HPA Aeroponics for Commercial Production

squarepush3r · Feb 3, 2015

Me2 said:
Only dropped in to address the myths, misconceptions and add some balance.
Personally i wouldnt use a big netpot full of rockwool, peat?! or coir in an aero chamber that can saturate over time. Accident waiting to happen for some, a failsafe for others

can you give me any example of your amazing superior technology in the real world? I mean saving tons of water and nutrients would be a no brainier for a lot of commercial growers, so it should be easy to find me examples right since the system is so superior?

(please don't post any low pressure micro-green setups)

CHEFfy · Feb 3, 2015

One of the main points of HPA is to avoid use of a growth medium. Must simply support the plant mass suspended in the chamber. Once you introduce a separate growth medium the point of HPA is lost.

Mad Lab · Feb 3, 2015

squarepush3r said:
can you give me any example of your amazing superior technology in the real world? I mean saving tons of water and nutrients would be a no brainier for a lot of commercial growers, so it should be easy to find me examples right since the system is so superior?

(please don't post any low pressure micro-green setups)

Why dont you try and then let us know how we can help you with a problem you run into.

Not sit here and say its not possible. This isnt helping anyone. We already know how awesome and balanced HPA can be if engineered right.

I wouldnt be wasting my time trying to get so much awareness out if I didnt think it would really help the future of our industry.

I am already successful in most areas of this industry, I dont need to really argue if this works or not...

Didnt I see you in the rollitup thread as well? Listen to Atomizer, he knows HPA and can tell you what you can really expect from it.

If you do decide to pull the trigger(again? maybe?), we would love for you to be apart of a true discussion about HPA and maybe we could dial in some commercial systems together

Weed Killer · Feb 3, 2015

As far as equipment failures 1 solenoid out of 16 in two years is pretty good in my book, and I didn’t lose any plants, just used excess nutrients.

A loose wire on a new part that was discovered immediately is also not a big deal.

IMHO water and nute savings are not the point for me, the biggest savings is time.

No pots to clean, no medium to buy, clean or dispose of, no repotting, the clones come out of the cloner in their pucks and directly into the system, 15 to 20 minutes and the system is refilled.

3 day veg then into flower, easiest system ever, quality is awesome the biggest downside is I have to keep tying up the buds because they break the stems. The systems consistently break a gram/watt.

Mad Lab · Feb 3, 2015

Weed said:
3 day veg then into flower, easiest system ever, quality is awesome the biggest downside is I have to keep tying up the buds because they break the stems. The systems consistently break a gram/watt.

Everyone, learn from Weed, Killer here.

Once you get through some hurdles as we any system you want to dial in, this is EASY, LOW MAINTENANCE and a HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE system!

After so many years doing this the best advice I can give to anyone who loves to KILL IT and WORK SMARTER NOT HARDER is get on the HPA train. (also get some gavitas DE's, those just boosted my yeilds from 2 units a light to 4!!!!!)

queequeg152 · Feb 4, 2015

Me2 said:
Its a misconception, the roots in a dense center mass simply remain smooth and develop differently to the rest. The droplets will easily penetrate into the center to maintain sufficient moisture and oxygen levels.
Soaking a densely packed, warm, root mass is counterproductive, it leads to oxygen depravation and an open invitation to root rot.

Facts become distorted by attempting to fix something that aint broke and it leads to the death of the plant. If the root mass is bone dry in the center you dont have the right mist.

this is not true in my experience. did you look at the thread i linked earlier?

the root mass in the center of my buckets were 120% dead, and rotting. yes, granted the roots entirely filled the buckets and formed these rock hard dense masses directly under the misters that almost completely remove any chance of mist circulating gracefully.

however i would submit that something similar would happen, though not to the same extent, regardless of how much room was available for the roots. The key mistake i made, besides the laughably small container was... IMO using these giant 8" wide net pots. an 8" net pot seemed to create an 8" diameter column of roots.

my musing was in responce to that issue.

queequeg152 · Feb 4, 2015

Weed said:
3 day veg then into flower, easiest system ever, quality is awesome the biggest downside is I have to keep tying up the buds because they break the stems. The systems consistently break a gram/watt.

OK so i know almost zip about cannabis, but is it fair to say these plants are not terribly large? do you have any grow logs available?

regarding supposed reliability issues.

yes i agree all the talk about HPA being unreliable is nonsense. you can build anything to last as long as you wish, its just a matter of engineering systems properly. regarding solenoids, there are producers making butterfly valve stem solenoids for fertigation systems that are pulsing something like 100 times a minute, for hours and hours on end every day. they are guaranteed to last like 10 years equivalent.

one could very easily incorporate a very cheap flow switch that could detect a failure of a solenoid or pump. pressure transducers could detect low pressure conditions and other issues. pumps could be run in tandem with check valves for redundancy, and mantinence reasons, etc. its all entirely easy to make HPA bullet proof.

Mad Lab · Feb 4, 2015

Examples of double manifold. Courtesy of Indoor Harvest Corp, although an old prototype, the model they will be releasing will be much improved.

Mad Lab · Feb 4, 2015

This is Indoor Harvest's 2 foot deep system that I will be purchasing for my home garden in the next few months.

The two tier nozzle manifold is similar to the ones I build which seems to take care of the center rootmass very well in a large chamber. But my manifold wasnt this clean and wasnt supported the same.

queequeg152 · Feb 4, 2015

what do they want for such a thing? that's probably a thousand dollar reservoir they cut up to make this thing.

Mad Lab · Feb 4, 2015

queequeg152 said:
what do they want for such a thing? that's probably a thousand dollar reservoir they cut up to make this thing.

Lol, quality is rarely cheap. This is for a serious hobbiest who doesnt want to make his own DIY.

But when you price out these parts the company is releasing it for a good cost.

Also, this is stainless steel FDA food grade everything. And they custom build long troughs for commercial growers which reduces the costs per sq foot of the systems tremendously.

I guess they build to budget to, non-stainless steel manifolds that are cheaper, but alot of product R&D was done from talking with them and even the parts that arnt like the stainless manifold, they are still great products and tested to be choosen.

I cant say the price per system because they are all different, some double stacked with LED's, some not. And they are likely releasing this products in a couple months so I dont want to quote a price that isnt right, anyone whos interested can hit up their facebook which has ALOT of great pictures too. The DIY guys can learn and get ideas from just checking them out.

They are working with the largest legal producer of cannabis in Canada doing some commercial R&D. Soon all the nay-sayers will get hopefully get some info and reports from a large-scale HPA operation if they choose to release data..

DrFever · Feb 4, 2015

Initial cost already puts a commercial grower in the red,,, one or to fuck ups and he is bankrupt so this system will never get even close to many things to fuck up in this system
everyone is forgetting most commercial crops are 10 - 20 thousand plants and what is the world slowly running out of ????

WATER

if anything i can see Aquaponics where there is also another source of food and income FISH difference is there run off goes into ponds and the ponds feed the plants a complete eco friendly environment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YJolxisoSg

Mad Lab · Feb 4, 2015

DrFever said:
Initial cost already puts a commercial grower in the red,,, one or to fuck ups and he is bankrupt so this system will never get even close to many things to fuck up in this system
everyone is forgetting most commercial crops are 10 - 20 thousand plants and what is the world slowly running out of ????

WATER

if anything i can see Aquaponics where there is also another source of food and income FISH difference is there run off goes into ponds and the ponds feed the plants a complete eco friendly environment

HPA isnt for everyone. Nothing is.

If you cant pay, you cant play.

You can fuck up any growing medium just as easy. Your just scared of one thing, likely open root environments, so just make sure to take care of that during engineering.

You state we need to save water. I agree. I purpose a solution: HPA.

Also reusing the runoff water, by filtering it, along with any other grey waters in the facility.

I love Aquaponics, done alot of work on some friends gardens in Maui with it. And I hope we get to that point in the future where we dont need to use so many resources to manufactor fertilizers.

Kiloz · Feb 4, 2015

Looking awesome, going to be real interesting following this one!

Me2 · Feb 4, 2015

queequeg152 said:
what do they want for such a thing? that's probably a thousand dollar reservoir they cut up to make this thing.

Cutting it up triples the price

The quality is overkill but its aimed at big business with very deep pockets. For those that can remember, there were very similar setups that cycled the pump with a small accumulator and solenoid being tested on overgrow 10-15 years ago.

queequeg152 · Feb 4, 2015

Me2 said:
Cutting it up triples the price The quality is overkill but its aimed at big business with very deep pockets. For those that can remember, there were very similar setups that cycled the pump with a small accumulator and solenoid being tested on overgrow 10-15 years ago.

well... just to keep things in perspective, one can easily buy 330 gallon IBC containers for roughly 150 bucks.... one could easily cut the top third or so off of an IBC and still have a wonderful root chamber for 3-5 plants.

squarepush3r · Feb 5, 2015

Kiloz said:
Looking awesome, going to be real interesting following this one!

I don't understand what is different about this? There have been HPA threads on forums for almost a decade now, its extremely rare to see anyone actually show off an impressive system.

keep trying guys

Mad Lab · Feb 5, 2015

squarepush3r said:
keep trying guys

we will.

because someone like you sure isnt going to do it. lol.

Kiloz · Feb 5, 2015

squarepush3r said:
I don't understand what is different about this? There have been HPA threads on forums for almost a decade now, its extremely rare to see anyone actually show off an impressive system.

keep trying guys

man get that stick out of your rear already

Weed Killer · Feb 5, 2015

I have built 3 types of HPA systems

1st a 27 gallon yellow top tote with a 5” netpot, hydroton, 4 sprayers indirect spray, large fluffy roots, slow start for the plants, took a week to get roots out of the hydroton, can’t use much light at first.

2nd 5 gallon buckets, 2 sprayers, 1 indirect in the side of the bucket, 1 direct one inch from the stem. Fast start, can go under a HPS immediately. But still required some veg time.

3rd and current, 4” pvc with direct spray, 1 sprayer per plant site. Fast start short veg.

Tried some 6” pvc to see if extra volume would help, did not seem to with direct spray.

HPA roots are very susceptible to heat; the root chamber needs to be insulated well, especially from the infrared output of HPS.

HPA Aeroponics for Commercial Production

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