Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
Ok guys, I have made a few mods I feel will give the Aerolife what I need for the best chance in my particular situation. The internal chamber makes it so the maximum siphon height is around 13 inches with 1 inch of nutes on the bottom if recycling from it. Since the siphon height directly effects the quality and quantity of mist, it is an important variable. I wanted more leeway in heights than the chamber could offer, so I devised an external pickup box that the siphon tubes sit in that could have it's height easily adjusted. It's a small insulated igloo cooler around 8 inches tall and 12 inches wide. I found a float valve I could install that has a variable adjustment on the float that gives me approximately 5 inches of adjustment range. Furthermore if ever needed, the box itself could be lowered over the rails of my deck to add an additional amount of height. The chamber itself does sit on castors which raise it an additional 4.5" off the floor, so where the box is on the ground, I can have up to 21" of siphon height with this mod.
Don't mind the water level as I manually filled it because I have yet to add on my insulated water cooler (the one I used on my hydraulic setup) as it will be the main res that gravity feeds into this "siphon box" , the flow of which will be commanded by the float valve. I decided it wouldn't hurt to run through my cooling coils in the siphon box to keep the nutes ice cold as well just prior to misting. The small black tubes are the siphon tubes for the nozzles and I found small black tight fitting rubber grommets to slide over and lock them into place in the cooler so they can't easily be pulled out of the water. The pickup tube tips were also cut at 45 degree angles and held in place underneath the coils in the very bottom and I slid 3/8 poly tubing over them in an attempt to insulate from the heat and sun. I had to run some 3/8 poly tubing inside of the clear vinyl 1/2" coil tubing to prevent it from kinking up, it seems to have worked nice and made little resistance. Now I just have a little more work and I already have some cuttings made up last night just waiting to root (will cover those in my main HP thread). This will be my first time using cloning solutions and I went with clonex gel, and also a light mixture of Dyna-Gro KLN rooting solution in the water I soaked the rockwool cubes in. I finally bought pre cut cubes because the ones I was cutting up always ended up way too mushy. The premade cubes seem alot more rigid and able to have the proper air/water holding properties rockwool is famous for.
Don't mind the water level as I manually filled it because I have yet to add on my insulated water cooler (the one I used on my hydraulic setup) as it will be the main res that gravity feeds into this "siphon box" , the flow of which will be commanded by the float valve. I decided it wouldn't hurt to run through my cooling coils in the siphon box to keep the nutes ice cold as well just prior to misting. The small black tubes are the siphon tubes for the nozzles and I found small black tight fitting rubber grommets to slide over and lock them into place in the cooler so they can't easily be pulled out of the water. The pickup tube tips were also cut at 45 degree angles and held in place underneath the coils in the very bottom and I slid 3/8 poly tubing over them in an attempt to insulate from the heat and sun. I had to run some 3/8 poly tubing inside of the clear vinyl 1/2" coil tubing to prevent it from kinking up, it seems to have worked nice and made little resistance. Now I just have a little more work and I already have some cuttings made up last night just waiting to root (will cover those in my main HP thread). This will be my first time using cloning solutions and I went with clonex gel, and also a light mixture of Dyna-Gro KLN rooting solution in the water I soaked the rockwool cubes in. I finally bought pre cut cubes because the ones I was cutting up always ended up way too mushy. The premade cubes seem alot more rigid and able to have the proper air/water holding properties rockwool is famous for.
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