Dirtbags Hydroponics Thread.

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Dirtbag

Dirtbag

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Any type of anti siphon or vacuum break works. I get mine from the irrigation supply house. They thread into a fitting so just run a T off of my line. You can brew a home solution up just easier for me to run those when I needed to since I'm at the irrigation supply house quite often locally. They will leak water so just make its over a part of the table or rez to collect the runoff. What u said should work fine. Just armed with that going into it and watching it when you test the lines and know what to look for you will be fine. I made the mistake and went to bed and emptied my first 40 gal rez onto the table and overflowed my collection rez first day when I went to drip 😃.

I keep my lines wet but salts, sterile and no organics. You shouldn't have a problem keeping them wet with bennies or PBP since you wont go more then 24 hrs without fresh coming through the line. I would just flush the lines after a round with H202 or Bleach to make sure to clean them out and avoid any problems over time.

1 dripper is fine if using 1/4 in up to 6in/slab. 1/8in I would def run redundant backups. Pressure can help with this some but 1/8 is notorious for clogging. Why I avoided it like the plague. 1/4 I have never had a problem with clogging (pure salts and with stuff like LK added). 1/8in is good if going with hole punch and 3/4-1in flex tubing you want to rip out and replace for more commercial settings or if you like that approach.

Saw a buddy for a little this weekend that was back in town doing some things. Told me on transplanting clones to blocks a good trick they have been doing in the warehouses is transplant to a dry cube with a soaked rooter. Watch them for the first 1-2 days and then water down the block. Says it avoids the 5 day stall on transplant and they basically get to eating right off the bat. Said to use caution since it's easier to kill a clone this way and just to watch them. Makes sense to me.

Lol if you want some floraflex's I got you. Have a grip sitting on a shelf.

Lol not a fan of the floaflex? I guess we all need to find out for ourselves haha.

Thanks again for the tips man. Much appreciated.
 
AtomicRoostr

AtomicRoostr

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After a long time using soiless, I've decided to give rockwool hydroponics a whirl.

I'll start this thread by saying, I'm feeling like a beginner again and loving it. I dont know a whole lot about growing in wool and have zero experience running any true hydro setup, so this is going to be a huge learning experience for me. And on that, Any experienced hydro growers are welcome to chime in if you see me doing anything stupid I shouldnt be.

Plan is to stick to the same basic layout I have now, 16 plants in an 8x8' room, using 6" Hugo blocks, maybe on a unislab, or maybe just on it's own.. or a big mama 8 incher..
Itll be a DTW top feed setup. Ill use Botanicare PBP and drip clean, and run it sterile since Canada is silly strict about stuff, finding biocontrol like hydroguard is impossible without a license. Plan will be to veg for about 3 weeks then flip.

The room is currently being used as a drying room for my last crop, but in a week or so I'll install the irrigation manifold and distributors and get the place cleaned up.

The room empty looks like this currently. Plan is to use bilge pumps in the drain buckets below the gutter sections to pump the excess runoff directly outside. But have big enough buckets to hold a couple days of runoff just in case a pump dies.
Also note the benches are usually closer together under the lights when I've got plants in there.View attachment 902975

And tonight I completed job number 1.. Cuttings.
I have always used peat pucks or more recently rapid rooters for cloning, the one time I tried rockwool years ago i had a very high failure rate. I fucked it up somehow, but this time I did a ridiculous amount of research and harassed every hydro grower I know for tips, and took a ton of extras just incase. 40 cuttings, and I'll keep the best 16. View attachment 902976

Stay tuned..
I am waiting for the fireworks to begin 🤩
 
cemchris

cemchris

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Lol not a fan of the floaflex? I guess we all need to find out for ourselves haha.

Thanks again for the tips man. Much appreciated.

Naw they are alright but at scale its just too much money and cleaning effort with too little up sides (at least on 6in and below). When hand watering they are great but you can also save all of your money and time and just pull the wrapping up about a 1/4 in and make a mini rez on top that does the same thing.

I do respect the hustle of it. They are a great solution for commercial setups. The expandable coco thing is pretty good for workflow. Never would have thought someone like Jack from here would have a company like that. Pretty cool to see.

Rockwool life hacks. Doesnt work as good with quick drains sometimes. They are usually a little looser.
IMG 1785
 
Dirtbag

Dirtbag

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Made a bit of progress on the water system tonight. Got the pre filters and UV reaction chamber mounted, just need to plumb it over to the holding tank and run a line of PVC from the top of the UV light down to a hose bib. Once this is finished up I'll work on getting the irrigation line installed. Also need to redirect my dehu runoff hose over to the holding tank rather than the resivoir where it is now, you can see it just below the UV chamber.

Good times.

Also for anyone curious, No.. those two outlet boxes are not live lol. They're my backup power outlets connected to my generator. And the water line wont be u der pressure anyway unless I turn the pump on to fill the res. It's all safe.
20191023 214935
 
AtomicRoostr

AtomicRoostr

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Made a bit of progress on the water system tonight. Got the pre filters and UV reaction chamber mounted, just need to plumb it over to the holding tank and run a line of PVC from the top of the UV light down to a hose bib. Once this is finished up I'll work on getting the irrigation line installed. Also need to redirect my dehu runoff hose over to the holding tank rather than the resivoir where it is now, you can see it just below the UV chamber.

Good times.

Also for anyone curious, No.. those two outlet boxes are not live lol. They're my backup power outlets connected to my generator. And the water line wont be u der pressure anyway unless I turn the pump on to fill the res. It's all safe.
View attachment 904274
This reminds me of the days i would build fish filters for the LFS. Looks like fun.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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Never heard of a refugium.. But I will be running it live, at least at first to see how I like it. I have a 210L holding tank as the main water supply with a pump in it that sends water through the filters into the res which will be kept live with bacillus strains.
Bacillus strains will compete against eachother but that's not a bad thing may the strongest win.

A refugium is very similar to a sump. Not usually placed under the tank like a sump. It basically a big hob filter that can be used for breeding and many different things like bio filters.

If running a live system and wanna go all out you could easily use one to stabilize ph naturally using limestone and peat moss. I mean you coould really do alot with it.

A refug with a waterfall that uses filter foam and bio media could give you huge advantage to keeping a thriving bacteria colony that is missing in almost all hydro systems. I feel it gives huge benefits and just takes some time to get going but once it's up and going it's dam near bullet proof in terms of keeping plants and roots healthy.

I know it sounds a little off the wall but incorporating tech from aquarium and aquaponics has been very good to me. Both of these have been around a long time but for some reason the hydro industry is not quite there yet.
 
Dirtbag

Dirtbag

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I'm curious, for those of you that root cuttings in rockwool, when do you normally see roots?
I'm at 9 days, and nothing yet. Its early I know. But some cuts look like the growing tip is yellowing rather than the fan leaves, which usually yellow a bit for me. It's a little concerning... doesnt seem quite right. And some leaves are kinda starting to droop.

With rapid rooters I'd usually have half of them rooted by now.

Maybe I'm being overly paranoid because of the fact I've had no success rooting in wool before lol. But I'm wishing I'd used rapid rooters.
 
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