waterfall watering will it work?

Day to Daze

Active Member
im building a vert grow which i will be starting in about 2 weeks..
going to have a 6ft by 6 foot area to build the vert setup.

im going to have 48 plants on the two walls.. 24 on each side in 4 rows of 6.(hopefully a mix of strains from serious seeds)
2 600watt hps hung from the ceiling no glass..

i will angle the pots (which will be filled with clay pellots) towards the light and my original plan was to have drippers to each pot.. and collect the run off for each row with guttering to be sent back to the rez.

now im thinkingi can save on tubing if i have the water pumped to the top row and have it flow through all 4 rows before being collected under the last pot.
i wont be doing it 24/7 they will be on a timer.
it would be good because i can have one row of tubing going to the top 12 pots instead of running by all 48.

would this work... or would the lower plants receive less nuitriance because of the other rows?

sorry about the drawing.. im on a laptop with no mouse and im too lazy to draw the whole frame with a touchpad.

if it will work ill finish the build and get some photos up of the grow.

http://img194.imageshack.us/i/hhhhca.png/
 

mygirls

Medical Marijuana (MOD)
i wouldn't do that peronaly. your taking a chance on looking up your roots that way. if at any time one of those plant get sick or over nuted its going to pass it on to the next..
 

Day to Daze

Active Member
yeah i see what you mean .. it would be great though..
but then again if you had a sick plant and you use single drippers.. wouldnt it still get to the other plants after it went around and back through the rez.
 

mygirls

Medical Marijuana (MOD)
im thinking more in line of happening is with the run off from one plant to another is going to through off the PH in the soil. and this will cause major problems
 

Day to Daze

Active Member
no soil.. .just clay pellots.. maybe ill tey it with a couple and then do all the rst properly and see if they respond badly to it.
 

mygirls

Medical Marijuana (MOD)
no soil.. .just clay pellots.. maybe ill tey it with a couple and then do all the rst properly and see if they respond badly to it.
so what kind of grow are you doing hydr,or a soil grow with clay pellots instead of soil.
 

shadywolf

Member
so what kind of grow are you doing hydr,or a soil grow with clay pellots instead of soil.
lol i thought nething not using soil was a type of hydro. no worries lol.

now onto this. a vert grow is an amazing use of space and yes if you have a problem with 1 plant it may pass to the next and so on. professional vert wall grows have individual run off pipes so as not to have this problem also they are drip fed but have seen a few using an nft type system in drain pipes results are good.you could try inserting a tube int the bottom of each pot run back to the res or to waste this way if ne probs arise that certain plant is then isolated.or another idea is to have a feed pipe to each one as well as the pipes for run of and do a flood and drain vert grow could have good results

viva la bubbloution
 

Day to Daze

Active Member
i think flood and drain for vert would be difficult though right.. i might just end up having a dripper and run off for each bucket... just thought i could save a few hours work in the set up..
how often do the roots get sick though i mean out of say 14 plants which is the top row.. how many would get sick roots?

and yeah its hydro with clay pellots instead of soil..
 

mygirls

Medical Marijuana (MOD)
im not much up on the hydro but i would imagine that your setup would work then.. don't quote me on that. but i think it will work
 

shadywolf

Member
its not a question of how often will they get sick.as long as you make sure there are no places for feed to puddle in each container you should be ok.if at ne time it looks like u may have root rot occurring there are a few threads about using diluted bleach to help combat rot and clean roots.not to up on that myself but the principal is sound jst do a lil research first.
but in general u shouldn't get any problems. as for infection time from 1 getting sick, it all depends on the illness essentially you are doing a multi plant system as i am but im doing a large dwc with 30 plants in for sog where u are doing a drip feed.will you have a res at the bottom to catch run off then re-circulate it or running to waste?-
 

PurfectStorm

Well-Known Member
this looks exactly like my general setup, peep it. or just go buy the Growall unit for 120, its probably alot cheaper in the long run.

:peace:out.
PurfectStorm
 

MrStickyScissors

Well-Known Member
im building a vert grow which i will be starting in about 2 weeks..
going to have a 6ft by 6 foot area to build the vert setup.

im going to have 48 plants on the two walls.. 24 on each side in 4 rows of 6.(hopefully a mix of strains from serious seeds)
2 600watt hps hung from the ceiling no glass..

i will angle the pots (which will be filled with clay pellots) towards the light and my original plan was to have drippers to each pot.. and collect the run off for each row with guttering to be sent back to the rez.

now im thinkingi can save on tubing if i have the water pumped to the top row and have it flow through all 4 rows before being collected under the last pot.
i wont be doing it 24/7 they will be on a timer.
it would be good because i can have one row of tubing going to the top 12 pots instead of running by all 48.

would this work... or would the lower plants receive less nuitriance because of the other rows?

sorry about the drawing.. im on a laptop with no mouse and im too lazy to draw the whole frame with a touchpad.

if it will work ill finish the build and get some photos up of the grow.

http://img194.imageshack.us/i/hhhhca.png/
did you draw that lol pretty neat
 
Heath Robinson is the one to ask for all the nitty details as he is most suredly the king of these setups. Diseased plants are allways a fear for a recirculating systems but for anyone that has grown with these systems for some time and knows what to watch for you shouldn't have much issue. Although using lecca stone may bring about some pH issues from plant to plant as the system finishes its cycle. I can not tell you for sure, as I haven't used much clay in my systems to be able to state specificaly what the true risk of pH will be from pot to pot, the best you can do is try and see what modifications need to be made as you go along, the best way to see for me would be to set up a small test and just run pH'ed nute solution solution from planter to planter, each filled with the stones you are going to be using, so you can test the runoff from each container to see if you are getting big swings in pH from planter to planter or if it appears to be staying within an acceptable range I would keep a log book so you can see what changes you make truly make the difference and let it run for at least a week to see if things stabilize over time for each adaption you make. Your cycle times may need to be changed in order to combat any extremes but I don't see why it won't work unless the lecca stones really do cause absolute chaos with your pH and or EC. I hope that gives you a little better info to go on, you have a good idea but in order for you to make your idea work you will have to be the one running the test for it to truly be your baby, Good luck and hope you can too be one of the great inovators.
Peace out,
BT
 

Day to Daze

Active Member
will you have a res at the bottom to catch run off then re-circulate it or running to waste?-
its just a drainpipe or guttering as americans might say. it collects the run off all 24 plants and falls from the end of the guttering into the rez where it is pumped back to the top plants.

i think i need to revise the water collection as the temp will be rising all the time if its exposed to the vertical light.

this looks exactly like my general setup, peep it. or just go buy the Growall unit for 120, its probably alot cheaper in the long run.
i will go check it out now thanks... and yeah i drew that.. it took me so long on this laptop lol.. paint sucks.
Heath Robinson is the one to ask for all the nitty details as he is most suredly the king of these setups. Diseased plants are allways a fear for a recirculating systems but for anyone that has grown with these systems for some time and knows what to watch for you shouldn't have much issue. Although using lecca stone may bring about some pH issues from plant to plant as the system finishes its cycle. I can not tell you for sure, as I haven't used much clay in my systems to be able to state specificaly what the true risk of pH will be from pot to pot, the best you can do is try and see what modifications need to be made as you go along, the best way to see for me would be to set up a small test and just run pH'ed nute solution solution from planter to planter, each filled with the stones you are going to be using, so you can test the runoff from each container to see if you are getting big swings in pH from planter to planter or if it appears to be staying within an acceptable range I would keep a log book so you can see what changes you make truly make the difference and let it run for at least a week to see if things stabilize over time for each adaption you make. Your cycle times may need to be changed in order to combat any extremes but I don't see why it won't work unless the lecca stones really do cause absolute chaos with your pH and or EC. I hope that gives you a little better info to go on, you have a good idea but in order for you to make your idea work you will have to be the one running the test for it to truly be your baby, Good luck and hope you can too be one of the great inovators.
Peace out,
BT

yeah i will have to leave it running for a while before the plants go in... the chronic was way to expensive to just hope it all goes well.
ill test the ph after each run off and also after a few hours or even days if i want to be realy safe .. but hopefully it wont be too bad.after its been running for a day or so it sould all even out anyway right.
 
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