2014 +3kw coco PPK grow attempt

[otis33]

how often are you watering those big pog's? they look a bit over watered. I'm currently running a multi strain ppk and in it I'm flowering out a sour bubble mom and she is showing over watering symptoms. I'm feeding every three hours and the other four plants look like they could handle it every 1.5-2hrs.

 

[farmari]

Wow its new for me, valuable information thanks

Hi AuZen, thanks for stopping by any questions feel free to ask!

how often are you watering those big pog's? they look a bit over watered. I'm currently running a multi strain ppk and in it I'm flowering out a sour bubble mom and she is showing over watering symptoms. I'm feeding every three hours and the other four plants look like they could handle it every 1.5-2hrs.

Once every 1-2 days, honestly. It seems their moisture mostly comes from the wick rather than the top feed. They do look overwatered... I'll have a more clear idea in the next few days but am wondering if their 6" net pot tail-pieces are just too wide and wick up too quickly. I have an approx 5" air gap... water level just barely high enough to reach the wicks. A year running coco dtw, coco PPKs, and perlite PPKs, never had such significant over-watering symptoms before.

Except with small hand-watered veg plants, like the seedlings. I love the PPKs because I seem to have really slow veg growth handwatering. The small containers are always either too wet or too dry it seems... I'm bad at getting the right moisture level. In the veg tent I might set up a PPK tray with the plant pots resting on them, like how Alien Dawg used his kiddie pools at times.

At least the big POGs are very overvegged so if the stretch goes poorly it should be okay as long as I sort out the symptoms before they begin budding. But I need big time stretch growth for the seedlings as you can see! I've never grown in trays before. One thing I love about PPKs is the versatility... if necessary I can reroute the drain lines on the two big POGs to make them drain to waste rather than PPK.

 

[farmari]

The 2 gal PPK white buckets (the four POG #1 clones) actually were overly dry before running the pump today, though they looked happy. The big POGs looked better than yesterday. Going to raise the air gap an inch or so.

Right side coco bed was installed today. One AK-48 in the middle and four Critical+ near the corners of the bed.

Here are a couple photos of the plumbing. A bunch of 1/4" feed lines hooked up to a manifold in the res with a 320 GPH pump. The drains all use the typical hydro tubing... the buckets have 1/2" fittings, tubing connected to reducers, with two 1" fittings on the res. The white/clear tubing seen in the res photo is for tap water, attached to a float valve in the res.

And the fogger. 4" duct fan blows air into this tote. (not the res!)

 

[otis33]

I really like my coco beds, have you done many runs in beds? are you going to scrog it?

 

[Yakov]

Nice looking set up, gonna have to follow this one.

 

[farmari]

Hi Yakov, thanks for stopping by

I really like my coco beds, have you done many runs in beds? are you going to scrog it?

Never used beds before... I don't know anything about them! If anyone has any tips or links for coco bed advice please feel free to speak your mind! The PPK wick made me confident to try this... thinking that the wick should do 90% of the job in watering and keeping the beds at an appropriate moisture. Will still top feed at least occasionally to reduce the chances of salt buildup and keep the PH and nutrient levels balanced.

The bed plants might be too small to effectively scrog, but I'll probably set up a PVC scrog type trellis when the stretch is almost over to help hold up the colas as they pack on weight.

 

[DabOnDabs]

Hi Yakov, thanks for stopping by



Never used beds before... I don't know anything about them! If anyone has any tips or links for coco bed advice please feel free to speak your mind! The PPK wick made me confident to try this... thinking that the wick should do 90% of the job in watering and keeping the beds at an appropriate moisture. Will still top feed at least occasionally to reduce the chances of salt buildup and keep the PH and nutrient levels balanced.

The bed plants might be too small to effectively scrog, but I'll probably set up a PVC scrog type trellis when the stretch is almost over to help hold up the colas as they pack on weight.

I think Mister D hit the nail on the head already with regards to the way your plants look. That looks like VPD to me, not over watering.

 

[omgwtf]

how's your humidity ?

 

[farmari]

Room exhaust temp and humidity lights on is generally around 70-75F and 40% relative humidity. (But varies between 35% and 60%) Canopy leaf temps right now are 75-82F at the hottest spots on each plant, which would put the hottest leaves around 30% humidity. All plants are looking better the last few days.

Am going to move the fogger placement and try setting up another humidifier.

I've grown happy looking trees at 90F and 30% RH before, but I know that that is not optimal.

Is there any way to cover up or turn off the LED lights on a fogger? Maybe silicone something opaque over them? Probably need to buy an opaque tote.

 

[farmari]

Added more light, now up to 5250 watts.

Electrical:

This photo should have been rotated 90 degrees clockwise. I added a second circuit yesterday. The original circuit is a 20 amp 240v hooked up to an Intermatic T-104, which continues to some 20 amp outlets for the ballasts. Did the same with the second circuit, 20 amp 240v on a T104.

Previously I could only use up to 3550w or so. Which is 4x600w plus 1150w Gavita.

Adding ballast losses, that's 4x650w + 1x1220w = 3820w.

The maximum recommended continuous wattage for a 20 amp 240v circuit is 3840w.

This is calculated at 80% of the maximum capacity:

240v * 20a = 4800w
4800w * 0.80 = 3840w

Now one circuit has 2x1150w Gavitas,
and the other has 1x1150w Gavita + 3x600w Quantum.

2950w on one circuit (more if adding ballast losses) and 2300w on the other. 5250w in total.

No other electrical devices are on in the grow room, besides a veg tent using 100w of fans+CFLs at the moment. A 250w Can Max 14" fan exhausts air out of the room into the rest of the house, and air enters the room through three passive intakes ducted from the rest of the house. A 2nd exhaust fan will probably be necessary though. Mini split, furnace, humidifiers, dehumidifiers attempt to keep the rest of the house around 70F and 40-60% RH.


This shows the lights:

The back row from left to right is currently 600w Super Sun 2, 1150w Gavita, and 1150w Gavita.

The near row from left to right is currently 600w Super Sun 2, 1150w Gavita, and 600w Super Sun 2.

I'm not going to break any GPW records though I hope that the excessive amount of lighting provides worthwhile benefits. And with this run being all new genetics from seed, expectations should be kept low.

Right now the room exhaust is 77F 45% RH. Canopy leaf temps are all around 80-88F. Turning on pump once a day and hand watering the beds once every couple days this week. The PPK wicks are doing most of the work. Delta9nxs and so many others on this forum cannot be thanked enough for engineering the PPK.

 

[farmari]

Now 7 days of 12/12 have passed. This is what the left bed looked like 7 days ago:

And today:

The right side bed 7 days ago:

And the right bed today:

Every 2-3 days I handwater a couple gallons in each bed under the assumption that it will help keep the coir from getting improper nutrient concentration levels from evaporation. But I didn't have to do anything. The 6" net pot wick for each bed does all the work, wicking up nutrient solution and keeping the coco bed at a near ideal moisture level 24/7.

 

[farmari]

This is what the clones in 2gal coco PPK buckets looked like 7 days ago:

And today:

Here are a couple broad shots of the garden taken today:

 

[Mister_D]

Looks great fem . Keep up the once per week hand watering, or you will definitely run into salt build up in those beds .

 

[flat9]

girls in the big ppk look awesome! how much do you think you got in them since you chopped off the top? Wondering if I can do just a 3.5 gal bucket on top instead of the tuff stuff 7 gal tubs that D9 uses in the big plant ppk thread...

 

[farmari]

Mister D I'll definitely keep up on that. Anyone know an easy way to hook up some sort of watering wand to 1/2" or 3/4" tubing? I have a couple fittings that are supposedly 1/2" to garden hose thread but neither vinyl nor HDPE tubing fit on the barbs at all. My watering cans make such a mess... drip drip drip from the nozzle for a minute after watering with them.

flat9 those cut buckets probably have about 3 gallons of coir in each of them. I believe most PPKers have said shorter and wider is better in theory and at least one (High Life 45 and others maybe?) has said it's better in practice too.

With the Botanicare brick coir I use at least, I think I'd find it a lot trickier to keep a proper moisture level with shorter wider containers. The shorter and wider containers put more rootmass in the 'sweet spot' of ideal moisture levels, but with coir I think it just wicks so much that it's a lot easier for the wick to make the coir too moist compared to being too dry. DaveTheNewbie and FlowerFarmer both had bad experiences with short wide coco PPK containers, probably from them being overwatered but I don't recall for certain. My point is that the shorter the container, the less margin of error in getting the air gap tuned properly, in my opinion.

Though while saying this, the coir beds are only filled maybe 5" high and are doing great so far. (5" air gap I estimate)

Memory is poor but I think High Life 45, Delta9nxs, and maybe others (?) have grown big yielding trees in 3.5 gal containers with 8822 and turface, respectively. Though they switched to the 7 gals of course. I've gotten 2lbs from a tree before that used one of the two buckets you see for the big plants. (coco with a 1.5" tailpiece PPK) And also 1lb from a 2.5gal perlite PPK too. So containers don't need to be very big with this system.

I really like the look of the 3" diameter tailpiece design with those 7gals that D9 showed in his thread.

I'll try to post some 2 week flowering update photos in the next day or two. Am very happy with the growth and health of the plants so far, and also that the environmental conditions are staying sound.

 

[farmari]

Photos taken at the end of 14 days flowering.

Left bed:

Right bed:

Big Pot of Golds:

Pot of Gold clones:

 

[farmari]

The coco bed plants have stretched like crazy.

All lights are about 2 feet from canopy, including the Gavitas all on the 1150w setting. Canopy temps are all in the 80s.

Two things I fear the most that could go wrong this grow are bud rot and hermies. These are all new genetics so who knows what could go wrong. Going to need to be ready to keep the humidity much lower in mid/late flowering, especially lights off, where its 50-60% a lot of the time now.

The Pot of Golds have begun to flower:

 

[otis33]

Lookin good n green farm

 

[flat9]

Looks pretty awesome to me...

 

[flat9]

How long did you veg those trees for?