Mr Dizzle,

I noticed that the water level in your bucket is 2" below the netpot, and from what I remember the original recommendation was 2" above the bottom of the netpot. Now it may just look like that in your pic. because you have the lid opened.

If my understanding is correct could you share your reasoning? Thanks for all of the info. shared. It makes a big difference to me and others I am sure.

t7rln

its not, I am lifting the lid so I can take a picture of the roots and the bucket comes out of the water as a result

I noticed before you had a collar under each basket elevating it and now you dont. I plan to run no collar so i can drop my nute line down 2 more inches and use a lot less water... I figure that the system will recirculate completely a lot faster and DO should increase, correct?

What is the reason most use these collars... is it to hold the basket firmly in place or to increase the nute level.

I personally dont feel that a slightly higher nute level does any good anyways and if your good with a jigsaw and get the baskets with the large lips the fit nice and snug in the mpbs with no collars.

I just wanted to get some insight on your thoughts running with or without a collar since i believe your the only one with experience running both ways.

thanks

sorry I've been away for the holiday!

So my problem was that I switched from 18 gallon buckets to the 27 gallon buckets and added another bucket (but not another, light for efficiency). Which ended up adding another 85 gallons to my system, which isn't a problem but MY WATER CHILLER WAS NOT BIG ENOUGH, My water nute solution was too warm which caused the algae to thrive. After adding another 1/4 hp chiller i'm at 63, running roots excel and algen with bright white happy roots!!!

My only problem now is that my pre 98 bubbas are wrinkly with brittle edges and the lover leaves show phos and potassium deficiencies. I keep bumping up the nutes, I am at 1260 ppm in veg..... I scared to give them more, but I think thats the problem. My PH is allways around 6. Vegging at 1000ppm co2

Dizzle, maybe give the roots excell another try, or if your doin' fine without it then thats great

mikeross said:

I noticed before you had a collar under each basket elevating it and now you dont. I plan to run no collar so i can drop my nute line down 2 more inches and use a lot less water... I figure that the system will recirculate completely a lot faster and DO should increase, correct?

What is the reason most use these collars... is it to hold the basket firmly in place or to increase the nute level.

I personally dont feel that a slightly higher nute level does any good anyways and if your good with a jigsaw and get the baskets with the large lips the fit nice and snug in the mpbs with no collars.

I just wanted to get some insight on your thoughts running with or without a collar since i believe your the only one with experience running both ways.

thanks

Click to expand...

Mike - Im the one who started the collars and I have an entire thread dedicated to answering your question of why. I have some very good reasons for running my buckets the way I do.
*reasons not in the Cheap Easy MPB Thread)
Im running 6 buckets right now at 160 total gallons used for the system. The more water/nutes you have in your system, the more of a buffer you are giving yourself. Also, I do not run top feed. Since I do not run top feed, I have very very little roots in my top pot. My buckets get 75% filled with roots at my 20 gallon per tub level. Part of it is finding out what works for you. Missing an oz here or there is nothing to having a system that works 100% of the time for you.

I have also grown some of the larger MPB plants, upwards or 9 feet tall (7 feet of vertical growth and over 2 feet or trainded horizontal growth, hit the cieling and I went sideways with the branches), and my modified DD's bucket has capicity for more. That being said, yes you can easily go less capicity if you top feed. If you run low drains and do not top feed, I believe the end result will be rope roots, something to avoid.

I can shoot some pics if you would like to see pics of my buckets that are currently up and running so you can decide for yourself, which road you want to go down. I can say there are less things that can go wrong killing the top feed. Just let me know, and what specifically you want to see...

Both the way Dizzle does it and the way I do it are very similar, but everyone should tailor this system with what they know and what they are comfortable with. There are surely 1000's of "Correct" ways to build this system. You could even do a top feed, misters in the inside of the bucket, lava rock inside the bucket with drains at 3-4 inches. I guarntee you, you will still pull similar #'s (if not higher with the aero top feed stuff).

at first i was set on running collar with very high nute levels. Thats when i planned to do only 7-8 plants. I am doing 14 plant sites now so i really want to keep the water levels low. with the 14 plant sites i will still have a lot of water in the overall system.

What i am having issues with is deciding my veg setup. I am not sure if I wanna go 6x6 blocks or coco pots. whats your opinion? I hear issues with over watering rockwool cubes. I am not running a chiller in veg and plan to do a timed drip setup with 5 min run off but not sure if i should go with coco or rockwool. I need to make my mind up by wednesday.

thanks for the reply though i will check out your thread on the topic.

Lost said:

Both the way Dizzle does it and the way I do it are very similar, but everyone should tailor this system with what they know and what they are comfortable with. There are surely 1000's of "Correct" ways to build this system.

Click to expand...

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Lost again."











Papa

mikeross said:

at first i was set on running collar with very high nute levels. Thats when i planned to do only 7-8 plants. I am doing 14 plant sites now so i really want to keep the water levels low. with the 14 plant sites i will still have a lot of water in the overall system.

What i am having issues with is deciding my veg setup. I am not sure if I wanna go 6x6 blocks or coco pots. whats your opinion? I hear issues with over watering rockwool cubes. I am not running a chiller in veg and plan to do a timed drip setup with 5 min run off but not sure if i should go with coco or rockwool. I need to make my mind up by wednesday.

thanks for the reply though i will check out your thread on the topic.

Click to expand...

Highly recommend a chiller in veg.....Seems to me some of the problems in these buckets start in veg....

I have personally grown in rockwool my whole career...The first run I used 3x3 and on the advice of DD I tried 6x6 this run...

The 6x6 makes me real nervous (maybe thats just how I am) and I think I will go back to the 3x3...

If you use rockwool place it as high above your water level as possible(once things get big the netpots sag in the water) and drip 24/7 in veg

If you decide not to use a chiller in veg I dont know how I go about it...

Anybody heard from DD lately????

mc

just a psychedelic thought.. what if you separated the top feed with the bottom feed.. bottom gets high quality hydro nutes.. top feed gets high quality organic nutes... after the top flows down drain it in a way where it never mixes with the bottom...

so 2 different rezies, both recirculating

i bet you would get some out of this world results!!!

PRODUCT said:

just a psychedelic thought.. what if you separated the top feed with the bottom feed.. bottom gets high quality hydro nutes.. top feed gets high quality organic nutes... after the top flows down drain it in a way where it never mixes with the bottom...

so 2 different rezies, both recirculating

i bet you would get some out of this world results!!!

Click to expand...

:speechless

:speechless

:speechless

:icon_cookie:

PRODUCT said:

just a psychedelic thought.. what if you separated the top feed with the bottom feed.. bottom gets high quality hydro nutes.. top feed gets high quality organic nutes... after the top flows down drain it in a way where it never mixes with the bottom...

so 2 different rezies, both recirculating

i bet you would get some out of this world results!!!

Click to expand...

That could work if you measured the absorbance capacity of the upper medium and if the upper medium could absorb 20oz of liquid with none dripping through then you could apply no more than 10-15 oz of an organic nute solution at whatever feeding times you choose to schedule.

mrdizzle said:

yea ideally I would go from aero cloner to 10in net pots then into the syiggstem, but I need a veg method that is not so touchly

Click to expand...

This round i went from my aero cloner straight into the 10" net pot. And continued vegging in my MPB's.

I was thinking this time going from my aero cloner to a individual bucket bubbler system. With a 10" net pot in the top. So I can establish a bigger root mass and get the plant used to the 10" net pot better before it goes into the MPB's. I also wont have to continue vegging as long when they are in the MPB's.

How does this sound?

Comercial

comercial- imo i think you're doing the right thing by vegging them before the MPB system

Comercial said:

This round i went from my aero cloner straight into the 10" net pot. And continued vegging in my MPB's.

I was thinking this time going from my aero cloner to a individual bucket bubbler system. With a 10" net pot in the top. So I can establish a bigger root mass and get the plant used to the 10" net pot better before it goes into the MPB's. I also wont have to continue vegging as long when they are in the MPB's.

How does this sound?

Comercial

Click to expand...

This is what everyone is doing already


mc