Gsc Vertical Rdwc 4 Tree Co2 Grow In Sealed 10 X 10 Room

[Grow Journal]

Found a few more pics I can post... This first pic is the air pumps I use and the air stones, I am using Pentair's Sweetwater air stones, ceramic, 1" by about 6" design for .5 cfm flow each. (about 12 bucks each, I think a great value)

I'm only using 4 of the 6 pictured right now and two of the pumps (one under each netpot), the last two are for the control bucket and reservoir but Ive been procrastinating installing the reservoir.. maybe this week. haha
I like that the air stone hose size and the outlet of the GH air pump are the same (I like that these pumps are quiet and repairable too), I think its 3/8th air line, but I'm not positive. These air pumps are rated at 22lpm and with the way I'm running the air line I think I should be getting most of that, which is about .4 cfm as compared to the full .5 cfm recommended for the stone, still a pretty good match. (11lpm vs 14lpm or about 78%)

Here is a root pic (taken during a water change), I think this was taken on June 16th (pretty sure but not positive)

This last pic (below) shows my 1/4 horse chiller and the lines from the control bucket changed from the build pics above, I had a 1/2 horse Arctica chiller under the AC but it had died on me so then I picked up a 1/4 horse (west coast imports) off Craigslist for 200 quick, in this next pic its next to the control bucket but that was just temporary until the proper tubing was purchased to run it back over and under the AC. This pic was taken on June 6th. (the first week or two I used the last of my aqua flakes from house & garden (and while the Canna Aqua Vega was shipping) in case your wondering why that's in the pic.

For visual reference the white board on top of each bucket is 2 feet by 2 feet. (its peg board and I use it because the Velcro tape at the hardware store for plants easily pokes through any hole in the peg board and just stays (no tying) and for low stress training it works amazing, since I haven't run vertical before I thought I would install them in case I needed to pull any branches down, which I haven't needed to at all. (I've mostly Ive just bumped into them ...ha ha)

The middle light in this pic sort of shows how its attached to the support (mentioned earlier in the build) under the drain lines. This shows how its connected.

 

[Grow Journal]

So people don't have to scroll up to the previous pics (since its kinda buried) here is the most recent pic (below) taken 30 days after pic above. (June 6th to July 6th

Pic below is about 4 days into flower.

 

[Grow Journal]

Got the water changed today, wanted to jot down the numbers quick before I forget them,

I took out all of the water I could, even used a wet / dry vac on the return line and feed line, but I didn't try and lift each plant out and get every drop. I had an owner of a hydro shop tell me I should pull each plant each week and get _all_ the water, ...well... my bad, thats not happening. ha ha

Once I took out what I could, and refilled the system with RO water the new system ppm read 60, Id rather it been at 40 or 30. I may start having extra water and that way I can pull out more water.
note to self: Build a better water change system for the next run.

So I estimate the system is full at 60 Gallons, and today I put 50 gallons in once I got out what I could.

Today I used: (all Canna line)
Aqua Flores A - 450ml
Aqua Flores B - 450ml
Rhizotonic - 150ml
boost - 500ml
Cannazyme - 500ml

In case your interested in Canna / nute cost. Based on free amazon shipping and best prices on amazon, this weeks water changes costed, roughly... (about 75 total, based on the portion I used)

Aqua Flores A - 5 bucks
Aqua Flores B - 5 bucks
Rhizotonic - 10 bucks
Boost - 40 bucks
Cannazyme - 15 bucks

I did not use any ph up or ph down (I really avoid these two whenever possible) I find that Canna Rhizotonic is great for bringing the ph up. Although I used 150ml, I had 100ml in, my ph was at 5.4 so I used another 50ml and that brought me to 5.7.

This combo, added to the 60ppm I started with finished at 550ppm with 5.7ph

 

[Grow Journal]

I took these pics during the water change today. The yellow measuring stick in the first pic is 4 feet.

This pic is at the door looking in with better lighting, I wanted to show the lines of the plants going vertical. The plant in the pic above would be directly across from the left plant below.

 

[Grow Journal]

Weekly update: (week 3 begins)

Whats up everyone! So this week was a bit of a roller coaster ride for me, around Monday or Tuesday I had a meter melt down. I left my PH2 pen in the control bucket, it says waterproof, but it shouldn't because its clearly not.... ha ha (damn it)
Then my Hanna 89127 PH pen was reading wrong so I tried to calibrate it and then my meter went crazy.. Id put it in 7.0 buffer, which the 89127 would ask for, then it would say "wrong" and say 7.0 was 10.0 actually 10 and calibrate the 7 to the 10.

Long story short I was without meters (my Milwaukee 802 also began failing) For any newbies reading, my lesson learned is to take better care of my meters, the PH2 pen was what it was, but the 802 foe example I have been pretty rough on it.

So I jumped on Amazon quick and grabbed what I planned to be a new backup meter, but honestly this meter is really nice, I was overly impressed with the packaging, its quality since it was only 18 bucks. (over 2200 reviews on amazon and 4.5 average) I've got no financial ties, just found this to be worth sharing, here is a pic from amazon.

So for the 2 days I was without my PH meter, I made the mistake of adjusting the PH based on my memory of my last reading, unfortunately I forgot the last reading wasn't very reliable. I would have normally done the weekly water change on Saturday or maybe Sunday but I ended up doing the change as soon as the meter arrived on Thursday, mostly because I found with the new accurate meter that my ph was sitting in the 4.xx range (yikes)

I got it fixed and and quick, but I can tell I will have some tiny burn spots that will be coming in the next few weeks from this little hiccup, damn it!

with all of that back story out of the way here is what they were fed, and have eaten since.

This week when I drained the system I added more water and drained a bit more, I also bought a new TDS meter (Bule... HM pen on amazon, was like 15 bucks) and the ppms were at 40 to start this week rather than 60, the EC function of my Milwakee 802 still seems to work and it read .06 so I felt the salts were also at safe levels.

For the change it was pretty close to last week. (more A and B and added PK 13/14
I was a bit distracted from the stress of finding my PH in the 4.xx range and didn't write down my exact PPM after this change but it was pretty close to 800 when I was done. ( I think 845 but my res hadn't quite finished filling)

Thursday----
Aqua Flores A - 600ml
Aqua Flores B - 600ml
PK 13/14 150ml
Rhizotonic - 120ml
Boost - 500ml
Cannazyme - 500ml

Saturday
Aqua Flores A - 75ml
Aqua Flores B- 75ml
Ph Down 10ml

Monday
Aqua Flores A -225ml
Aqua Flores B -225ml
ph Down 6ml

This was as of yesterday at noon, the 225 I added along with enough water to get it back to the full line and the PPMs were at and even 800.

So for Friday through Monday the 4 plants actually ate 600ml (300 of each A and B).
I'm really happy to see this ;level consumption after that potentially stressful event.

Side note for potential newbies....Right now I'm pretty happy with the nutrient level being at 800ish, I've got a friend up in Washington that is also a big RDWC grower with some nice crops, and he would rather I be up over 1000PPM, as you get going you will inevitably face this dilemma , someone tells you what you should do and you have to decide if your ready to trust yourself yet or not.
Here is a tip for making this specific call, in my opinion.... Watch your PPM count as the plants drink and eat... in my opinion its ideal to have your PPM at a level that they are being eaten at an equal rate to the combination of drinking water and evaporating water... thus if your system is down 10 gallons, and it was at 800 PPM when it was full, it would still be at 800 PPM when the 10 gallons is missing.... When you add the 10 gallons back in the PPM (would) drop and you can see what was actually eaten... For me right now, as the plants are eating the PPM is staying at 800, just as in the example above. If I were to bump it up to 1000 then as they drink the PPM would likely climb (maybe to 1200, then I add 10 gallons to get it back to 1000, this to me is less than ideal because it adds a bit of stress to the daily routine of your plants) (just my opinion though)

I'll post some pics from Thursday and then an update for today in a little bit. Hope you all are having a great week!

 

[UgrewWHAT]

Ok one more pic, since I'm your new friend in Vegas you might like this one!!

Viva Lost Wages!!!

 

[Grow Journal]

These 4 pics were taken on Thursday the 14th, about 12 days into flower while I was doing the water change.

To make it easier to describe and track them going forward I think it will be easier if they each have a number. Standing at the door the first plant by the control bucket is gonna be plant 1, directly opposite the door will be #2 and across from the first plant will be #3 and the huge one is gonna be plant #4 (directly across from #2 )

Here is plant 1, I would say this is the smallest of the 4 plants.

Below is plant number 2 (easy to spot as its the only bucket I did insulation on) This one might not yield the most but I think is my favorite so far, really nice structure and filling in nicely, next post Ill have a pic from today.

This next plant is #3 and is the 2nd biggest, its at about 6' tall right now and 3 to 4 feet in diameter. Its looking really good! I'm a little nervous its gonna overgrow my space!

This last pic is the biggest, its over 6' tall right now. Im really tempted to move this to a room of its own ... ha ha (to give you an idea of its size look at the 14k btu window ac to its left... :) Again I'm a bit nervous of it overgrowing my space, its gonna be close!

These are what I took on Thursday, next post will be a couple flower shots from earlier today.

 

[Grow Journal]

So yesterday I topped the nutes off and made sure the water was full, had it at 800ppm, today I decided I'd repeat at exactly 24 hours later. So today at noon I had the reservoir filled back up to the same point as at noon yesterday. I was happy to have the PH stayed rock solid the last 24 hours, stay right at 5.9.

After refilling the nutes were at 625 (from 800) it took 175ml of A and 175ml of B to get back to 800 (I actually did 200 of each and finished at 825)
That means they ate 350ml (175A & 175B) of nutrients in 24hours... :-D
These girls are hungry!

I also added 25ml of Orca Mycorrhizae to the system today.

With the PH at 5.9 the 200ml of A&B brought it down to about 5.7


This first pic is just looking in from the door, you can see most of plant 1 and alot of plant 2. These are the two smallest plants of the 4, and thus most flowers so far.

I'm not sure if this was from plant 1 or 2, they are pretty similar.

I forced my camera flash on for this next pic to try and balance the orange from the hps... it helped a little... these flower shots are all 17 days into flower.

These pics don't show it but in a few weeks many of the leaves arent going to look so pristine, thanks to that PH issue last week... *sigh

 

[Grow Journal]

Viva Lost Wages!!!

Hey thanks for the like and checking out the grow!

 

[RastaZombie]

Gonna run a few errands and come back and post more of the build out later, here are a few pics from the last run in this room (prior to switching it to a vertical setup)

Unfortunately toward the end of that grow things went south in the root zone, Im planning to discuss that situation, and the changes I needed to make, for newbies to RDWC later, but these pics were about half way (if I remember right) through flower. The smoke I harvested was pretty nice, super strong smelling but I don't think I will ever use Barneys Farm again.

Peace!

My popcorns ready . Great show mate.

 

[Grow Journal]

Thanks bro and welcome to the show, .and thanks for the likes!

 

[Grow Journal]

Checked the control bucket this morning, (I'm still needing to get my auto top off res installed!) It looked like the bucket was shy about 5 gallons so I checked my PH and PPM to see how they were doing (normal morning routine) and thought Id share since its fresh in my mind.

PH climbed a little to 5.9
PPMs are at 770 (from 825)

So the girls are eating slightly faster than the evaporation / drinking combo. Next water change Im gonna aim for about 900

I'm filling the control bucket back up now so I can get a 2nd back to back day to compare with yesterday, will post that up in a little bit and try and grab a quick pic.

 

[Grow Journal]

Finished refilling and checking on them earlier. ppm was at 705ish, I didn't top it off today with A/B though. After water finished filling PH was about 6.0
I left it as is for the night, tomorrow Ill do another A/B bump.

Ive been meaning to post up some random details lately but have been busy so Ill post up what I can remember now .. haha

During the day cycle I often add my Wein VI 2500 (Negative air ionizer, with no ozone by product) For those that are interested in alternative science to the mainstream stuff there is a guy named Dan Winter (genius) who in one of his two hour lectures teaches that Air conditioners will kill (my words) the existence of negative ions in the room, negative ions are life giving (short version), and I run a shit ton of AC leaving my air void of those ions, the Wein VI 2500 is a compact 88.00 tool (amazon) I use, I only own 1 of these so I get it in my room at night, "sorry lady's"

I also have two sets of quartz crystals, each set has 7 spheres (1.6" diameter, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and purple) One set sits above (on) the center fan and one set sits at the bottom of the control bucket. If your interested in learning more Id recommend researching Marcel Vogul, I'm not using quartz with any cuts, just simple spheres, but for learning about quartz, Marcel would be your man, he was a lead researcher at IBM for like 30 years (not quacky)

I've also got 4 Shungite Pyramids (40mm X 40mm) in the room (one under each 2" return line")

Because I cant show a side by side I can' verify that these have any effect, and so I'm not claiming they do, but I added them so that should say something about how I feel, I'm only sharing this because its a grow journal and sharing what I'm doing is supposed to be how it works :)

Inside the control bucket Ive got 2 pumps, the main one (hope Im not breaking a rule to post a link, but Ive got no ties to the seller) this is my main pump, so far its been really great, very quiet, very powerful, and very affordable.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2100-GPH-Su...286928?hash=item46463fa550:g:ceYAAOSwhkRWb3PO

That pump is just going to the 4 plants, I have a separate pump that is for the chiller, on this return line (back into the control bucket) have a spray nozzle and the water that comes from chiller is "sprayed" back into the control bucket (above the surface), obviously this breaks surface tension and adds more air to the water, off of energy I'm already paying for, but more importantly I want to share a study I read, I don't know if I can find it but I don't really feel up for looking so you will have to search and study or trust my memory.

The study was a professional study, white paper and everything at the conclusion, I believe it was a university study, but it was comparing the aeration of hydro water with bubble stones and with breaking surface tension (think nature, rapids in a river) and the results were hands down, plants did better with broken surface tension aeration over bubble stones. Because of this I bought two 1" venturi valves but never got around to installing them, I was planning, originally, to do my overflow system with no bubble stones, but laziness got the better of me this grow. Still, the chiller line breaking surface tension can't overlooked and I think its pretty important.
On a side note I believe the water exiting each bucket breaks surface tension (but I haven't done dissolved oxygen tests to confirm)

I think that this is all of the misc weird stuff going on in the background. haha

Plans this week...

This week I'm adding another 600w (probably tomorrow). It will be a Solis Tek 10k bulb and solis tek 600w ballast. This bulb will be higher up in the middle and will probably be on 8 hours in the middle of each day. I'm adding this for the UV mostly but also as a spectrum filler, if by chance anyone can chime in with the UV "B" profile of Solis Tek 10k that would be sweet, the standard light profile doesn't graph down to UV B, lots of UV A though, I'm mostly just curious what the UV B spectrum of this light is. (wont change my plan to use it for now)

I will also be switching the main MH in the middle out for a brand new Hortilux eye super HPS, this will bring the room up to 4600 watts HPS and 600W 10k MH

I'm planning to try and squeeze 3 or 4 of my 1000w magnetic ballasts into the the compartment below the AC to free up 2k BTUs for the 600w bulb I'm adding.

Ok I think that's plenty for this post, enjoy the rest of your week and I will check back in during the water change this weekend. Peace

 

[Grow Journal]

Minor update...

Water topped off, added 250ml A and 250ml B and 10ml ph down

Finished at 850ppm and 5.7 (was at 615 and ph 6.2),

 

[Grow Journal]

Whats going on guys? Hope your Friday has been great

I decided to do some defoliating today before the water change tomorrow, in my experience reading the forums and learning along the way I never saw many pics of this aspect so here is a pic of the leaves I pulled today (for others new to defoliation), this is the second defoliation (and probably last) these plants have had both were about the same amount of leaves.

After trimming these leaves I literally had to use formula 420 to get my hands and arms clean, my fingers were sticking together and to my thumb like crazy, super stoked considring today was only day 20 of flower!

Here is a pic

This is from all 4 plants, I'm guessing the pile weighs about 3 pounds. For those that didn't already know, if you run these leaves through a wheat grass juicer you get a very green super-food concentrate.

I put the new HPS in the middle fixture today but haven't got the 10k bulb in yet, in the above pic you can see the frame for it leaning against the wall.

I should have taken a couple pics of the girls right after but tomorrow during water change Ill get some good ones.

 

[Fishmaster42]

great looking build bro.

 

[Grow Journal]

great looking build bro.

Thanks so much! I gotta say I'm really liking the vertical growing so far!

 

[RastaZombie]

Finished refilling and checking on them earlier. ppm was at 705ish, I didn't top it off today with A/B though. After water finished filling PH was about 6.0
I left it as is for the night, tomorrow Ill do another A/B bump.

Ive been meaning to post up some random details lately but have been busy so Ill post up what I can remember now .. haha

During the day cycle I often add my Wein VI 2500 (Negative air ionizer, with no ozone by product) For those that are interested in alternative science to the mainstream stuff there is a guy named Dan Winter (genius) who in one of his two hour lectures teaches that Air conditioners will kill (my words) the existence of negative ions in the room, negative ions are life giving (short version), and I run a shit ton of AC leaving my air void of those ions, the Wein VI 2500 is a compact 88.00 tool (amazon) I use, I only own 1 of these so I get it in my room at night, "sorry lady's"

I also have two sets of quartz crystals, each set has 7 spheres (1.6" diameter, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and purple) One set sits above (on) the center fan and one set sits at the bottom of the control bucket. If your interested in learning more Id recommend researching Marcel Vogul, I'm not using quartz with any cuts, just simple spheres, but for learning about quartz, Marcel would be your man, he was a lead researcher at IBM for like 30 years (not quacky)

I've also got 4 Shungite Pyramids (40mm X 40mm) in the room (one under each 2" return line")

Because I cant show a side by side I can' verify that these have any effect, and so I'm not claiming they do, but I added them so that should say something about how I feel, I'm only sharing this because its a grow journal and sharing what I'm doing is supposed to be how it works :)

Inside the control bucket Ive got 2 pumps, the main one (hope Im not breaking a rule to post a link, but Ive got no ties to the seller) this is my main pump, so far its been really great, very quiet, very powerful, and very affordable.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/2100-GPH-Su...286928?hash=item46463fa550:g:ceYAAOSwhkRWb3PO

That pump is just going to the 4 plants, I have a separate pump that is for the chiller, on this return line (back into the control bucket) have a spray nozzle and the water that comes from chiller is "sprayed" back into the control bucket (above the surface), obviously this breaks surface tension and adds more air to the water, off of energy I'm already paying for, but more importantly I want to share a study I read, I don't know if I can find it but I don't really feel up for looking so you will have to search and study or trust my memory.

The study was a professional study, white paper and everything at the conclusion, I believe it was a university study, but it was comparing the aeration of hydro water with bubble stones and with breaking surface tension (think nature, rapids in a river) and the results were hands down, plants did better with broken surface tension aeration over bubble stones. Because of this I bought two 1" venturi valves but never got around to installing them, I was planning, originally, to do my overflow system with no bubble stones, but laziness got the better of me this grow. Still, the chiller line breaking surface tension can't overlooked and I think its pretty important.
On a side note I believe the water exiting each bucket breaks surface tension (but I haven't done dissolved oxygen tests to confirm)

I think that this is all of the misc weird stuff going on in the background. haha

Plans this week...

This week I'm adding another 600w (probably tomorrow). It will be a Solis Tek 10k bulb and solis tek 600w ballast. This bulb will be higher up in the middle and will probably be on 8 hours in the middle of each day. I'm adding this for the UV mostly but also as a spectrum filler, if by chance anyone can chime in with the UV "B" profile of Solis Tek 10k that would be sweet, the standard light profile doesn't graph down to UV B, lots of UV A though, I'm mostly just curious what the UV B spectrum of this light is. (wont change my plan to use it for now)

I will also be switching the main MH in the middle out for a brand new Hortilux eye super HPS, this will bring the room up to 4600 watts HPS and 600W 10k MH

I'm planning to try and squeeze 3 or 4 of my 1000w magnetic ballasts into the the compartment below the AC to free up 2k BTUs for the 600w bulb I'm adding.

Ok I think that's plenty for this post, enjoy the rest of your week and I will check back in during the water change this weekend. Peace

Spittin knowledge chief. I am really glad you made this as it seems so tempting to try and learn in the process. But i think ill leave this one up to the pro ^ and keep learning. Bucket systems and me probably would lead to my house being flooded over night. This may sound crazy but humans say bigger roots bigger fruits so from your prospective do you think it would be smart/possible to run a room using 6 connected 65 gal as your buckets 6 plants all connected or something along the terms of that idea. The light set up i have yet to think that far ahead. But bright ahiny lights. . Just wanna hear your opinion. Thanks mate keep on keepin on by the way the juice ting is good with some ginger lemon papaya and strawberry. It helps me with a slight but realistic pain relief as i have some crazy nerve damage. So thanks and kudos for the blessings.

 

[Grow Journal]

Spittin knowledge chief. I am really glad you made this as it seems so tempting to try and learn in the process. But i think ill leave this one up to the pro ^ and keep learning. Bucket systems and me probably would lead to my house being flooded over night. This may sound crazy but humans say bigger roots bigger fruits so from your prospective do you think it would be smart/possible to run a room using 6 connected 65 gal as your buckets 6 plants all connected or something along the terms of that idea. The light set up i have yet to think that far ahead. But bright ahiny lights. . Just wanna hear your opinion. Thanks mate keep on keepin on by the way the juice ting is good with some ginger lemon papaya and strawberry. It helps me with a slight but realistic pain relief as i have some crazy nerve damage. So thanks and kudos for the blessings.

Hows it going bro!

Its kinda weird being the guy posting the pics, I definitely would't call myself a pro yet be really appreciate the props.

regarding flooding the house, that's a real concern for me too, I live upstairs and have had to many close calls, just two weeks ago I ran a water line from my RO tap in the kitchen into my control bucket for top off, but then it had been a half hour or so and I wanted a glass of water, so I disconnected the line, didnt notice it fell on the floor. Went to take a shower, came back and found it reverse siphoned like 10 to 15 gallons onto my kitchen floor... shit shit shit

If you decide to get into the rdwc the flooding issue is generally not that bad but when it pops its head its a crappy scary feeling!

I'm not sure I understand your question.. if you want to do 65 gallons per plant, or 65 gallons for all 6 plants? If it was 65 per plant that sounds like overkill for sure, although its in my long term plan I plan to do my system with 55 gallon barrels (buried outside) and the plants doing rdwc in the sun (thats gonna be fun!!)

If you wanted to do 6 plants on 65 gallons rather than the 4 I'm doing on 60 gallons I think that is totally feasable. More gallons means more nutrient cost, but more stability, but then also more unsureness when the nutrients are getting out out of balance, which leads to premature water changes and dumping the nutes that might have had mileage left.

I think if you end up trying it you will like it a lot, most of the real flooding threats are me.. lol

If you end up in the market for lights, not sure from your post but if I had the cash or was starting over (eventually I'm moving anyway) I would be using CMH 315w fixtures. (only mention in case your researching lighting) If this is a bumber crop I might even take the plunge on these for my sunshine daydream I'm doing next (getting ready to pop those seeds soon!)

That recipe sounds really good and Im a fan of ginger, thanks for sharing Ill have to try it out!

peace

 

[Grow Journal]

Spittin knowledge chief. I am really glad you made this as it seems so tempting to try and learn in the process. But i think ill leave this one up to the pro ^ and keep learning. Bucket systems and me probably would lead to my house being flooded over night. This may sound crazy but humans say bigger roots bigger fruits so from your prospective do you think it would be smart/possible to run a room using 6 connected 65 gal as your buckets 6 plants all connected or something along the terms of that idea. The light set up i have yet to think that far ahead. But bright ahiny lights. . Just wanna hear your opinion. Thanks mate keep on keepin on by the way the juice ting is good with some ginger lemon papaya and strawberry. It helps me with a slight but realistic pain relief as i have some crazy nerve damage. So thanks and kudos for the blessings.

Since you mentioned the bigger roots / bigger fruits I thought it might help to throw up this picture. This was back when I first learned dwc (wasnt even rdwc) just a 5 gallon igloo bucket that I checked daily, and these roots were just from the 1 to 2 gallons that would fit in the bucket (in my current system each plant is getting almost 3 times as much (gross capacity) and so you can imagine 3x bigger roots.
I guess I dont think that the bigger roots / bigger fruits is linear.
(this was a Mr. Nice Critcal Skunk)