Aero vs dwc grow showdown

Sport Farmer · Apr 24, 2018

Killer grow my man! And a informative experiment! I love the table. Did you notice if the plants respond (good, bad or different) to a shallower depth? Aero always impresses me. It's been the best way to clone for me for years... even though I've tried other methods to see if I was missing out on something. Nope... Still the best.

And lol about putting fruits and veggies in DWC buckets... I swear they are super addicting once you get a few setup and have some good success, the next thing you know you have like 10 going with all sorts of shit running in them, lol...

Good stuff again, man.. everything looks fabulous and the table is quite inspirational! Keep at it!

FrozenFire · Apr 24, 2018

I have grown veggies in one of my 27g totes. Had kohlrabi, heritage lettuce, sugar snap peas, and zucchini. Fucki g zucchini tried taking over the tent. That should be outdoors only. I've ran tomatoes in 5g dwc buckets too. My personal favorite so far was my first semi hydroponic setup. I grew strawberries in a promix and hydroton setup. The strawberries were tiny and tasted like sweet tarts. I believe they were tristar strawberries.

The house setup will have pineberries (white strawberries that taste like pineapple), tristar, and sequoia strawberry varietals. Its gonna be fun! I've also gotta start seeds for the greenhouse.

green404 · Apr 24, 2018

Nice grow and nice experiment ! The Cindy99 looks great.

FrozenFire said:
The longest I can go with not topping off dwc totes is 2 to 4 weeks depending on growth stage.

Did you do full water changes when they were big ? I was wondering how long the water would be good before it gets funky or hard to control the PPM-PH levels.

FrozenFire · Apr 24, 2018

I feed low enough that ph and ppm control usually isn't an issue. Sometimes they get a rez swap around week 4, not always. The only time I really drain and replace the rez is the last week of flush. 2 weeks before chop I stop adding nutes to the top offs and just add water and adjust ph. Final week res is swapped with just water. That's why my plants turn super yellow and fade so hard. Between flush and cure, I get some of the smoothest smoke I have ever experienced this way. Most of my girls test over 20% thc, so it doesn't seem to effect potency enough to worry about.

FrozenFire · Apr 25, 2018

Hulk smash #4 aero: dried

Hulk smash #10 aero: dried

FrozenFire · Apr 27, 2018

All I can say is that dark horse genetics is worth giving a whirl. One pack of beans of hulk smash contained a few keepers for sure! Due to space I'll be keeping only 2. Hulk smash #4 because of her amazing Terps (worthy side note is her concentrates apparently make women horny), and hulk smash #10 because of the crazy 25.38% thc content. The current home made hulk smash crosses will be grown and evaluated. So far the blue dream cross has displayed the most vigor. It will be interesting to see if it yields big like some of the blue dreams I have grown before...

Anyhow here is how hulk smash #5 turned out:

FrozenFire · Apr 30, 2018

Half the aerotable has been dried, trimmed and jarred for curing. The combined weight of the hulk smashes and one c99 is 9.05oz. If the orange glues weigh in like I think they will, I may get pretty close to 1gpw. The rest of the aero table should be good to trim tonight.

FrozenFire · May 4, 2018

All the dwc plants have been trimmed and total weight for that side is 16.82 oz. Orange glues put out more weight, but that hulk smash #10 is some of the best I've grown. Not much difference between aero or dwc with regard to appearance or effects. Both are stupid potent and easy toking. Hulk smash #1 was the lowest yeilding dwc plant. it was well and truly a runt. All clones have been culled and it is gone. Same with hulk smash #2 and #6. I'm still deciding on which orange glue to keep. Og #2 yields well and has the best density. Og #1 makes crazy amounts of resin but lacks density and structure. Both of them smell like citrus goodness. I should have the final numbers on the aero table tomorrow. It is looking like the aero table should break a pound as well.

Gry · May 4, 2018

An interesting thread and real nice looking grow.

Gypsy Nirvana · May 5, 2018

Gry said:
An interesting thread and real nice looking grow.

...I concur Gry, what an excellent show-grow FrozenFire, well done man!!

...With growers like this on our boards, no wonder ICMAG is the most popular growers forum on the internet..

Excellent!....much K+

FrozenFire · May 5, 2018

Thanks Gypsy! That means a lot coming from you! I hang out on this forum because there is a treasure grove of information and a bunch of good people that freely share good tips and pointers. I probably spent at least 100 hours reading and researching various forums before I started growing. I'm by no means a master grower myself, but I try to give back by sharing the things I learn with each grow. My goal with this little comparison was to show that low pressure aeroponics is a simple and effective way to grow. It's not near as complicated or risky to grow with as most people think. Anyhow thanks for stopping by and the kind words!

FrozenFire · May 5, 2018

Looks like I underestimated the aerotable's yeild. After all said and done that 4×4 aero table yielded 708g! I finally broke the 1 gram per watt mark. The table had one 630w de cmh light running at 700w. What really makes it interesting is that the table was not monocropped. It was a split of mainly orange glue and hulk smashes. There was a small blue dream and a c99 in there as well. If y'all are interested in trying de cmh lighting check out this website:

https://www.ceramicsolutions.us

FrozenFire · Nov 23, 2018

Well I crushed the aerotable this last round with the undercurrent setup. 4 plants under the same 630w de cmh running at 700w yeilded 1065g. This equates to 1.52 gpw. Worth noting it took a well setup scrog with large plants for this to happen.

PetFlora · Nov 23, 2018

Excellent A B grow

Scrolling through your thread: FYI, NPK Raw makes individual 2oz packets of nutrients, like N, Si, Enzymes... available on Amazon

I didn't see what your aero cycle o/o times are, or which lpa mist heads you are using

While I too have had DWC success, it has issues, like how to check ppm/pH levels of water consumption... which should be done daily during flower. Leaning into the tent to lift and draw water from each bucket is not easy

This grow I experimented by adding an O2Grow 2020 emitter which creates nanobubbles separating O and H. Similar to aero, the finer the nutrient splashing the root the better the uptake

If you check out my thread you will likely be as perplexed as I that the tops grew at all, and are budding so well, when the roots are so pathetic, but finally getting much better.

Now that was not because of the 2020. I had all manner of daily mist head clogging that prevented the roots from getting proper feedings.

IMHO, the O2G saved my ass. I finally have o/o cycles dialed in and the new root hairs are evidence

FrozenFire · Nov 23, 2018

The low pressure aerotable uses ez cloner style low pressure sprayers. The short cycle timer is set for around 40 seconds on an 5 ish minutes off. This runs like a medialess flood and drain setup with aero sprayers. The ez cloner style sprayers occasionally clog, but it's a non issue since the table gets a few inches of water inside and then it drains. So happy roots. Nutes are as follows: or orca for beneficials, maxigrow/maxibloom, calmag, and ph down. Since the original grow I changed from individual dwc buckets to undercurrent. There are 4 totes tied together with 2" PVC pipes and I plumbed them into a 55g tote outside the bloom tent. The aerotable runs off of the same 55g tote reservoir. There is a bluelab gaurdian that serves as a constant monitor. It's as automated as I'm gonna get. FWIW I wont run small mist nozzles in a lpa due to clogging filter or clogging nozzle potential issues. The idea is to keep it reasonably simple and low maintanince.

Here's a pic of the system for how it's set up currently. I'll post a pic of what the current grow looks like later.

Ganoderma · Nov 23, 2018

FrozenFire said:
Root mass in aero table
View Image

The last time I ran a flood and drain tray with misters I had them facing down instead of upwards and they where at the top. I also included a short flood and drain cycle. At the end of flower there was always a full mat of roots across the entire flood tray, covering the whole bottom of the tray.

FrozenFire · Nov 23, 2018

Interesting tech there ganoderma! Mine are rigged facing up. For whatever reason I dont get the root mass you get with your setup. So far I always get way more root mass with dwc or undercurrent. I'm pretty sure this has partially to do with the longer veg my dwc plants get. I'll have to take a closer look when the aerotable finishes this time. Any particular reason for the downwards pointing misters? My brain says I could use the PVC pipe to support the foamboard if I rig mine up like that, which would be slick...

Ganoderma · Nov 23, 2018

Over the years I've found upward facing misters are good for starting cuttings, seeds, or cloning. But after they get started and are growing, its better to have them facing down. Some of my reasons behind that are, once your plants get bigger you don't want (don't need) the stem to be getting wet all the time. You are not getting that upward spray having to be deflected by your lid, instead it's the F&D tray and any roots deflecting it. The line of thinking is it is kind of like a top feed or drip system and your letting your water/nutrient solution run downward. Then you don't have any surface areas on the bottom of the tray that may block roots from stretching out along the surface. This also prevents roots from over growing an area around your sprayers/misters. With out anything for the roots to wrap around, it allows you to lift you cover up and look into the F&D tray if you need to or wanted too.

Back when I had that system it was hard to find a timer that had more then six or eight on/off times. Which led me to figure out a way to have more watering cycles. In my mind I'd have to call that a hybrid hydroponic system, since it uses two types of systems with an aeroponic cycle and a F&D cycle.

FrozenFire · Nov 24, 2018

Here is the undercurrent setup as of today. It's currently a 4 site setup with copper chem, copper hulk(home made cross), and 2 cuts of candyland. It's a proper hedge at this point!

Aero vs dwc grow showdown

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