120-60-300-120-60-177.2 Nutrient Tutorial, or, My Thread Can Beat Up Your Thread.

[ttystikk]

I've seen what Dankworth's been doing- I only steal from the best! ;) Thanks for the in-depth explanation, it helped me visualize these much better.

Since my system is really an RDWC, I imagine that the increased circulation through the bottom of my buckets (open water vs. growth media) makes a big difference in the efficacy of using airstones. In my case, they were essential in getting the roots to cross the air gap between the bottom of my 8" netpot bucket lids and the water level in the bucket beneath. While I can't yet quantify it with any precision, I can tell you that the difference between using airstones and not was night and day for me.

Dank's discussion of hater buckets inspired me to go with 50/50 hyroton/coco as a growth media, and to topfeed with an irrigation system in addition to the RDWC. While some have derided this as being too complicated, I'm finding benefits to the hybrid approach:

1. irrigating with the RDWC water allows one to use the same water and res.
2. this water pours through the media, feeding the plants and the rhizosphere, which then filters the water before it drops back into the RDWC
3. I run zero sterilants, and don't even sterilize between runs, just a quick hose flush. The bennies handle everything as long as I keep them cool, moist and aerated.
4. No more guesswork about how much to water the plants vs runoff; just drench the shit out of them and watch them reach for the sky!
5. my inexpert observbations have hinted that the plants' roots respond to each growing environment differently; they get fuzzy with mycos in the coco, and fishbone like mad in the water.
6. everything is reusable, from the netpots to the media- I even pour the spent nutrient water on my grass and trees.
7. This appears to remove the limitations of adequate watering and has allowed me to concentrate on optimizing other aspects of the growing environment.

 

[midwestdensies]

Sounds like you have it figured out ty especially with reusability and efficiency. I love chow myself as well and after messing with some chow and hempys its time to play a little more..

 

[ttystikk]

Sounds like you have it figured out ty especially with reusability and efficiency. I love chow myself as well and after messing with some chow and hempys its time to play a little more..

Oh, no! I don't have it all figured out, not by a loooong shot! I'm just further up the error/response curve than some, lol.

Using the chowmix solved my problems; all hydroton and there was no microlife in the media, all coco and it was drowning (I'm using the coffee grounds sized stuff). Half and half was perfect. It seems to be a similar story with the topfeed irrigation vs. RDWC; both have their benefits and each tends to negate the other's weaknesses, leading to synergistic results- that is, better than the sum of the parts might suggest.

 

[Dirty White Boy]

well a krusty bucket is a hempy with constantly flowing nutes in the bottom rez, hempy is basically a stand alone bucket with small rez at the bottom its basically just a wick system. Hater buckets eh....you get the point its all just about the same. And dont forget you also have a earth bucket.....same idea. Ever single grow thread Ive ever put on here was in a hempy so you can go back and check my stuff out if you want a look.

 

[Dirty White Boy]

hempy beds are THE SHIT!!! and about as simple as you can get.

 

[ttystikk]

Sounds like you have it figured out ty especially with reusability and efficiency. I love chow myself as well and after messing with some chow and hempys its time to play a little more..

I feel very strongly about inefficiency, for several reasons:

1. it's wasteful, by definition- landfills are full enough and power plants run enough already
2. it's expensive! AND it's coming out of my pocket
3. efficiency pays for itself, by definition; no matter how small, the savings add up
4. efficiency is another way of saying reduced cost of production, or increased productivity; this also translates as competitive advantage
5. efficiency encourages control, and better control almost always results in better bud!

Finally, this industry is following the same cost curve as all the rest; as time goes on, prices come down, bringing profits down with them. Those who survive in such a market climate will have to be efficient, or they will have no profit at all- and thus be driven out of business by those who are.

 

[midwestdensies]

Fuck ya DWB! I know you know. I would love to see what your working on buddy (hempy bed you said you may show more importantly). YOuve inspired me several times just to let you know. Keep that head up also

hempy beds are THE SHIT!!! and about as simple as you can get.

 

[LexLuthor]

Hey Dankworth, you use 27 gallon totes with 2"of water at the bottom and , I guess, 8" net pots. Thats alot of space between the water and bottom of your pots, so how do you get the roots to grow down without air pruning??

 

[LexLuthor]

hempy beds are THE SHIT!!! and about as simple as you can get.

Hempy beds?? That sounds like the shit, can you post a link to your journal so I can check it out?

 

[Dirty White Boy]

https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/dirty-little-box.49990/

this is a little box I was dicking with before I left texas. Ive got a little dig going on right now thats got 5'x10' hempy beds.....28 of them HEHEHEHE! ill slap up some pics when the project is done.

 

[midwestdensies]

Hey Dankworth, you use 27 gallon totes with 2"of water at the bottom and , I guess, 8" net pots. Thats alot of space between the water and bottom of your pots, so how do you get the roots to grow down without air pruning??

It really isnt the biggest gap and the roots love water plus the airstone. Its enclosed and the roots sit in the aerated water which is replaced often or as you feel fit for your application via top drip. I was told an aquarium airstone or 2 with a commercial air 3 for 2-4 totes. . Also the pots that seem to work well are called ez roots aeration frames.

DWB- Fuckin A!! I cant wait to see that I actually built a mini bed once for a tester before I relocated and had to just give it away before flowering it. (just had cool strains and gifted them to a friend) I never did check on that thing though.. but it was very cool and I put holes all around the bed just even height and chow mix fuck it had my brain churning. Anyway good luck with things amigo
MW

 

[swisscheese]

Hempy beds rock!

 

[dankworth]

Hey Dankworth, you use 27 gallon totes with 2"of water at the bottom and , I guess, 8" net pots. Thats alot of space between the water and bottom of your pots, so how do you get the roots to grow down without air pruning??

I use the 3 gal ez roots aeration frames(now redi-root aeration frames or some shit). 2 per tote. Eventually will fit a single 7 gal aeration frame per 27 gal tote.
I keep the frame suspended slightly higher than the solution at the bottom of the tote. Only a couple gallons hang out there. That solution is runoff from the aeration frame being top-dripped into periodically. The plant uses some solution up from the chow mix frame, and also consumes some of the shallow water layer(SWC) fluid body. Between those two opportunities for feeding, the whole tote should be getting ideally 20% or so runoff. For every 5 gallons fed to a tote, 1 gallon should overflow out.
The irrigation should be timed so that there is a relatively constant slow dripping of fluid from the bottom of the aeration frame to the shallow water layer. Those drops will run down the roots protruding from the bottom of the aeration frame. If they have an airstone like ttystikk says, then they will have bubbles popping at the water surface right underneath them, spraying them with nute solution. That will encourage them even more to grow into the shallow water body. Once the roots hit oxygenated water like that, the plant takes the fuck off. Especially in an optimized environment.

I think the shortest gap from the aeration frame to the water is best. Will eventually build pvc supports for the aeration frame. Giddeon had an awesome idea, he built a box-shaped pvc frame to support the bucket in his system, and also drilled the bottom of it out so that it could be used as an airstone.

As time goes on, I will make the shallow water layer deeper.

 

[dankworth]

Was too broke for airstones. Had to use cpvc w/holes drilled. At this point I like the airstones from the fish section at Wal-mart.

 

[kushtrees]

I'm sure you have thought about this dank but what about a air line soaker hose style in the SWC. Then it would be almost identical to a krusty bucket. If anyone wants to see a krusty bucket a simple google images search of krusty bucket design has a drawing its easy to find i think its from ICmag.

if your using the 27g totes why not use larger pots so that you have a larger surface area for roots to drop into the water. Ive been meaning to try out your hater buckets i love the concept, but i cannot figure out a reliable way to hold a 20g smart pot above the water, 7g pot is just to small for my purposes... maybe the pvc frame...

 

[dankworth]

I'm sure you have thought about this dank but what about a air line soaker hose style in the SWC. Then it would be almost identical to a krusty bucket. If anyone wants to see a krusty bucket a simple google images search of krusty bucket design has a drawing its easy to find i think its from ICmag.

if your using the 27g totes why not use larger pots so that you have a larger surface area for roots to drop into the water. Ive been meaning to try out your hater buckets i love the concept, but i cannot figure out a reliable way to hold a 20g smart pot above the water, 7g pot is just to small for my purposes... maybe the pvc frame...

I like the idea of using teas to add organic inputs to the system. I suspect that teas, etc. may clog up a soakder hose faster. But I have never tried soaker hoses, can't say for sure what they would need to work out correctly.

I had a dozen totes and around 300 gallons of coco and perlite to dispose of this one time. 25 gals of medium per tote. I hated. Wanted to get back to a bucket system to reduce total labor. Krusty advocated growing a smaller number of root hairs/root tips, and flowing nute solution past them to get the growth done.

Too much medium for me to want to deal with in a 20 gal smartpot.

Edit-it was Mr. Dizzle talking about salvaging an mpb run by going back to hempy buckets that got me into hempy buckets.

 

[kushtrees]

I completely understand I have chow mix coming out my ears...

I have a small plant limit unfortunately so all my plants are over 2#. I wouldnt put that large of a plant in a 7g bucket even with SWC at the bottom, maybe DWC... but Ive been weary of switching everything to water culture aftr seeing some of the UC MPB disasters.

nice pics btw

 

[dankworth]

I completely understand I have chow mix coming out my ears...

I have a small plant limit unfortunately so all my plants are over 2#. I wouldnt put that large of a plant in a 7g bucket even with SWC at the bottom, maybe DWC... but Ive been weary of switching everything to water culture aftr seeing some of the UC MPB disasters.

nice pics btw

I believe that rdwc offers less disease resistance than standalone dwc. Single station dwc, judging from grow journals, seems to tolerate higher temps well without rotting out. One of the big reasons I don't want to recirculate nute solution. Also why I have a shallow water layer, gets turned over by runoff faster, so is fresher.

 

[ttystikk]

I completely understand I have chow mix coming out my ears...

I have a small plant limit unfortunately so all my plants are over 2#. I wouldnt put that large of a plant in a 7g bucket even with SWC at the bottom, maybe DWC... but Ive been weary of switching everything to water culture aftr seeing some of the UC MPB disasters.

I believe that rdwc offers less disease resistance than standalone dwc. Single station dwc, judging from grow journals, seems to tolerate higher temps well without rotting out. One of the big reasons I don't want to recirculate nute solution. Also why I have a shallow water layer, gets turned over by runoff faster, so is fresher.

I AM running an RDWC underneath 8" netpot bucket lids. I have topfeed, and one run has airstones and one is without. I'm not gonna bother waiting until the experiment is officially finished, because just one of the plants in the room with airstones has more roots than the whole other room combined. Clearly, the water splashing up from the bubbles is important.

Since I'm running an RDWC, I keep the water cool, around 60-65 degrees F. It's coldest in the 'morning', and warms up throughout the 'day', just like I imagine the soil would. This, plus bennies in the water draining down from the coco/hydroton in the netpots, keeps the RDWC in top condition against pathogens. I don't even sterilize between runs anymore, just a good spray out and flush with the hose.

the reason I say all this- again- is because I believe that Dankworth's system and mine are slowly evolving towards one another. Most of the difference at this point amounts to the fact that he runs drain to waste, while recirculating the nutes in my RDWC is an integral component of my approach.

 

[LexLuthor]

After looking at the pics they are alot closer to the water then I imagined and your explanation got me to understand it way better. Thanx