Back from Cancun......When my buddy and I did "The Dining Room Experiment" one of the early issues we had was forgetting that the air stone discs were pumping out a lot of air. Since the lids sealed pretty well the air had only one way to go and the hydroton was not allowing enough of it to escape. We were so proud of ourselves for the DIY setup that we had done but soon started to see the details that we hadn't anticipated. After around 5 minutes the pots started popping out of the holes so we had to put some weights to keep them down and drill a few air escape holes in the lids to equalize the air pressure in the trash cans! Because of the pressure that the can would be under we also had to secure the clones until they had enough of a root system to be able to hold onto the hydroton media otherwise they'd just be floating around in the net pot. We had filled the trash cans almost to the top so that the baby roots were in contact with the nutrient solution and within days we saw explosive growth.
The moment your roots hit solution the root system will explode and top growth will follow right after!
King Lazy here but I really would like to see you control water temp. It would move one more factor of control into your data in terms of your research. I like to see around 68* - 69* at rootzosphere. That temp seemed to really get the root system going in my anectdotal experience.
In my previous experience 72-74f had the best growth rates. Solution is down to 84f now and going to hover around 80 i think. to me 68 ish like most run is to cool for best growth rates. The whole pathogen thing is very misunderstood and imo that why most run so cool. It’s absolutely changes the metabolic rates and reproduction of bacteria but also the plants.
Pythium is many many different species that prefer a wide range of temps. the cooler temps slow reproduction rates but many types of pythium do extremely well at temps of 68f. So a cooler temp may give you a bit more time to react to an infection but it also slows metabolism of the plants.
imo temps run in hydro are grossly misunderstood. In higher temps running a live system is beneficial if you run sterile you need to dose more often. Thats the thing most miss.
o2 is another as temps rise DO levels drop, as salinity rises DO levels drop, as microb metabolism increases DO goes down. Im all but certain the combination of tgose 3 is the reason ppl see issues with rea temps and why at 91 while growth was slow the plants still are looking healthy.
with the addition of this equipment im going to be playing around with parameters to kinda test some limitations and effects of the increased amount of DO in the system.
this was 2 weeks of growth in my old system in veg running close to 74f with a dialed in room and F1 seeds so vigorous growth.
once i dial the grow in we should see similar growth rates. But for now im finding ideals and limitations with this new equipment.
..its driving me nuts.going out there all time playing with the room temp and light intensity and extraction fan air volume.light height etc.LOL.im completely forgetting even how the plants look and growing which is the main thing.i think ive got more grey hair now
