Heaths Flooded Tube Vertical

milowerx96

milowerx96

Active Member
Well I must say you are one patient dude answering all those multi part questions! This is a nifty grow you have here. I love the reflective insulation over everything. I am thinking of reproducing this system now. The only thing I would do different is make a larger access hole. I figure the simplest way to do it would be putting 2 90 degree elbows in where it drops to the next level down and run around the other direction till I get to the other side of the door and switch back around the other direction. You will lose a few spaces bit I am 6'3" and don't crawl under shit well so I think I'll make an access way. I might add a few air stones too because I am all about aerating my nutes. I know the water moving through the system oxygenates the nutes but air stones would add even more oxygen to the system. Also it would be beneficial if you had a pump failure essentially turning it in to a DWC till you find and replace your burned out pump. That is really all I can think of though; and those are just little creature features that I would like. Well done! + rep
 
xogenic

xogenic

Well-Known Member
greenyield said:
no it wont fit inside the tent.

i have the same size tent in my room and the tank is situated outside of the tent, i have to run the nutrient outake pipe outside of the tent and i have to run the pump pipes into the tent.

i made the flooded tube system to fit inside a 1.2m tent but i knew that i would have issues with the intake and outake pipes.

i had other plants in the same room vegging for a longer period and needed the tent to make a dark room for the vert.

i just zipped it up as far as i could and then used big towels to cover the gap left in the tent, i made a small hole in the towels and threaded some wire through then put the wire through the zipper to hold it in place and drooped/placed them enough to cover the void...MAGIC.
and for my next trick!!:-)
Click to expand...
ok i slept on it then forgot about it but then i remembered

right how about if i use a cool tube setup in there and extracted the heat with my vrk fan into a carbon filter so it draws all the air through the tent up the bottom cool tube and out the top of the tent sort of like the lighting in the eco system



but with the drain styled piping squared round the tentand about 4 to 6 rows high


not bothered bout the nutes being seporate outside the tent the thing will be going next to my entrance to the loft wit ha littler one on the otherside for clones to root up and some where to store a few mothers under some cfls and throw 2 400w hps inside the cooltube setup

bit allover the place but i think it made sence
 
xogenic

xogenic

Well-Known Member
also i was thinking for the intakes and outtake pipes i would find a way to fit the fookers lol need to do a bit of drawing and planning but i got around 7 weeks till i got to move just realy want to try some vertical growing looks fun and productive
 
greenyield

greenyield

Well-Known Member
That 5hit said:
i know
could you think of how 4-6 wall would sound
and not trying to make it complicated
maybe the sprayer part i over did but i never worked with them before,
maybe i should'ev shaped them like a ( E ) instead of an (3)
Click to expand...
alright that 5hit, this would be expensive to build.

use the frame that you drew and mount 4" soil pipe 1m long to it with the bottom of the pipes going into the res.



use some 1" or 1.5" pipe and connect ez clone misters into it, put a stop end on one end of the pipe and connect the other end to a water pump, you will need five of these per wall and fit them inside the 4" soil pipe, or fence posts if your in the US.
 

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That 5hit

That 5hit

Well-Known Member
greenyield said:
alright that 5hit, this would be expensive to build.

use the frame that you drew and mount 4" soil pipe 1m long to it with the bottom of the pipes going into the res.



use some 1" or 1.5" pipe and connect ez clone misters into it, put a stop end on one end of the pipe and connect the other end to a water pump, you will need five of these per wall and fit them inside the 4" soil pipe, or fence posts if your in the US.
Click to expand...
now thats a gr8 idea lets keep 'em coming
 
squarepush3r

squarepush3r

Well-Known Member
wanted to ask anyone follow this thread, and those who have replicated or made their own similar type of system.

What size do you think you could get away with on the PVC pipe smallest?

1"?
2"?
3"?
4" is what Heath uses, I guess my questions is if you think you could go smaller and still be successful, I have an idea brewing of a simplified type system
 
greenyield

greenyield

Well-Known Member
squarepush3r said:
wanted to ask anyone follow this thread, and those who have replicated or made their own similar type of system.

What size do you think you could get away with on the PVC pipe smallest?

1"?
2"?
3"?
4" is what Heath uses, I guess my questions is if you think you could go smaller and still be successful, I have an idea brewing of a simplified type system
Click to expand...
why dont you make us a sketch of your idea and post it up here?

heath did mention to someone on this thread that he could have used 3" pipe but they did not have push-fit 3" pipe and heath wanted the push-fit type .
the 3" pipe would require glueing to seal the joins.
 
squarepush3r

squarepush3r

Well-Known Member
greenyield said:
why dont you make us a sketch of your idea and post it up here?

heath did mention to someone on this thread that he could have used 3" pipe but they did not have push-fit 3" pipe and heath wanted the push-fit type .
the 3" pipe would require glueing to seal the joins.
Click to expand...
Ok, I'll give it a shot :)

My idea is in a way, a super simplified version of Heaths setup. It would allow for scaling and portability, but may be missing a few perks of Heaths, since the angled tubed would mean, if the pump stops, the water drains off all the roots rather quickly. Let me try to make a sketch of what I am thinking, although its hard to make a 3D version to describe what I want to do. Heres a go

First step: make an (imaginary) circle on the ground, in general this will be the size of your surrounding area. Imagine the red circles are PVC tubes (3" or whatever size works) looking strait down.



Next step, is each tube, we angle sideways, I'm thinking between 30-50 degrees off the floor. So, if the PVC pice was 5 ft tall before, now it will only be 2-3 ft off the ground. We angle all of them to make a spiral type shape, so none of them touch eachother (each tube angled exactly the same off ground).



Heres a really really bad side view, but you kind of get the picture. With this system, you could arrange 2 of the PVC tubes to be mounted separate, so you could 'roll' them out for inside maintenance
easy.





Basically, there would be detail work with the water connections, but essentially 1 pump feeds all 5,6,7 or 8 PVC tubes equally from the top (may need irrigation adapter for this). Then, the water just flows down each tube at whatever angle, and you collect it at the bottom some way.


This uses only strait sections of PVC tubing (3" or 4"), thus eliminating all connecting parts, or bending/warping connectors to make the special spiral that is awesome, but difficult to reproduce. This would have constant water flow, unlike Heaths system where the PVC tubes are level, so water can "sit" there if the pump is off. If the pump breaks, then there is no water pretty quickly as it would all drain (unless anyone can think of a work around, maybe damming each plant location partially to store some liquid.)

Wonder if anyone thinks this is feasable. I'm not sure if I will be able to test it, since sea of green requires lots of plant #'s, which I may not be in the position to do currently. Someone without plant limits may want to try this type.

For draining and changing the resoivior, simply turn the pump 'off' and all the water should collect within a minute or so. Or, you could perpetually adjust the PPM by interacting directly with the res only, while the pump is running. Heath mentions that salts (things not used by plants build up) can build up if you do not completely change the water every few weeks, although I have heard elsewhere you may be able to get around this...
 
greenyield

greenyield

Well-Known Member
squarepush3r said:
Ok, I'll give it a shot :)

My idea is in a way, a super simplified version of Heaths setup. It would allow for scaling and portability, but may be missing a few perks of Heaths, since the angled tubed would mean, if the pump stops, the water drains off all the roots rather quickly. Let me try to make a sketch of what I am thinking, although its hard to make a 3D version to describe what I want to do. Heres a go

First step: make an (imaginary) circle on the ground, in general this will be the size of your surrounding area. Imagine the red circles are PVC tubes (3" or whatever size works) looking strait down.



Next step, is each tube, we angle sideways, I'm thinking between 30-50 degrees off the floor. So, if the PVC pice was 5 ft tall before, now it will only be 2-3 ft off the ground. We angle all of them to make a spiral type shape, so none of them touch eachother (each tube angled exactly the same off ground).



Heres a really really bad side view, but you kind of get the picture. With this system, you could arrange 2 of the PVC tubes to be mounted separate, so you could 'roll' them out for inside maintenance
easy.





Basically, there would be detail work with the water connections, but essentially 1 pump feeds all 5,6,7 or 8 PVC tubes equally from the top (may need irrigation adapter for this). Then, the water just flows down each tube at whatever angle, and you collect it at the bottom some way.


This uses only strait sections of PVC tubing (3" or 4"), thus eliminating all connecting parts, or bending/warping connectors to make the special spiral that is awesome, but difficult to reproduce. This would have constant water flow, unlike Heaths system where the PVC tubes are level, so water can "sit" there if the pump is off. If the pump breaks, then there is no water pretty quickly as it would all drain (unless anyone can think of a work around, maybe damming each plant location partially to store some liquid.)

Wonder if anyone thinks this is feasable. I'm not sure if I will be able to test it, since sea of green requires lots of plant #'s, which I may not be in the position to do currently. Someone without plant limits may want to try this type.

For draining and changing the resoivior, simply turn the pump 'off' and all the water should collect within a minute or so. Or, you could perpetually adjust the PPM by interacting directly with the res only, while the pump is running. Heath mentions that salts (things not used by plants build up) can build up if you do not completely change the water every few weeks, although I have heard elsewhere you may be able to get around this...
Click to expand...
lets see if i read it correctly. i made a quick sketch, it looks like you will only have one viable tube made up of all 8 tubes in an octagon shape, from the point of view that i see it from.
also the part of each tube that hangs outside the octagon will take up too much floor space.



i can see it working if you were to make the pipes shorter and had 3 or 4 levels high attached to a frame for a total of 24 to 32 tubes but the problem of draining each tube back to the res gives me a headache.

i have a smaller version of the flooded tube and today i was thinking of converting it to a flood and drain system so i will be trying to wrap my head around that idea for a few days.
 

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squarepush3r

squarepush3r

Well-Known Member
greenyield said:
i have a smaller version of the flooded tube and today i was thinking of converting it to a flood and drain system so i will be trying to wrap my head around that idea for a few days.
Click to expand...
hmm, well if you have plants in the tube at different heights, I can't figure out how to flood one plant, without overflowing another ... although you could do a series of rings, each ring completely horizontal to the floor (level) and then stack say 5 or 6 rings like halo's. Then, you would only need to worry about each layer having level water ... and from this point you could add an overflow on each level, once i reaches a certain point to drain. (so, 1 overflow per level). You would have to figure out a way to pump water using 1 pump into each level equally, even though every level will be at a different height. Maybe that irrigation system part could help with this, essentially it splits a flow into several equal pressure flows, but you wouldn't be able to reverse drain through the splitter ...

orrr! you could simple say, input pump into one side of the ring, then on the opposite side of the ring have a level drain. Have the pump continuously run into all 5 levels, and then they will drain to the other side of the ring once it reaches a cutoff, like, imagine the 0 to be the ring, only much smaller

(drain) -0- (input water)

This may be a really easy way to set this up
 
greenyield

greenyield

Well-Known Member
squarepush3r said:
hmm, well if you have plants in the tube at different heights, I can't figure out how to flood one plant, without overflowing another ... although you could do a series of rings, each ring completely horizontal to the floor (level) and then stack say 5 or 6 rings like halo's. Then, you would only need to worry about each layer having level water ... and from this point you could add an overflow on each level, once i reaches a certain point to drain. (so, 1 overflow per level). You would have to figure out a way to pump water using 1 pump into each level equally, even though every level will be at a different height. Maybe that irrigation system part could help with this, essentially it splits a flow into several equal pressure flows, but you wouldn't be able to reverse drain through the splitter ...

orrr! you could simple say, input pump into one side of the ring, then on the opposite side of the ring have a level drain. Have the pump continuously run into all 5 levels, and then they will drain to the other side of the ring once it reaches a cutoff, like, imagine the 0 to be the ring, only much smaller

(drain) -0- (input water)

This may be a really easy way to set this up
Click to expand...
i thought about using 2 pumps or even one pump per tube. they would feed in from one end and have a larger drain pipe at the other end that would drain back to the res once that the water reached a level that i set it at.
im just wondering what medium to use in the tubes that would hold moisture enough to keep the roots happy between floods (not hydroton). here are the tubes i have.
 

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squarepush3r

squarepush3r

Well-Known Member
greenyield said:
i thought about using 2 pumps or even one pump per tube. they would feed in from one end and have a larger drain pipe at the other end that would drain back to the res once that the water reached a level that i set it at.
im just wondering what medium to use in the tubes that would hold moisture enough to keep the roots happy between floods (not hydroton). here are the tubes i have.
Click to expand...
well, im fairly sure the ebb and flow systems often use hydroton, but I'm not sure how to answer your question. Your setup looks great, I'm curious why you want to switch from continuous flow, to individual level flood? Just so you dont have to run your pump 24/7?

I think to do a true ebb and flow (fill then drain type system) you would need a separate pumps since each level drains the same way the water came in.

There may be work around but I can't think of any. You may be able to just use no medium, and keep say, a 1/4 of water that never drains out ... then run the pump every 30 minutes of the hour.
 
greenyield

greenyield

Well-Known Member
squarepush3r said:
well, im fairly sure the ebb and flow systems often use hydroton, but I'm not sure how to answer your question. Your setup looks great, I'm curious why you want to switch from continuous flow, to individual level flood? Just so you dont have to run your pump 24/7?

I think to do a true ebb and flow (fill then drain type system) you would need a separate pumps since each level drains the same way the water came in.

There may be work around but I can't think of any. You may be able to just use no medium, and keep say, a 1/4 of water that never drains out ... then run the pump every 30 minutes of the hour.
Click to expand...
i want to change to ebb and flow because i cannot run my more powerfull pumps in the system as it creates alot of noise at night especially and i think that my neighbours can hear it. it is the water flow in the tubes that makes the noise, like having a big water fountain in your bedroom while you sleep.

i had to use 2x 1000 litre per hour pumps to lower the noise to a stealth level but the plants suffered.
hence, the ebb/flow seems to be the way to go to make a good useable system from what ive made.

when i had my 2x 2000-3000ltr per hour pumps going it looked and sounded great but im not quite rich enough to have a big detatched house in the country just yet so the noise is a problem,lol.
 
fatman7574

fatman7574

New Member
Just buy 50 feet of 4" flex pvc and run a continous coil like a spring. Drill holes for net pots and use medium pressure low flow misters http://www.dripirrigation.com/index.php?cPath=43&sort=2a&page=3 run intermittantly by using a timer and solenoid valve. You would need a beeter , higher pressure pum than used for low pressure misters. Such as this Iwaki on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/Iwaki-Magnet-Pump-Model-MD-30RZT-115NL-Unused_W0QQitemZ230392742077QQcmdZViewItemQQptZBI_Pumps?hash=item35a47a40bd It provide 24 psi, not the piddly 5 psi or so provided by the low pressure fountain pumps etc. Iwakis are known for being the quietest and best made mag drive pumps on the marjket.

Cut some plywood donut shaped rings out of plywood make one cut though one side of like sized rings so that they can be twisted into a ramp to supportthe flex tubing. They need only be about 3" wide Make a larger ring for the top and bottom of the tower. Space out the inner rings attached to up rights attached between the bottom ring and the top ring. Twist the inner rings to form the spiral and attach to the outter up rights. You should end up with one almost continous long coil. Run the tubing to feed the spray heads ouside the frame work. Spray paint everthing but the mister heads with Krylon fushion flat white paint. Buy one piece of 5' long glass tubing http://www.winshipdesigns.com/home/ws3/page_16547_35/150x3x1500mm_simax_tubing.html and insert two lights, one from the top and one from the bottom. Install fan at the bottom. Put large industrial/commercial caster type wheels under the bottom ring. http://cgi.ebay.com/Caster-5-Wheel-Set-Locking-Ball-Bearing-Heavy-Duty_W0QQitemZ130339452392QQcmdZViewItemQQptZBI_Casters?hash=item1e58d635e8 Drain the end of the continous tube to a reservoir. Drape the vertical tower with white on black poly and leave the top and bottom open. To do maintenance etc, merely remove the wrap and reach in from outside. It would be easily adapted to CO2, carbon cans etc. Check prices and you would likely find that with the continous tubing that need no fittings that the piping costs are probaly lower. Plus there are no nooks and crannyies to gather crud. Very simple to clean. Just feed a wire or rope through the tubes length. Tie a rag to the end of the rope or wire and pull the rag through the pre wetted tube. Even better try three or four rags on the end a few feet apart.
 
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