Like I have said this was my first attempt lol and a feeble one at that, still it did way better than most thought it would.
I did have a large air pump with 3 stones in the can and air stones in the reservoir as well.
1st - I didn't give any consideration to how much room the roots would need to keep the plant happy, as it was the 25 gallon can was no where near big enough to contain them, the roots grew and plugged the return line as well as the drain. I had roots all the way to the reservoir some 7-8 feet away.I didn't see that coming. Looking back at it I'm not sure there is a container that would be large enough to hold them. When I do it again I will start with a much larger home and a much smaller plant...40 gallon can might work but I wont know till I try it again, it may not be possible. This plant was put inside the can early July with quite an extensive root system and that was for sure a problem, it would been better to start small.
2nd-I had a hard time keeping the nutrients and PH stable with the amount of uptake, the plant used up nearly all of them daily after she got big, again no room for the roots and nutrients in such a small can. It didn't bubble much it sounded like more of a hiss after 3 weeks or so.
Looking back I would have a Garbage can reservoir same size for the plant to draw from,both the grow cell and reservoir 40 gallons so about 60-70 gallons total between both, as it was I was working with maybe 35-40 gallons total, more volume would have made it last a couple days maybe more making it easier to deal with.
3rd was the issue of temps overall.
I was able to keep them in range or close to it by burring the reservoir in the shade where the sun never warmed it and placing bails of hay over it.
This worked, the temps never got above 80 degree's I would have liked to see them in the 60's but that was not achievable, between 73-78 is where they ended up that seemed like it was good enough to keep the plant thriving until the roots packed it full....and they did. I did end up with some bugs in the water, probably could have controlled them with some H2O2 but didn't even try, it was late season before I knew they were there.
4th I should have put some kind of roof over it to keep the rain off the plant and out of the bucket, the rains came earlier than expected, this proved to be a big problem. I also didn't see that coming, on a normal year rain was an issue in mid to late Oct...they arrived with a vengeance in September, by mid October bud rot was there.Still had 2-3 weeks or more left so there was no chance of finishing.We had snow in late June that year so the weather was an issue all season.
I am no where near as scientific as most of you and maybe that was the biggest issue.
I try to keep it simple as I have some health issues that get in the way.
With careful planning I might be able to pull it off.
I did enjoy the challenge but with the lack of a plan it was a pia.
Thanks for looking.
Peace.
