Billy's Water Works

So here's the plants.
44x chocolope cuttings.
They're rooted into 3 inch rock wool and I then put them on top of net pots full of grow stone and vegged the roots out of the pots in a little ebb and flow system, ready for the tubes that are about ⅔ full of flowing water.

1 full day of 12/12.


I mixed my feed a little stronger than I normally like (1.2ec normally) but still in a nice range .


pH seems fairly steady. I've renewed all my ro setup so got decent water with decent flow, but there still seems to be a bit of climbing on the pH this will increase as the plants uptake the nitrates, so I'll use much less calcium nitrate from now on as I use nitric acid for lowering the ph, so that tends to provide all the nitrogen the plants need from here on in. I have a calcium chelate so I can add that to keep calcium where it needs to be.


Now for anyone who knows or cares about growing in water as a medium, it's always handy if you understand the importance of dissolved oxygen for the plants and how it's actually a nutrient that is removed from the solution at quite a rate, so I've managed to get a probe and a controller to not only measure the DO, but it can also turn on/off oxygen dosing equipment like a solenoid valve contected to a medical oxygen tank. I've got a few options for oxygen dosing but it will be added sooner or later.. either way I seem to be pretty good at the moment.. I'm at about 102-103% saturation, or super-saturation, just... This is measured at the end of one of the tubes after the plants roots..



Peace
BL

Here's a pic to show how I've got the rock wool sat on top of the net pots. I had to cut the corners of the cubes so they just sat neatly inside the pots.



Root development has been great in the last day in this system.

Peace
BL

Chocolope after 1 full week of 12/12














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BL

Chocolope after 2 full weeks of 12/12







Peace
BL

Looks great what size is your room?

Neville Longbottom said:

Looks great what size is your room?

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Hi Neville Longbottom,
Thanks for stopping by and taking an interest.

The room is 3 X 3 meters or around 10 X 10 ft. This system takes up half the room.

Chocolope after 3 full weeks














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BL

Chocolope after 3 full weeks






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BL

Post above should say 4 weeks!

Chocolope after 5 full weeks.




I went a bit eager on the K a bit too early so backed it off for a week.

Peace
BL

Chocolope after 6 full weeks 12/12








Peace
BL

Looking good, what lighting are you using?

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madra said:

Looking good, what lighting are you using?

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Hi @madra thanks for having a look here.

Above these plants there's 2 X de1000w (epapillion) and 2 X 315w (dpapillion) the 1000w are turned down to 750w or 660w (can't remember) so we're running about 2000w total with a good mixed spectrum.

The next lot of plants are currently in veg and are zkittles X Skunk fem seed from real gorilla seeds.

Peace
BL

You say you use ebb&flow.
What are the times and intervals of ebb? And flow?

Edit: I think you only use ebb&flow only in the clone and vegging stages.
But once you start 12/12 the water flows continuously.
Right?

Keesje said:

You say you use ebb&flow.
What are the times and intervals of ebb? And flow?

Edit: I think you only use ebb&flow only in the clone and vegging stages.
But once you start 12/12 the water flows continuously.
Right?

Click to expand...

Hi @Keesje thanks for looking in.
That's right, I use ebb and flow for veg. But I think of it as veg for the roots. I need the roots out of the net pots before they go to the flower system. I flood using a simple segment timer so to begin it's 15minutes every 2 hrs for a few days untill I see roots from all net pots, then 15 minutes every 1 HR for a few days, then 15 on 30 off and finally 15 on 15 off to get good root development.

The flower system is about ⅔ full of water that flows continuously from one end to the other and into a reservoir.

Peace
BL

Nice!
So it is more something like NFT, but it is not a thin film of water.
Doesn't matter, names are just names and as long as plants get water and oxygen, they are fine.

I think that if you would put the pumps on a timer as well in your flowering set-up, that you get rid of the oxygen-device.
Because then the roots would get so much oxygen in gaseous state... thousands of times more then in DO.
Just a suggestion.
It looks great!

Keesje said:

Nice!
So it is more something like NFT, but it is not a thin film of water.
Doesn't matter, names are just names and as long as plants get water and oxygen, they are fine.

I think that if you would put the pumps on a timer as well in your flowering set-up, that you get rid of the oxygen-device.
Because then the roots would get so much oxygen in gaseous state... thousands of times more then in DO.
Just a suggestion.
It looks great!

Click to expand...

Hi @Keesje
The method is what a lot of people call recirculating deep water culture, I think of it as DFT deep flow technique.. If the pumps were timed the plants would zap the dissolved oxygen from the standing solution in a very short time. I've seen it happen on the do controller when changing nutrient solution in the system. So the pumps running is critical to the system. Unless you mean I should flood and drain the tubes? But that would change the system and would require a much bigger reservoir to contain all the solution during the drain period, and I would loose my crop with a pump failure, with my method the water stays in the tubes if pumps fail and the roots would have access to water!

The DO device is only monitoring at the moment I have upcoming experiments with dissolving oxygen..

Peace
BL

Clear!
Never change a winning team.
Please keep us updated on your grow.
Very interesting set up!

Chocolope after 7 full weeks 12/12






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BL

Chocolope after 8 full weeks 12/12






And the new seedlings of Zkittles X Skunk that will replace this crop.




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BL

Chocolope harvest pics 8½ weeks 12/12.










Peace
BL

That is absolutely stunning. What nutrients are you running, and how is this set up? I'm looking for something Automated, and maybe DTW isn't for me.