Lets see if I can get responses to what you asked back...
About the simplicity of aero. You will have probably one inline israli filter on this type of setup
That's the plan, it's called a 200 filter. The nozzles I am planning on using actually can come with individual filters, but I am going to get them without, because I will be using one filter on the entire system.
and then I reccomend another bag filter if its a submersible type pump not need if its an extenal pump.
It's an external pump, so no need for a bag filter.
I always reccomend liquid nutes no powders for aero. any additives that are powder disolve them first before adding.
Good advice!
Misting times... No I do not cycle my pumps at all I have tried many different misting times and have every time found that running my mistres 24 hours on gives me many more benefits.
I get larger yields,
I was led to believe just the opposite, that if you keep your misters on 24 x 7 you are soaking the roots and thus not maximizing their lateral growth, they will grow long taproots and not puff out or fishbone as much.
no clogs as the misters dont have time to dry and cake,
Good point. How quickly do things start to cake? I am going to try to keep my "pod" temps at 68F, so I am hoping that a 3 minute off cycle won't cause caking. I don't want to have to go messing around inside the pod every day checking for clogs, I was thinking at most I would have a second full set of nozzles, and would just swap them out at the end of every grow, clean the old dirty set (soak them for a few days) without any downtime on the system.
less hard starts on the pump from constant restarting, and less chances of a hard pump start tripping s breaker in the grow room.
Also good points lol. If this happens I may be out of luck.
Im not sure of the nozzels you mean. I have seen the brass kind at like home depot but they were like $4.00 each. I was thinking you were going to use true agricultural grade misters and lines similar to the kind you see in the vegable section at stores that mist the fresh veggies. Those are exspensive and require a high pressure steel line thats about 1/8 diameter and the psi is closer to 200 psi. Have any links to the type of misters you were looking at?
These are the nozzles I had in mind, look for Superfine Misting Nozzles about 3/4 of the way down the page. Very low flow, very fine droplet size.
I run a lower pressure type setup using the smaller red aero clone misters. These are the ones used in almost all hydro store systems as they are much easier to maintain works just as well for smaller non commercial grows and are cheap if an issue and can be used right inline with 1/2 inch pvc.
That's where the distinction is between "true" aeroponics vs. "pseudo" aeroponics which is really closer to NFT. It is still an awesome and effective way to grow, I have seen some root pics from that style that gave me wood.
For aero Im running a 100% pure indica plant. its a clone only passed through just afew people. Its an original clone taken from the pure indica mother used back in the early 90's to create the original Bubble gum strain.
That's pretty fricking sweet Fletch! Hook a brother up!
Its a short fast flowering plant. With correct setup and co2 I can ahrvest at 5 weeks with 70% red hairs maybe 6 weeks with a flush. i have let it go 8 before but looses quality in relation to growing it aero. Flood I harvest at week 7.
Like I said, I have never heard of that short of a flowering time, but it sounds like you got your system down TIGHT bro!
On the nutes Fox Farm has always been forgiving for me I never evr burned any plants and I actually now go over the charts suggeste ppms and have learned I can at max get ppms of up to 1900. Its pretty much my nute mainstay although I do want to try a round of Humbodlt Countis complete nute line now that its out. i love thier additives like bushmaster,Purple Max and Gravity.
Thanks for the tips, I will definitely check it out!
You asked about the pumps being on 24/7 and aeration. My roots hang down in my chambers and get the mist feed then the longer part of the roots as they get 4-5 feet long sit in the nutrients flowing by constantly
Right, so that's what I meant above by "pseudo" aero which is really closer to NFT. You must have some purdy roots, got any pics?
so it have a good air flow in the solution as the misters aerated it and then its constantly moving so the roots in the air get O2
Ok, now this thread was supposed to be about aero nutrient advice, and it's gone WAY off topic, but this is excellent information so let's see where it goes.
Regarding getting fresh air, or specifically O2, to the roots. In DWC, the grower is constantly bubbling fresh O2-containing air into the bucket, so the roots always have a fresh supply of O2, and there is always lots of O2 getting dissolved into the water (assuming you have your temps under control
). But in aero, where is the fresh O2-containing air coming from? Fletch, you said the misters aerate the roots, but do they? The misters are being fed by a pump, and that pump is pumping water from your reservoir, it's not mixing in any air (although there are some pretty kick-ass systems out there that do this, if anyone wants details let me know) so assuming the root zone is sealed up pretty tight, there's no fresh air getting in is there?
I was thinking about this, and my solution was going to be to add air pump and air stones to the reservoir, even though there's no plants sitting in there like there would be in DWC. My thought process is that this would increase the DO in the water/nutes, which gets pumped to the roots, thus giving fresh O2 just like in DWC? And to supercharge this, I would like to use a res chiller to increase the DO capacity of the water. And to supercharge this even further, I would like to use a medical device called an Oxygen Concentrator to feed the air to the air pumps, but that is an expensive little piece of equipment. Maybe someday...
So anyways how does the rootzone get fresh air in aero? Does everyone use aerate their nutes, and my brilliant idea wasn't all that brilliant?
and the roots in the solution take whatever nutes they didnt get from the mist. Works great for me for years.
Ya it sure does judging from your yield numbers!
Lets take like my 32 site setup. its a post type design. 4 posts 8 per post on 8 foot long posts basically. it breaks down to about 10 inches between netpots then I have a 18 inch space between the posts and like this the entire area fills up and my plants finish at about 3 feet tall. I do a medium lollipop to th lower stuff and try for maybe a dozen or so colas per plant.
Ahh, so you're not doing SoG. Right now in DWC I end up with between 3 and 6 buds per plant, and I just pack the plants in nice and tight and trim the hell out of the lower half. Around here, bigger buds are a sign of quality and therefore they bring a better price, so I would rather have more plants and fewer, larger buds per plant. Also I think you can get away with less veg time this way, although you did mention that you only veg for like 10 days.
In the room I took a standard light mover built a custom 6 foot aluminum cross bar and hong 1 light on each end using a basic adjustable open wing reflector. I can move these up and down via chains and bend the reflector for light angles. The 8 foot track moves both lights back and forth over the setup at whatever speed I set the motor too. i have 2 600 watt digital lights in there and then I run co2 tanks closed room with timed air exchange via auto dampers. i run 3 windo box fans 24 hours a day and then 2 tilt fans under the setup blowing the co2 that fell to the floor back up recirculating it in the room. The box fans I have one about top of the plants I adjust as tey grow.One at the base under them moving the lower air past the stalks and a 3rd at mid plant levael blowing the branches. I keep a 65 gallon res in the room with the submersiable 500 gph pump in it running 24/7. I lost 1 pump in 6 years but was my fault as I left too long and didnt setup a a float valve to an external tank to top the res and it got to low and the pump ran dry and locked. I learned though gone more then a couple days set your backup water supply.
I need to look into the float valve thing. It's not such a big deal when I have 5L per plant as I do in my current DWC. But when I move to a single res for that many plants, they are gonna be thirsty, and i'm gonna have to keep that tank topped up or else!
So how exactly do you set this up. I mean I know basically what a float vale is, but as far as details, so do you have a second res filled with plain water with a pump in it, and the float valve triggers the pump on and off to keep the nute res topped off? Or is it some kind of passive gravity fed system, you keep your backup water tank up higher than the nute tank, and the float valve just opens and closes the water line?
Res change I have found you can go 2 weeks but my ppm drops so i know my plants dont get full feedings so i like to keep them maxed so i change once a week
So they can go for a full two weeks on a single tank without showing any signs of deficiency? That's what i'm wondering, again taking a page from the Al B Fuct book, he says that you want to run your plants with as few nutes as possible without showing any visible signs of nute deficiency, and that way you don't have to flush. The other school of thought is StinkBud style, crank them as hard as they can go without showing any signs of burning, and then flush the hell out of them. There are arguments for both I guess. According to ABF, doing it his way you get the plants still putting on weight in the last couple of weeks before harvest, and supposedly this is the time they pack on the most weight. If you're flushing during that time, the plants aren't putting on any more weight.
and 5.8 is good but I personally think 5.5 shows a better nutrient uptake when i watch the plants reactions over the years.
I hope I get to the stage where I can spot the optimum pH for my setup and strain, very cool. I haven't been running my DWC grow for long enough.
My rs in the rooms dont get hot stay about 68 ishs on thier own and I have had to add a fish tank heater before to get them up in cooler months.
Well it sounds like you live in a cold place, I certainly don't envy that, but it must be nice not to have to worry about nute temps!
Now I havent heard his nute dump thing before or seen this. You do get your stretch in around week 3-ish unless you use like Bushmaster which i have found is excellent to stop up growth and make out growth. I find it has plants in flower grow maybe 2-3 inches more then stops and they grow outwards and branch. Luv that stuff. The air temps can manage it too. Without co2 I like rooms around 70-75 and with co2 80-85 ish..
Your room temps get up that high, your res tank is in your room , and somehow your res tank doesn't get that hot? What am I missing?
The finish in 5-6 weeks isnt the norm ill grant you that but the strain i use and have dialed in is consistant
As I said, can't wait till I'm there!
and yiuelds are about the same each time few dry lbs on a 32 plant setup. I know other strains I have grown tend to finish about 2 weeks early compared to standard dro and about 3 weeks faster to 4 weeks then in soil grows.Like a soil plant stated to finish in 12 weeks will be about 9 in aero and veg time is 50% faster.
Yes, I have noticed that hydro cuts flowering time nicely
Each setup will vary and the same with the growers expirence. Pick your setup go with it watch and keep records and then adjust until you find its max then yoiu will have the best results. Not all aero grows will yield the same or respond the same. the things I stated are what i personally have learned over the yers of growing aero and you will learn along the way your own prefernces and tweaks. Good grows and welcome to aero..you ll never go back
Werd, thanks for the advice Fletch.
