[AlbertMarkovski]

What's up ICMag people! I can't believe I'm finally starting my own grow thread! I've been trolling here for a couple of years - reading and learning and making plans - and was blessed to finally have some space/resources to start a grow a few months ago.

So welcome to my 1000 watt "square kiddie pool" PPK thread!!

First up, the disclaimer: I'm a medical patient, growing for myself and other medical patients, in a medical state, and am complying with state and local laws. So glad I live in NorCal now! Can't imagine going back on zoloft, viibryd, clonazepam, lorazepam, propranolol or any of the others after discovering the sweet mood balancing effects of a good kush, or the motivating properties of a funky diesel.

But Albert, what the heck is a 'square kiddie pool' PPK?

That takes some explaining. My last home wasn't fit for growing (tiny apartment), so I spent a lot of time reading, planning, and coming up with some crazy ideas. Delta9nsx's original "passive plant killer" thread was and continues to be an inspiration to me, and I have unashamedly stolen more than one amazing idea from that thread. I've also been partly inspired by the early kiddie pool threads of DamnUglyDogE and Alien_Dawg, and those crazy contests. I found inspiration in the idea of using wide, flat containers to maximize the available space for root growth. And how do you cover 100% of a 4x4 tent with growable media?

Easy! You plant in a "square" 4x4 "kiddie pool", a 100 gal reservoir:


In that pic, you're seeing a 100 gal res that's perched 8.5 inches above a 2nd 100 gal res, on a support structure of PVC I made to hold it all up (sorry, no pic of PVC). In the top res, I drilled 20 holes, and inserted 20 standard sink tailpieces, sealed at the bottom with fiberglass screen and pipe tape. I tried zip ties (not nearly strong enough), metal clamps (really didn't want to deal with rust), and the double sided plastic clamps, but this stuff is the best: https://www.faucetdepot.com/faucetdep...?Product=18826

Everything is in a SunHut 4x4 XL tent, making the actual tent dimensions much closer to 5x5x7 (which is good, I need the extra space).

In the bottom res I also have a submersible 900 GPH pump, which floods the top res through a single outlet smack dab in the middle. Here's what it looks like running:


And now with 40+ gallons of turface in there:


Pic with the light hung. I tend to go "overboard" when I do stuff, so I just bought a Gavita Pro 1000DE to start:

[AlbertMarkovski]

Oops! I just realized I misspelled Chernobyl in the title of this thread. Haha! I guess I need to proofread better

[AlbertMarkovski]

Alright, to continue the log:

Turface was initially prepared using screen stretched over a wooden frame, but that lasted all of a weekend before I realized that I would be forever sifting turface if I didn't figure out a better way.

Enter advice from Delta9nsx again... I remembered him saying one time that he had bought a cement mixer? Maybe it was someone else. Either way, I bought one, and it was a fantastic investment:


Harbor Freight for $250, so it's a bit loud and not all that well made, but who cares! It does an awesome job. Aluminum window screen is stretched across the top and held in place with pipe clamps, allowing me to load about 1/2 bag of turface in the drum, turn it on, and then tilt it over at a 45 degree angle. An hour later and all the "smalls" are out of the bag, and the turface tests to about 38% porosity using the solo-cup/tooth-pick test. I'm now washing the turface in the cement mixer too, passing water over it in batches until it runs pretty clean (this takes longer than I'd like).

Ventilation for the room is handled by a combination of things. I have a small window air conditioner to keep temps from running away, but primary temperature control is handled through the house. I turned the closet into a lung room, but only for exhaust. Punched a 8" hole in the ceiling of the closet, and hung an 8" fan and Phresh filter:


And a pic of the closet:

On the left, you can see the exhaust coming from the tent, a 700CFM fan. This way if I add fan to my clone tent, I can have it exhaust into the closet as well, and the 8" and filter will scrape that heat and pull it into the attic (assuming I maintain negative pressure in the closet.

Here's the other side of the closet, with a little shelf I just set up for nutes:


Nutrients:

For nutrients, I'm feeding Jacks and Jacks CalInt, with added silica for strength and light tolerance. I think I have a bit of a deficiency still, so I'm going to feed them a bit of CalMag next time I top off the res. Water is supplied by a 3/8" line run through the attic, from a RO filter co-located with my laundry area in the garage. Right now, I'm still hand-mixing (drill + bulb auger FTW) nutes, and am transferring them into the big tent by bucket as needed. I need to automate this, but am planning changes to the style of grow, and think this is sufficient for this run.

Here's my little table of clones:

These are in a true 4x4 tent (cheap on amazon) that sit in a corner of this 10x10 room I'm working in. Most of these are left over from a failed attempt to get my TurboKloner up and working , and frankly I lost track of which plant they are. the smaller ones in the front I kept much better track of, and am excited to get those in for round 2 in a few weeks.

[AlbertMarkovski]

And now, here's how the plants are doing:

Early:


last week:


Everything had come from seed, and the Tangerine Dream had almost a 3.5 week headstart on the Chernobyl, so I feel pretty good about the way that they're all catching up to each other now.

Here they are last night, day 28 of flower:


I've got a SCROG screen in (1.25" extruded polypropylene heavy duty mesh deer net), and am training aggressively to try to keep things at a level height.

Tangerine Dream:


And Chernobyl:

[AlbertMarkovski]

So, I'm about 12 weeks total into this, and I want to start recording some of my observations about what to do and not to do for next time.

Lessons learned:
- Doing this in a big, square, heavy, immovable, hard to access 4x4 res was dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. It's been a fun experiment, but I don't think that I'll do it again. Next time? Buckets. Maybe buckets on small furniture dollies, so I can move them around easily.
- Perpetual is the way to go: I want to make the move to perpetual. Easier to iterate changes in plants, consistency in a schedule, and greater chances to maximize resource uptake, etc. Will work on that in the months to come
- Underfeed, don't overfeed: Yeah, I read this a lot and still had to make that mistake for myself.
- Temperature is important when cloning/propagating/germinating, and heat kills: Yeah, had to learn that the hard way too, lost all 5 of a kush I had planted after I baked. Heat mat temperature sensors/controls pay for themselves!
- Vent your hot air someplace else, like the attic: At first, I was essentially running a super leaky closed-room system, and it was baking my house and causing my AC units to both run more than I'd like (window unit almost continuously). Since moving the vent to the attic, my house is cooler and the AC runs less. Need to spend the time to ventilate WELL in advance of adding any heat sources.

I'm sure I'm missing things. Ha! So much to learn! I love being able to do this, it's so much fun! I feel truly blessed guys. Tell me if you think I'm doing something wrong; I'm humble and just want to get better!

[Elements001]

Good stuff man. You're really doing an amazing job for your first go. Much respect to ya.

[AlbertMarkovski]

Originally Posted by Elements001

Good stuff man. You're really doing an amazing job for your first go. Much respect to ya.

Thanks!

Looks good man. Watch ventilating to the attic as it can cause mold and mildew.

Keeping things mobile is definitely a plus. Awesome to see your open to learning, and learning. fromyour personal experiences.

[yortbogey]

great job...U should consider entering the Newbie contest...

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=287801

[AlbertMarkovski]

Some more pics to show the setup.

I managed to catch the pump running and snapped some pictures. Since it only runs 40 seconds every 60 minutes, I kept forgetting to take one.


And here's what the outlet looks like shortly after the pulse has finished. Takes between 2-3 minutes for the top res to empty back into the lower one.


Here's a shot between the reservoirs, note the "Christy's Pipe Tape" holding on the screen around the tailpiece. It's great stuff; sticks to itself, waterproof, and seems to be holding the screens REALLY well. Found it after I had some plastic clamps fail, and have not been disappointed.

You can also see some of the PVC support structure I built to hold up the second res... and also... lots and lots of sediment. Yep, the bottom of that should be black, not tan. From what I can tell, I should have washed my turface better, which is confounding, as I washed that turface for HOURS before it went in Oh well, live and learn, right? That's one of many reasons why I will not reuse this exact system again... there's no way for me to get in there to clear the sediment until EVERYTHING comes out.

The submersible pump is in there too, and just fits between the 2 reservoirs:


How does everyone mix their nutes? I found this thing. It's a $15 bulb auger from Lowes, and if you work your drill in small, counter-clockwise circles while running it counter-clockwise, you can get some SERIOUS cavitation in a small container (40 Gal Brute trashcan, also pictured):


:-D