WheelOFortune's - first turn

there is a tiny bit of green algae on top of the rockwool where it sees the light topside. it doesn't look important to me.
 
any ideas hydro people?
 
Algae is one of the things that I'm constantly battling with. I use an Algaecide for my tanks I treat when I first mix my res. I use a Terra product and treat every three days it works well. I have it posted in my thread and you can see the damage and havoc it caused.:ganjamon:

Pan4
 
lol, which thread?

you got enough to knit a sweater.
 
WheeloFortune said:
here is my res, i looked for a 1/2 hour with a magnifying glass, i can't find any fungus gnats. dont see them in the RW either. my res does smell a tiny bit stale. don't know whats up with that.

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I see a few bubbles in your res picture. Is that all or do you have most of your oxygenation devices turned off for inspection?

A bubble rising through liquid isn't going to indject a great deal of gas into the liquid and that bubble only contains, what, something like 20.9% O2.

Think the main injection of O2 takes place in the surface agitation where the bubbles are bursting and the air/water boundary is disturbed.

I would suggest more bubblers/airstones/wands and also a good powerhead of 170gph minimum.

And next time you have your res down in between cycles (or now if you've got a spare) scuff the outside up to take the shine off of it and prime/paint it with some Krylon plastic paint just to be on the safe side.
 
TorS,

thanks for the advice. i had two airstones running off of a dual output whisper 100. it says for 100 gallon aquarium. in the pic you can only see the tail of one of the stones.

i have a bunch of stones and hose lying around not doing anything, so due to your advice, i added two more to make 4. why not, right?

the air pump is on 24/7 though and the rockwool is only flooded twice a day, so youd think the stones i had in there would be enough to stabilize the o2 in the water. . . its not like dwc where the roots are in the water.

im willing to try anything to stop the yellowing though, lol.

thanks.
 
That's (probably) not what's causing your yellowing but it can't hurt.
 
i agree, and i didn't have to buy anything so why not.

any ideas on the yellowing?
 
Have you calibrated your PPM tester? Your res is likely to grow algae with it being see-through, though that may not have anything to do with what ever is yellowing your plants.

I have personally never been worried about the algae on the RW cubes and once the foliage grows over it nothing much grows. I have never seen damage from it in my garden, so I think that companies are just trying to capitalize on something that may look like it may be detrimental IMO.

What are you using for testing PPM and PH?

Cheers,
Maxx
 
I live in a victorian. sorry, all the homes round here have tall ceilings i guess. 8'

my meter broke a while back, my buddy has been bringing his over a couple times a week. its a nice Milwaukee multi. and yes its been calibrated. my new meters are in the mail. just cheap hanna meters.

why are you thinking its burn or ph is off?
 
WOF

Have you done any estimates on what it might cost you to build an 8 foot system?

I was looking for an answer to the mystery in the more obvious places I guess. Not too easy to help from afar.

Cheers,
Maxx
 
maxximus no not yet the wheel part has been hard to find. I'm kinda leaning towards building with end rings and crossbars for the wheel assembly. I wish I still had access to a machine shop but that is in the works too.:peace:

Let's all get out to VOTE in the 420 Contest's Here

Pan4
 
very intresting thread.

What is the ph lvl spose to be at for hydro i thoguth it was spose to be around 5.5-6.0 i think the yellowing is probly algea or maybe u need more vent. on my bubbler it became yellowing and i added a lil more hydrogen procide and it seemed to fix it to the water
 
maxx, i mean why cant i use wood? I've seen wooden waterwheels that drove little grain mills that were hundreds of years old.

it would be heavy but take (2) inch and a half 4x8 sheets of wood, bolt them together between some big washers/plates, take a string and make circles like 6 or 10 inches apart at the edge of the wood, cut and sand. if you want extra support (twice as heavy) you can glue two wheels together, rotated 90 degrees to stagger the seams. then you connect them, i think i would use 9 or 12 inch wide pine boards or some oak or something cheap but solid. and just screw them inbetwwen the wheels from the outside. cut some holes for meshpots. get some big rubberbands and eye hooks to secure rockwool in the the pots. then you have to build a stand, get some wheels, some gears and a chain, a good motor, a cool tube, some minor hardware

i think i could do it for $400-$500 bucks and do it solid. Thats why i'd like to think about how i could make it work for common crops like strawberries or something for year round commercial production. fruit is more expensive in the winter here, and our our stores do buy local.
 
note: you could easily notch the boards to slide in holders like the volks if you wanted. bigger medium would be needed to gorw bigger plants obviously
 
hey guys,

ugh my plants are still yellowing interveinally. it looks like sulfur difficiency and a bit of potassium.

im gonna change my res this weekend, hopefully that will fix it.
 
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