Ok so I lied, this is just another first ppk grow thread. I'm shamelessly trying to lure people in with that title so I can get help and feedback on my first grow.
I came across ppk recently and am very excited about this system and anxious to getting started in it. I have not grown in a while as I lost my space, but when I did, it was a very basic coco/soil in smart pots hand watered system. So the ppk will be very different for me. I've done a bunch of research over the past week, but feel I need some advice on some specific areas.
I was able to build a shed just for growing that has the following dimensions:
10x10 flower room
4x10 veg room
4x10 entrance way that seperates the two rooms, where I have power and water etc.
9 foot ceilings.
I opted not to put in a wood floor and just left the level ground as my floor with pea gravel and rocks covering it.
Here is a list of my planned materials and basic setup:
- 5 gallon buckets stacked for flowering, and last stage of veg.
- 2 or 3 gallon buckets for pre-veg stage after clones.
- Turface for media, the larger sized rocks. They have ones that are like the size of a pea, but I'm feeling the larger ones give better aeration.
- 2 55 gallon pickle barrels for the flower volume res.
- 1 55 gallon pickle barrel for the veg volume res.
- 2 27 gallon black and yellow totes for the control res.
- For the veg I'm thinking of 12 gallon black and yellow totes with the 3 gallon buckets on top.
- 4 1k HPS DE lights for the flower room.
- 2 315w LEC/CMH lights for veg - along withe some t-5s for clones and maybe the pre-veg.
- Jack's nutrients - still not sure about nutes for the veg.
- Tap water that has a simple chlorine filter.
The rest of the materials will be just as D9 uses, so I won't list all the types of pumps and hoses etc.
The part of the ppk grow that I am the most in the dark about is the Veg setup. I've come to believe that the veg stage (including clones/propagation) is the most important part of a grow. If the plants go through the clone to end-of-veg stage in optimal health, then the flowering is easy, imo. I need to re-read through D9's description of his veg. But here is my idea of how to setup the veg room, and please let me know where I'm going astray.
I will have 3 stations basically, a clone/seedling prorogation station, a pre-veg station, where I will have plants newly transplanted from clones in 2-3 gallon containers, and the full veg station, where I will have plants in their final 5 gallon buckets so I won't have to transplant to flowering.
One thing I really like about the idea of fewer plants in flower is that it allows me to play with more strain varieties in veg, and choose only the best healthiest plants for flowering. I can veg out 30 plants but will only be choosing the best 4 or 8 for flowering.
My main question is how to do the pre-veg with the 3 gallon buckets. Here is what I plan to do based on what I gathered from D9's posts:
Take a 12 gallon tote, which will host 2 3-gallon buckets.
Cut holes in the tote so that the bucket just fit at the bottom and the tail piece will be hanging down inside the tote.
- what should be the air gap here?
The 185GPH pump will be inside the tote feeding the 2 buckets.
There will be a larger tote used for the control res somewhere in the room with a float valve in it.
- what kind of nutes and ppm should be used?
So, the pump inside the res tote is set to fire every 90 minutes for a 15 second burst, feeding the plants sitting on top of the tote via a halo? As the water level goes down when the pumps fire fresh water from the control res is gravity fed through tubes to the plant tote. And the float valve in the control res brings in fresh nutes from the volume res.
Do I have it about right?
Am I missing anything?
.
I came across ppk recently and am very excited about this system and anxious to getting started in it. I have not grown in a while as I lost my space, but when I did, it was a very basic coco/soil in smart pots hand watered system. So the ppk will be very different for me. I've done a bunch of research over the past week, but feel I need some advice on some specific areas.
I was able to build a shed just for growing that has the following dimensions:
10x10 flower room
4x10 veg room
4x10 entrance way that seperates the two rooms, where I have power and water etc.
9 foot ceilings.
I opted not to put in a wood floor and just left the level ground as my floor with pea gravel and rocks covering it.
Here is a list of my planned materials and basic setup:
- 5 gallon buckets stacked for flowering, and last stage of veg.
- 2 or 3 gallon buckets for pre-veg stage after clones.
- Turface for media, the larger sized rocks. They have ones that are like the size of a pea, but I'm feeling the larger ones give better aeration.
- 2 55 gallon pickle barrels for the flower volume res.
- 1 55 gallon pickle barrel for the veg volume res.
- 2 27 gallon black and yellow totes for the control res.
- For the veg I'm thinking of 12 gallon black and yellow totes with the 3 gallon buckets on top.
- 4 1k HPS DE lights for the flower room.
- 2 315w LEC/CMH lights for veg - along withe some t-5s for clones and maybe the pre-veg.
- Jack's nutrients - still not sure about nutes for the veg.
- Tap water that has a simple chlorine filter.
The rest of the materials will be just as D9 uses, so I won't list all the types of pumps and hoses etc.
The part of the ppk grow that I am the most in the dark about is the Veg setup. I've come to believe that the veg stage (including clones/propagation) is the most important part of a grow. If the plants go through the clone to end-of-veg stage in optimal health, then the flowering is easy, imo. I need to re-read through D9's description of his veg. But here is my idea of how to setup the veg room, and please let me know where I'm going astray.
I will have 3 stations basically, a clone/seedling prorogation station, a pre-veg station, where I will have plants newly transplanted from clones in 2-3 gallon containers, and the full veg station, where I will have plants in their final 5 gallon buckets so I won't have to transplant to flowering.
One thing I really like about the idea of fewer plants in flower is that it allows me to play with more strain varieties in veg, and choose only the best healthiest plants for flowering. I can veg out 30 plants but will only be choosing the best 4 or 8 for flowering.
My main question is how to do the pre-veg with the 3 gallon buckets. Here is what I plan to do based on what I gathered from D9's posts:
Take a 12 gallon tote, which will host 2 3-gallon buckets.
Cut holes in the tote so that the bucket just fit at the bottom and the tail piece will be hanging down inside the tote.
- what should be the air gap here?
The 185GPH pump will be inside the tote feeding the 2 buckets.
There will be a larger tote used for the control res somewhere in the room with a float valve in it.
- what kind of nutes and ppm should be used?
So, the pump inside the res tote is set to fire every 90 minutes for a 15 second burst, feeding the plants sitting on top of the tote via a halo? As the water level goes down when the pumps fire fresh water from the control res is gravity fed through tubes to the plant tote. And the float valve in the control res brings in fresh nutes from the volume res.
Do I have it about right?
Am I missing anything?
.
