C
Casual
Ok... Latest update. Nothing looks any different, so I didn't bother with pics, although I will take pics of my pumping setup if anyone is curious.
I figured I should flush them, as the Widow's are a 9 week cycle and I'm finishing up week 8 now. I'll flush for a week. I haven't added nutes in a couple of weeks now, so the solution was getting weaker anyway. I hooked a 55g drum up to my RO system with a float valve at the top. I let this fill over the last day or so and was ready to go.
Walked in to the room this morning and the floors soaking wet. The damn fitting on the float valve on the 55g drum was leaking.
Oh well... we were thinking about putting a new floor in there anyway!
Now the hard part. When I setup this system, as some of you may remember from my earlier posts, I forgot to add the drain fittings to the buckets. DOH!!!
I figured I'd worry about it when the time came. I was too lazy to drain the whole thing and disassemble it to put the fittings in.
Well, the time has come! I decided to pick up one of those little $6 pumps that chucks up in a drill and hooks to a garden hose.
I then found an adapter to attach a 1/2" pvc fitting to the other end of the pump (Garden bib thread). I screwed a 90degree fitting to that, then measured the depth of the bucket, added a couple of inches and cut a piece of 1/2" PVC to length. I then cut the bottom end of the PVC at an angle so it wouldn't hit the bottom flat and not suck. Voila... a perfect ghetto-rigged flushing too. I used a wood boring bit to drill a 7/8" hole in the top of each lid, near the outside edge. It's just enough for the PVC to slide in... I drop the 1/2" PVC pipe into the hole and slide it down the bottom. Fire up the drill and let her pump. I ran the garden hose I bought from the pump to the kitchen sink. It worked great, but SUCKED to do it. Sore back and feet. It took a couple of minutes or so to do each bucket and the room is very cramped.
After I drained all of the buckets, I pulled off the short piece of PVC I'd used and put a much longer piece on to feed into the 55g drum of fresh RO water. Fired up the drill again and filled the rez. When it was full, fire up the pump to fill the buckets until the pump started suckin' air. Shut it down and let it refill... repeated that about half dozen times. All fresh water circulating now. pH is at 5.7, EC and .4 I'd imagine the EC will drop throughout the week and the little bit of residual nutes get used up and flushed out.
Now, as strange as this sounds, I'd mentioned a while ago that a couple of the AH#3's just didn't take. I removed them from the system and shut off those valves. The buds that were on them were very small and airy. They hadn't been flushed.
We trimmed them up and followed a quick-dry thread and tried them last out... I didn't expect much, but was very surprised. Very nice body high, not close to as harsh as the ditch we've been getting by on. Can't wait to try a proper bud in a few weeks!!
Anyhow, that's it for now... I'll take some pics of root porn and such next week when we're cutting and tearing everything down to move it.
Cheers!
Caz
I figured I should flush them, as the Widow's are a 9 week cycle and I'm finishing up week 8 now. I'll flush for a week. I haven't added nutes in a couple of weeks now, so the solution was getting weaker anyway. I hooked a 55g drum up to my RO system with a float valve at the top. I let this fill over the last day or so and was ready to go.
Walked in to the room this morning and the floors soaking wet. The damn fitting on the float valve on the 55g drum was leaking.
Oh well... we were thinking about putting a new floor in there anyway!
Now the hard part. When I setup this system, as some of you may remember from my earlier posts, I forgot to add the drain fittings to the buckets. DOH!!!
I figured I'd worry about it when the time came. I was too lazy to drain the whole thing and disassemble it to put the fittings in.
Well, the time has come! I decided to pick up one of those little $6 pumps that chucks up in a drill and hooks to a garden hose.
I then found an adapter to attach a 1/2" pvc fitting to the other end of the pump (Garden bib thread). I screwed a 90degree fitting to that, then measured the depth of the bucket, added a couple of inches and cut a piece of 1/2" PVC to length. I then cut the bottom end of the PVC at an angle so it wouldn't hit the bottom flat and not suck. Voila... a perfect ghetto-rigged flushing too. I used a wood boring bit to drill a 7/8" hole in the top of each lid, near the outside edge. It's just enough for the PVC to slide in... I drop the 1/2" PVC pipe into the hole and slide it down the bottom. Fire up the drill and let her pump. I ran the garden hose I bought from the pump to the kitchen sink. It worked great, but SUCKED to do it. Sore back and feet. It took a couple of minutes or so to do each bucket and the room is very cramped.
After I drained all of the buckets, I pulled off the short piece of PVC I'd used and put a much longer piece on to feed into the 55g drum of fresh RO water. Fired up the drill again and filled the rez. When it was full, fire up the pump to fill the buckets until the pump started suckin' air. Shut it down and let it refill... repeated that about half dozen times. All fresh water circulating now. pH is at 5.7, EC and .4 I'd imagine the EC will drop throughout the week and the little bit of residual nutes get used up and flushed out.
Now, as strange as this sounds, I'd mentioned a while ago that a couple of the AH#3's just didn't take. I removed them from the system and shut off those valves. The buds that were on them were very small and airy. They hadn't been flushed.
We trimmed them up and followed a quick-dry thread and tried them last out... I didn't expect much, but was very surprised. Very nice body high, not close to as harsh as the ditch we've been getting by on. Can't wait to try a proper bud in a few weeks!!
Anyhow, that's it for now... I'll take some pics of root porn and such next week when we're cutting and tearing everything down to move it.
Cheers!
Caz
