Chow mix Chow mix Chow mix

[yayarea]

76/24 hydroton/ coco in 20g smart pots DTW no hempy res

Watered 3-7 times a day 20-45 secOnd drips depending on how rooted the plants are always aiming for 10-20% run off

Feed, feed, RO, feed, feed, ACT

5k vert 4 plants per room, constantly 1.5+ per plant, I get Over 2 on my deadhead

Next go I'm mono cropping, all deadhead OG, 2 rooms, 8 plants, goal is 3 a plant I think it's doable

Kushtrees have you ever tried 4 light 5 plants? if so how was the yield compared to the 5 light 4 plants.

Your watering 3-7 times a day, is that 10-20% run off each time you water or total through out the day?

I went out and bought the gold labels chow mix its 80/20 right out of the bag pretty good product you dont have to break you back washing those damn rocks. I added some coco to it to make it 50/50 maybe I should have left it alone seeing your results. With the 50/50 mix what would you recommend for watering times? Im going to either add 1 light to the 4light room and take 1 plant out OR add 1 light to the 5light room and add 2 plants what do you think.

 

[yayarea]

Dankworth 1.5 to 2p's out of a 3 gal aeration frame??

 

[kushtrees]

I was suggesting very large plants trained into stadium like horizontal screens; speaking from experience it works very well no larf; I've done any where from four to less than one plant per 1000 watts of light this way; hit as much as 2.2 per plant with eight plants in one hundred sq. feet. Compare that to four plants at about 2.3 per in 100 sq ft; 18 units to 9.2. You may have cooling or electrical limitations that compel you to run only 5k in a ten by ten though?

You hit 18 in a 100 sq ft now that is very impressive. How many lights? If I had more time to train I might very well try that. I have 10x10 rooms available and I got a 2 ton mini split per room, plus I have my 2 rooms on a flip flop, I'm working with only 100 amps so I can't push it a ton sadly... I dream of 200 amps haha

I also have a 12 plant limit I'm not really down to break (6 for me 6 for my roomate).

Did you have to have tall growing strains for this?

 

[dankworth]

Dankworth 1.5 to 2p's out of a 3 gal aeration frame??

If I was trying to achieve a 1.5-2'er, I would use the 7 gal. And not standing there by itself.
Either set it in a 27 gal tote and backfill around it however much with chow for more insurance, and set the drain where you could maintain it, or check out my lengthy rambling stoner post on my bucket system proposal. And do that. Because that will rawk I am pretty sure.
Krusty buckets got 2+ w/ 2 5 gal buckets, one for the medium, bottom one for the drain.

Keep in mind that there are profound performance gains that can be achieved by constantly flowing nutrient solution past a smaller amount of root tips.

 

[kushtrees]

Kushtrees have you ever tried 4 light 5 plants? if so how was the yield compared to the 5 light 4 plants.

Your watering 3-7 times a day, is that 10-20% run off each time you water or total through out the day?

I went out and bought the gold labels chow mix its 80/20 right out of the bag pretty good product you dont have to break you back washing those damn rocks. I added some coco to it to make it 50/50 maybe I should have left it alone seeing your results. With the 50/50 mix what would you recommend for watering times? Im going to either add 1 light to the 4light room and take 1 plant out OR add 1 light to the 5light room and add 2 plants what do you think.

Never tried the 4 light 5 plant set up. Dizzle did that and rocked it, so it works, but I would rather have 4 plants get 3 lights each instead of 4 plants getting 2 lights and one plant getting 4, but that plant with 4 lights would be awesome. My thought is that the plants with 2 lights would have more small nugs but I've never tried it and I'm sure you could lolly pop/ train all the larf away

Yea 10-20% each time, minus the first watering of the day which doesn't get much.

I wan to try the 80/20 out of the bag sounds very cool. 50/50 I've only had to water 1-2 times a day and with higher coco ratios the 20% run off is more important to avoid salt build ups, or you could add more plain water feedings.

I would add the light and add 2 plants so it looks like this

XOXO
OXOX
XOXO

 

[Confuten1]

Nobody has brought this up but isn't "chow mix" chunky coco/hydroton?? Most ppl seem to run pithy(fine) coco. I've run several variations seem like 50% hydroton 25%chunky coco, 25% fine coco worked best for me but my experents were in no way scientific. I'm baseing my opinion and a root autopsy and final yield.
confu.

 

[Confuten1]

Ohh and I'm curious if anyone have tried a chow mix variation in beds and what the results were how feeds per day and what interval. I didn't want to be the first one to try but it seems like its worth a shot.
Confu...

 

[kushtrees]

Ive always wanted to try the chunky coco, I remember seeing your hempy experiment also. Ive always used canna cuz change is hard and Ive never had an issue with it

I would love to see chow mix beds, curious as well if anyone has tried it

 

[Resinable]

You hit 18 in a 100 sq ft now that is very impressive. How many lights? If I had more time to train I might very well try that. I have 10x10 rooms available and I got a 2 ton mini split per room, plus I have my 2 rooms on a flip flop, I'm working with only 100 amps so I can't push it a ton sadly... I dream of 200 amps haha

I also have a 12 plant limit I'm not really down to break (6 for me 6 for my roomate).

Did you have to have tall growing strains for this?

I had 8400 watts of lighting. It was 4 bare bulb six hundreds down the center with 3 thousands horizontal vented hoods on each side.

I had only a one hundred amp panel for the whole house. Cooled with two 12,000 btu and one 9000 btu Mitsubishi mini splits.

Strain played a big part, I had a high qaulity and high yielding blue dream cut (the santa cruz cut I think). It stretched like crazy for the first four weeks of flower. It was not the fake crap that ruined the bluedream brand. I wish I still had that cut.

I also harvested one of the eight plants at six weeks and the other seven at seven weeks; had I let it go eight weeks I probably would have hit twenty. The same set up got me 12 off a low yielding kush strain but I felt like I could have done better had I got to know the strain.

I think this type of set up would work well with all vert bare bulbs too.

 

[deep buddy]

so im having some real trouble weighing the benefits of having a few inches of water in the bottom of a double 5 gal bucket system.
the buckets have bulkheads so i feel like there will always be a lil water in the bottoms, ill be running chow(fine pith)at anywhere from 50/50 +.
so im super worried about the water becoming a vector for nasties.
i saw that DW suggested HEPA filtering the incoming air to keep that water aerated and clean!

ive made glove boxes for mycology, would a box like this work? a small fan for an intake filtered. tia

 

[dankworth]

so im having some real trouble weighing the benefits of having a few inches of water in the bottom of a double 5 gal bucket system.
the buckets have bulkheads so i feel like there will always be a lil water in the bottoms, ill be running chow(fine pith)at anywhere from 50/50 +.
so im super worried about the water becoming a vector for nasties.
i saw that DW suggested HEPA filtering the incoming air to keep that water aerated and clean!

ive made glove boxes for mycology, would a box like this work? a small fan for an intake filtered. tia

I am getting away with it at high room temps without insulation so far, handwatering.
I do stuff like this to try to find failure points.
The roots will be all fine-haired up to the water, then they turn all hydrophilic in form(thicker, no root hairs, fishbones eventually, etc) when they reach the water.

Pathogenic attack on roots turns ugly in recirculating solutions, but dtw offers a huge improvement to safety. Besides, given that you will still be irrigating the top bucket to get your 20% runoff, the water at the bottom of the 2nd bucket will be slowly replaced over the span of 1-2 days pretty much.
Regular standalone DWC uses the same water for at least a week at a time, ours will be replaced much faster than that, offering greater safety.

If these DWC-style roots end up with problems at some point, the problems will not run up the roots and infect the top bucket. And will not spread to other buckets like in RDWC. So more safety yet.
Encasing all the bucketage with a reflectix box or "stage" will of course allow you to pump in AC'ed air with a duct booster to keep temps down there whatever you want. Raceway tables on casters work well with this design. Concrete floors will help with temperature control also.

 

[bakershredhead]

Hey OBs I've used the lava rock in 5gl buckets before but haven't tried it with coco. It would be cheaper but if your going to be using 15gl of it per site it would be pretty heavy. I'm still pretty new with using coco as a medium. Hey Res can you describe your layout a bit more. I've kinda got an image in my head. So would the plants be away from the walls 4-5 feet and than you train them towards the wall at an angle as they grow?(in a V shape) So the backside of the plants still wouldn't receive light? Hey Kush I did use my used coco/hydroton from my smartpots and put it in my 4x8 beds and it did well. You just have to water more. I decided to go with the beds after I saw OBs post (thanks OBS) and just went with straight coco so I only had to water every 4-5 days. Pretty low maintenance. Dank I think I'm going to try the 7gl in the 27 gl tote. I'm just going to try probably two and the other eight I'll just stay with the larger 15-20 gl mix. It's gotta work in those totes though as again my krusty bucket worked and that was two gallons less medium. They also didn't have that big of a tote to grow in. That was a problem I had with the Krusty buckets. The bottom bucket would clog with roots. I switched to some 13 gl square buckets but I tossed those due to lack of room from all my old growing equipment. Wish I had them now but still have the 27gl. I've never posted a grow here before but I'll do it when I start this next run as it will help me in keeping track. Good point Confuten I hadn't even thought of the exactly what type of coco. I've just been using the Botanicare bricks. I would think since the mix is almost all hydroton the pith is fine to use. I wonder if the pith would hold more beneficial backteria than the chunky coco?

 

[bakershredhead]

By the way Yayarea thanks for starting this thread

 

[Landfishd]

I think the reason (or one reason) for using the finer coco for chow is because it creates a surface with the hydroton that mimics an aeroponic environment for the roots when the nute solution runs across it. I don't think the chunky would have the same effect. Please correct me somebody if I'm wrong

 

[dankworth]

I run the fine coco too. I dig it. I imagine chunky would allow for more frequent irrigation, but I'm okay with 25% fine coco chow for now.

 

[Confuten1]

^^^ I think chunky coco also adds air pockets. The roots seemed denser and more of them when i ran comparisions with diffrent ratios.

Im doing beds right now, 3x6 trays, with 2 ks per tray. .5-1 inch hydroton on the bottom, .25 inch coco mat then coco/chunky coco 75/25. This is my first stab at beds so if all goes well then next rounds Ima add hydroton to the coco. ill be sure to report back.

 

[Confuten1]

I think the reason (or one reason) for using the finer coco for chow is because it creates a surface with the hydroton that mimics an aeroponic environment for the roots when the nute solution runs across it. I don't think the chunky would have the same effect. Please correct me somebody if I'm wrong

Doesnt the hydroton create the surface that acts like aero/nft? I would think that the pithy stuff would inerupt thatt "flow" plus the chunky would creat more air pockets and still retain fluid jus like the pithy stuff neway. its all a guess anywhoo, but i like where this thread is going!!!

Confu..

 

[Landfishd]

I have no idea just regurgitating info that I read or at least I think I read.

 

[dankworth]

so im having some real trouble weighing the benefits of having a few inches of water in the bottom of a double 5 gal bucket system.
the buckets have bulkheads so i feel like there will always be a lil water in the bottoms, ill be running chow(fine pith)at anywhere from 50/50 +.
so im super worried about the water becoming a vector for nasties.
i saw that DW suggested HEPA filtering the incoming air to keep that water aerated and clean!

ive made glove boxes for mycology, would a box like this work? a small fan for an intake filtered. tia

I missed this earlier I think.
I am going to do it like a huge slacker, and cut some of that white/blue hepa type stuff that comes in huge rolls, and shove some of it into the snorkel hose.
I am going to link the original snorkel hose to a larger diameter snorkel hose, then shove the hepa material in, instead of doing it right and building a dedicated hepa box like the one deep buddy was describing.
His is the right way to do it. I will do it like a slacker to see what I can get away with.
BTW I will be using drilled cpvc for the airstones. They will float I am guessing.
I did not want to deal with regular airstones again.

I am using the fine coco for more insurance compared to the chunky, since I am dtw.
If I was doing recirc, I think the chunky would offer greater oxygenation and thus greater growth rates.

Confuten, I do believe that the surface of the hydroton promoting an nft-like water flow around the roots that hug the hydroton is what allows chow mix to outperform coco/perlite.

 

[Donkdbz]

I tried the chunky/hydroton, pith hydroton and pith/DE with bell peppers, green leaf lettace and corn. The pith/ hydroton won.