Enter the Monolith: Under Current 10 meets Home Box

[Jimmynitz]

A+++++

 

[Boylobster]

Haha, thanks Jimmy, but the proof is in the pudding, as it were. There are still some things that concern me, but... you just gotta' wait it out, I suppose. :sweating

Shady, it's never too late, if you're willing to do put up with some pretty unpleasant labor. I went beyond extending the rows - I completely mutilated the system, :D. I'll have new pics up for week three; in a few days, you'll see what I mean.

 

[Boylobster]

Updizzle!

Alright, it's night 21 of flower - three weeks in, ~five more weeks to go. I'm breathing a sigh of relief as real flowers have finally shown themselves, and look relatively healthy. Now I just need them to become enormous. :D

Oh! Right! And some of you may notice that the UC 10 that was crammed into one half of the tent now occupies the entire footprint. I drained the system, custom cut new PVC, and laid them all out as a 3x3 grid of nine, plus one. :itwasntme

I call it the Under Current Serpent, and it goes like 'dis:

o----o o
| | |
o o o
| | |
o o----o
|
X<--Epicenter!
(edit: the spacing is refusing to work properly here, but the system now runs in a line that moves in an S shape. If anyone really wants it, I'll post a proper diagram.)

The new layout is, I think, the right way to go for now. It's no longer symmetrical, and a warning to anyone who wants to go this route: the system now has so many turns that the passive water flow can no longer keep pace with the pump, meaning the water level drops slightly with each consecutive unit. It's not severe enough to be a problem, but if the pump were any stronger or the system any longer, it'd be trouble. After this harvest I'll redesign the system to be more like the UC Evolution Under Current now offers. Shit, enough chatter, right? Let's see it!

Mo' room, mo' bettah'... This is much more reasonable spacing.

Flowers! Sweet flaming Jesus, actual flowers! :party

I'm still surprised by the amount of stretch here, but what are you gonna' do?

The stretch was part of what alarmed me so much; this strain is normally the shortest, most compact of those I grow. I've never seen it get this lengthy before, but it seems to have slowed, and the flowers look fairly normal. That's all for now, but if anyone has any advice, it's still more than welcome.

Peace,
BL

 

[Shady]

Very nice job on spreading things out BL! :smoke

 

[Boylobster]

Deeamn, dog! You're like lightning with the props, thanks! :D I really appreciate the support, but I've gotta' confess, I'm so nervous about running an entirely new system with an entirely new line of nutes that I'll be happy with 2oz per plant off of these monsters. I know that might seem absurd, but I'm in totally uncharted territory here. *crosses fingers, toes, etc.*

 

[Shady]

LMAO :D I've got an iPhone and I work smarter, not harder... Actually I'm unemployed so I guess I'm just playing in my small garden... :itwasntme Dreaming of something like yours. I really want to try the Undercurrent in a couple rounds.

 

[max_well]

Hey Bro
Looks like you been putting in some real work to maximize things here.. Congrats on the signs of happy flowers starting to form, I know it hasn't been easy to get there. Was it difficult to disassemble the setup with plants in it / get the PVC out of the uniseals?

I'm curious about custom layouts of the undercurrent system and I'd love to see a more detailed depiction of how you have things laid out. I'm thinking about ordering one of these setups and and i'm trying to determine an ideal layout for maxing out a 12' X12' space..
keep up the good work bro.

 

[Kpezzy]

you know what? this is impressive!!! I can't imagine tearing apart my system with plants in it, that must have been so much hard work to re-do everything mid grow and the stress on yourself wow! I hope you had meds handy

 

[goleboy]

nice work and mad props for gettin shit done! nothin feels better than when you are done actually accomplishing something...props to you and good luck with your girls

 

[Boylobster]

Thanks for the kind words, all!

max_well: In a word, yes. It was a bitch and a half to drain, tear down, place, measure, cut, reassemble, and refill the entire system while the trees were in it. I had to have a buddy help me, and by the time we were done, the lovelies were definitely beginning to wilt. :whew However, it was that, or let them choke one another to death for six more weeks. I've mashed together a diagram of the system as it is now, see below.

Pezzy: Lol, yeah, it sucked! :D I hope it was worth it. :itwasntme

At max_well's request, here's a rough diagram of the new layout, which I made by shamelessly butchering Current Culture's brochure. I hope they don't mind.

It's pretty simple, really - the plants are now in a single, curving line, and the pump still pulls the water through each bucket. However, a word of caution for anyone who'd like to try this layout - because of the size of the pump and the number of turns in the line, the last bucket retains a lower water level than buckets preceding it. The unit closest to the pump has the highest water level, then a little less, and less, etc. It's not low enough to be a problem, but it could be if you had more turns, more PVC, or a faster pump. After this crop is done, I'll be redesigning the system to be more like the UC Evolution now offered by Current Culture.

Shameless plug for those guys - their customer support remains outstanding. The details aren't really relevant; suffice it to say that they are a company that really cares about making and standing behind a quality product. Much love. :heart

 

[Shady]

Nice diagram! What program did you use? :wondering I can't wait to see your next DIY with a return pipe and booster pump... :cool

 

[Boylobster]

Oh, I just chopped up pieces of the Under Current's brochure with Photoshop; nothing creative on my end. :) A return pipe plus booster pump, huh? I'm not sure I follow, please, elaborate! My plan at present is to see if I can mimic the UC Evolution design in a way that only requires one pump, one chiller, and one control bucket, but still delivers an equal rate of flow to all units. What did you have in mind?

 

[Shady]

A return pipe plus booster pump, huh? I'm not sure I follow, please, elaborate! My plan at present is to see if I can mimic the UC Evolution design in a way that only requires one pump, one chiller, and one control bucket, but still delivers an equal rate of flow to all units. What did you have in mind?

Well I guess I don't understand the UC system perfectly, but I thought that small black tube is a return line... Seems like that black tube on the stock UC systems is a 1" diameter PVC pipe with a booster pump. So as I understand it, the bottleneck exists in each bucket and then the low flow rate hits that tube and is pumped back to the main res?

In residential construction, we often have to add booster pumps to things like irrigation lines to increase pressure so that sprinkler heads will have enough flow rate to work properly... Also the potable water lines, and fire water lines throughout a site may sometimes need booster pumps to ensure that each home or apartment receives enough water pressure.

:thinking Maybe there's a way to add a smaller booster pump between a couple buckets to increase the flow until it hits the return line... Then again, what do I know? I'm still drooling over everyone else's UC system. :giggle Too bad they don't have testers...

 

[Boylobster]

Ah, I gotcha'. The black return line for my system is 3/4" vinyl tubing that connects to the pump. The buckets are connected to each other by 2" PVC. As it stands now, my system is setup pretty much exactly as it's shown in the diagram, minus the chiller and air pump, of course.

There isn't a bottleneck between each bucket per se, it's just that there are too many bends in the system for gravity to distribute water through the 2" PVC as fast as the pump is pulling it through the return line. If you used 3" PVC, for example, or a smaller pump, I think the distribution problem would disappear. I'm not sure what the effect would be if you were to add a pump somewhere in-line to help move water more quickly out of the control bucket, but I understand your idea. Hmmm... :thinking

 

[Boylobster]

Up-diggidy-date!

Well kids, we're halfway there. Tonight is night 28 of flower; 4 weeks in, 4 more to go. Things seem to be doing well enough, but let's just see, shall we?

To the front!

To the side!

To the back!

Now slide!

Now dip!

There you have it! The last shot concerns me a little bit - the top colas aren't quite right, showing signs typical of some micro lockout, and that's always where it shows first for me. The pH has been rock solid until recently; it's begun screaming downwards. I've had to add pH Up daily for a couple days to keep it in check... perhaps it's time to flush the system and refresh? Any words of wisdom are always appreciated. :)

And for the record, I'm very glad I sweated breaking up the system. Keeping them smashed into half the monolith would've been absurd. ABCya, I'm out! :D

 

[TyKaycha]

If you're getting lockout (I don't see it but not saying you aren't) it couldn't hurt to flush for a day.

The pics look good though.

 

[Boylobster]

Thanks, Kaycha. I need more opinions like that. :D As I said, they seem *mostly* happy. Some of the uppermost colas are showing slight signs of deficiency that I'm not capturing well in the pics: twisting leaves, slowed resin production, stunted hairs. They look a little... "dry" on top, if y'know what I mean? :thinking All in all, however, not bad - agreed.

What's more unusual is that until very recently, the pH has been rock solid. The trend of shooting straight down daily continues. Has anyone running RDWC experienced this? The General Hydroponics site mentions significant microbial activity as a possible culprit... or, I was wondering if it could be possible that the plants are consuming so much potassium that the pH Up I'm adding is being devoured as soon as it breaks down in solution. Thoughts? If the pH drop is associated with microbial activity (the roots still look very happy), then changing the solution isn't likely to do much - I'll need to sterilize.

Thoughts, anybody? I'm all ears. Figuratively speaking.

 

[UCMENOW]

Rinse and Repeat ;)

Sounds like it's time to flush and refresh. Daniel told me that if the pH destabalizes it's time to purge and renew.....how long you been running without change out?

 

[Boylobster]

Daniel's a f$$$ing champ, that's what I say. :D

I have yet to change nutes, so that's 4 weeks. I was hoping that by running straight RO and feeding conservatively that I could do the whole run without flushing all those goodies down the drain, but... :itwasntme

How do you flush your system, if you don't mind my asking? A fair amount of water lies beneath the PVC after draining, so do you go through and pump out each unit individually? Or do you just not sweat the relatively small volume that remains, and let it mix with the fresh solution? And thanks for checking in, btw. :)

 

[TyKaycha]

I'm not running a UC yet but doesn't the rez have a hose hookup? If not, I would place a pump in the rez and pump out from there, getting as much as I could. Fill with fresh water, pump out again, fill fresh. Wait a day or two to add nutes. If fresh water needs to be added before it's time to add nutes, then it's only just straight water. A day or two without nutes aren't going to hurt them, most seem to like a shower/bath once in a while... :rofl