Schizophrenic's New Indoor Aero\NFT Grow Room

Alright... I'm new here. Figured I'd start by posting a grow journal.

Goal: 1lb+ Every 21 Days, Perpetual Aero\NFT System

CONSTRUCTIVE DISCUSSION IS WELCOME!



A bit of a background first....

I have grown outdoors mainly for the past 13 years. I have also grown indoors a bit but most plants were vegged and then moved outside.... Or mothers were held in veg and cuttings were grown to be moved outside. In the off season I'd flower a few here and there inside, nothing too major. I recently decided to step up things indoors and did some research. I tore down my previous flood trays in two rooms I had set up to veg and started from scratch.

I selected a larger room in the basement, divided it with a wall and door to split flowering from veg light cycles, and went to town researching possible designs and obtaining supplies.

This is the room I started with... What a mess.







Cleaned it out, and then painted a few coats of drylock.

I almost went and purchased a few aeroflo systems but I could not justify spending thousands for something that looked like it could be built from a few trips to home depot, a few hours, and a couple hundred bucks. The spots looked too close together and $1000+ per unit seemed a bit insane for glorified PVC. After some debate I decided on a aeroponic /nft system which was designed by Stinkbud on RIU. I also constructed a aero cloner and aero veg unit. The goal for this new room is approximately 1-1.5lbs every 21 days.





















There are three aero/nft flowering units. 14 spots each, 42 total. plants will be rotated in 14 at a time, 21 day cycles for a perpetual harvest.




I'm using 2x1000w HPS with hydrofarm air cooled reflectors. The air that is cooling the lights is drawn from outside, pulled with a 250cfm inline fan through the lights, and then exits right back outside. Closed loop.




I have a 55lb carbon scrubber on a 500+cfm vortex can fan exhausting the flowering room, which is roughly 10' x 13'.







Right now I have a tray of Northern Lights #5 X White Widow left over from a previous grow that was going to go outside but it was still quite cold. I decided to finish them inside the new flowering room. They're much taller than I had planned since they stayed vegging longer than I usually allow but I'll make em work. I'll probably be removing the tray and putting in another aero\nft rail unit after that harvest. Better use of the space, and I'm tired of hydroton and rockwool. Just an unneeded expense at this point.











I am running CO2 at approximately 1200-1500ppm in flowering when lights are on. Each NFT flowering system has its own pump and reservoir. They are run by a Sentinel recycling timer which is set to a continuous 1 minute on, 5 minutes off 24 hour cycle. Same with the cloner and veg units. I am using Botanicare Nutrients.









I'll be working with many strains at first, testing around a bit to find what works best, choosing some mothers perhaps, timing things out to see what finishes when, nute tolerances, etc.

I'll be working with the following strains......
Dutch Passion Blueberry
DJ Short Blueberry
Dutch Passion Power Plant
Sensi Seeds Big Bud
Thai Super Skunk
Lowryder #2 X AK47
Buddha Seeds White Dwarf
Northern Lights #5
Northern Lights #5 X White Widow
G13 Labs Super Skunk
G13 Labs Diesel
G13 Labs Purple Lady


On Deck.....
Strawberry Lights (Strawberry Cough X Northern Lights #5)
SFV OG Kush
DJ Short F-13
DJ Short Grape Krush
Reservor Killer Chemdog
Reservor Chemdog BX2


Wanted....
Sour Bubble BX3
Bogglegum

Instead of germinating in water like I normally do I popped the seeds into rapid rooters directly. I ended up with a 100% germ rate. Worked great.

Continued...........

Once they produced the first tap roots the rapid rooter plugs were carefully crumbled away since the material is much like chocolate cake and the seedlings were put into 2" neoprene collars and netpots and placed in the cloner.







The cloner just has two daylight cfl's, dosent need more than that...









A few weeks there, and then they go into the veg unit for approx 3-4weeks. Veg unit has a 400w mh.







The cycle from clone will be exactly 3wks cloner, 3wks veg, then 9wks approx flower. Starting from seed this first time around will require a tad bit more time.... the batch of seeds I have started have now been going for about 3 weeks. growth is quite impressive.

















I also have a few autos in flowering that are approximately 12" or so, started from seed. Lowryder 2 X AK47 and Buddah Seeds White Dwarf. The autos were just tossed in the mix to give me something sooner while I wait to veg the others and get cuttings rotating in the new cycle.







In veg right now I have the others that started from seed. Some of my Northern Lights #5, and seeds from a recent "attitude seedbank" order such as Sensi Big Bud, Dutch Passion Blueberry, Dutch Passion Power Plant, and the freebies.... g13 Purple Lady, g13 Thai Super Skunk, g13 Pure Gold, g13 Diesel, g13 Super Skunk.







That about covers it. I'll keep updates coming.

Man I'm glad I found you Schizo!

I'm really impressed of your method to your madness, he,he.

I can't wait!

Your friend........desi!

Thanks

Way to go Schizo, i'll be watching this thread! Keep up the good work...

Can you please post a link to the nft system directions?
thanks Est

Sure. Its on RIU. The original thread is MASSIVE but I would suggest reading everything, pretty much every question about the system or related issues can be found within. I'll give you a link to the particular post that wraps up all instructions into one post and you can go from there.... http://www.rollitup.org/1600736-post742.html

The full thread can be found here: http://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/116859-harvest-pound-every-three-weeks.html

You can also go buy the June issue of High Times in stores now. His design was featured in a ten page spread titled "How to grow a pound of pot every three weeks!"

Update: fixed all the photo sizes above, sorry bout that.

very nice

hey schizo good work so far... can you elaborate more on how you germ the seeds? i know you put them in to rapid rooters, but do you water them at all? did you just place the rapid rooters into a tray or did you put them into the netpots in the cloner res? how long was it before the seed popped.

thanks.

I just left them in a tray. The mat is sealed and moist when you get it....and best of all, PH neutral. Plant the seeds. Use a tiny tiny tiny bit of an unused plug material to seal the little hole, and thats it. A day or two later though I used an eyedropper and watered each "cube" with about a 1/4 full dropper of RO filtered 0ppm water. That's it. Once they sprouted I took them out of the rooter material and carefully placed them into neoprene collars and then right into the cloner they went. Cloner is just 10g water and about 150ml of clonex. Once they throw a few leaves they go into veg. They'll stay there for about 4-5 weeks (longer from seed than clone, typically 3wks with clone) and then they go into flowering.

Most of my seeds popped within 3-4days. A few strays but they all eventually came up.

Putting a rooter plug into a cloner would kill your seedling. The rooter material would be constantly getting sprayed and it would never have a time to drain\dry. It would rot the seedling before it was able to wash away the plug material.

Once you relocate you seedling to the cloner you'll have a few that have a tiny bit of rooter material attached. It will wash away in a day or two. I just try to make sure as little as possible is being put in there so nothing gets clogged.

ahh now it makes sense.. i've been reading stinks thread for a month now and he never explain much about starting from seeds. he did say that to put the RR into the netpot, thats why i got confused. also when you take them out of the veg and into the flower do you trim any of the roots at all? or does it go straight into flowering.

nope, you can if you want, but I have not felt the need too. you can pretty much trim whatever roots are in your way without any problem. they're being supplied exactly what they need directly to the root mass so technically they do not require much.

very nice

cool. appreciate the quick reply. keep up the good work.

anytime. thanks

intresting stuff ^^

hey schizo, i'm really glad you started this thread. It is kind of crazy because I was about to shoot for the same thing with the same goals. Only difference is I was going to use 3x3 aero trays based off of pirate's aero tutorial on here.

I agree with you that buying the systems straight up is a huge rip off. We can definitely build it cheaper.

My only real difference is I was not planning on running CO2 quite yet, but I was still going to shoot for 1lb every 4 weeks (a little different) per 3x3 tray (49 - 2 inch cups per tray). I was going to run 8 week strains, but that may change. The reason I was shooting for every 4 weeks is because I believe I will only have room for 3 full trays plus the cloners ( 1 veg, 2 flower). Thinking about it, running 9 week strains 3 weeks apart would be better for me.

Anyways, sorry for all the rambling, but I do have a question. Have you kept track on what it cost to set this whole thing up? I have been running calculations based off bghydro dot com (just as an example of prices) and to set up the 3 trays, with all lights, plumbing, etc will cost a little less than $1400. Just curious your thoughts on the cost and ease of setting this up.

Once again, my bad on the jacking, things look great, I will def be watching this one.

Peace,

-sg