1st Journal --- Aeroflo 60 (15) Cataract Indica Rookie

Ok so here we go....

Equipment
Aeroflo 60 - using 3 tubes 15 cataract clones
Cyclone Chiller 1/4hp (titanium probe)
(2) 750 cfm fans
Grozone TV2 controller
Bluelab gardian
Raptor 8" Hood
Phantom digital ballast 1000w
Mh/hps bulbs
Xnutrients Advanced Program .70ppm
Ramco duel controller
Hydrologic Stealth Reverse Osmosis
General Hydroponics Air Pump (4 outlets)
(4) 4" air stones
16" AirKing Fan
12" Tornado fan
(3) bagged Co2 (1 in veg all 3 in flower)
Orca film 100' roll
55 gallon drum
Aapw1000 pump
General Hydroponics tnc 1/4hp pump
1/4hp Active Aqua chiller
Growers Edge temp & rh with remote sensors
11"x10" titanium heat exchanger with copper fins (food grade $675)

Need: 4.0 Lightrail

Started clones in the aeroflo 8/15 in rockwool and coco pebbles in gh net cups 3" using 3 tubes and 15 holes.

Nutes 67°
Ph 5.7
Ppm 630 (.70ppm)

Running 400 watts at 4.5' for 7 days increase to 600w and then to 1000w over 6 days start moving hood down 6" inches ever 3 days until 14" off canopy adjust with growth. (Wattage is approximate due to the phantom ballast being adjustable at 60% 75% and 100% of the stated 1000w)
I use exactly half of what the xnutrients feeding schedule says to, except for the calmag which I use at 4ml per gallon all the way through. Using only 25 gallons of RO water in nutes res since I change weekly this seemed to work well if I need to add, I just add RO water as needed and change when scheduled. (You'll see in pics that I use (6) 5 gallon water bottles to make changes faster and allow to get to an even temperature, the 6th is for topoff if needed, this works for me).

As you see im using water cooled growroom, well trying... Its been a pain in the ass- as its like going back to kindergarten lol. Used a portable 12,000 btu a/c last 2 times it wasn't right but after several modifications it worked decent but ran all the time due to a fkd up feature of cooling itself or something so in the seasons I had to run it, it ran pretty much 24/7. Wanting a sealed environment, I decided to go for water cooling cheap and allows for sealed room, although its a finicky litte SOB. So this will be a inside look at what im living trying to figure this water cooling out. I'll post pics, of the trials and tribulations of the life and times of a hobby grower. All, the way through, being a busy guy I will post once a week at least to keep you'll updated.

And as stated im a hobbyists and not a pro so if you've got something that you think might help by all means, let me know always open to learn.

Wow longer than I wanted, but tried to give a clear picture of what I've got go

angryp said:

Wow longer than I wanted, but tried to give a clear picture of what I've got go

Click to expand...

You know what works well to give a clear picture? Pictures!

Seriously, sounds good, pics would be nice.

Shit... got so tied up in the piece here's some pics have more this afternoon.

Really need some help on water cooling..... On my 3rd grow now and have decided to switch from a/c to water cool. I run aeroflo 60 only using 3 tubes and 15 sites, indoors with orca film on walls and floor, 8" raptor hood, 1000 watt phantom ballast, cyclone chiller for nutes, 4' can with 750 cfm fan, and with switching to a to water cooling ditching a/c and all vents. Live in socal desert so hot as hell, here. Ok so I bought a 11x10 titanium heat exchanger with copper fins used in the food industries, 1/4hp hydrofarm chiller, 55 gallon drum (res), aapw1000 active aqua pump (submersed), general hydroponics tnc 1/4hp pump, insulated 1/2" line and grozone TV2 controller. Run the pump aapw1000 in the 55 drum and out to chiller and back, the gh tnc pump is drilled into bottom of drum outside feeding the heat exchanger hooked to the raptor hood at one end and the other end has the 750 cfm fan hooked to the TV2 controller. Can't seem to keep the room in the range im looking for 76 night and 79 - 81 daytime. I've tried this in every configuration I can think of;
1) aapw1000 to chiller to heat exchanger and back
2) aapw1000 to heat exchanger to chiller and then res
3) put two pumps as stated above
4) Adjusted fan speeds up and down
5) adjusted aapw1000's intake from max. to min.
6) Ran 3/4" pvc from the tnc pump up and over to heat exchange and then back to the 1/2" insulated line.
7) pulled instead of pushed air through the hood
Went from 25 gallons in drum upto 50 gallons (per hydro innovations technical support)
9) 1st attempt at this was the reason I spent $675 on the titanium copper finned heat exchanger was so I could hook upto hood run straight down to my nute res (standard 40 gallon aeroflo 60 res) and back down to it using a secong tnc pump in the drain port ( for you guys that know gh aeroflo 60). Problem there was the 1/4hp cyclone chiller cannot keep up, with heat exchange and would raise res temps to 74-76 didn't want to risk root rot. Soooo I scraped that and bought the extra chiller and pump just for the heat exchanger.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated, seems like this is definitely the way to go and there seems to be some guys on here thst really know there stuff. Respect

blue lab gardian with current readings
pumps to drum and chiller
also added insulation to pvc and 2" foiled back insulation in the window. I have hung the two chillers in the window and then insulated and foil taped it all. Have plans to surround the drum with the 2" insulation and use spray insulation to finish it off. Back soon

Forgot the chiller res temp pic

Start daytime cycle temp & RH 75.4° 47% rh
Middle of daytime cycle temp & RH 77.7° 53% rh
End daytime cycle 84.9° 47% rh

nighttime cycle stays pretty good once the chiller catches up. 74°-75°

So anyone out there that has an ideas on how I can tweak my equipment to keep the temps tighter? Daytime 81° is what im look for as high ideally 78° but that may just be a dream at this point.

The grozone TV2 works pretty good and is really accurate to 1° according to my other thermostats. Wish it had a 5° swing tho, otherwise I would recommend it. Think about hooking mymtnc pump for the chiller res as if its still running when fan goes off it will still extract ambient heat which slows down how fast chiller can recover.

Still dealing with the heat. Going to be replacing the gh tnc 1/4hp 1264gph pump with a danner proline hy-drive 2600gph with more head (26.5' compared to 16' head) Hoping that moving more water will, solve the problem. The reading I've done suggest that pumps lose volume drastically when the need of head increases soooo..... adding pump with almost twice the head should allow me to move more water which should lessen the heat transfer to the returning water. Im currently only losing 3° from the chiller res up and through the heat exchanger and back to chiller res. Speeding the flow and volume should definitely help, the question is how much, we'll soon see. So if it works im done, if not... reinvesting in a larger chiller, a string of profanities here..... if your reading this and your new to or having problems with water cooling. I hope your paying attention because its been a bitch and a shit load of cash and most importantly my fkn time. Feel my anger.... dont think for a minute that this is a plug and play.

NO QUIT HERE WATER WILL BE MY BITCH. Or I'll be its lol

Any water cooling guys on here, need some input. Respect

Done with this water cooling challenge, lol sounds like tv show. Anyways after over a month buying changing buying changing buying changing you get it, im throwing in the towel amd purchasing a mini split air conditioner 12000btu im pretty sure thats really oversized for my room but that what I want oversized so I can put the hest problems behind me.

Opinions on which unit? I like the Senville 12000btu dc invertered 17.5 seer will this work?

Room 10' (L) x 8' (H) x 7' (w)
560 cubic feet
70 square feet

Air cooling the hood, and cooling room with mini split air conditioner.

Does the mini drop RH% if so how much?

Well.... its been a busy week. After trying everything I could think of I posted a few threads for help. Two guys responded after some serious back and forth. It really started to get me too look at the system as a whole. Admitting that I was really determined to run this room water cooled, and pretty stubborn to input otherwise. I went back to drawing board and with a few ideas from there input and some more research on riu I changed the system to what looks like the final setup.

Running the ducting for the hood from outside to out of the room into attic and put the heat exchanger on top of the 4' can filter with fan pushing the air through the heat exchanger into the can and back out into room cooled. The room stayed at 76.9° for almost the entire daylight cycle reaching a high temp of 78.4° at end of cycle (outside heat plays a roll here). So being happy with this going to hold off on mini split air conditioner, monitor the next week closely and if it stays, it'll work and I'm going to run it. The chiller has no problem keeping up with the system this way and never got up over 65°. Did notice some of the RH % dropped using the can filter, which I've always seemed to have a problem with, does the can filter remove RH%, or what could cause this?

Thanks for the support on all of this and I hope its a help for people in need. I'll post pics of new setup later today. Respect

Week 2

Have had pretty good growth up top and really good growth at roots at start of week one in aeroflo you could see the tops were pretty small cuttings with a few fans each, bottom had thick roots barley pushing through the rockwool now a week later there is some pretty awesome growth (pics). I will, run a four week vegetation and almost exactly eight week flower (56 days, give or take). They're under 600w mh and the hood is 3' off the canopy now (see previous post) for 16/8 cycle. I will switch to 1000w over the next few days keeping same distance for a week and continue to move down to 14" above canopy.

Week 2
ppm 840
ph 5.7
67°

One thing about aeroflo nobody's going to tell you is... drop the water level until the holes in overflow tubes are just barely visible about an 1/2" above the bottom of the tube, throughout the whole grow, yes set them and forget them. Expecially if your running rockwool, this keeps, the net cup out of the water and throws an aerated mist in the tubes and prevents water logging your rockwool (mold and cellular damage within the cube of rockwool also forces the roots to grow to the water). This was trial and error for me and if you dont believe me here, try it in one of your tubes and you'll see for yourself, rapid root growth, almost amazing from day to day growth. Also if your not chilling water to 67°-68° on aeroflo your really doing yourself an injustice, you'll never have anything but white healthy roots this way

Note: as long as you cleaned your machine diligently, including taking the caps off the end of your whips and blowing them out, I use h2o2 29% 10ml per gallon using 20 gallons and running the machine for 3 days empty rinse refill run again for 24 hours empty done.

I also use grow spray every other day on the tops to increase growth @ 15ml per liter per exnutrients directions. Really makes for, healthy bright green tops and extremely fast growth top and bottom.

exnutrients is cheaper than most but only uses the highest quality ingredients, will never clog your whips, and is made for aeroponics. Most of all.... produces tremendous growth as you'll see through this grow. (No, I do not work for them just a fan of there products lol) Anyways be back on week 3.

please feel free to input your opinions, ideas, and/or suggestions. Respect

Re-ran water cooling well kind of.... so, I've held off on mini-split air conditioning at least until electric bill gets here, lol

It's really passive and water cooling together. Pics below

Ran 4' can filter with heat exchanger on top with 750cfm fan pushing air through it, from 55 gallon resivour through heat exchang and back. A lot less lift needed so pump is moving water faster and keeping room at 77°- 79° (daytime cycle) works for me. The chiller gets a break when room hits 75° the fan turns off with the grozone TV2 controller. The chiller never gets over 68° with a set point of 60° through the daytime cycle and is off at least half of the nighttime cycle. Happy with this and the room by itself with timers and controllers.

Looking great, Sorry I cant help with water cooling I have no clue or experience on that subject matter. AC always seem easier but is costly, I would try both if you have it then play with the water cooling see what the numbers look like.In term of RH% in mini split it will lower it yes, by how much not sure but i do know if your is at 70 it will drop it to like 50. If your RH is lower then that it wont raise it but like every ac it tends to aim for 50% rh. That is a over sized mini split for that room but if u decide to go 2k or 3k it would get the job done.

E="Lordgenin, post: 10835981, member: 586270"]Looking great, Sorry I cant help with water cooling I have no clue or experience on that subject matter. AC always seem easier but is costly, I would try both if you have it then play with the water cooling see what the numbers look like.In term of RH% in mini split it will lower it yes, by how much not sure but i do know if your is at 70 it will drop it to like 50. If your RH is lower then that it wont raise it but like every ac it tends to aim for 50% rh. That is a over sized mini split for that room but if u decide to go 2k or 3k it would get the job done.[/QUOTE]


Appreciate bro, yea have a 12000btu portable (Haier about $460), hate it spent a whole day modifying for it to work and then realized it was a model that doesn't really ever shut off manufacturer says its a built in cooling feature for the unit fan never really turns off. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to buy mini split air conditioner but in no rush as the way its setup now is working pretty good, holding temps and and 3-4amps instead of the 12amps it should be a lot lighter on the electric bill. We'll find out soon. The real problem here in the desert of southern cal is humidity its only 20% so I have to build it and when it just gets sucked out, well it sucks.

The setup is running the best I've had so far, so pretty stoked. Going to start cutting off some fans and get ready for the super-cropping in the next few weeks, good times. I'll keep posting as all, this progresses, thanks for stopping by.

Oh should've posted this earlier:

I'm a California prop 215 medical patient and also have a sb420 ammendment endorsement, allowing to grow what is needed to medicate. Smoke, edible, oils, wax, etc. So well within the law of medicinal use in the great state of California