes in the face of this. I bought 1 complete light set up and bulked up some nutes I needed...900 fucking dollars and that was with a 20% discount 'hell of a guy' discount.

I finally tested the full system today. Something I conceived in June, lost sleep over for the past few months, sweated over for 5 months worked PERFECT today under use. One can't imagine how happy/relieved/broke I am.
Oh, the other light, the big one which will replace the one I have temporarily hung in the middle is due here tomorrow. Another 500 bucks gone. So, aside from a few atmospheric controls, this bad boy will fundamentally be done Friday.

Want pics?
 
Happy new year to you and yours Kommissar.

:thumb:Congratulations on getting a huge project up and running. As with any project of this magnitude, you'll have minor items

to fine tune and you seem to be on top of things :bravo:

Plants look very nice in there


+reps for a job well done
 
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