Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

-

Hello ICmag-Community!

Today i wanna show you my
DoItYourself Aero-System

The system mentioned in this thread is dimensioned for a grow-area that is illuminated by a 600 watt bulb.
Depending which strains you are intending to grow you can change the lids of the system to provide different space-needs of different genetics.

-

Furthermore this system can be easily converted into 4 single independent-supplied mono-runs with 4 pumps for genetic-specified nutrition.

just to be mentioned:
This system is NOt a "true-aero" system;
what means this one is working with low-pressure misters.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay let´s start, basically it is very easy:

so, what you need for such a system:

Required components:

Wooden beams

4 Plasticboxes

4 lids

transparent hose

l
l
l
l
V

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

several mister

several neopren inserts

several netpots

barrel / bucket

pump ~530gal/h (2000l/h)

l
l
l
l
V

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

4 runoffs

several plasticpipes (ellbow´s, tee´s and straight pipes)

bucket-/barrel-connector

when you build in this you have to take care that it´s really watertight! best thing is to use an additional seal to ensure tightness!
Of course you can use a quadratic barrel as well; with these it is more easy to build in the connector anyhow!

sound isolation mats (blanket insulator) for pump & underconstruction (optional)

l
l
l
l
l
V

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

-

Usefull tools / miscellaneous:

holesaw

screw-in aid for the mister

the above pictured screw-in helper is designed for the gardena-mister.
as i experienced the gardena-mister tends to clog very easy.
Because of that i would recommend the above pictured mister`s (from ez-clone for example)!

In the main that was all you need for that system;
perhaps you need a hose clamp for the connection to the pump,a few srews wouldn´t be bad as well in
order to build the underconstruction...
If you are working exact when drilling the into the boxes you not even need any silicone!

l
l
l
l
V

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

-

The construction:

Okay, first of all you need to construct an underconstruction/rack made from wood or aluminium for the plasticboxes. i am prefering wood, because it doesn´t transfers/forwards vibrations so much and is cheaper than alu too.

Next step is to drill 1 hole for the runoff into each bottom of the boxes using the hole saw (please dont even try to do it without) and apply the runoffs ofter it. then it should look like that:

Now you drill 1 hole on both of the narrow sides of each box. After drilling the hose has to fit in veeery tight, otherwise you will need silicone in this moment

As well you will need a hole on the top of the barrel to put through the hose coming fom the pump

Sooo, on this point you should have made up your mind yet concerning `how to lead the runoff-plasticpipes under the boxes. There are some things you should mind considering this issue:

What is the height of my underconstruction, how much should the reservoir(barrel) be raised in the end, how do i have to lead the runoffpipes under the system, in which height the runoffpipe should lead in the barrel...

Extremely well planned should be the question where the barrel-connector has to be placed; this determines in correlation with the total water volume of the system, how high the water level in the boxes will be, or if there is a water level at all. Imho is a water level at around 1/2 inch quite well and works good; beside a water-level in the boxes acts as an emercency reserve in the case the pump fails!

When these plannings are made (i think it won´t be helpfull to post my exact measures; i think everybody has to made up his own mind concerning underconstruction & runnoff-pathway for his own growroom & space situation) the boxes can be put on the underconstruction und the runoff-system can be attached I did it the way, that i placed the boxes that way to the underconstruction, that they are slightly tilted lateraly so the water in the boxes runs into the runoffs.

In this easy sketch you can see how i made it:

l
l
l
l
l
V

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

-

In my case it looks like that under the boxes:

front left:

down under left:

down under right:

If required you can srew the boxes on the underconstruction; disadvantage: it makes cleaning/re-arranging more complicated.

l
l
l
l
V

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

-

From now on it´s quite easy. Lead the hose completely through all boxes and connect them in front of the system with a tee...the more tight the hose fits trough these holes, the more the hose will be tense/taut

looks this way:

Ongoing the tee gets connected with pump

what you can see here:

Now you have to make up your mind how & how much mister you wanna distribute in the boxes.

When using the boxes with 2 rows of 3 plants each i placed the mister that way:

...then you can screw in the mister (on this picture you see the "old", imho totally disappointing, gardena mister)

first stab the pre-holes:

l
l
l
l
V

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

-

...put in the mister into the srew helper & screw it in:

screwed in it should look like that:

The visible parts of the hose outside the boxes should be covered to prevent algae accumulation due to light exposure. I used the transparent hose intentionally to have the option to control the hose everytime for deposits/sediments on its walls; especially after the cleaning in between two runs.

Furthermore i would suggest to put underconstruction and the barrel on mats in order to minimize the sound of the vibrating pump and the watersounds in the boxes. Using a good, and of course more expensive pump, will help a lot as well concerning this issue.

Yeah, and everything what´s to do now, is only connecting the pump in the barrel, fill in the nutrient-solution... for a tight fitting of the barrel lid you can easily cut out a small piece from the barrel topin order to get a cable gland for the pumps powerline

...put the lids on the boxes, aaaand...

...you are ready for sprayin´around and can start your Aero-Grow:

On this point everything you need is some nice genetic to put in and it can start to grow!

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

-

General informations:

Fertilizer/Nutrition:

For my feedings i use "Canna Aqua". Until this point i had no experiences concerning recirculating systems and their nutrient supply, s i decided to use this `good-old`brand.
In future i will try out several other brands as well; but first i tried to get used to one brand, so i get a scale on that i can measure later on when using other products... but that shouldn´t be new for you.

Very important concerning dosage and the "Canna Aqua" product is, IT IS TOTALLY OVERDOSAGED if you will follow the feeding-chart (this appears at serveral fertilizer-manufacturers; don´t ask why, it´s crazy) the plants will be totally overfertilized at flowerday 10!
To get familiar with the dosage it would prefer starting with 1/4-1/2 of the lower mentioned value. That should be enough at all (concerning your strains of course), if not, you can start adding as much as needed until your plants look healthy again.

Important note:

it´s much better to grow your plants slightly at the edge of getting deficiencies than to give them the full dosage to be "dark green". ...and your yield will admit that this is correct ;-)

++btw: i only reduced the amount of the a/b components of the fertilizer; enzymes and root stimulator where dosed like in the chart.++

As long as you follow the instructions on the infopaper (shows some background info and exact usage of the fertilizer) the ph stays stable like a charm.
Canna icluded a chart to that infopaper that shows how nutritient solutions mixed with Canna Aqua reactafter mixed them; and this is exactly how the solution "works" in my case:

After adding al the components you have to lower the ph at about 1,0ph lower than the desired value. In the following 24 hours the solution "reacts" and fluctuates up and a little down for a while until it´s getting stable (after rising up gradually a total of 1,0ph again). From that moment it stays killer stable! (assumed the plants don´t change the ph their own too much)

Concerning the dosage of the fertilizers you can get a very good feeling if you alwways have an eye on your ec. if you see that the ec is going up after one day, you can be rather sure, that the plants take more water than nutrients at the moment. Is it the way around, you can be quite sure that the plants need more fertilizers. (using this technique you have to know your plants and the daily [for their height] normal evaporting-volume and the amount of water that is daily stored in the cells to maintain further growth.

Temperature nutrient solution:

The temperature of the nutrient solution should be at around 68°F (20°C). Some run their aero-systems cooler, some warmer; if they go warmer because they have no other option to regulate it, is anyone´s guess.

Rather important dealing with this issue is that a too warm nutrient solution isn´t anymore capable to absorb oxygen.

Cold water - good oxygen saturation
Warm water - bad oxygen saturation

to get it visual as well, i made a small chart for you:

Of course you shouldn´t use too cold water, otherwise the roots won´t like to grwo anymore.
Some possible ideas to cool the nutrient solution (for example in high-summer) could be
-rebuild an old fridge and store the barrel in there or buy 50m additional hose put them in the fridge and let the nutrient solution pump through there
-using a chiller (from aquaristics)
-rebuild a beer pump

Humidity in the room:

Don´t know why but i heard a lot of times the "prejudice" that hydroponic system always tend to let the humidity in the room rise.
Using my system i made the opposite experience.
In my honest opinion almost no humidity at all leaves the system, on the contrary other systems that are at least partially "open"

On what you should keep an eye on:

Until today i am quite satisfied with the system; but of course there are some things you should take care of:

-Based on the construction of the system and the resultingmassive root-growth the roots will likely grow through the runoff-pipes into the barrel; this can be prevented by placing a high-grade steel hair-sieve onto the runoffs.

-Putting the fresh cutted clones into the netpots it is better to let the end of the clone end up right in the middle of the netpot-height. When the end of the clone "looks" through the bottom of the netpot, most roots will grow only on the part of the clone hanging out there. Ending up in the center of the netpot the stem of the clone won´t be hit by so much droplets the first time. BUT a lot of more rootpoints will appear this way, AND the roots will grow in all directions out of the netpot giving the plant a massive foothold.

If you have any questions or suggestions for this tutorial feel free to let me/us know.
I will populate/enter all decent informations in the text above.

Fotographing and writing this thread (as a non-native speaker) was a ton of work; not least because of the 5 picture-limit^^

If you like my tutorial or at least savour the work i invested in it, i would really appreciate to get a feedback from you.

-There are so much good tutorials on ICmag that have a ton of clicks and literally no one gave some reputation and an additional "this helped me"-click; or not even an easy "thank you"-post.
This is quite ungratefull for the writers and doesn´t give them any energy for posting the next upcoming project...

So i would be really happy to get some kind of feedback from you
Especially if you like it or if you feel to throw in some additional knowledge!!!

high regards
Hazeo

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

Aeroponics in action

---

"happy roots = happy fruits"

Working with aeroponics the particularly thrilling part is the roots.

In such a system you are able to see exactly what´s going on `down there`and how influences like fertilizer, heat, etc. affect the rootgrowth; at least as long you get raised the lids with ongoing bud-gaining :-D

In the first test-run of this system the nutrient-solution was slightly overheated before in growth and some days in bloom yet. It wasn´t so bad that it effected the plants visually, but you could instantly notice that the roots were suffering. They were getting darker soon and after temps of the nutrient solution went into optimum again some of them dropped of and new healthy rootmass grew...

Issues like that definitely affect further growth and budding; the plant could have build out exponentially more rootmass...

Here some pictures from the roots of the test-run @ day 40 flowering:

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

-

These are pics of the roots after harvest @ day 72

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

-

The system in action

---

Budz @ Aero-System
flowerday 52 @ 5,7Ph // 0,9EC

front: Grüne Hessin; back: Russian Jones (WhiteRussianxCasey Jones)

front: Grüne Hessin; back: Russian Jones (WhiteRussianxCasey Jones)

Russian Jones (White RussianxCasey Jones) - bagseed
...she is such a impressive lady^^

Casessin (Grüne HessinxCasey Jones)

Casessin (Grüne HessinxCasey Jones) different exposure

-

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

Grüne Hessin

Casey Jones

Casey Jones

It´s obvious that the above showed pictures don´t display the maximum capacity of this system; there is more in there i think...
I am curious to see further progression when getting used to the system and different fertilizers.
Experience rules!

lg
Hazeo

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

-

dried budz

Casey Jones

click me!

Russian Jones (White RussianxCasey Jones)

high regards
Hazeo

---

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

copyspace

Hazeo · Nov 1, 2012

copyspace

Hazeo · Nov 15, 2012

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

-

...more
Casey Jones

-

growinman · Nov 16, 2012

Best laid out/written diy I've seen to date!
So where so you get the plastic boxes and have you had any leaks where the lids join?

AWESOME job!!!

peace
gman

al-k-mist · Nov 23, 2012

^^^ what he said
this is a pretty sick tutorial, man. To have translated it, uploaded the pics(i KNOW this takes a lot of time, patience, frustration) Thanks, and all that
I am an organic person at heart, but my friend is growing whopping plants with chemicals. If it is possible to run organic nutrients through these pumps and misters, I will probably do one of these one day.
Also, thank you for the oxygen saturation regarding the temperature of the water...that was a nice piece of info that carrys over to ALL forms of cannabis growing
Great pics, did I already say that?
Namaste
Boom Shiva

Hazeo · Nov 23, 2012

Hey growinman,

i really appreciate your nice words! thanks a lot!
these exact box is called "euro-box", you should find it easily with google i think. if not it won´t be a problem to find something compareable.

Hey al-k-mist,

a big "thanks!" for your kind words as well!
Yes it´s quite some work to post tutorials but somehow it´s fun as well

Nice to hear you stucked on the basic, natural way of grwoing - organic.
Most of my outdoorgrows are growing organic as well.
Unfortunately i am not up to date concerning the new organic (bio?) nutrients for hydrosystems. But i am sure it won´t be a problem for the misters i used, they don´t use to clog so fast. I didn´t use it my own but the "roots organics" fertilizers seem to be rather good and have a good reputation:
http://www.greners.com/i/nutrients-additives/brand/roots-organics.html

Namaste

Hazeo

Hazeo´s DIY easy AEROPONIC SYSTEM TUTORIAL

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Well-known member

Member

Member

Well-known member