House & Garden Nutes., Under Current Systems, 30,000 Watts, 10 Tons of A/C, Co2

[canaguy27]

I have a JBJ commercial titanium chiller. At .5hp is does fine with 10 1k lights. paid $1100 for it

 

[RMCG]

Thanks RMCG - that all makes sense. I am running 15 600w lights total.. they are flip-flopping back and forth every 12 hours between 7 and 8 lights.

Ben or anyone else on this thread:

Although the chill king products seem to be top of the line and work for what they are intended for.. it seems like there are way too many parts to the system that makes it way expensive and less effecient.

How I understand chill king systems to work:

In a separate coolant reservior (not the nutrient reservior or "epicenter"), water (or water mixed with antifreeze) is pumped through a chiller and back to the coolant reservior. From the same coolant reservior, another pump sends the "chilled" coolant through stainless steel tubing that is coiled in the nutrient reservior or "epicenter" thus finally transfering the heat out of the nutrient reservoir and back to the the coolant reservior where it is then "chilled" again. This does seem to work.. however, the following would seem way simpler and more efficient to me:

Just get a condenser pump (like the type used on any refrigorator) and run the closed loop through stainless steel lines. (this does require a refridgerant technition to pull a vacuum and weld the lines). This system has far less moving parts and thus far less points for potential faliure. It will achieve the same thing (cooling the nutrient water without it touching anything except stainless steel tubing)

I believe that the chill king system (along with other similar systems) are desiged this way so anyone can intall a custum water cooling system without needing a permited technition to pull a vaccuum and essentially install the system. any joe grower can run a regular water pump and attach to stainless steel tubing... but it really seems stupid (for lack of a better term) to get another reservior (that may need to be refilled and replenished), two more pumps (that may fail or clog over time), all to achieve the same thing. also, it is less efficient to cool two reserviors.. every step in the chain you will have some loss... the more steps the more loss.

Any thoughts on this matter are encouraged - I cant seem to think of any other reasons to use the chill king system over a simple condenser unit other than ease of installation.

I am currently designing a condensor unit to run straight into my "epicenter" with stainless steel tubing. It is a vacuum sealed closed loop refridgeration system to cool my UC water (with a thermostat shut off.. of course) Any reasons why I should not do this are greatly appreciated.

Also.. can anyone tell me why the 3/8" stainless steel tubing from Hydro Innovations is $150 for 20', while you can get 50' of 3/8" stainless steel tubing from grainger for $66?

They (HI) didn't invent this way of doing things. Look into 'process cooling', datacenter water cooling, etc. This is just the way it happens to be IF you want to run additional equipment off of a single manifold.

Other companies currently make 'drop in chillers' that are EXACTLY what you are talking about, but the coil is titanium.

If you want to run a water cooled air-handler, cooling coils, and maybe an IceBox or water cooled dehumidifer/CO2 generator, all from the same chiller, you would need a central reservoir, a manifold and a central pump. It doesn't need to be large, I believe the CK 'self contained' ones use 20 gallon? insulated reservoirs.

Go check out the Hydro Innovations videos if you haven't already. Helps to 'see' it.


BTW, you can get a stainless steel wort chiller, 50', already coiled up nicely from decent homebrew supply stores for ~$60.

 

[MediMary]

Labelle,
Just a heads up, as you are new, I don't think folks around here like it when you post the same question up in multiple threads, I was just in jacks thread asking folks to give you a break, and your up in multiple threads posting the same stuff, copy and paste style.
If you want some input just create a thread, and have folks stop by. Best wishes.

and Ben what an amazing grow, really liked following along.
looking forward to the vertical run

 

[Boomer242]

i agree w/ medi especially after just leaving jacks thread to come here...

@ Ben
-still lurkin bro keep it up

 

[Labelle]

Sorry to anyone I offended. Sorry for double posting, it wont happen again.

RMCG - thanks for your explination and your patience. that all makes sense to me to chill multiple items using one manifold... I can see how that would make it more effecient and cost effective. Thanks

 

[Musashi888]

Humbled Student w/ Stirring Stick Question

Right on, thanks! A friend of Family is a friend of mine. Your comments and questions are welcome anytime.




Thanks! Me too!




Thank you! I really do appreciate all of the compliments.

Yes, I mix my nutes for the week in the inductor tanks, as they are my top off tanks. I use a step ladder to reach the top of the tanks and mix them using a stirring stick.


This entire thread is a masterpiece and I hope to have half the success you have had here. Thank you a hundred times for sharing your expertise and I hope to post threads like this one day when I grow up :fighting0003: Until then, I'll keep reading your threads and praying to every god, goddess devil and demon on and off the planet for 1 gpw.

Three questions:

Instead of a stirring stick, would you ever consider using an unattached submersible pump to stir those massive induction tanks?

Do you foliar feed and if so what, where and when?

How do you prefer to protect against the borg (spotted or red)?

Your humbled student and subber,

m

 

[f1ydave]

Ben,

We are doing our first grow and using House & Garden (following feeding chart)/undercurrent. 8 x 12 x 8 room with 2kw dual arc/w cooled hoods.

They were in cloner for 13 days. (We were still finishing up the rooms, ducting, filling 2 8gal - 8 bucket systems with a 200gpd RO)

Our first week in undercurrent just of nutes, just ended and ppm didn't change. The plants look fantastic. Are we supposed to drain to compensate for the new PPM's? We went ahead and just added more nutes and our ppm is 1960-2030 currently. We got over an inch of growth last night and not sure if we should drain/top it off. The strain is Cheesus. There is no sign of any damage/stress in the leaves. No curling or discoloration. We are checking them every 30-45 mins to make sure, although I figure if there is a problem, the damage is already done.

My only experience is growing tomatoes/peppers/cucumbers.

How do you/have you compensate(d) in the beginning?

Thanks,
Dave

 

[Jarofunk]

Great thread. I've been thinking about an Under Current, as well as H+G, for a while now. Definitely gonna do it

 

[Ben Derdundat]

This entire thread is a masterpiece and I hope to have half the success you have had here. Thank you a hundred times for sharing your expertise and I hope to post threads like this one day when I grow up :fighting0003: Until then, I'll keep reading your threads and praying to every god, goddess devil and demon on and off the planet for 1 gpw.

Three questions:

Instead of a stirring stick, would you ever consider using an unattached submersible pump to stir those massive induction tanks?

Do you foliar feed and if so what, where and when?

How do you prefer to protect against the borg (spotted or red)?

Your humbled student and subber,

m

Thanks!
In regards to your questions...

Yes, I have been using 1200gph submersible pumps to mix my tanks instead of mixing them by hand.

Yes, I foliar feed. I use Liquid Light and Saturator by Dutch Master per the manufacturers instructions. I also use Magic Green by House & Garden. With Magic Green I only use 5ml per gal and apply it every other week right after the lights have gone off. I only apply my foliar sprays up through week four of bloom.

As for protecting against the "borg", I am assuming that you are referring to spider mites. With that being said, I would recommend you keep all of your grow areas clean and sealed. If you bring in outside air be sure it passes through a 400 micron filter before it enters your grow room. Spider mites are about .5mm in size or 500 microns. Clean your grow room thoroughly between harvests. Do not introduce outside plants into your grow rooms without first treating the plants if they are infested. If possible have a separate room like a small Hydrohut that is away from your grow rooms to quarantine plants and treat them before introducing them to you grow room. bd

Ben,

We are doing our first grow and using House & Garden (following feeding chart)/undercurrent. 8 x 12 x 8 room with 2kw dual arc/w cooled hoods.

They were in cloner for 13 days. (We were still finishing up the rooms, ducting, filling 2 8gal - 8 bucket systems with a 200gpd RO)

Our first week in undercurrent just of nutes, just ended and ppm didn't change. The plants look fantastic. Are we supposed to drain to compensate for the new PPM's? We went ahead and just added more nutes and our ppm is 1960-2030 currently. We got over an inch of growth last night and not sure if we should drain/top it off. The strain is Cheesus. There is no sign of any damage/stress in the leaves. No curling or discoloration. We are checking them every 30-45 mins to make sure, although I figure if there is a problem, the damage is already done.

My only experience is growing tomatoes/peppers/cucumbers.

How do you/have you compensate(d) in the beginning?

Thanks,
Dave

1960-2030 PPM in your first week?!?!... First week of what?.. Veg?.. Bloom?.... That is way to high of PPM to have in week one, no matter whether you are in veg. or bloom. I didn't have my PPMs up around 2000 until my root systems on my plants were well established. I think I mentioned that I wouldn't recommend running such high PPM in the Under Current as I didn't think it was beneficial for the plants. I would recommend draining your system and flushing your plants with R/O water for 12- 24 hours. After flushing I would bring the PPM between 600-700 and increase your PPM by 100 to 150 each week. When doing add backs with nutrients be sure to add them one at a time and that each one is evenly diluted throughout the system before adding the next. bd

 

[f1ydave]

1960-2030 PPM in your first week?!?!... First week of what?.. Veg?.. Bloom?.... That is way to high of PPM to have in week one, no matter whether you are in veg. or bloom. I didn't have my PPMs up around 2000 until my root systems on my plants were well established. I think I mentioned that I wouldn't recommend running such high PPM in the Under Current as I didn't think it was beneficial for the plants. I would recommend draining your system and flushing your plants with R/O water for 12- 24 hours. After flushing I would bring the PPM between 600-700 and increase your PPM by 100 to 150 each week. When doing add backs with nutrients be sure to add them one at a time and that each one is evenly diluted throughout the system before adding the next. bd

A recap: 2 - Undercurrent 8gal x 8, 2 - 1kwatts - dual-arc per room, air 72 degress, water is 68-70, 1900+ PPM, RO is 210 ppm.

Well it was the start of the 2nd week in VEG, following the H&G feed chart. The first week was in line with feed chart. At the end of the first week, the PPM had crept up to the 2nd weeks estimated PPM before we added nutes, from top off.

I am out of town so my partner just added nutes knowing that it would stack the numbers. (I told him to drain it to bring the numbers down, but he didn't want too since there is a small leak in the drain line and wants me to fix it when I'm back.) We have been running 1900+ PPM since sunday @ 1pm. They dont show any signs of stress at all and are averaging at least 1" growth per night/day. Here are some photos from last night at 10pm eastern: The images work if you click them, not sure why they aren't showing up.

http://img810.invalid.com/i/img0694.png/
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We plan on Vegging for 7 more days and putting them into flower next Thursday and hopefully adding CO2 by then. We will be copying you 2.5 weeks veg and cages. We will flower by ear @ 6 weeks min. Harvesting probably through Christmas. Its a 6-7 week strain.

Cost us $12k to build rooms and for equipment and we ran out of money for water chiller/co2. We will have these in the next week.

 

[Ben Derdundat]

Surprisingly the plants look OK at this point, but you can see in some of your pictures that the tips of some of your leaves are curling down. This is a sign of over fertilization. Like I mentioned before I would not keep the plants at such a high PPM. The plants do not have a large enough root system to handle such high concentrations of nutrients at this stage in their life. Also you mentioned that the water that comes out of your R/O is at 210 PPM. This is too high of a PPM for your R/O water to contain. At the very most the PPM of the water you use to mix your nutrient solution should not exceed 100 PPM. I personally would not use any water over 50 PPM. For example, the water that my R/O produces is at 0 PPM. You might want to consider installing a prefilter like a Tall Boy from Hydro Logic before your R/O. The prefilter will help remove chlorine and sediment from the water before it reaches the R/O and in turn lower the PPM of your R/O water. Another thing that would help lower the PPM of your R/O water is a KDF85 filter for your R/O. A KDF85 Filter is ideal for well water users with iron and sulfur and city water users with chloramines. Hope this helps. Good luck! bd

 

[f1ydave]

Just by chance we tested the R/O water last night before seeing your reply and it is at 0 ppm. I think the 210 ppm was from the calibration, not sure why I thought it was that.

Thanks for all your help. We will dilute it. We added liquid lights/saturator last night for the first time, that was impressive how much the plants perked up from it. You go into the store for a couple 55gal drums and walk out with foliar sprays to boot! LOL.

I did want to ask, with CO2, does it really cut aroma from the plants substantially?

Day 10 after foliar spray:
http://i306.invalid.com/albums/nn272/f1ydave/Grow/IMG_0730.png
http://i306.invalid.com/albums/nn272/f1ydave/Grow/IMG_0729.png
http://i306.invalid.com/albums/nn272/f1ydave/Grow/IMG_0728.png
http://i306.invalid.com/albums/nn272/f1ydave/Grow/IMG_0727.png

 

[Ben Derdundat]

Looking good. You should start a thread and keep us all updated. As for Co2 reducing the aroma of your finished product, I personaly have not had this problem, but I have heard of this being an issue for some growers. If you are concerned with this being an issue then I would recomend turning off your Co2 generator for the last two weeks of bloom. bd

 

[f1ydave]

Yes, I will. Thanks a lot Ben!! We have decided to bring the ppms down tonight. Maybe they will drink more water if the nutes aren't so strong.

 

[KCD]

Awesome thread.
I am going to do UC now that I see what it can do.
Many thanks for freely sharing all of the info in such a good spirit!
I couldn't stop reading it once I started.

 

[Mud Man]

HOLY SHIT!! Jack inspired Grows are a scary thing indeed! Mad props on a killer room, mad skills :)

 

[Mud Man]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Ben Derdundat again.

 

[Ben Derdundat]

Thanks Mud Man. I appreciate the compliment.... Whats the reputation remark about?

 

[motherlode]

Thanks Mud Man. I appreciate the compliment.... Whats the reputation remark about?

I been wondering how many farmers know what rep is and/or how to use it

at the bottom of the left side in your post there is a small scale button - if you like what the poster said you can hit it and leave them a comment and add to their "reputation"

you could also leave bad rep - but this function is reserved for trolls

 

[GrapeApe]

Bravo!

So the Cool Coils are the ticket in the epi center eh? If I am only running one Epi center would there be a need for the ResiStats? Or if I'm following that is for multi center set ups?

Pretty slick either way. I need to go back and jot down your exact feed schedule, but thanks again for the time and effort.
Have you had any experience with the GroBot yet?