Blah's First Ppk

Anyone know if the Brute trash cans can be linked together with real rubber hose method (drill a hole and shove the hose in)?

Mr Blah said:

This is the basic pattern I will follow. From the RO system on the wall to the RO holding tanks (88gals total), to the mixing tanks (88gals total) and out to the control bucket.
Question is it wise to hook multiple control buckets to this mixing tank or should 88gals be dedicated to one control bucket?
Meaning I will have 3 other rooms (flower) with 4-3.5gal buckets each. Total 12 buckets to match the vegging room.
I will probably have 2 more 44gal brutes to take care of the flowering formula. Feed from the RO holding tanks.
[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/attachment.php?attachmentid=366177&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]

Click to expand...

that looks real good! theoretically you can run all plant sites in both veg and flower from one big reservoir but in practical application it's hard to do because most people are using different rooms and sometimes even different buildings.

in your case depending on how you intend to operate and how much room you have it might be better to run your vegging plants on one or two drums and each of your 3 flower rooms on a drum each.

are you planning on starting all vegging plants simultaneously or in groups of four? and loading all your flower rooms one four plant room at time or all at once?

do you intend to harvest each room separately on different schedules or all at once?

do you believe in flushing if you are harvesting on different schedules? if so you certainly want to be able to run plain water through the last drum or two in each room. hard to do if you are in mid flower on another room and they are all hooked together.

i use the ability to "steer" the solution frequently. so if i have a room that is getting over about 1250 ppm at the .5 or ec 2.5 and or showing ph in the 6.4 range i simply run a drum or two of plain water through ph'd to 5.2 then resume nutrient feed. this is very effective and eliminates the need for mass change outs during a grow.

i ran a 15 plant veg and flower set up for 8 months one time with no change outs. a plant in and a plant out every week. 6 in veg and 9 in flower. big beautiful plants with perfect foliage. no spots or dis-coloration or hook, curl, cupping, or anything but flat, green leaves.

all your plants in veg and the plants in flower up to about 2.5 weeks into stretch will pull solution strength down while all the plants from that stage on will allow it to slowly accumulate. so in the above scenario i had 8 plants trying to pull ec down and 7 allowing accumulation. it stayed very stable.

remember that nothing you do in the mixing tank has any large immediate effect on the working body of solution.

and in answer to your plumbing question in the last post yes, you can just drill holes and push the hose in for a leak proof connection.

Thanks D9, I look forward every day checking to see if you posted anything. Your all right in my book buddy.

To answer your question, I am planing on starting 4 plants and add 4 more every 3 weeks.
I plan on shutting valves to the buckets with nothing in them. I understand I will have to change pulse times due to the more output of water from the 4 left open.
So when flower comes along in a month or two I will flower 4 At a time. I see what you are saying about flushing. I do flush so your right I will need to have an army of Brutes especially if I want any sort of vacation time away from this grow site.
RO system arrived yesterday along with the Jacks and Calcium Nitrate. My work is cut out for me. Not installing things but moving around stuff to allow for the Brutes.....pictures later.

Still got to get a pressure gauge to find out about my water pressure. This system needs at least 40psi with 72degrees F for it to work right.
The thing is my well water here in ME is 50+degrees F. The system is going to work slow.

Mr blah-Temp doesn't affect it much at all, at least not mine, my water is 50-55c. Mine does the rated 200gpd at 80 psi

Doesn't your RO system have a gauge? Can't you just hook up to that for a min?

D-9 how are you running veg and flower plants off the same res? You run the same npk value without yeild losses or nitrogen defficency ?? I don't quite understand , I'll be the first to admit nutrients are one of my weak points, I've found a few programs that worked for me and stuck with them over the years with little variation other than changing base nutes or trying different additives here and there.

Jacks users- does that stuff dissolve 100%.?

Cool! Thanks OG tree grower. I see the gauge.
I just went out and checked this situation out......Hummmm, total of 10 44gal Brutes. I got the room but will have do to do some piping all over the place. BUT if I do just one Brute for each room including veg than all I need is room for 5; 3 flowers, 1 for veg, 1 for holding tank.
This might be the ticket. The only thing is how much time will it take to eat threw that 44 gals.
Anyone have a time frame for 4 flowering plants eating habits on Jacks/CN in about three different stages; week 3,6 and 9?

Best way I have found to size a res for my hydro systems is going by the light wattage

1000w consumes 20-25 litres a day during peak flowering, and obviously you'll want at least half that as a buffer so I always give 50 litres per 1000w if that helps ya

Thanks OG.
So that will be 100L/day roughly 26gals/day for my 2k rooms.
So if I hooked one 44 gal Brute to each flower room I could get away camping for only 2 days tops. Me's got ta thinka this threw a tad more.

I use a large passive res on a float so I can leave for up to 10 days, works really good

You should actually wait for d-9, your guys feed system is totally different than anything I have done and it may be subject to a lot of evaporation or something else I'm not aware of

Thank you OG.

Just did another check (water pressure) and this, Boys and Girls is why you have to do research before buying....I was psyched to see it go up to 40psi...but that was it. It immediately went down to 39psi.
Then the RO water came out and went down to 35psi...what a bummer. Now I got to wait and find an external pump. But life also has funny ways of working out... I also didn't get my auto shut off, so I have to order that anyway. Wonder if HD or Lowes has this stuff?

Wont be planting for another week....and I all ready rinsed the shit out of the MVP.

Water orientation;


I thought instead of flowering all three rooms together I could use a separate bypass for RO water when needed for flushing like what D9 was talking about in an earlier post. I know it is a bit hands on but if it is flipped for flushing the red feed line is closed but doesn't effect the other two systems.
I know it is neat in the drawing but I would like to hard pipe this as much as possible as it will be on the ground and I do not want to step on these lines.

I would use compression fittings at the control buckets and bypass valves but the straight runs with the "t's"...Any suggestions?

What 1/4" line is good for the, shove into a larger pipe method?
Blue clear?

so, in view of your goals i would start with one drum on each room but leave room for adding another drum if you want more time away.

all of your vegging plants will be smaller than any flowering plant so one drum there and one drum each on the flowering rooms. think in terms of total plant mass.

then for your ro system, which could run slower than desired because of low pressure, put on as many drums as possible and just let it run 24/7 accumulating. you will always have enough water.

make your individual room reservoirs as large as possible putting the float valve itself in a smaller container either inside or outside of the reservoir. during heavy draw lights on it could pull the level down somewhat but it will correct itself lights off.

a 950 or 1200 gph pump will work fine on each room using drip rings.

keep the lids on all containers that don't have a plant in them to reduce evaporation.

gotta go to work now.

be back this afternoon if you have any more questions.

you sneaked that drawing in on me as i was posting but yes that will work fine except that you might want to use a higher feed strength during stretch than you are using elsewhere so you should design that capability into your feed set up.

use soft vinyl tubing from the grow store not the hard stuff from hardware stores and you will get a good seal. 3/8" od, 1/4" id drill a 5/16" hole. never leak.

To adjust my water pressure I am thinking of doing this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUxXSQ740nw

I think I am over thinking the water pressure thing....Going to leave it along. Revisit it at a later date in time.
Just waiting for the auto shut off and low pressure check valve to come in the mail.
In the mean time I am gathering the last of the drip rings, Brutes, and laying hard pipe.

delta9nxs said:

the perlite is best cleaned by floating it in a large tub and letting the fines go to the bottom. then use a net to scoop out the floating perlite.

the perlite will also need a 1000 ppm or ec 2 bath at the same time you clean it.

wash them separately and then mix them wet.

.....

Click to expand...

I forgot to ask this a while back....How do I get the PPM's up?
Do I add some nutes? or am I over thinking this and just wash them in my well water before Ro?
Why am I washing it in the 1000ppm water?
Thanks

Well I just used my 150-200ppm well water to rinse and soak the perlite.
This is unscreened Turface but rinsed four times and the perlite was soaked for 30 min after being beat to death from a large 20" kitchen whip.
Than the screened off with a small kitchen strainer.



Mixed equal parts and planted the plants; 4 Blueberry Headband. In three weeks I will do another 4 than wait 3 more weeks and finish up with the last 4.
Before I filled up the top bucket I filled the bottom array of buckets. Total 50gals leaving a 3" air gap. (measured from the rim of bottom bucket)
I also (read from another thread) filled tail pipe with straight perlite including a mound a 1" thick on the bottom of top bucket.

I then put a piece of mesh (same that I used for tail pipe) over that before I continued to plant. Started with 16cups of mix than held the plant with one hand and poured another 16 cups around the plant.

Since I do not have the drip rings yet I am hand watering till they arrive.

This water I used is well water with nothing in it for nutrients.
I have my Ro system but making the final adjustments with floats and 6-44 gal Brutes, pumps, and hard piping it up.

good morning! that all looks real good and functional but because the turface has a significant CEC you probably do not need to pre-charge the media.

using perlite alone i would for sure give it an ec 2-2.4 bath while cleaning it.

also your mix is all hard stuff and should not need the pure perlite and screen treatment. that is more for coco mixes to stop the coco from creating a hydraulic plug at the bottom of the tailpiece.

but it won't hurt anything.

delta9nxs said:

good morning! that all looks real good and functional but because the turface has a significant CEC you probably do not need to pre-charge the media.

using perlite alone i would for sure give it an ec 2-2.4 bath while cleaning it.

also your mix is all hard stuff and should not need the pure perlite and screen treatment. that is more for coco mixes to stop the coco from creating a hydraulic plug at the bottom of the tailpiece.

but it won't hurt anything.

Click to expand...

Thank for chiming in D9.
I have been reading on other threads and figured it wouldn't hurt...We can use me as a guinea pig.