The Comprehensive

The Butcher said:
It completely seams logical. I think it would work. Maybe with a lil boster fan or something like that. I'd like to run one of those in one of my small boxes. Really push the limits of a confined space.
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Yeah, I have the hose from the boost bucket pump inserted into the mesh of the rear section of oscillating fan so it blows all over. I previously hung the hose protruding just alittle out the end of my econo reflector. Both ways are cool!
 
orangeblood said:
Hi Butcher!
I already put my vote down for Fox Farm a few weeks ago but I will be posting alot of my experiences with this stuff in the product review and here on this thread.
I already have Earth Juice Humic acid so that will be used instead of the Black Diamond when it's called for in the feeding chart.
I'm startng off with the Bio Weed & Bio Marine products but later these may be able to be replaced with the less expensive Alaska fish Emulsion and MaxiCrop Seakelp. I know what the Alaska products can do but I want to see if the GO products are better.
I'm also starting to switch to Air Pots. My test plant is feeding so heavily and drying out so fast that I'm giving her a full gallon of water every 24-36 hours. It's almost like trying to do a manual hydro-organic operation. She has already doubled up on her sister next to her!
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Hey man...have you checked out Neptune's Harvest? They have some super fine organics. Very cool stuff They have a just FISH emulsion 2-4-1 then they have a SEAWEED @ 0-0-1 and they have a FISH/SEAWEED @ 2-3-1 they also carry a Kelp meal and Crab shell that I haven't used
 
orangeblood said:
My Grandfather used a combination of beach sand, goose & duck poop and water that he had peeled willow braches soaking to make his clones so your guy in NO may be onto something!

I've taken clones with a plant in bloom but the success rate decreased and they took about 2 weeks to take. I've even taken clones with little nugs on them but it took longer with about a 50% success rate.

BTW- I'm not recommending anybody start getting up and digging their local beach and chasing geese and ducks scooping up poop. My Grandpa was a kooky different kind of cat and that was the late 70's early 80's. There's much better ways to do it nowadays without those damn geese chasing and trying to bite you!
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Willow is the shizzy for a cloning solution!!!
 
Hey Stink!
Here's a pic of the chiller now that it has an exaust and insulation. The exaust box is working like a charm rendering the warm air produced by the chiller powerless. The exaust runs straight up thru the ceiling to work like a chimney. It's powered by a 8 watt 20 cfm Dayton pc style fan.
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orangeblood said:
LMFAO! You guys are gonna freak when you see this thing. I cant stop laughing while I work on it.
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And you guys call ME McGyver? LOL!:smokin2:
I have said many times there are two kinds of people. Those who do. Those who wait for you to do. Given those two choices, we really only have one viable alternative. Improvise. This word ties into the phrase "survival of the fittest".

Orangeblood my friend, your a survivor. Consider yourself a minority.:bravo:
 
orangeblood said:
Hey Stink!
Here's a pic of the chiller now that it has an exaust and insulation. The exaust box is working like a charm rendering the warm air produced by the chiller powerless. The exaust runs straight up thru the ceiling to work like a chimney. It's powered by a 8 watt 20 cfm Dayton pc style fan.
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OK Orange. Your little chiller mod has prompted me to take action as well. Even though I'm running cool as a cucumber doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. Get ready for my next installment. An 18"x48"x1" passive exhaust for the chiller cabinet. I'd bet, even though the back of the chiller is sealed to the hole in the back of the chiller cabinet with foam tape, it just kinda dumps out the back. The passive exhaust will work like a chimney. (i.e. heat rises due to convection) I'd also bet I wont need a fan. I think this will help give me another free degree in grow cab reduction temps!!!
Not much room back there, but I'd bet we can think of something...:nicethread:
 
MisterPeabody said:
And you guys call ME McGyver? LOL!:smokin2:
I have said many times there are two kinds of people. Those who do. Those who wait for you to do. Given those two choices, we really only have one viable alternative. Improvise. This word ties into the phrase "survival of the fittest".

Orangeblood my friend, your a survivor. Consider yourself a minority.:bravo:
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Thanks Mr. P!
When my back is to the wall and the pressure is to succeed or fail I feel I'm in my comfort zone. Failure is never an option and no barrier is too thick to stop my goals.

MisterPeabody said:
OK Orange. Your little chiller mod has prompted me to take action as well. Even though I'm running cool as a cucumber doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. Get ready for my next installment. An 18"x48"x1" passive exhaust for the chiller cabinet. I'd bet, even though the back of the chiller is sealed to the hole in the back of the chiller cabinet with foam tape, it just kinda dumps out the back. The passive exhaust will work like a chimney. (i.e. heat rises due to convection) I'd also bet I wont need a fan. I think this will help give me another free degree in grow cab reduction temps!!!
Not much room back there, but I'd bet we can think of something...:nicethread:
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The chimney style exaust is a very practical one for a chiller. My first thought was to build a ventilation adapter for the chiller and "plug" that vent into the wall behind the chiller but that would have made the wall very warm.

When the warm chiller air is contained it will gain heat and have a strong rising force. This is where we take advantage of the sitchyation and give it a chimney for a clean vertical rise.

Because I have a couple plants on the table next to the chiller I wanted to be sure that the warm air was being escorted up the chimney and not leak out thru the gaps on the side of the venting box which is why I employed the 20 cfm Dayton to do the job.

(A little note on that Dayton. This is a strong little bugger that took off half of my finger nail and a good chunk of flesh when I was messing with it. Words of advice, never mess with these little bastards when they running and/or after a few bong hits! Now there's a piece of finger nail rattling around the bottom of the chimney)

Because of the warm air rise, when I feel the air coming out of the end of the chimney you would think I have a hi powered blower pushing air up thu the chimney.

You should get real good results with a passive exaust but if there's still any issues or that compelling desire to make some more mods you will only need to find a small fan to make sure the warm air is going in the right direction in an expedited manner. :grinjoint:
 
orangeblood said:
Yeah it's 1/10hp and it's rated for a 50-400 liter reservoir. I'm using a 30 gallon reservoir filled to capacity right now but I'm thinking I can drop it down to 20-25 and get the water even colder. It needs a pump with a minimum 250gph rating and I'm using a 350gph for faster push thru the Ice Box heat exchanger in the duct work.

It is blowing a draft of hot air out of the back. I have a ceiling fan in the room to disipate the warm air but I'm also considering putting a fan on it or use a cheap inline duct blower with an hvac box on the back of the chiller to pull the warm air away and exaust it out of the room completely. Between the cool air it's making, the room exaust, and the ceiling fan the warm air is not a problem right now.

Other nice features are a titanium heat exchanger. Does'nt get any better than titanium for that and it only uses 150 watts!
Being made by Hydrofarm it was really designed with the grower in mind rather than the aquarium enthusiast. Given the right water capacity, it can pull the temps down to 39 degrees! Alot of the aquarium chillers stop at 55. It also has a temperature memory so it can be put on a timer!

So far this thing is rockin'! It's doing the job of an AC with a small fraction of the power that a portable or window unit AC uses. :grinjoint:
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orangeblood said:
Got a kick ass tool for my garden today!
This thing checks ph, ppm, ec, light, moisture, humidity, temps, and CO2 with one ez to read display. I found it in the aerahydroraganic section at Walmart for 89 cents!

Macgyver_Multitool.jpg

:grinjoint:
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Hilarious. Whole thread a joy to read. I'll have you know I am now gonna have to be up all night to get my chopping done. I got sucked into this journal.

I love your descriptions of the air and water temp stuff. I am fighting similar things myself and looking to your thread for help. One quick note. When you were talking about water flow through your ice box and chiller - I think you have it backwards re flow rate and amount of cooling.

You should call IceBox and talk to Chris - great guy who can explain all the thermodynamics of air and water as well as anyone I've ever met. As far as I know - you need to get a certain flow rate going, but above that - the faster the flow rate - the LESS HEAT EXCHANGE. That is true for both air and water exchanges.

You might find that using a smaller pump would work better. The tricky part is usually getting the vertical height from the pump. Finding a relatively low gph that can still pump up to the ceiling is tricky. Not sure if you need the vertical from your pics.

Your setup and plants are great so this was just a friendly comment to be taken with a grain of salt.

:bravo::nicethread:
 
Interesting thoughts PG!
I do have a 285gph pump I can try out for now and see if it holds the temps down a bit better. A 285 should'nt have too big of a problem pumping up about a 3-4 foot rise which is about the distance of the bottom of the reservoir to the top of the chiller.
I will probably end up expanding the system later on to work with a water cooled CO2 generator so I may need to end up going with an even larger pump down the road. Once I get the distances and plumbing figured out a call to HI for their recommendations would be a wise move.
I was thinking about building a 1/2 pvc pipe manifold, mount it to the wall or ceiling and have the Ice Box and generator cooling lines come off that manifold. Something kinda like the HI store display set ups they sell to vendors but on a smaller scale.

Glad to have you here on my journal PG!:welcome::grinjoint:
 
orangeblood said:
Got a kick ass tool for my garden today!
This thing checks ph, ppm, ec, light, moisture, humidity, temps, and CO2 with one ez to read display. I found it in the aerahydroraganic section at Walmart for 89 cents!
Click to expand...

That's some funny Sheeeeet Mon!

Nearly wet myself after that picture popped up on the iphone.

:rofl:

Keep Truckin!
SF
 
Thanks to Papa Green I've gone into some number crunching to maximize the efficiency of the cooling system.;)

I'm using a Beckett 350 gph pond pump that has a rise of 12.5 feet but most importantly has an output of 310gph @ 4'.

The chiller requires a minimum of 250 gph flow and the Ice Box has a recomendation of 300-500gph but those figures are for cooling 1000 watt lamps. By the time the the water flow gets to the Ice Box it has travelled at least 6 feet and according to Beckett should be flowing at a rate of around 265 gph.

I'm horrible at math and even worse at algebra but if anybody knows how to figure the equation of what the actual flow rate of the Beckett 350 gph pump at a 3.5' rise without me having to find a flow meter would be great.

I'm thinking the simple solution is to install a flow adjusting valve just above the pump outlet, set it 3/4 and see if the temps in the reservoir can be pulled down below 50 degrees and go from there.

Whatchya think Papa? :joint::rasta::ganjamon::rollit:
 
orangeblood said:
Thanks to Papa Green I've gone into some number crunching to maximize the efficiency of the cooling system.;)

I'm using a Beckett 350 gph pond pump that has a rise of 12.5 feet but most importantly has an output of 310gph @ 4'.

The chiller requires a minimum of 250 gph flow and the Ice Box has a recomendation of 300-500gph but those figures are for cooling 1000 watt lamps. By the time the the water flow gets to the Ice Box it has travelled at least 6 feet and according to Beckett should be flowing at a rate of around 265 gph.

I'm horrible at math and even worse at algebra but if anybody knows how to figure the equation of what the actual flow rate of the Beckett 350 gph pump at a 3.5' rise without me having to find a flow meter would be great.

I'm thinking the simple solution is to install a flow adjusting valve just above the pump outlet, set it 3/4 and see if the temps in the reservoir can be pulled down below 50 degrees and go from there.

Whatchya think Papa? :joint::rasta::ganjamon::rollit:
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SHAZZAM! Here ya go brother. I'm using a 750 GPH MagDrive pump...I'm STRESSING the Magdrive over direct drive anyday, and when using a shutoff valve you BETTER have a Magdrive. My chiller is only a 1/15th HP, yet I cool two reservoirs with it. If the upstairs unit is chilling, due to the height needed to not only pump but circulate through the upper cooling coil, then back into the chiller where it is cooled and returned to the lower reservoir takes every bit of the 750. The inline shutoff is available at any mobile home supply and most RV parts supply houses. I paid an elevated price of about 6 bucks for it BUT our 1/2" hose fits it PERFECTLY and it is designed as a reusable compression fitting. Got a leak? Trim a bit of tubing and do it again. I also incorporated a 3 way valve of the same design when the lower reservoir was a drip system. The supply was regulated with a 2 way and the return was regulated with a 3 way adjusted supply to the drip manifold and the excess was simply dumped back into the lower reservoir.
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MisterPeabody said:
SHAZZAM! Here ya go brother. I'm using a 750 GPH MagDrive pump...I'm STRESSING the Magdrive over direct drive anyday, and when using a shutoff valve you BETTER have a Magdrive. My chiller is only a 1/15th HP, yet I cool two reservoirs with it. If the upstairs unit is chilling, due to the height needed to not only pump but circulate through the upper cooling coil, then back into the chiller where it is cooled and returned to the lower reservoir takes every bit of the 750. The inline shutoff is available at any mobile home supply and most RV parts supply houses. I paid an elevated price of about 6 bucks for it BUT our 1/2" hose fits it PERFECTLY and it is designed as a reusable compression fitting. Got a leak? Trim a bit of tubing and do it again. I also incorporated a 3 way valve of the same design when the lower reservoir was a drip system. The supply was regulated with a 2 way and the return was regulated with a 3 way adjusted supply to the drip manifold and the excess was simply dumped back into the lower reservoir.
DSCF8364.JPG
DSCF8364.JPG
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Thanks for the input Mr.P!
Some other #s I forgot to bring to the table are the hose diameters. 3/4" flex tubing from the pump to the chiller. 3/4" Hydrofarm tubing coming out of the chiller for 3' and then tapering to 1/2" tubing for 1' entering the Ice Box. The return from the Ice Box to the reservoir is 4' of 1/2" Hydrofarm tubing.
But anyways trying to figure out optimal flow rates by the #s is just way too complex for my stoner head work thru.
The Beckett pump I'm working with is the G series Versa 325. It was designed specifically for continuous use in recirculating systems.
The Beckett pumps have been very good to me in the past for building ponds. I have a couple still going strong after 12 years and have outlasted every Little Giant pump I've bought. Eco Plus pumps dont stand a chance when it comes to the reliability of the Beckett line.
Luckily my reservoir is tall, deep, and narrow so there's plenty of room to install the flow valve inside the barrel. If it has a leak there it wont be a problem. I'm almost postive this pump came with a waterfall kit which has a flow valve in it. I need to go check my parts bins and see what I can come up with ;)
 
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