FF's journey into The Third Dimension

[adam]

what sound do your brass balls make?:D dude cant believe a sparky was invited to your growroom.i wouldnt do that but im not you. hope nothing comes from it.he might not rat you out but he can always rob ya. if i sound like a prick im sorry but you gotta expect the worse at all times when you grow weed.

 

[FastForward]

I'm growing in a couple of relatively small tents, so it's not like I took him into a growroom itself....but the room where my tents are stinks of green because its where my computer is and where I smoke...if it hadn't have reeked of green I might have been able to blag the tents as photo equipment. I had to make a choice in subzero conditions....face losing months of work or risk it....in the end it was a no brainer....and I've learned from it, so hopefully it won't happen again...

 

[adam]

hey FAST have you checked out my Vortex grow?your grow doesnt look bad even with the shit you had to deal with.gotta love how tight your internodes are.i am hoping to be running the dwc from hererisssh in a few weeks. hope to learn from everyone elses mistakes so i can cruise on by.pretty sure your gonna enjoy the smoke from your grow.

 

[FastForward]

Day 32 since germination

The 3D2 clone has rooted, has been repotted, and 3D2 put into flower.

 

[jah_hoover]

Looking good ff:) nice n bushy

 

[doubleds]

nice

Hi Fastforward
I have been looking through your thread bro and sorry to hear about the problems youve been having. Maybe i can help with one... Black pails are fantastik for stopping light getting to your roots but SUCK BIG TIME at soaking up heat and transferring it to your nute solution, i learned this last round. This time i put black/white polly plastic covering the black pails/res's and noticed a 7 degree drop. Reflect the light and heat away with the white side of the polly.

Nice looking grow bro and hope i've helped

dds

 

[FastForward]

Thanks a lot DDs....next time I try hydro I'll do that...cover the pots with panda plastic, white out....or maybe even spray one white. I don't think I'll be playing with the hydro for a while though, it's just too much grief for me and my skills atm. If this aero stuff holds together then I'm going to be deeply in love with it and go with that for as much as I can in the future.

So far the aero one, 3D3, still has pristine white roots and so all is good....

 

[FastForward]

Day 33 since germination

The 3D1 clone has now rooted too, so 3D1 has been put into flower. Definitely no problems with vigor....and I only took 1 cut of each when I normally take 2 just in case one doesn't take.

These 3x 3D were meant to be in my other tent, but those TW are taking their sweet time so they're going to have to squeeze in the other for a while.

 

[ProGroWannabe]

They look good bro! Are you planning on doing more with the fogger yet, or is one enough for now?

 

[FastForward]

I don't really have the room at the minute PGW. With the TW taking longer than I had planned, and my RP, and the LR2 even (LR2 on day 79 today, still clear trichs!) all in the same medium tent, I just have to wait...

The other limiting factor is the fact I only have one <15 minute timer (@£70) and one fogger. It's definitely a case of one fogger per adult plant at the moment, as the output from the fogger over 30s or 1 min is relatively low. Also the fog sinks like dry ice, so you need to run it a long time if the roots/plant are high up to ensure all roots get bathed in fog. Some of the best uses of foggers that I've seen have been with vinyl posts, using a recirc dripper and fogger....the fogger chamber separate to the rest, so that the fog could be run down the vinyl pipe. V. clever and amazing results.

Check this vid at about 2min 30:

[YOUTUBE]http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=brvJ2fGXusU[/YOUTUBE]

If this 3D3 turns out to be female and the bloom goes well, the next phase is to convert one of my 18 litre cistern tanks, by putting in a bigger output fogger (3x misters in one, £50) and cutting two 3" netpot holes in the lid. I figure running that fogger for 30s should easily fill the chamber, whereas the single fogger would need to be run for 2-3 mins at least (less use=longer life).

I also upped the timing on the fogger last night to 1min every 15 minutes from 30s every 10 to make sure upper roots are getting fogged.

 

[ProGroWannabe]

That's a great video, thanks for posting it!

I wonder....in a larger application, would there need to be a drain for accumulated moisture? I'm thinking that this could make for a massively oversimplified nft-type setup. Wouldn't even have to change the acronym...lol...Nutrient Fog Technique.

 

[devious d]

id like to see if they hit that 45-50 day window, ive got space queen on the go at the moment which im sure 3d has in it down the line, watching with interest D.:D

 

[FastForward]

That's a great video, thanks for posting it!

I wonder....in a larger application, would there need to be a drain for accumulated moisture? I'm thinking that this could make for a massively oversimplified nft-type setup. Wouldn't even have to change the acronym...lol...Nutrient Fog Technique.

Totally....although it works much more easily for propagation and early veg than for flower, just because as the roots grow you've got to keep a larger container to keep them suspended...which in turn means more fog needed as it's effectively denser than air and fills from the bottom up....but yep....

AFAIK it's as close to proper aeroponics as you can get, without spending £2k on an Atomix setup. FWIW 'proper aeroponics' is defined by me as nute droplets between 0.5 and 50 microns (as per NASA) and I'm fairly sure these ultrasonic misters put out droplets within that range (I researched it, can't remember the source tho).

The only real expense involved is getting a decent timer - I've got the Hydrogarden one @£70 and it's great, although it only goes down to 30s and 1m resolution and ideally I'd like per second control for this stuff....

 

[ProGroWannabe]

Hmmmm your really onto something here, I think. And yeah, I totally forgot about those Atomix systems!

 

[FastForward]

Happy happy joy joy.....after only a few days in 12/12 it looks like 3D2 and 3D3 are both girls. 3D1 looks to be forming bollocks and I think I can see pistils on the other two. Big result because 3D3 is the aero and I really wanted that one to be female so it could carry on. Will post some photos in a day or two once their girlie bits are more pronounced.

And for the record, using a fogger doesn't keep pH any more stable than using an airstone :( Had to adjust it back down to 5.5ish from 6.5 daily, but that's probably more to do with the lesser res contents (only a couple of litres max).

EDIT: Thinking about it, there's probably a more elegant solution to the problem - to provide the fogger a fresh stream of nutes from a larger res to provide more pH buffering. The guy in that video used a fogger chamber fed by 8mm dripper.....maybe the solution is to make a small box that sits inside the bucket to house the fogger in nutes, that is routed in and out of the bucket separately?

 

[ProGroWannabe]

Sooooo a recirculating fogger system, then?

 

[FastForward]

Something like this:

 

[FastForward]

Sooooo a recirculating fogger system, then?

Yep...basically the poor man's nutramist :)

But this way gives so much more control to the farmer over nutes - no need to disturb the plant/expose roots to mess with nutes, more stable pH from larger res, can feed multiple buckets from a single res....

The fogger chamber has to have a flood and drain capability to it so that there's a constant level above the fogger....but that's about it - all it needs is some 1/2" grommets in the side of a bucket...

p.s. I'm smoking radiator dried lowryder#2....need pandora's test to get her cute little ass in gear and get done!! :)

 

[ProGroWannabe]

Haha on the "cute little ass" comment.

I don't know if this would make it too complicated, but what about inverting a small, round, plastic pot on the inside of the bucket. That plastic pot would be where the fresh nutes enter. Then they would flow through a series of small holes that you drilled into the lower 1/3rd of it. The purpose would be to allow a type of separation between the fresh nutes and the "spent" nutes, before they are drawn out and sent on their way.

I dunno, it may just make for unnecessary complication......thinking "outload"...sorry.

 

[FastForward]

I hear you - it's definitely over complicated and nowhere near KISS, and something else to go wrong/fail. Will have a go at making an enclosure for the fogger using a small pot as you suggest and see if it can work. I suppose if it's any good I could get it plastic moulded and actually sell them....but that's a long way off atm. I'm falling slowly in love with aero and I think others would too if it were a bit more user friendly....and I'm all about user friendly :)