Billy's Flooded Tubes

billy liar · May 24, 2015

Hi all,

Here's a quick glimpse of some the latest things going in my room...

I have been running 2 NFT systems, at staggered harvests so this is a flower room only.
Both systems are identical, temperature controlled and plumbed in with auto ro top-off and a drain with a manual valve.
The systems have their main reservoir in the flower room as this was catching the return from the nft tables. So, outside of the room I put a smaller control res, this holds the float valve and the drain valve, also a pump that runs through the chiller and into the main res is in this smaller res... I'll update with a schematic drawing to answer anything that seems simple to me but may be hard to understand from my convoluted ramblings...

So I've just removed the nft tables and replaced them with flooded tubes. The tubes have water flowing through them. The water is a few inches deep and sits level with the bottom of the net cups when flowing. The roots sit in this flowing water. The water is all agitated in the reservoirs and is pumped around the system as fast as possible. There's no airstones.

Well seem to be struggling with uploading pics!? What's the crack? No off site pics?? Bit shitty!

Peace
BL

billy liar · May 24, 2015

Oh well it seems I'll probably not be able to keep this thread up as posting pics will be impossible as they're not stored on a device that I post from so can't upload them..

Peace
BL

billy liar · May 24, 2015

So about the best I can do ATM.. Here's the schematic..

And a quick PIC of the tubes and feed lines

Transplant day, from the aero cloner.

I'll get a few more pics together over the next week.. Bit bloody annoying as I've got loads hosted at other sites..

Peace
BL

Smokey503ski · May 24, 2015

Nice!
Glad you got your thread going.
Are you going to keep the tubes close like that in flower?

billy liar · May 24, 2015

Hahaa cheers man,

Yes, I do densely planted sogs in here as its always in flower in the room. So transplant day is always day 1 of flower. Also low head room and the lights I have mean I need to try and run a low canopy. Try that is lol... I've just ran amnesia haze twice in here and just pulled it off..

Peace
BL

Stalks · May 24, 2015

Reminds me of the Heath Robinson grows!

Lookin good brother keep it up

billy liar · May 24, 2015

Stalks said:
Reminds me of the Heath Robinson grows!

Lookin good brother keep it up

I sat at the front of the class :D!

Thanks
Peace
BL

billy liar · May 25, 2015

Ok so here's a few more pics of the system..

First a look into the control reservoir. In here we have float valve that tops the system up with RO water, a 150W aquarium heater, a power head pump agitating the surface of the water to aid in increasing dissolved oxygen levels, and a pump that circulates water from the control res thought the chiller to the active res.
This is where nutes are added as ec levels drop.

Here's the chiller next to the control res. My plan is to swap the chiller for a drop in coil. The chillers can then keep a remote water tank chilled and free up a bit of space here....

From the chiller the water enters what I call the active res and back to the control res.
Here we can see inside the active res, you should be able to see the black flow pipe from the control res at the back of the PIC. To the left are the grey connections from pumps to the feed lines for the tubes, each tube has a 1000lph pump. To the right are the white returns from the tubes. In the middle of the res is a 500lph pump simply mixing the tank and giving some surface agitation. Just out of shot at this end of the res is the tank connector/bulkhead fitting that returns back to the control res.

Here's the detail of how the tubes are sealed at this end. The fittings uses this end are all push fit so they can be removed at the end for cleaning and removing roots, also can be rotated to alter water levels.

And a look inside to see how the roots look.. Nice, white and plenty of secondaries..
The black lead is the temperature sensor, measuring in the tubes. This controls whether the heater or chiller is in operation.

And here's the panel that controls pretty much everything.. Res temps, room temps, ventilation, and lighting times for the mother and flower rooms.
This will be expanded to control mother room temps, flower room humidity, aero cloner temps, mothers reservoir temps, etc..

Peace
BL

billy liar · May 25, 2015

And here's my nutrient line up..
This is Yara kristalon brown, I make a 1 litre solution containing 100g and this makes my A concentrate.

Then there's Yara calcinit, calcium nitrate at 15.5-0-0.
I make a 1 litre solution containing 100g and this makes my B concentrate.

Then as I'm using RO water, I'm fi ding some plants have a need for extra magnesium so I use Yara MgS, magnesium sulfate or Epsom salts.
I make a 1 litre solution containing 100g and this makes my MgS concentrate.

Then for a bloom booster I'll be adding Yara MKP mono potassium phosphate, this is like a Pk 13/14 type product. Again,I make a 1 litre solution containing 100g and this makes my PKconcentrate.

For a foliar in veg I use Yara croplift pro every couple of weeks.

And all mixed and ready to use. All I do is alter the ratios that these are added to suit the stage of growth.. Also there's a rooting powder there that I use, made for soft cuttings.

Peace
BL

Smokey503ski · May 25, 2015

Nice writeup.

tobh · May 25, 2015

Loving this thread already! Makes me wish I had the space to do something similar. Pulling up a chair, thanks for sharing!

One Love,
tobh

billy liar · May 26, 2015

Smokey503ski said:
Nice writeup.

Thanks smokey. I try and cover all aspects of the system to give a visual explanation of what's what.

I obviously like a bit of automation, lol, all to try and remove myself as a factor in the grow. If anything can fuck up its me lol...

I've contemplated using a Doser to add nutes, but at the minute its simple enough to add myself every few days. During stretch with some strains, I needed to add nutes everyday with the nft. Now with the extra water in the system I'm hoping this buffers everything out a bit. There's one controller/Doser that I've got my eye on though. And that can replace the panel we've made, and control everything in the flower room, mother room, all res temps, all nutrients, all air temps and humidity.. Its the multigrow by autogrow.

tobh said:
Loving this thread already! Makes me wish I had the space to do something similar. Pulling up a chair, thanks for sharing!

One Love,
tobh

There's not much space here bro. I ran something similar in a small tent too. The physics can be applied to any size system. Thanks for looking in!

Peace
BL

Smokey503ski · May 26, 2015

I don't think I seen res size. How many gallons are you pumping total?

billy liar · May 26, 2015

That's a good question smokey, and one I dont have an exact answer on. But my rough estimate on total system volume is around 150-200 litres. That includes the res, grow tubes and pipes.

I'm actually looking for a couple of water meters, as its another metric I would like to keep in my daily data. It will build a picture of daily drinking and eating habits. I enter the food I've added to a spread sheet which records pH, EC, pH adjustment, etc. I use this to form a graph. Surprising what this tells you about a plant, the amnesia haze more or less stopped eating after stretch on two runs. I've added a few more metrics to my spread sheet and it seems to have broken the graph.. So I have that to sort... I started keeping the data as I was seeing pH crashing around week 4-5 so hope a few more runs of keeping data may shed some light on this, the beauty of the spreadsheet is that it keeps me on my toes and forces a bit of time between adjusting and recording.
So adding a watermeter would answer a few questions, like system volume, and how many ml of a+b per litre of water.

Peace
BL

Smokey503ski · May 26, 2015

Are you mono cropping?

billy liar · May 26, 2015

Not this time bud, I've got over 20 mothers of around 15 strains/clones so really need to work through them and get rid of a few..

I just did 2 monocrops on the nft tables, amnesia, stretchy! Not ideal in this room, had to turn the lights down.

Peace
BL

Smokey503ski · May 26, 2015

I never had good luck running different hybrids in hydro on the same reservoir.
Have you found the sweet spot in your ph/ppm uptake yet?
Mine is at 1050ppm and 5.7ph. This had been working great. Water level goes down, but the nutrients and ph has been super stable.
I'm going to bump it to 1200ppm tomorrow and ph at 5.6 and see how that works.

billy liar · May 26, 2015

Working on the 500ppm = 1.0ec scale, I dont exceed 600ppm/1.2ec through out the entire grow. Seems to suit all plants so far. The fertiliser I use gives me flexibility for different strains, running hazes I use a lot less N than I would with more Indy Dom's. Its a hard knack to develop but you have to listen to the plants. The data keeping is hopefully going to give a picture for each strain, as the ec levels are dictated by plants eating. From this I can see exactly how much each plant has eaten at different stages and try a different ratio on the next run, if uptake is increased then I know the alteration in ratios has had a positive effect.

Peace
BL

billy liar · May 29, 2015

Ok so the reason I run 1.2ec or 600ppm on the 500ppm=1.0ec scale:

Roots have a semi permeable membrane through which water passes by means of osmosis; the movement of water across a semipermeable membrane from a place of higher water concentration to a place of lower water concentration.

In plant life this means the higher water concentration needs to be the nutrient solution, and the lower water concentration needs to be the inside of the roots, the outside 'skin' if you like, of the root, is the semipermeable membrane.
The higher the salinity of the nutrient solution the lower the osmotic pressure. When we reach the point of equilibrium there will be no water movement across the membrane. When we have more salinity in the nutrient solution than is in the roots, osmotic pressure will favour the movement of water from the plant and into the nutrient solution. When this happens its quite obvious that the plant will start to shrivel and die. This happens from the leaf tips then towards the stems once foliage has dried, these first signs are what a lot of growers refer to as 'tip burn'.

There's a lower value of nutrient salinity that's referred to as 'sufficient' and a higher value that's referred to as 'toxic', at slightly higher than sufficient the plant finds what it needs for 100% of possible growth. Just before the nutrient solution becomes 'toxic' the possibility of 100% growth begins to rapidly diminish. Now depending on species, the range between sufficient and toxic can be completely different, some plants could be sufficient at 2.0ec and toxic at 4.0ec, cannabis I've seen to be sufficient around 1.0ec and toxic around 2.4ec. Quite a range!
So if 1.1ec and ec 2.3ec are both capable of giving the plant 100% of possible growth, is there any need for the higher salinity in the nutrients solution? I dont think so, so I maintain 1.2ec throughout.

A big thanks to my mate HR for the education on that one lol ;)

Peace
BL

Smokey503ski · May 29, 2015

billy liar said:
Ok so the reason I run 1.2ec or 600ppm on the 500ppm=1.0ec scale:

Roots have a semi permeable membrane through which water passes by means of osmosis; the movement of water across a semipermeable membrane from a place of higher water concentration to a place of lower water concentration.

In plant life this means the higher water concentration needs to be the nutrient solution, and the lower water concentration needs to be the inside of the roots, the outside 'skin' if you like, of the root, is the semipermeable membrane.
The higher the salinity of the nutrient solution the lower the osmotic pressure. When we reach the point of equilibrium there will be no water movement across the membrane. When we have more salinity in the nutrient solution than is in the roots, osmotic pressure will favour the movement of water from the plant and into the nutrient solution. When this happens its quite obvious that the plant will start to shrivel and die. This happens from the leaf tips then towards the stems once foliage has dried, these first signs are what a lot of growers refer to as 'tip burn'.

There's a lower value of nutrient salinity that's referred to as 'sufficient' and a higher value that's referred to as 'toxic', at slightly higher than sufficient the plant finds what it needs for 100% of possible growth. Just before the nutrient solution becomes 'toxic' the possibility of 100% growth begins to rapidly diminish. Now depending on species, the range between sufficient and toxic can be completely different, some plants could be sufficient at 2.0ec and toxic at 4.0ec, cannabis I've seen to be sufficient around 1.0ec and toxic around 2.4ec. Quite a range!
So if 1.1ec and ec 2.3ec are both capable of giving the plant 100% of possible growth, is there any need for the higher salinity in the nutrients solution? I dont think so, so I maintain 1.2ec throughout.

A big thanks to my mate HR for the education on that one lol ;)

Peace
BL

Getting all technical and shit on us Billy. Lol.
I learned a few things.
I noticed when first growing in NFT is the faster the water flow around roots, the better they looked.

Billy's Flooded Tubes

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