MY True HP Aero Plug&Play Pods

hydroboy27 said:

im trying to understand where mist gets too fine? Ive read that foggers are useless once a plant grows too large. If thats the case, where is the peak point between too fine and too large of microns?

Perhaps foggers have not been applied correctly? For instance, every time i see foggers used, they are used 24/7. Perhaps the roots need a chance to dry out? Or perhaps nutes need to be more concentraded with fogger use?

Im trying to figure out if there is a way to avoid this hp nozzle expense. I know its been mentioned in this thread or another about the high speed spinning disks, and droplets of water falling on the disk, and geting small micron droplets off of it. The problem of couse is that the spray pattern is simply a small line of thickness. I think the cure to this could be to have a single shaft, with 5 or more disks, above eachother vertically, and small drippers placed in between each disks. The key would be coming up with a container that would make this effective.

I know you guys have probably already been round and round with this stuff, but im still trying to understand why if finer mist is better... why foggers fall short? I know they do, im trying to understand the science behind it.

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Atomizer said:

never..so far, i`m sure they will wear out a lot faster than stainless but they`re cheap enough.
The first signs of wear would likely be a splattering of droplet sizes on the flat surfaces instead of a uniform sheet of steam-like condensation.
A water jet cutter can cut through almost any material so its no surprise the nozzle orifice enlarges. The water exiting the orifice on an impingement nozzle is doing at least 135ft/sec..thats 92mph

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hydroboy27 said:

i am surprised with as much technical attention to detail you guys have, that no one has deviated from a 12/12 light cycle.

For instance, i remember reading a while back that plants can only absorb so much light until they need to take a break. This break is typically night time, but more often than not ive read that plants are ready to shut down long before night arrives.

What im getting at is 8 hours on... or 6 hours on... and 12 hours off.

This does a couple things. Saves electricity, for the total ratio of lights being on vs being off changes.

It also makes the plant age quicker into maturity supposedly because it thinks more days have happened, and that somehow helps trigger budding.

Anyone toy with these methods yet?

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clydefrog said:

thanks for sharing. now that you mentioned it, i think i remembered seeing netafim products in my hort. supply house's catalog.

i would think the wear on an impingement nozzle would be on the tip rather than the orifice. the lady at bete was real nice, but with me running such a large chamber with so many misters...i don't think $27 a mister is very cost effective.

how long have you been using those netafims?

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fatman7574 said:

In the seventies we use to put a lot of small wattage light bulbs in the grow room so we could run the halide annd HPS less hours per day. We would turn on the small bulbs and turn off the large lights so as to save power and because some thought the plant only grew well a few hours per day. The comical thing was back in the early seveties the typical lighting was 10 watts of halide persquare foot with 5 watts per square foot of HPS added during budding. And people wonder why the potency keeps increasing. Betterand more lighting, better nutrients, hydroponics and a ready source of quality seeds rather than what ever bag seed you could get sure makes a hugh difference.

Doctorate candidate student researchers have a tendency at times to leave important things out of research testing parameters when trying to prove or dissprove there educated opinions.

A while back research was done in a greenhouse supplemented with CO2. The research as an "incidental discovery" supporting his theory that plants growth slowed after mid afternoon daily and that supplementing the CO2 was of no use in the afternioons but only in the morm nings. He stated his rearch testing showed a decrease of CO2 uptake after the ppm was raised to offset the high afternnon temperature. He stated CO2 uptake was larger before the CO2 was raised in concentration. He stated this was due to their being too high of a concentration of CO2 for the plants reduced rate of growth in the afternoon as plant growth slowed always just after mid day as they could only grow at high rtaes for a few hours per day. Surprisingly he was able to defend his research study against peer review prior to the publishing as no one seemed to go to his report presentation except his own mentor who also was involved with the saeme reserach.

Reviw by his peers since then have literally tore his research and limited testing to shreds.

For example. He did not bother to report that the testing was done in a old poorly retriofitted green houae where there was no venting of hot moist air during CO2 injection from bottled CO2. Usually humidity in greenhouses is controlled through venting and very large fans and CO2 is supplied by a generator even while ruuning the fans and uusing vents. Humidity readings were not even collected during the research testing.

What should have been brought up in earlier peer review would have kept the report from ever being published. Of course as the reports seemed to be a new discovery contrary to past research reports it was widely published. The fact that was not brought up is that high temps and high levels of CO2 with high lighting means high transporation and therefore high humidity. With high humidity the transpiration stops as water does not evapoarte from the stomata. Therefore the stomata close and no more CO2 is taken up and plant f growth slows. In modern green houses the humidity is controlled. In grow rooms the humidity should be controlled.

Ie if the growing environment is controlled plant growth only slows if pramters are not balanced. Ie plants like some dark time as respiration is easier in the dark and because some processes within the plant operate easier in the dark. mj plants will grow under 24 hours of light per day and auto strains will still bud under24 hours of light per day.

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fatman7574 said:

Your last paragraph seems contradictory. My experience has been that 24hrs light works but not any better and in some cases worse than 18/6 depending on strain and how much growth is pushed during lights on.

Is this what you were trying to say, or am I wrong or missing something?


Auto strains do not care what the light cycle is. They grow larger with longer light cycles, even 24 hours per day. Ruderakis grows in an area naturally much like the Alaska's interior or just above the arctic circle where there is as much as 23 to 24 hours of daily sunlight in June. Ruderalis usually buds just after the longest days of summer in Alaska or Russia when grown out side without use of a green house.

Myself I never grow anything with 24/7 lighting indoors as I think it makes the plants more prone to problems such as mutations, and predator insects and i disease. While many people tout the possibility that a plant can grow larger with 24 hours per day I think it is still debateable. I have never found any scientic data or reserch reports however tha show plants need a long t night period of say four to eight hours. Only reports that show some plant processes take place more easily without the presence of UV lighting and high levels of radiated heat. IE when no tbeing exposed to direct sun light or intense lighting.

Myself I never grow anything with 24/7 lighting indoors as I think it makes the plants more prone to problems such as mutations, and predator insects and i disease. I grow some huge outdoor bushes in the long houred summers here, though I do not bring them in and bud them. They grow much to lare and bushy to bud out under a standard amount of lighting. Were talking reall bushes about 8 to 10 foot tall. I do however take huge numbers of cutting from their back sides that no one can see from the street. I grow the plants in plain site as state law allows 24 plants per adult member of the house hold. They are not harvested for use ofther than the cuttings.


While many people tout the possibility that a plant can grow larger with 24 hours per day I think it is still debateable. I have never found any scientic data or reserch reports however tha show plants need a long t night period of say four to eight hours. Only reports that show some plant processes take place more easily without the presence of UV lighting and high levels of radiated heat. IE when no tbeing exposed to direct sun light or intense lighting.

Also I never realized you were still running MP aero on your large scale grow. So even you aren't prepared to run the whole thing hp yet for some reason?

Grows! Time and money mainly.

I have may large scale grows. Only the test bed experimental grow room in my home is small and not even all that small in comparison to most hobby grows. Fully set up it contains 108 square feet. It allows me to grow two to four grows at matching temps and humidity and CO2 levels while using different lighting, nutrient delivery methods and/or different nutrient formulations etc for comparative testing. They are also fully monitored with out put feeds of parameter data for data logs on a computer. They are equivalent to any reserachers grow test equipment used in universities. Basically a lot of Hach analyzer/controllers and monitors with analog sending units. Plus I have a laboratory in my home. No really expensive equipment. The top equipment cost is my two Hach spectrophotometers.
No automatic gas chromatography or nuclear resonance imaging euipment. However, I do have a lot of money tied up in ion specific electrodes though as they allow me to test my drain to waste nutrient water easily.


My home grow room at this time is half large chamber air atomized aeros with large capacity side nozzles and half large tube aeros where small capacity air atomized nozzles every linera group of for SOG plants I just just half the medium pressure nozzles previously in use and plugged the other half of the meium pressure aero mister holes in the tubes. I had hoped to find them as effective as chamber grows, and they are but it requires four times as many small but equally expensive nozzles and more air.


This means I will be replacing all my large tubes in the large system with chambers. The labor involved is also much lower with the chambers as my lids are in sections so the cloned/veg plants are moved in the lid sections to the budding chambers. This means I can use cheap 2" net cups and not have to worry about damaging roots pulling them through and pushing them through small holes. Plus I can move lids sections that are 18" inches square with each move. That is very quick and easy. The cloning and vegging is done in the same net pot and in the same tray and the whole tray at one time replaces the old tray in the budding chamber. A lot lot less labor and easier on the roots.

The grow rooms out side of the one in my home are large and remote. I am employeed full time at a Universt ity and also work duru ing the summer and the work and expenses involved means full conversions will take place over a period of about a year. That and the fact that with air atomized aero I have no more real data to work with than others do with HP aero. Look up the price of silent oil less compressors or even the nozzles and adapters for air atomized growing and you will likely be quite shocked. Air atomixzed is much more expensive than HP aero for just the basic beginning components. Your looking at $50 to $150 per nozzle and adapter. Plus the most efficient feed method is gravity feed nutrients so your talking at laest on solenoid per each nozzle. I have two nozzle per chamber plus two installed back up per chamber. Plus extra back up nozzles to install when acid cleaning nozzles to remove carbonates. Plus I use very large air tanks so as yto have at least 48 to 72 hours of air on line. Plus a small back up airpump for each system.


I have in use many EC and pH pumps, pH controllers and pumps as well as auto top off devives using eristaltic pumps.

No wife or kids at home anymore, and the kids andgrand kids all live thousands of miles away. That has its advantages. You don't want to know though how many college educations I either pay for fully or in part.


If you ever develop and interest in EC controllers or Ph controllers etc let me know. I have dozens of extras I can sell cheap. Also mant laboratory grade pH meters, EC meters and DO meters. Lots and lots of Masterflex peristaltic pumps heads and pump motors.

And lastly on using smaller lights during some lights on time, I was thinking of trying to use that idea now that I switched to a power company plan that gives me cheap power in off peak times from 10pm to 6m. I'd need 4 more hours of lights on and with HID's it would cost 3-4x the cheap rate at those peak times. How horribly would yield and stretch be affected or do you have any other ideas on that? I could run twice the lights less time then back down or all the lights 12/12 and just eat the power spike or ?

Wow. Well first MJ is called Californias #. cash crop for a reason. Even with high power cost mj is cheap to grow and the return on your investment is large as long as your not spendinfg it on lawyers and replacing confisacted equipment etc. Yes your yield will drop and your growing cyckle time will increase some with less ntense lighting used for part of the daily light cycle. With a full environmentally controlled romm, Lighting, temp, humidity, nutrient deliver and CO2 the growth witl be constant at virtually the same rate over the full period of lighting withintensse lighting. It obviously will drop to nearly no growth with minimal lighting as were talking a bunch of 5 watt light bulbs is all. To prevent stretched out growth during that time of minimal lighting you would need to drop the CO2 and temp. with the lower temp you would also need to drop the humidity.

Yes you could increase lighting during full light periods as long as you can keep the humidity low and the CO2 high at say 1500 to 2000 ppm, andprovide adequate nutrient delivery. I have grown mj with lighting at 120 watts per square foot with water cooled tubes and reflectors using medium pressure aero and air conditioning, dehumification and CO2 at temps of 95 to 105. However there are no discounts for non peak hours here so it was really not advantageous. It did shorten the grow period a great deal. Massive amounts of water was transpired. A dehumifier would neede a drain if used in a large grow. The simple little catch drawers would fill quickly as they usually are way too small to hold the maximum the dehumidifer can pull from the room in ome day.

Auto strains do not care what the light cycle is. They grow larger with longer light cycles, even 24 hours per day. Ruderakis grows in an area naturally much like the Alaska's interior or just above the arctic circle where there is as much as 23 to 24 hours of daily sunlight in June. Ruderalis usually buds just after the longest days of summer in Alaska or Russia when grown out side without use of a green house.

Myself I never grow anything with 24/7 lighting indoors as I think it makes the plants more prone to problems such as mutations, and predator insects and i disease. While many people tout the possibility that a plant can grow larger with 24 hours per day I think it is still debateable. I have never found any scientic data or reserch reports however tha show plants need a long t night period of say four to eight hours. Only reports that show some plant processes take place more easily without the presence of UV lighting and high levels of radiated heat. IE when no tbeing exposed to direct sun light or intense lighting.

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fatman7574 said:

I have over 35 years experience designing hydroponic systems. Yiur planned grwowing methodology is not an energy or cost efficient system nor is it a cheap low investment system. Its only real avantage is that it will withstand the stresses related to pump circuit failures better than an aero system and that it will not have the root rot problens associatted with small tube aeros systems, NTF systems, poorly constructed Ebb and Flow systems or standard DWC with poor circulation systems.

For large yields and low investment the easiest and cheapest system to set up is a large tube medium pressure aero using an Iwaki md-40RZT or MD-70RZT 15 to 40 psi pump, standard sprayers with pump running 24/7 with solenoids used as a divertor system. That way the spray is intermittant. The large tubes cost $20 to $35 each for a 6" by 20" tube 8 foot long. Depending on which plastic you choose. To assure water delivery you just install a flow valve on your pumps discharge. If at any time it loses flow it triggers a switch supplying power to another circuit supplying poeer to another pump. Of course this will not help for a full power outage but there are always chances such as that with any systems.

I mainly chose to upgrade to air atomized aero as I can long term yiels and also potency without remote building expansions or adding more grow sites. I chose atomized over HP because it is more adjustable and because large air tanks are more economical that many small high pressure accumlator tanks or a large accumulator tank. Plus the air compressors have longer life spans than the HP pumps as well as the fact that the air atomized systems are just energy wise more efficient as water just isn't as compresive as air. Plus ther are more readily adjstbale by using the many many different size nozzles, or adjusting nutrient feed heights ar adjsting air pressure or a combination of those three, plus cycle adjstments. I think over a long period of time the costs with a large system are likely pretty comaparable energy wise. Labor and maintenace costs in the long term would likely be higher with the air atomized system.

IMHO

Neither the HP or air atomized system is a low cost system that is likely cost effective for small grows without also tieing in the other system boosters to allow for high temp (faster) grows such as airconditioning, dehumidification and CO2. It is really not cost effective to have the best nutrient delivery system possible when you can not really utilize it well. Plants don't want just a great nutrient and air root DO delivery suystem. The want a great everything system. For the best results and for the best return on your investments you provibe all conditions opto imixed in a balanced system. Not just a better D and nutrient delivery ssytem. That is like supplying a too high EC, or too much light, or eccessive unneeded CO2 or too much dehumification for the transpiration rate taking place, or excessive temperatures in relation to other pramaters.

High pressure aero is not a fix all. It is merely a best delivery system for DO, water and nutrients that allow you to max out your other parameters and get the bestresulyts in the shortest amount of time. But if the only thing you do is supply HP aero or air atomixed aero all your really doing is growing Bozai mj plants at a higher investment cost. Your cycle time will a ltle shorten as the plants will be smaller but your yield will not be as good without all parameters also being in balance with the high DO, water and nutrient deliver rate. Plus to get the most groth in the shortest cycle you need tebest balance you can provide. It is unlikely that will ever happen without high temps low humidity die to dehumicification and high par through loh ght optomxed for bomzai plants. That means may low wattage halides or HPS the are cooled by water placed just an inch or two above the plant canopy. The smaller light wattages also mean higher initial investments but they allow for low wattage use with closely placed lamps as the high intensity of larger bulbs is not needed with 10" to 18" plants budded in 5 or 6 weeks. That means horizontal lights with parabolic refectors at sizes like 3' by 2' for 2 or 3 foot chambers side by side. Ie SOGS. Luckily I have bought neraly nothing but low wattage halide and HPs for years now. Large wattage lights are not a good choice for SOG plants as the light distribution is far from even at close placement of lights (as is most efficient) and raising the light to get better distribution lowers the PAR too much. IE the only advantage to high watt lights is increased depth of intense lighting (therefore for tall plants, and the fact that 4 250watts light ballasts and bulbs plus four refelectors etc cost motre than one 1000 watt light. But with large grows, ec specially large commercial grows efficiency and better utilization capabilitoes of multiple small lights very quickly offsets the lower initial investment costs of poor utilizable large wattage plants.

IMHO I think big tress will be a much larger challenge for a long time yet to come unless there are more people willing to spend the time and efforts with the much larger testing needed for taller plant grows especially if the grows do not utilize full parameter controls.

IMHO While a tall plant grown indoors looks impressive it just is not as economically and efficiently or quickly grown as a huge number of very quickly grown small plants. Over aperiod of time when total costs are calculated in the indoor SOs grows are juts a higher retum on invetment grwing method than taller more physically impresive looking plants.

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