Design input for modified Heath's Flooded Vertical Octagon

[Jnugg]

So I'm looking into doing something quite like Heath Robinson has done with his flooded tube vert octagon,but scaled down and with a few tweaks of my own and I could use some help...consider this thread my own little R&D thread and hopefully together,we can come up with a fully functional,efficient,scaled down and tweaked version of this thing to fit my parameters.For those of you that are not familiar with Heath Ribinson's Flooded Tube Octagon you can check it out here

Heath's Flooded Tube Octagon

First a bit about my grow space.I currently own a Secret Jardin DR90 II (3x3x6) tent & a 400w vertical bare bulb HPS hanging in the center with a 10 fan blowing up @ the bulb,and a 4" 170cfm inline centrifugal exhaust fan ducted to the attic...currently doing a donut around the light with 5 plants started from various bagseed along at 31 days flower.

Anyways thoughts about the flooded tube octagon was to leave out the front portion of the octagon,allowing easy inspection of plants and temps/humidity and to do any light pruning/training that may be needed.To grasp an idea of the shape I am talking about,something like this:

Now since the system will be taking on this shape instead of a full octagon,I am planing on the top tube being the tube the nutrient solution gets pumped in to,and at the end of that teir will be a small dam as seen in Heath's design but a 90° elbow afterwards which after the flow of water makes it over the dam will cascade down through another 90° elbow to the next tier and so on and so forth (this should leve ZERO dissolved oxygen problems) until running back to the reservoir.To give you an idea here js a drawing showing the tubes ,the small vertical lines in the tubes are the dams and where I plan to locate them at the end of the run for each tier,the arrows mark the flow of water :

So what do you guys think of my plans for a modified version of Heath's Flooded Tube Vert Octagon so far?I like the idea of the open ftont so I can inspect plants and temp/humidity and to make defoliating a little easier as well as any pruning traing that would be necessary.

Alright back on to design.I am thinking of using 3" pvc tubes and 3" 90° elbows to construct the system in hopes it will fit into the Secret Jardin DR90 and have just enough space between plants and 400w bulb(s).I found this calculator fir designing octagons http://www.pagetutor.com/octagon_layout/index.html

Figuring the dimensions of the DR90 are 36"x36" and accounting for 3" pvc pipe I came up with these parameters...

A = 2' 6"
B = 1' 7/16"
R = 1' 4 1/4"

So from inner edge to inner edge would be 2 1/2' and each section of tier or "wall" would be 1' 7/16" long and the distance from corner to bulb would be 1' 4.25"

Since I am thinking of using 3" pvc pipe to construct this what would be better to use for plants,2" or 3" net pots and how many net pots a.k.a. plant sites per section of tube?

Also,what size pump and res should I be looking at and if using 1x 400w HPS how many tiers should I implement in the system...what if I do 2x 400w HPS's,how many tiers?

 

[BldSwtTrs]

Hey dude I have built about 20 of these full scale and used to run them exclusively.

I would recommend not leaving a gap in the octagon because you will be sacrificing 12% yield which is significant. Instead, just leave yourself crawl space under the bottom tube to crawl in and out of. Did this forever and it really isn't bad at all. I am big as fuck and fit just fine under 18".

Distance in between plants completely depends on how big you want your plants to be.

I have fit 2 in the same space I fit 16 in before so it just depends on how big you plan for them to be. The idea of these tubes though is to pack em in so just pack as many in as you can in my opinion.


For that size system you won't need a big pump at all. 100gph would be just fine. Grab a bigger one if you want to make a feedback valve to keep your nutes super jacked with DO.

For 3" pipe I would use 2" net pots, but I would strongly recommend against using 3" pipe because I would bet money that thing will flood once your roots get growing.

I made several flooded tubes with 6" pipe and grew bigger plants and even those overflowed and they held almost 100 gallons in the tubes themselves.

I would recommend just using 4" JM eagle pipe from HD. Get the cheapest tubing and joints you can and it really is about the same price as 3" pipe.

As far as a res goes you wouldn't need more than 10 gallons. Most of the water is in the tubes itself and so your res size really only depends on how often you want to top off or do full res changes.

Plan to use some sort of sterilizing agent unless you are using a water chiller. Simple household bleach at 2ppm works great and is basically free. If you feed like getting crazy and spending money I would go for Down-under (formally called hydro-fungicide) from groovy hydro. H2o2 is lame and expensive so if you want to use something along those lines just use bleach. I did this forever and it works just fine.

For 1 400w I would do 2 tiers and for 2 lights I would do 4 or 5. Really just keep in mind that these systems can be whatever you want them to be man. Build them to suit your desires/needs.

Also, start thinking of how you want to control water levels in the system itself because that is basically the crux of the system. I ended up changing the way Heath did it because over the course of several runs that lubricant he used will wear out and the water level will be a bitch to adjust. You will have to be able to adjust it easily as you will need to change it based on root and pump size.

These systems are fun though. Biggest problems will be keepin your juice clean and fresh.

 

[drknockbootz]

My advise stay away from NFT unless you've got some runs under your belt.......
If you want to take the leap or if your pretty verse in water culture than follow what BST said. He has a good bit of experience running these systems.

 

[Jnugg]

Thanks for chiming in BldSwtTrs.

The problem with having the front of the octagon would be that this being designed to fit in a 3' x 3' tent and unfortunately 3" piping is the largest I can use while still maintaining a decent distance from the bare bulb so as not to scorch/bleach any plants.I'm already thinking that scaling Heath's original design down this far is not that great of an idea,but until DHF,Heath,or anyone that knows this system says so,this is the design I am sticking with for now.So seeing as there's only about 1.5' to 2.5. inside the proposed design you can see there is know way my 180 lbs self is NOT getting "in there" :lol:

I'm thinking 8" to 12" budsicles.Net pots set in pvc tubes at a 30° to 45° angle not sure on the math to figure out how much room that leaves between the tips of plants and the bulb though.

As far as how many plant sites...if I use 2" net pots I think I could fit 3 to 4 plants per wall of the octagon,but not sure how much vertical space I should have between each teir of the octagon.

 

[BldSwtTrs]

The size of the pipe wouldn't change how far away the plant is from the light at all. We are talking about an inch difference which would be negated once the plant started to grow anyway.

I am really strongly urging you from using anything smaller than 4" pipe or you will 100% have flooding issues which pretty much make the whole system a pain in the ass.

I used to run 115 cuts in my systems and each plants roots weighed a few pounds wet when pulled out. They all end up growing into each other and causing flow issues.

But if you are set on using 3" pipe I would recommend having pretty low flow to avoid flooding. That sort of defeats the purpose of the system, but I think it would work ok.

 

[Jnugg]

Alright so 4" pvc pipe and fittings it shall be.Should the net pots be 2" or 3"?

I went back into that calculator and accounting for the dimensions in the tent (she'll be bulging at the sides for sure) I came up with this...

A = 2' 2"
B = 10 3/4"
R = 1' 2 1/16"

If plants are placed at 45° angle to the light and allowed to finish at 8" to 12" how much space will be between plants and bulb?

BTW,plants going in this system would be freshly rooted clones with little to know veg...do you think the roots would become a problem or cause flooding?

 

[5th]

2" netpots in 4" PVC is what your looking for.

Fuck an octagon, pain in the ass dude. See that space you left open? Stick the mom you cut all your clones off of in that space...just move it when you wanna reach inside.

Dam's, another pain in the ass. I'd suggest NTF.

I had the same thought as you as far as oxygenating the water...it doesn't work if you NTF. Damn roots from the tier above follow the water down the pipes and the roots act as a ladder of sort for that "falling" water to slide down. Gonna need an airstone.

Don't bother putting your plants in at a 45 degree angle. Puttem in straight up...week after stretch they bend that way on there own.

No dams, not root problems.

BST mentions a 100gph pump, fine if your doing damns. A 250gph is better for NTF.

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

im excited just reading this. I spent ages designing something similar myself but ended up taking the (supposedly) easy route of blumats. In my heart i still want to do something grand like this.

 

[BldSwtTrs]

Yea if you are planning on basically no veg I think 2" net pots would be fine.

As 5th said DO NOT put them in a 45 degrees because you are limiting the amount of juice/root mass the tubes can hold. Within a few days the plants will do their thing.

Also as 5th said I WOULD purchase a larger pump if it were me because I always like to be able to have a big bypass valve to give me as much control as possible. If you are only doing a small system with a few levels then the DO created by the bypass valve will give you LOTS and LOTS...

As far as dams vs NTF I would personally suggest the dams. They are quite easy to do and give you a large degree of control, which as a grower you should benefit from.

If you look in my pic albums there are probably 25-50 pics of my old NFTs in there which you should be able to look at. In one of my old threads too there should be lots of pics.

I would say man just go overboard on what you think you will need here because if you lose control of this system the benefits of a fast hydro system are negated.

 

[DHF]

First things first Bro......Set up a clone factory and pick the best of the best with similar root AND plant structure , so when yas`re ready to put em in the system they`ll ALL blast off and be the same size throughout their cycle for a dialed sideways canopy.....and hey.......

You could do a LOT worse than following BST`s advice since he`s "been there and done that" with numerous tube setups under his belt.....in fact.....the advice and warning about swollen rootmass induced flooding is PARAMOUNT on crop survival , so use the bigger pipe as suggested and find a way to increase flow......but.....

As long as I`ve known Heath over the yrs , he always tended to be vague with a LOT of gray areas he never covered as in constant juice temp as well as that "bypass" right above the rez with a ball valve and a "tee" that relieved pressure off the feed line and blasted juice back down in the rez to keep dissolved oxygen at max levels at all times.....now.....

I`m ambivalent at best over yas leavin a portion of the tubes open for access as to how it`ll affect flow , but really there`s only 1 wayta find out and that`s ta do it and learn from version 1.0.....anyways.....

Take it from BST , fast hydro has it`s ups and downs , and reproducing Heath`s pulls will be something to reach for....but.......Better have all yer ducks in a row so when shit fucks up , you`ll know what ta do to counteract the fuckups......cuz they`re GONNA come.....bet on it.....aight.....

Get ta work on your setup and keep us updated.......Me ?.....the FIRST chance I got ta get away from high maintenance fast hydro bullshit and make the move to DTW coco , I RAN and jumped head first never lookin back.....

Some folks have the dedication and resolve to be water babies and stay there......Gettogro comes to mind , but..... most everyone I ever helped with hydro setups over the yrs either went backta dirt when the organic thingy started gainin ground in medville , or jumped on the coco train for as close to fast hydro results as I ever got......and why ?........

Imminent TOTAL crop death around every corner without proper maintenance and dialage with such things as clogged drains from massive rootmass as well as not keepin juice temps below 70 degrees , and oh....the biggest thing BST mentioned......sterilizing agents to nip root rot in the bud .....regardless....

Good luck Bro...and holler if I can help.....

Peace....DHF..........

 

[DHF]

Yea if you are planning on basically no veg I think 2" net pots would be fine.

As 5th said DO NOT put them in a 45 degrees because you are limiting the amount of juice/root mass the tubes can hold. Within a few days the plants will do their thing.

Also as 5th said I WOULD purchase a larger pump if it were me because I always like to be able to have a big bypass valve to give me as much control as possible. If you are only doing a small system with a few levels then the DO created by the bypass valve will give you LOTS and LOTS...

As far as dams vs NTF I would personally suggest the dams. They are quite easy to do and give you a large degree of control, which as a grower you should benefit from.

If you look in my pic albums there are probably 25-50 pics of my old NFTs in there which you should be able to look at. In one of my old threads too there should be lots of pics.

I would say man just go overboard on what you think you will need here because if you lose control of this system the benefits of a fast hydro system are negated.

Guess great minds think alike .............

Peace....DHF.........

 

[Jnugg]

Wow,water chillers are not cheap,$316 for a 1/10 hp water chiller good for a 150gph minimum pump to 265gph maximum pump.Ambient temps in room tent is in stay @ 68°F and for space saving,I planned on keeping the reservoir outside the tent.

As far as sterilizer for the water goes,is bleach really safe?What are some brands of sterilizer I can buy from my local hydro shop?

 

[poipu79]

As far as a res goes you wouldn't need more than 10 gallons. Most of the water is in the tubes itself and so your res size really only depends on how often you want to top off or do full res changes.

just wonderin how you keep the solution in the tubes from overflowing the res when the pump is off

...poipu

 

[Femora]

@Poipu; The pump is on 24/7, and the level of water i in the tube is adjusted by a dam in the end of each pipe just before the fall to the lower level. You can see this in the 2nd drawing..
The dam is built in a extra link of tubing, so its rotateable= you can adjust the level in the pipe..
If u cant figure it out you can google "heath roll it up" and find his threads. Its a bit easier to understand the setup there...
Sorry, cant provide the link from my (stupid) phone.

Best of luck with the setup, Jnugg!!

 

[BldSwtTrs]

Wow,water chillers are not cheap,$316 for a 1/10 hp water chiller good for a 150gph minimum pump to 265gph maximum pump.Ambient temps in room tent is in stay @ 68°F and for space saving,I planned on keeping the reservoir outside the tent.

As far as sterilizer for the water goes,is bleach really safe?What are some brands of sterilizer I can buy from my local hydro shop?

Hell no they arn't cheap... and honestly if you have to decide whether or not to use one I think the energy those use are better spent on more lights...

With those ambient temps YOU WILL BE FINE. My rooms night temps were about that then they would creep up to the low 80s by the end of lights on so you will be ok.

As far as bleach... yea it is 100% ok. I have used it for years over 10s of thousands of gallons. The mad scientist fatman put me on to it a while ago and has some pretty good explanations of it. All it is is diluted chlorine.

If you want to stay cheap another solution is to make your own "clear res". All this is is diluted pond shock. There is a thread about it here on the mag with 100s of replys saying people have used it.
I used to make this for my EZ clones before I switched to plugs and it works great. It is also CHEAP AS SHIT. A dollar worth of pool shock will treat thousands of gallons worth of juice.

I would highly recommend against using store bought sterilizers because they are usually something you can do yourself at 100x the price...

Before I made my own I used:
H2o2: This is stupid because it is expensive as shit and you have to add it every 48-72 hours.
Dutch Master Zone: Expensive and didn't work any better than bleach or pool shock.
Hydro-Fungicide: This was actually the best stuff I ever used. I will not lie to you. If you are in the USA the only retailer is the internet site groovyhydro. It is now labeled as Down-Under (formerly hydro-fungicide). This shit is pretty awesome and it kept my roots noticeably whiter the whole cycle. It is, however, expensive at $100/gallon. I think you use it at 2ml/gallon and can up the strength, but you won't need to.

Honestly man I think you will be just fine without sterilizing agents, but my motto was always better safe than sorry. Based on the fact that using bleach (2ppm of bleach is only like 1 drop/10 gallons of juice) seems to freak you out, I would use homemade "clear res". Check out the long thread here on the mag

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=219683

Lots of info on there and that should sell ya.

just wonderin how you keep the solution in the tubes from overflowing the res when the pump is off

...poipu

Yea one of the downsides of these systems is all the fucking floods... I used rezs big enough to hold all the juice in the tubes AND the extra in the res though in case of power outages... only takes a few 80 gallon spills to make you do this....

 

[5th]

Yea one of the downsides of these systems is all the fucking floods... I used rezs big enough to hold all the juice in the tubes AND the extra in the res though in case of power outages... only takes a few 80 gallon spills to make you do this....

And that right there was the breaking point for me.

I used plastic and epoxy resin to build the dam's in my tubes as those fancy turning ones Heath used weren't available to me. One of the dam's came loose and over flowed the res....big fucking hassle. So that was it for me, I took all the dam's out and ran NTF.

DHF mentioned using one of those pumps with the by pass (as did BST in this thread) so I went with a 250 gph size.(from a 100gph) This was the piece de la resistance if you will...

1) The by pass allowed for not only more DO in my nutes/water, but it also constantly mixed the nutes in the res.
2) Increased the flow in the tubes dramatically. Not too the point of filling the tube obviously, but enough that much more rootzone was getting hit with the nute juice.

Good luck

 

[Jnugg]

I'm thinking that a square shaped setup is going to be best in my 3' x 3' tent as far as fit is concerned,also should leave just a little extra space between plants and 400w bulb(s).I was google searching vertical pvc hydroponics and found this website

Hydrogon

They have a 3 teir and four teir octagon system as well as a 3 teir square design and I am thinking about making a DIY version of their square design with only two levels (of course I'd build it to be expandable should I like how it works and add a third or fourth teir).On the website they state you have choices of using the setup as 1)Ebb & Flow 2)NFT 3)Drip Irrigation and 4)Aeroponic/Mister/Fogger...just not sure how to set it up for ebb & flow or drip or nft,how would I plumb the return line to the res for each application?

Here is a pic of the system with three teirs from their website...

I'm thinking I can build it with each tier being a little closer to the one below/above it allowing me to do two tiers Per 400w bulb.

As always,comments/suggestions/constructive criticizm are welcomed and very much so appreciated.

 

[5th]

You hit the nail on the head Jnugg. One 400w per two tiers would be perfect.

That pic of their system looks like its missing some parts. The tiers I used were connected via a down spout. Hell I can't explain this for shit...

Thats the hot, hot down spout action I was talking about from tier to tier...

On the bottom left was my rubber maid res. The bottom tier empty's into it...well obviously I guess....anyways...theres a hose coming out of there that pumps the water/nutes up to the top tier into an end cap.

Are you the Jnugg that makes my life so much easier when using google sketchup by any chance? With all the premade shit I don't have to try n' make.

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

food for thought regarding 7 vs 8 sided octo and how to make dams :

imagine that you have all 8 sides of the octo in a circle (circut) of sorts.
now cut out a maybe 2 inch section in one of the 8 sides and put caps on both ends of the hole. It will hold water and be almost a full circut.
drill a small hole and put a 3/4 inch soft hose fitting in the very middle of the cap.
the soft hose from the fitting will run down to the next level (where theres another similiar setup) and the height of the hole in the cap is the dam.

you can have as many levels as you want, you have (almost) 8 full working sides, and you have damns that wont need glue cutting or fall out or whatever.
I cant describe it much better, but i could draw it up if needed.

 

[Jnugg]

You hit the nail on the head Jnugg. One 400w per two tiers would be perfect.

That pic of their system looks like its missing some parts. The tiers I used were connected via a down spout. Hell I can't explain this for shit...

View Image Thats the hot, hot down spout action I was talking about from tier to tier...
View Image On the bottom left was my rubber maid res. The bottom tier empty's into it...well obviously I guess....anyways...theres a hose coming out of there that pumps the water/nutes up to the top tier into an end cap.

Wow,that is exactly the system design I was aiming for to the fucking dotted i and crossed t!

You've had some good input in this thread bro and I am willing to listen to anything and everything you have to say about that system (and my proposed mini version of it) as well as the square design.

Are you the Jnugg that makes my life so much easier when using google sketchup by any chance? With all the premade shit I don't have to try n' make.

Yessir.

Checkout my albums,there is an album with a few pics of growcabs I did with sketchup.I had designed inline centrifugal exhaust fans,carbon filters,lights (reflectors,t5's) etc.

There might be some more of my work in my A Variety Of Growcabs link in my sig.

food for thought regarding 7 vs 8 sided octo and how to make dams :

imagine that you have all 8 sides of the octo in a circle (circut) of sorts.
now cut out a maybe 2 inch section in one of the 8 sides and put caps on both ends of the hole. It will hold water and be almost a full circut.
drill a small hole and put a 3/4 inch soft hose fitting in the very middle of the cap.
the soft hose from the fitting will run down to the next level (where theres another similiar setup) and the height of the hole in the cap is the dam.

you can have as many levels as you want, you have (almost) 8 full working sides, and you have damns that wont need glue cutting or fall out or whatever.
I cant describe it much better, but i could draw it up if needed.

That's a pretty damn (pun intended) good idea Dave,did not think of that.Wouldn't that get clogged by the roots easily though?