I found threaded PVC pipe at home depot. I'm using 3/4" barbed to 3/4" npt threaded fittings from the sprinkler section. then I used a 3/4" npt threaded to a 1" slip fit PVC for the inlet on the front of the hard PVC pipe and glued it on with christy's red hot blue glue. The T pieces for the outlet are labled as 1" X 1" X 1/2" npt. It's two 1" slip fit ends with a threaded 1/2" in the middle. You can find the threaded and barbed 1/2" pieces in the sprinkler section as well. I had to step up from 1/2" to 3/4" before the buckets as the ebb and flow fittings only work in 3/4". I will buy better fittings made for buckets next time, these leak a little and just suck overall but they were easily available. The hose is just 3/4" flexi PVC sprinkler system hose available in the sprinkler section. Buy a hose cutting tool to cut that stuff, you will thank me later. the PVC hose is difficult to put on and remove from the barbed fittings just so you know.
the room is a sealed system with two 38,000btu A/C window units keeping the place in the low 70's and the RH around 50%. The hoods are air cooled with dedicated ventilation, no air exchange from within the room with the lights. It flows from outside, through the lights, through the fan, and back outside.
I'm using roots oregonism beneficials. I didn't use an enzyme at first and lost a plant to pythium and another one looked like it was getting it but half-assly recovered with an h202 flush. I would NOT run a benny without tricoderma in RDWC. Roots oregonism,
great white, and humboldt
myco madness all have tricoderma.
I realized today that I also didn't add silicone to the mix. Silicone and humates definitely help keep things from going south.
I'm trying different enzymes at the moment and yes you need an enzyme to break down decaying root matter so the tricoderma can eat it. I already tried hydrozyme and it didn't work like I thought it would. Tried the roots excelleurator as well but there are already WAY too many roots for the buckets. Maybe they worked and I just added them too late. I'm thinking of going back to a dead res for the rest of the cycle if pythium shows up in a 3rd plant. I'm going to try the humboldt
prozyme next. I should think outside of the catalog from the grow store and find a new enzyme if the
prozyme doesn't work either.
roots have been clogging the two 3/4" drains in this system, so they will be upgraded to a 1 1/2" or 2" drain on the next run. I wasn't expecting this kind of explosive growth with the bennies. The plants that clogged their drains were the ones that got the pythium.
this isn't actually my grow. well, I say that as I'm not the one maintaining the place. It's my afghani strain, I built the system, set the room up to my specs and tell the caretaker (Dr.Feelgood) how to run it and he does a great job of keeping things maintained and calling me if there's even a slight issue with something. It's pretty nice and it's working well for both of us and the third party who put up the funds is amazed.
It's in a commercially zoned location run by a private caregiver. The firemen who inspected the place were quite interested in the grow. :party They said it was by far the best setup they had seen in Denver and they have apparently seen ALOT of commercial grows. All of the grows they had seen were in dirt, this was the first hydro setup the fire department had seen. I was really shocked about that at first but most people in the commercial side in denver have absoloutely no idea what they are doing so maybe I shouldn't be that shocked. WEED NOT GREED!!! lol
Next time it'll be smaller plants in buckets. 1 more personal run in the buckets with hoods at the new place and then onto tubs with watercooled vertical lighting. the plan is to keep two 55 gallon drums in my greenhouse for a nice beneficial heat exchange system in the winter months.
