Heaths Flooded Tube Vertical

Clown Baby

Well-Known Member
so are the gray dams inside the pipe home made? assume so ..plastic? they are glued? silicon ? to the inside wall? are they even necessary?
They were home made and he affixed them with silicon.
If I remember correctly, Heath said he stopped using them after a while, because the roots grow out enough that they dont need the dams. The dams+roots started to cause overflowing so he took em out..
 

growrider

Member
Hey guys newbe to the site so hi to everyone! I'm very new to growing and i started using this exact system, i'm good on the tools so it wasn't hard for me to build. Right now i'm on my 4th grow and am starting to change things a little, i have added a light mover and a few air stones and some lead's.My first grow yielded 1pound 5oz, second was just a bit short of 2 pounds and the third i completely stuffed up and only got 1 pound, i vegged for to long and it was over crowded. All the grows previous to this one iv had the wrong strain and have never had the system completely full, due to being shit at cloning but now i have figured it out, so the 5th grow will be completely full really looking forward to that one!I have quite a few questions to ask but will only ask a couple to start with.No1 if i were to add a 1000watter would that be ok considering that i also have a light mover. No2 how much more heat will 1000watter produce over the 600.
 

smooth88

Well-Known Member
quick question about the design. In the pictures it appears that the tubes wrap all the way around the room, if this is so how do you enter the center? If they dont wrap all the way around do they how do you use one succession of pipe for all four levels?
 

OGEvilgenius

Well-Known Member
You don't enter, you work from behind and above. At least that was the impression I got. When you turn it off I imagine it's somewhat easy to disassemble and/or move.
 

smooth88

Well-Known Member
you think it would be easier to leave at least a small gap towards the bottom so you can crawl in for easier maintenance
 

herballuvmonkey

Well-Known Member
I have always been interested in tube growing.' Have a few schematics on it that I have drawn up. I'll keep an eye on yours as you post more pics.
 

Stonefree69

Member
Up to press the Sylvania Grolux have given me the best results. I have seen that others have had problems with them but luckily I haven't. I use the old lumatek ballasts (silver) and the new blue lumatek's with the super lumens switch.
I'm going to try these out on my Phantom digital 600 watt ballasts. I heard about a Sylvania Grolux bulb trick to break in with digital ballasts from a bghydro dealer:


"The problems with the 400W version of the Grolux were happening on both magnetic and electronic ballasts (I believe). But, I just checked out returns on this bulb for 2006 and we have only had 1 bulb returned this year, so maybe they fixed the problem. There is still a compatibility issue with both Grolux bulbs and the Lumatek digital ballast, but I'll let you in on a little secret we recently discovered: If you simply let the ballast run a full 12 hours or more the first time you fire it up, you shouldn't have any problems igniting the bulb after that. In other words, don't take a new Grolux bulb, plug it in, and then unplug it during the first 12 hours. During this period the ballast learns what the bulb wants, and it only needs to do this the first time it is used.

Solarmax bulbs, however, are not compatible."


I kinda makes sense on why some are having success and other are not w/the Grolux on digital ballasts. Heath said it it has given him the best results. I wonder if this trick would work w/Hortilux also?!
 

TruckBoat

Member
Finally got to the end of this thread!

Heath, you have inspired me to build a system like this for myself. Currently i am designing something very similar in AutoCAD. The main differences i am making is access on one side, slightly bigger (5 and a half feet across internally), 12" spacings and 6 rows instead of 4. I just want to say thanks for giving us all the details we need to copy this genius idea.

Once i get this thing built and running, i will start a journal and let you all know how it goes.
Will you be showing your drawings and improvements?
 

NOR.C4L.DUB

Member
These methods are awesome. Is there a link to the method with the 2 plants that yielded 73+ oz? There was pictures of it in the beginning of the thread. I can't have a high plant count so the 2 plant method is best for me. Thanks in advance.bongsmilie
 

Corso312

Well-Known Member
I would like to see the plans also...am thinking 4 inch pvc would work great with 4 unions to make for a qucker/easier assemble/disassemble for cleaning.
 

Hal Incandenza

Active Member
Cheers smokinmayne :mrgreen:


Hi iloveit I have a solid fuel burner so everything gets burnt. I used to dry everything and throw it at the landfill though.


Thanks for the compliments Old Frog unfortunately I didnt moniter the water consumed, this system is very efficient in the use of water as it is in effect a closed system so there is very little lost due to evaporation etc.

Most of the water used is when I partially change the nutrient solution and the sheer number of plants would probably mean that quite a bit of water is lost through plant transpiration.


Heath
Make hash from your trim. I'll take it if you don't want it lol.
 

OGEvilgenius

Well-Known Member
I would like to see the plans also...am thinking 4 inch pvc would work great with 4 unions to make for a qucker/easier assemble/disassemble for cleaning.
4 unions? Do you mean like make it a square instead of an octogon? I'm pretty sure he made it an octogon to ensure an even canopy, and to make sure the water flowed more smoothly.
 
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