Outdoor Hydroponic Rooftop Grow - Recirculating DWC - No Airstones & No Medium!

Don't know how I missed this. Curious to see a Super Lemon Haze outdoors. I keep a cut of her going indoors at all times. Ingenious setup. Glad to see you are not having temp issues. Count me in.

I guess u Will manage to keep them low and wide. In my anual outdoor i try to keep plants low too and to scrog them without a screen, doing a great sea of green. I bet u can bend and treat them like a bindweed but to the floor of the roof. They are getting really bushy. Keep it up

Thanks for stopping by, DARKSIDER and for the kind words! Yes - they seem as happy as any plants I've seen - despite the wind and the huge temperature swings over a 24 hour period.

starke said:

Don't know how I missed this.

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Hi Starke - thanks for coming by!

starke said:

Curious to see a Super Lemon Haze outdoors. I keep a cut of her going indoors at all times.

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This will be the first time I've flowered her, but I'm definitely keeping a mom - just in case I liker her a lot and want to keep her around!

starke said:

Ingenious setup.

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Thanks. I think the genius in this one is that it was started in the spirit of an experiment in which I wanted to see just how simple a system can be and still work well - adding complexity along the way, if the plants looked like they needed it. Since it's purely for my own use, it kind of takes the pressure off in that I don't have to worry about paying the bills if the grow goes wrong.

Which brings me to...

starke said:

Glad to see you are not having temp issues.

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...the major issue that strikes fear into the hearts of we hydro growers. As you can see by reading through the thread, that has been a major concern of mine. Thank yous to Douglas.Curtis for working through that with me!

I've always tried to lock reservoir temp into a particular temp or a particular narrow temp range that has proven to give good results in hydro for growers like us over the course of decades.

But, on a somewhat apprehensive whim, I removed my heat control and haven't made any further effort to more effectively insulate everything over the last few weeks, just to see what would happen.

Mind you, I don't live in an area that gets over 80+ degrees for more than 3-4 hours a day in the summer - it's quite mild over-all with regard to heat in a typical summer. So, I thought I'd try taking all res temp control off the res and let it range with the ambient.

Here, the temps drop down to the low 50's F nearly every night. Also, we had an unusual "heat wave" a few days ago when the daylight temps hit 90F and my reservoir temp climbed to 88F, which coincided with when the girls put on most the growth over the past week.

So, I found: plants grow just fine when the res temps plunge into the 50s F for several hours overnight combined with daytime res temps that sometimes rise significantly above 72 F, but only at most for 2-3 hours during the day.

In short, with my weather, the res range works out to an average daily res temp of 65 F. The average daily res temp range is between 55 F and 75 F. On the extremes over the month the plants have been on the roof, it's hit 48 F and 88 F. It's looking to me like the average res temp over a 24 hour period is way more important than the few hours in the day that the temp goes beyond what has been considered as being harmful in hydro growing.

My weather is really only available to people who live no more than 2 miles from the ocean. But, I think others can successfully use this system without climate control on the res if they use a bigger pump, bury the reservoir and use less water in the planter totes than I did (I did it to weigh them down so they wouldn't get blown off the roof - but, they could just as easily be weighed down by placing bricks on top) - with less water rolling through the totes, the nutrient solution will reach the buried reservoir faster and there'd be less time on the hot roof for heating it up, so while the nutrient solution would heat up faster while on the roof than in mine, it will also cool off faster by reaching the cool reservoir faster than my nutrient solution does.

Burying the reservoir no more than a foot or two beneath the surface should result in 55 F res temp for practically everyone, regardless of where they live. Thanks, WelderDan for that suggestion!

Another possibility is filling the totes with hydroton, changing the nutrient delivery tube to a manifold that drops it on top of the hydroton and the nutrient solution would be evaporatively cooled as it gets sucked down the drain and back into the res. Thanks to Douglas.Curtis for that creative solution!

starke said:

Count me in.

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Glad you are along for the grow, starke - please feel free to offer whatever comments and suggestions you may have along the way!

techattack said:

I guess u Will manage to keep them low and wide. In my anual outdoor i try to keep plants low too and to scrog them without a screen, doing a great sea of green. I bet u can bend and treat them like a bindweed but to the floor of the roof. They are getting really bushy. Keep it up

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Yup, techattack - you're describing exactly what I'm going to do - there's going to be a lot of bending, twisting, weighing down - it's going to be a plant dojo up there with all the training that's going to happen!

U can bend them for sure, i HST mine a lot with LST and sometimes topping. Your grow is very ingenious.

Here's what they look like this morning after last evening's haircut (with 1 gallon jug for size comparison):

Capstone:



Super Lemon Haze:



Fire OG:

Training Is In Session!

Training Is In Session!

Today, I tied the girls down and in the direction I need them to grow to get low and wide:





Capstone:



Super Lemon Haze:



Fire OG:

Soooo pretty!

Looking really good.

Very nice grow man!
Wish you a good harvest.
A friend of mine used the same technique, 20 years ago indoors, with a screen on the top to make SCROG ( a nice way to stabilize plants).

Thanks for the compliments, guys! Promptly after I tied them down, we had a wind storm here for three days straight. Luckily, none were damaged. Now, I will inspect and tie them again.

Crazy Chester said:

Thanks for the compliments, guys! Promptly after I tied them down, we had a wind storm here for three days straight. Luckily, none were damaged. Now, I will inspect and tie them again.

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If the stems weren't tough before they are now


Looks great, Chester!

Oddity said:

If the stems weren't tough before they are now

Looks great, Chester!

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Thanks for the compliment, Oddity - yeah, it was all those days of constant mild to moderate breezes that toughened them up to weather the storm, thankfully.

Root Rectangle!

Root Rectangle!

After the wind storms had passed, I was able to take care of a plumbing problem - after raising my reservoir level in anticipation of relatively hot days coming - my nutrient solution started coming through the tops of the totes, down the roof and into the ground below via gutter and downspout!

Two problems:

1. While I had been in a sweet spot before the plants really got growing bigger when I only had to attend to the reservoir weekly, as they've gotten bigger and the weather has gotten warmer, the half full reservoir I was keeping was having to be topped off every couple days - not good for a wanna be lazy farmer like me. So, I raised the level close to capacity and she leaked out the tops - I think because the pump worked more efficiently due to the higher reservoir level.

2. My super simple set up didn't anticipate roots growing into the drain tubes and slowing the drainage as the plants got bigger.

Anyway, I solved both problems today and have had my pump running at full capacity with a full reservoir for over four hours now.

I'll post on how I fixed the problems later - because, speaking of roots - here's what I found after barely more than a month in the tubs, sealed up from my view:



While I'm loving that beautiful root rectangle, I'm also thinking: how big can these plants really get when they will soon be root bound to these little containers?

At least 80cm tall, i guess.

Crazy Chester said:

After the wind storms had passed, I was able to take care of a plumbing problem - after raising my reservoir level in anticipation of relatively hot days coming - my nutrient solution started coming through the tops of the totes, down the roof and into the ground below via gutter and downspout!

Two problems:

1. While I had been in a sweet spot before the plants really got growing bigger when I only had to attend to the reservoir weekly, as they've gotten bigger and the weather has gotten warmer, the half full reservoir I was keeping was having to be topped off every couple days - not good for a wanna be lazy farmer like me. So, I raised the level close to capacity and she leaked out the tops - I think because the pump worked more efficiently due to the higher reservoir level.

2. My super simple set up didn't anticipate roots growing into the drain tubes and slowing the drainage as the plants got bigger.

Anyway, I solved both problems today and have had my pump running at full capacity with a full reservoir for over four hours now.

I'll post on how I fixed the problems later - because, speaking of roots - here's what I found after barely more than a month in the tubs, sealed up from my view:

[URL=https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=83028&pictureid=2047212&thumb=1]View Image[/URL]

While I'm loving that beautiful root rectangle, I'm also thinking: how big can these plants really get when they will soon be root bound to these little containers?

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Some nice root porn there Crazy Chester look forward to your update

New System In Place

New System In Place

So, here's how I fixed it.

First, I determined the drainage line would have to be a bigger diameter than my supply line, because the supply was pumping more than it could handle before the upgrade.

I was using 3/8" inside diameter tubing for both the supply and the drain lines. I kept the same supply line, but, instead of it going through a 3/8" barb to fill the first tote I gave it one with a 5/16" barb.



The other end of the barb is a 1/2" piece that threaded tightly through the new 3/4" grommets I got (check the electrical section - not plumbing:



They fit into a 1 inch hole in the tote and accept a 1/2 PVC pipe (very tightly - you may want to use some soap on the pipe to get it slippery before you start working it through):



This 1/2 inch PVC pipe and 3/4" grommet combo has been great for me - simple and leak free!

Then, I ripped out and rebuilt the drainage line with 1/2" PVC pipe that I pasted together, including air vents I created in several spots with 90 degree elbows that point down to keep the rain out while letting the air in.

Including a vent right before the vertical drop back to the reservoir:



The air vents are great also because they allow me some access to clear root clogs.

To keep critters out, I taped on some felt to cover the air holes:



The plants seem to like it just fine:

Mars Hydro Led said:

At least 80cm tall, i guess.

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Excellent estimation - that's how tall it probably would have been if I hadn't been training it to grow horizontally - but the 80 centimeters is about spot on for how wide they've grown!