Watts/lumens per square foot ?

[dankworth]

I dunno, anything below 600 seems pretty impractical to me, all those ballasts/cords? Doesn't seem worth it when you could have fewer lamps and deeper penetration.

Would those be normal vert lamps or spinning around in a gyroscope? (i see you picked the corn out)

http://t1.invalid.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT_GIDAKY3PSG170FcqtT8jdVVcobMO2bx25o5OIsB2F2Low99cAQ

 

[ttystikk]

http://t3.invalid.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRWD239LfMaI8WI9FIZaqdRxu1IElduZzD6BGuIyhg3aBPvwh6i
http://t2.invalid.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSEkWZy5WUnWG-SoqD8hS7GaZ6CwbILYcfGPn0il1ep0MGJjXf1mQ
http://t0.invalid.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ2J4BDaLp0mEOmg9n7STsFikuhpv0lbc7UUVeNANHJBd3FDMDGYg

lol- tell us how you really feel! And... why? I built my own RDWC- and I built it to be flexible. If there's a better way, I'm sure I can upgrade quickly.

 

[dankworth]

;)
The exudates are part of the deal, El Cerebro is good with links(and I am retarded with links), check him out for the exact info.
The particular exudate management characteristics of RDWC are IMO the point of greatest failure risk.
Swimming in shit.
Plants get sick from doorknobs.
Hence the need for sterilizing agents.
Even still, those using h2o2, bleach, zone, and prayer still lose RDWC crops even when following the sterility protocols.

I really like systems that lend themselves to modularity and adaptability at this point myself, good call.
Thanks for getting the joke ttystikk.

Edit-have you seen my proposal for the topdrip chow swc dtw?

 

[ttystikk]

;)
The exudates are part of the deal, El Cerebro is good with links(and I am retarded with links), check him out for the exact info.
The particular exudate management characteristics of RDWC are IMO the point of greatest failure risk.
Swimming in shit.
Plants get sick from doorknobs.
Hence the need for sterilizing agents.
Even still, those using h2o2, bleach, zone, and prayer still lose RDWC crops even when following the sterility protocols.

I really like systems that lend themselves to modularity and adaptability at this point myself, good call.
Thanks for getting the joke ttystikk.

Edit-have you seen my proposal for the topdrip chow swc dtw?

Temperature and beneficials are the best ways to beat the bugs inherent in running an RDWC system. That said, the fact that there is basically no buffer at all still makes RDWC hard to manage. An example; I bought some Pro-Tekt recently, and used it sparingly, at the low end of the recommended dose on the label; 2ml/gal. First, my pH skyrocketed and I poured in the pH down. Then, it dropped through the floor and I find myself pouring in the pH UP. I get tired of that fast, especially when it's clear the wild swing has damaged my roots. Prior to this experience, I really didn't have much trouble with pH swing, and I ran the same water for up to a month at a time. Whatever exudates there were must have been well diluted and not harmful, as my pH would climb slowly, over the course of at least several days or a week.

I chose RDWC because it seemed relatively simple and low effort- at least as far as buying and carrying a bunch of media in and out. Water flows in... water flows out. Easy. But if I'm leaving a bunch of yield on the table, then that's obviously a false economy.

I don't know if I saw the proposal per se, but I did see some discussion about it in your 6 pack thread- which is also excellent, by the way. I'm planning to do that next, after a few more rounds of Jacks.

My RDWC was built from 1" bulkheads, 1" tubing and 5 gallon buckets. It's VERY simple, flexible and modular/reconfigurable. I could drop in 3 or 5 gallon buckets with chow mix, do a top drip (modifying the existing tubing I already have in place for airstones) and I'm off to the races.

If you were in my (waterproof) Tevas, what would you do? Other than changing your shoes... ;)

 

[dankworth]

I would, if building from the ground up-
Get 7 gal aeration frames w/chow mix
27 gal totes, drain on the side, low, so 1-1.5" of water at bottom.
You will need an air gap.
dtw
airstone(hepa filter on air pump)
create a "stage" from reflectix that goes across whole canopy, across tops of totes, and spaces between totes, and down the sides to the floor.
So all totes are contained in this box of reflectix skin.
Get a duct booster, ducting, pull ac'ed air off your ac, pump into this box to keep mini-res temps where you want.
So the SWC layer stays at whatever temp.
I go into it in the "root rot" thread by gettogrow in the hydro section, I detail more specifics there.
I have enough grey hair, I want systems that will continue to function well when problems happen.
Multiple redundant safety features.
DTW is an essential part of that philosophy. 20% runoff and all.
So we will get DWC performance, topdrip reliability, nothing shits the bed randomly.

We have all spent extra time trying to unfuck our rdwc sysrtems that could have been used vegging a slightly slower, problem free system.
Because of all the tuning required, rdwc ends up giving less crops per year than mine will.

We all want dwc performance with non-rdwc reliability.​

At least I do.​

​

Some systems want to take a shit. Others do not.​

Like planes in their designs.​

The more maneuverable ones, because of the geometry they must necessarily display, are inherently unstable in flight. If you take your hands off the stick, they will veer out of control and crash.​

Then we have the stable ones. If you take your hands off the stick, they will right themselves. They will porpoise their way slowly out of a dive, a turn, etc. Give them long enough with no control inputs, and they will end up flying straight and level.​

But they trade performance for reliability.​

​

So RDWC wants to take a shit. And Krusty. Why? Recirculation.​

DTW is not known to be inherently failure-prone. Look at everybody's dtw coco runs. Look at hempy buckets. Standalone dwc tolerates higher res temps, and presumably lower DO levels, than rdwc. Why? Something to do with pathogens related to root exudates, I suspect.​

Like a doorknob at a public place. All those germs. It will get get you sick. Foreign germs and all.​

Unlike your doorknob at your place. Which does not get you sick.You have built up resistance to that funk.​

Plants get sick, catch colds. From doorknobs.​

Recirculating solutions recirculate exudate from roots.​

Shit. Recirculating shit.​

Pathogens working with exudate from plant A can victimize plant B because, well, plant B is being fed plant A's shit.​

​

Swimming in shit. No wonder they get sick. No wonder the systems require all the bullshit they do. Chillers, Zone, h2o2, bleach, don't use this, can't use that.​

​

No organics? Fuckever. Organics rock, they do so much cool shit.​

​

So the solution is, as I mentioned previously, to dtw.​

​

So you get yourself an EZ-Roots aeration frame. Or spend hours like a bitch drilling holes, then sanding or blowtorching them to smooth them out. Or some shit.​

Fill your aeration frame with 76% hydroton, 24% coco.(joke)​

Topdrip into it. Like all the peeps with slanted tables and smartpots. Get your 20% runoff every time you irrigate. Roots will want to grow out the bottom. They will eventually air-prune.​

​

But wait. That 20% runoff. Where does it go again?​

Down the drain.​

But then I thought​

If you cut a hole in the lid of a 27 gal tote, and put a drain as low as you could, you would have like 1-1.5" of water at the bottom of the tote(swc)​

Then the roots could kick it in the shallow water layer too.​

​

The water would not be that deep. So it would not necessarily have to be actively oxygenated. And the solution contained there would be turned over fairly rapidly, once every day or two.​

Hempy buckets work, don't they?​

​

So then I reflected back to this one system I built, with miniature netpots suspended in a lid over a 1" layer of water. But a recirc system.​

They exploded, and were really happy with me, when I introduced airstones to the layer of water.​

​

But airstones are vectors for airborne pathogens.​

Unless one actually used a hepa filter for their snorkel. Seems simple in retrospect.​

So then we can get air with little to no pathogen risk to the roots dangling in the water.​

And those roots would follow DWC laws.​

And not take a shit.​

​

Let's say the DWC roots took a shit. Then what?​

Who cares. Tear them off and keep topdripping into the chow bucket.​

You don't need a bigass root mass to do trees. One can get 2+ from a couple stacked 5 gal buckets if done right.​

So the dwc roots are extra, another avenue for feeding.​

Because dwc performance, once seen, cannot be forgotten.​

​

Then​

After we topdripped into chow and fed those roots​

And that drained into the shallow(or you could make it deeper) water layer, ran airstones, and fed those roots​

​

Then the 20% runoff can go away.​

​

So we never recirculate shit. I added a layer of earthworm castings on the chow, and a layer of coco on top of that. Home for bennies.​

Bennies will in fact discourage pathogens if used correctly.​

But like I said, those dwc roots are extra roots anyways, and nonessential.​

​

And if your topdrip has rotted somehow, well...​

Fuck who knows. I don't have that problem. Don't even know how to get it, topdripping periodically into chow. Just don't recirc.​

​

Now, though dwc tolerates high temps with aplomb compared to rdwc, we would like to keep the solution at 68 or so I am guessing. For insurance. For shits and giggles.​

So I will be constructing a box, in a very halfass fashion, out of reflectix. That contains the totes. A reflectix tile across the top of the totes, across the whole canopy. And encase the sides too.​

Then take a duct booster, and pull some AC'ed air through some duct, and pump it into the aforementioned reflectix box. Lightly pressurized. Set that shit to a remote thermostat if you want that reads the temp somewhere in this box.​

That way you have a higher margin of safety, with lower dwc/swc mini-res temps.​

One could take advantage of concrete floors too.​

​

So this way we will get dwc growth rates​

And topdrip reliability​

With less water consumption than​

UC​

MPB​

Ebb & flow​

Ebb & grow(that shit is so funny)​

etc.​

​

I figured I should do this first, and test it fully before making claims.​

But maybe there is someone who could benefit from this.​

I can run organics now​

I can veg fast enough to make trees practical​

I could yank and transplant into more coco if needed​

I can do anything I want.​

I can REPOSITION PLANTS.​

​

I said​

I CAN REPOSITION PLANTS.​

Platforms, casters, flexible tubing for feed and drain.​

What.​

​

I feel like a dopegrowing superhero sometimes.​

And you can too.​

 

[ttystikk]

Sounds good, but I don't have the coin to toss all my 5 gal buckets and start over. So, I'll drill holes in the bottoms of other buckets- like a bitch, but only once- and set them in there. I get everything you mentioned, and the 5 gallon bucket is going to be plenty big for the size plant I seek to grow. My main gripe about RDWC other than the pH issue is the trouble with introducing beneficial microbial life to the roots.

I disagree with the characterization of plant exudates being 'shit'. They're there for a reason, and that reason is the promotion of a microbe rich rhizosphere- which RDWC can't support because there is no substrate. Up 'til now, the answer to this in RDWC has been to merely dump the water on a regular schedule, but I always suspected that I'm throwing away a valuable resource. At least with DTW, I'll be able to pour the runoff on my outdoor garden...

And I'll be able to reposition plants.

 

[Texas Kid]

In my 3x3 setup the canopy was 3x3 as well because all of it was crammed into a 3x3 hydrohut tent, it was a light chamber from Jah himself...

It is super hard to scale up and maintain the same output yeild levels against the wattage or lumens.....my standard setup now is pretty much 1k per 4x4 footprint, no matter what the setup container or buckets..the buckets are runnin 2k per 4x4 footprint right now though...

In bigger setups it is the economy of scale and not the maximum per sq.ft. output and pretty much because it is almost impossible to create the same light concentration in a 200-1000sq.ft room as you can in a 9 sq.ft enclosed tent.

 

[Texas Kid]

I don't run my hood nearly as close to the top of the canopy as I use to, pretty much fixed hiegth at about 24"-30" above the canopy...I get a better foot print and notice no difference in the output other than a larger foorprint which is better for me

 

[Capulator]

one 600 hangin below a 1k dual arc on all four sides. one growzilla dual 600 above. total of 760o w per plant. 72" centers.

I need a bigger place.

 

[Capulator]

In my 3x3 setup the canopy was 3x3 as well because all of it was crammed into a 3x3 hydrohut tent, it was a light chamber from Jah himself...

It is super hard to scale up and maintain the same output yeild levels against the wattage or lumens.....my standard setup now is pretty much 1k per 4x4 footprint, no matter what the setup container or buckets..the buckets are runnin 2k per 4x4 footprint right now though...

In bigger setups it is the economy of scale and not the maximum per sq.ft. output and pretty much because it is almost impossible to create the same light concentration in a 200-1000sq.ft room as you can in a 9 sq.ft enclosed tent.

Are you runnin a dual 1k over each plant site? Welcome back to your own thread!

 

[ttystikk]

one 600 hangin below a 1k dual arc on all four sides. one growzilla dual 600 above. total of 760o w per plant. 72" centers.

I need a bigger place.

...and your very own nuclear reactor to generate all that power! Glow in the dark ganja, anyone?

 

[Texas Kid]

I have 2k per 4 plants on a 50" grid from the cieling, so it ends up being 4k in a 9'x12' room..that room is 8k total in a 12' x 18' room and the light grid is centered in the room and then laid out on 50" center with Magnum XXXL hoods, no glass, no air-cooled exhaust from the hoods..

 

[dankworth]

one 600 hangin below a 1k dual arc on all four sides. one growzilla dual 600 above. total of 760o w per plant. 72" centers.

I need a bigger place.

I run 1/2 mh 1/2 hps overhead.
My plants don't even know dual arcs came out yet.
Fuck those things are so espensive.

 

[El Cerebro]

I run 1/2 mh 1/2 hps overhead.
My plants don't even know dual arcs came out yet.
Fuck those things are so espensive.

dual arcs = very ineffecient compared to your method. hillary running a little lopsided there eh?

 

[dankworth]

dual arcs = very ineffecient compared to your method. hillary running a little lopsided there eh?

She always looks like that after I get done tittyfucking her.

Yeah, my way is more lumens, more PAR, less cost.

 

[El Cerebro]

man this place can be rough, guess I'm just as guilty for setting it up..

"quick and easy ideas" - now mr dankworth's always good for a few of those

 

[Capulator]

right now in my vert I run 9 k. the 4 corners are MH, along with the one in the middle. The other 4 are HPS. Gettign very good reults like this onthe plants that survived the elephants foot (6 of 9).

Next run I am goign to kill it. You'll see. :eek:

 

[ttystikk]

right now in my vert I run 9 k. the 4 corners are MH, along with the one in the middle. The other 4 are HPS. Gettign very good reults like this onthe plants that survived the elephants foot (6 of 9).

Next run I am goign to kill it. You'll see. :eek:

Wasn't aware you had so many casualties. My condolances. I've killed a few recently just being surprised- I added pro tekt and it screwed up my pH something fierce and burned my girls.

I like the mix of spectra you have going.

 

[scrapmapple]

4k hps. 8x9 room. set the controls fer the heart of the sun. bright enough to seize.

 

[ttystikk]

4k hps. 8x9 room. set the controls fer the heart of the sun. bright enough to seize.

Well... would you believe, 'not exactly?' 8x9=72 sq. ft. 4000w/72=55.555 watts per square foot. That, as it turns out, is EXACTLY what mine is. he's even using the same hoods, though his are running unvented with no glass and mine are glazed, sealed and vented in a sealed room.

Tex has run over twice this wattage per foot intensity on a smaller scale grow (2x600w in a 3x3 tent= 133w/ft^2!) and reported on the original post of this thread that he had great results.