Flooded Phatty Tube Vertical Evolution

I tried the closet grow for a while, but the plants were quickly out growing the space, so I decided to build a room. This turned out ok, growing out Blueberry and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, I lost the Blueberry to spidermites and had to bubble hash the entire plant. The Afghanistan was surprisingly resilient and that plant yielded 5 oz even though it took forever. My watering wooes were to get the best of me. I decided to turn the Afghanistan from a soil grow into a DWC during regeneration. Um, that killed it.

Next, I decided to go SCRoG horizontal but after seeing how the topping slowed my plants down, I decided against that idea. Vertical has been appealing to me especially since I kept having to watch my head from bumping into the reflector. Finally, enough was enough so vertical it is with my lighting.

Next I decided to go with undercurrent DWC. I've been pretty much an incrementalist in my approach making methodical changes but I've been wanted to experience more broad sweeps lately.

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The control bucket was pretty pimping. It had a water level tube, an overflow level, a combination drain/fill fitting and it could be sealed which quieted the pump inlet. I found inspiration in Dystopia's 250w SCRoG grow for the res design.

This was as of a couple of weeks ago. I thought if I was careful with the application of silicone, that it would be a leakless system. It was until I hooked up one of those commercial air pumps to it. The vibration of the airstones started the leaks to begin. I was just about to switch it to 12/12 when I just said 'f*ck this' (I HATE LEAKS)

So I tore the whole system out and put this in it's place, the Flooded Tube (credit for inspiration go to Mr. Robinson). But instead of 4" diameter gasketed soil pipe (SDR 35), I went with 6" thus the 'phatty' flooded tube is born. Also since I'm a legal grower I could only have 6 sites.

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The coupling on the right has a siliconed dam built into it that's adjustable for water level control. The tube holds about 8 gallons and the res another 8. So I'm able to cut down on my nutrient use as well as have less components overall. The vertical allows me to grow multiple strains with each strain getting all the light that they need. The inside diameter is 44".

I like to think of it as a giant fiddlehead fern.

My current run includes (from left to right) Jack Herer, Super Silver Haze, Jack Herer, Black Domina, Super Silver Haze and Afghanistan.

Super excited to have a system that gives me flexibility and reliability at the same time, I came this morning to discover this:

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ugh, that happened? After listing the various things it could be - (cold temps, nutes too strong, lighting intensity, lack of water), I decided that even though they were exposed to HID lighting, that was the strongest contender. Since it took me a couple of days to put this new system together, I had the girls under cfl's. Just a couple of days was all it took for them to be sensitive to the light intensity. I lifted the light and by the end of the day all (except one) had made a full recovery. I'll verify in the morning, hopefully this is the last hiccup before settling in to a smooth grow.

Checked them this morning, everything is looking good but the last one took a step back, so I pulled her out of the bloom chamber.

These are what the roots are looking like now:
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Not looking so good. They are not slimy at all, just a bit limp and brown. Thinking that is could be low levels of DO, I decided to upgrade my pump from 700 gal/hr to 1000 gal/hr. After installing the new pump, the whole system felt better, the flow was stronger and I felt the creek was moving a little faster now - not so slow and borderline stagnant as before.

While at the hydro store, on a whim I picked up a TDS meter. This one was known to be calibrated to sodium, whereas the one I was using before I assumed was calibrated to potassium. As I check with my new meter, it shows TDS @ 800ppm. For a potassium calibration, this is equivalent to 1.1 EC. As I look in the chart, it correlates to 1.6 EC !!

Aha! My nutrients are too strong!

In wanting to increase the levels of my DO, I created some injectors and a manifold to put in-line with my main water inlet. The plant closest to the main inlet has it's roots constantly flushed by the mechanical action of the water flowing in. Why not include this benefit to all the other plants?

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Some other experiment designs for the injectors/sprayers

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The best injector seems to be the simple vertical 1/8" drill hole in a cap. Cool, 67 cents, check. It uses the venturi action to suck air into main body of water.


Current state = 9 days @ 12/12
Just finished cycling, H2O2 - 5ml @ 29% per 15 gal rez. for 4 hrs.
Introduced 1 gal of beneficial bacteria compost tea via Heisenberg. http://www.rollitup.org/dwc-bubblepo...eneficial.html
New rez nutrient transition mix, half strength, Botanicare Grow, Bloom & Sweet.

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Within 24hrs, the rootzone is already responding with white fuzziness

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I liked the system that Heath Robinson worked out with Heaths Flooded Tube Vertical
= ingenious.

However only being protected for 6 mature plants in our state's MMJ program, re-purposing his system for decreased plant count was a requirement.

Why not increase the pipe size to allow for larger root development resulting from longer veg times? Pricing out 8" dia pipe was too pricey. A single fitting is $35 compared to $16 for 6" dia one.

6" diameter sdr35 gasketed pvc drain pipe is,... quite phat. Actually, it's quite a phatty, big and thick!
<grin>


The "phatty" tube evolution is based on integrating a number of different things I learned fom working with other technologies.

- fast recirculation of water for oxygen aeration (NFT)
- roots constantly hydrated and exposed to nutrients (DWC)
- oxygen enriched root zone (aeroponics)
- efficient use of lighting 'sweet spot' with vertical orientation of bulb. (vertical growing) Perfect for multiple strains and variety of canopy height.
- expandable (stack levels). Each level can include 6 plant sites.
- injectors/sprayers are easily accessible making further design development easy.
- easy monitoring of root zone.


At first, the application of the 6" dia pipe vs. 4" dia pipe looked to be detrimental to the root system. With a ~750 gal/hr pump, the water flow was too slow. Upgrading to a ~1000 gal/hr pump definitely produced a substantial increase in horizontal flow but also provided enough surplus energy to include water injectors at each plant site. The mechanical venturi action of water jet creates turbulence and increased humidity at the root zone of each plant site. This is anticipated to increase nutrient uptake, growth rate and total biomass.

- The use of a flooded tube also substantially increases nutrient flow much greater than the undercurrent rDWC designs using a 2" dia pipe.
- The current design reduced my reservoir capacity down to 8 gals (flooded tube) plus 7 gals (in reservoir) 15 gal total - 25 gal max. This allows for less nutrient use, increased buffer for ph and tds control and more efficient flushing of system.


Preliminary Dissolved Oxygen Calculations

-The increased surface area to volume ratio allows for higher levels of DO.
Each plant site is in ~ 15" x 6" dia = 90 sq in cylindrical pipe section.
(90 sq in per site X 6 sites = 540 sq in / 144 sq in = 3.65 sqft )
The surface area of the reservoir is 16" x 24" = 384 sq in / 144 sq in = 2.67 sq ft.
Total surface area = 3.65 sq ft + 2.67 sq ft = 6.32 sq ft.

Volume of rig is:
Volume of cylinder is V = pi (r*r) h.
V = 3.14 * 3"x3" * 17.25 = 155.25 cubic in / 1728 (cubic in) = .006 cubic ft per plant site.
1/2 V = 77.63 cubic in = .003 cubic ft per plant site - (only half the tube is flooded.)
6 plant sites * 77.63 cubic in = 465.75 cubic in = .27 cubic ft

Volume of reservoir is:
V = 16"x 24" x 4" = 1536 cubic in = .88 cubic ft

Total surface area (6.32 sq ft) / Total volume (1.15 cubic ft) equals 5.5.

In other words, for every cubic unit volume, the rig has surface area of 5 square units.


By comparison a 5 gal bucket is V = pi r 2 * h
V = 3.14 * (6"x6") * 2 * 12" = 2712.96 cubic in / 1728 (cubic in) = 1.57 cubic ft.
A = 3.14 * (6"x6") * 2 = 226.08 sq in / 144 sq in = .87 sq ft
Total surface area (.87 sq ft) / Total volume (1.57 cubic ft) equals .55.

So for a 5 gal bucket for every cubic unit volume, there is .55 square units of surface area.

This rig has 9 times the air/water surface area to reservoir volume as a plant grown in a 5 gal bucket.


Lighting Calculations

- The optimum light zone is as follows:

600 watt HPS = 4' x 4' foot print at 18 - 24".
@ 12" - 90k Lumens, @ 24" - 22k Lumens

Radius of rig is at 22" from center of rig to center of net pot.
Formula for surface area of a cylinder is 2 pi r h.
2 * 3.14 * 22" * 48" = 6631.68 sq in / 144 sq in = 46 sq ft

8 faceted panels around light each using 5.75 sq ft. Each panel (4' high x 17.25") @ 22" radius.
Only 6 panels are being utilized which equals 34.5 sq ft of growing area.


Horizontal orientation of bulb = 16 sq ft ( 1/2 is direct, 1/2 being reflected light)
Vertical orientation of bulb = 34.5 sq ft (double the usable growing area and all direct light!)

Follow the link for the discussion of this journal:
Flooded 'Phatty' Tube Vertical Evolution - Discussion

For clarity of my grow journal all comments, suggestions, advice and criticisms are welcomed there.