big plant ppk

[icdog]

Thanks, I was thinking they didn't have to be round eh.
D9 said you could transplant with a ppk, I'm trying to figure this out as having the plant in a smaller container for awhile in veg would be useful. How would I do that without ripping all the roots apart? Scoop it out somehow, what about the roots and stuff in the tailpiece?

 

[real ting]

Thanks for the suggestions. Crane do you know where that link is and are there any example pics? I looked up oil pans and not sure if they would work.
Ting, those liners would work but they are about 18 bucks each. I can get the tuff stuff or 10 bucks each, I'm trying to keep it to 5-6 bucks each if I can. I thought of a tote or a rubbermaid but not sure if they are strong enough for a tree and that much turface.
Any other suggestions?

My test ppk is doing really well, the secondary shoot growth is excellent.

Well rubbermaid totes and the like have a long history of being used for DWC, they even get used as outdoor containers for tomatoes, which grow to be a lot heavier than bud plants. The rugged tubs definitely are sturdy enough for top containers. They work as bottom containers but will flex a bit with the weight of the water and medium combined, it would be good to add some internal support if you go that route. Search earthtainer for ideas. They also have a pretty slick folding cage system in the earthtainer plans that could easily be adapted to any rectangular tub.

If you find something big wide and sturdy for less than $5 let us know, that'd be a deal.

 

[delta9nxs]

http://www.lowes.com/pd_399498-230-22822SL-6_4294729350__?productId=3724292&Ns

these are 7gals and are all plastic made to look like galvanized steel. they are oval/rectangular looked at from above but will work fine on a 3.5 base.

i had bought a bunch of them and was about to start drilling when i found the tractor supply tubs. they are tough plastic and should last a while.

in the root photos above the thick white root mat at the bottom and side had actually jacked up the medium physically and there was so much root material that the container was near overflowing at the end.

because of this i have been loading only about 4.25 gals of medium and then the approx 1.5 quarts of the clone container also at transplant so there is approx 4.5 gals total.

 

[icdog]

Great find, not in canada though, or I haven't found it yet. I think I'm going to work with the 12 quart pan I found at the tsc store until they bring in the big ones unless I find something else. A square container would be great, I have a smaller veg space and will have to squish everything in unless I can transplant it.

 

[delta9nxs]

looks like you got worms again huh...

hey! wassup?

 

[delta9nxs]

Thanks, I was thinking they didn't have to be round eh.
D9 said you could transplant with a ppk, I'm trying to figure this out as having the plant in a smaller container for awhile in veg would be useful. How would I do that without ripping all the roots apart? Scoop it out somehow, what about the roots and stuff in the tailpiece?

i wouldn't transplant from a ppk into a ppk for further root development as the roots grow at extreme speed and you really don't have much time for an intermediate size container.

my clone containers are already 1.5 quarts and the plants are about 7-10" at transplant into the final container. i just grew one to 36" in 21 days so there is no stall or recovery period at all.

they just take off like the transplant never happened.

my clone containers are passive ppk's.

editing to say that i'm using less than five gals of medium now and it might be a little too large for my intended veg period. but it certainly won't hurt anything.

i'll know more when i de-pot the first of the plants that were vegged 3 weeks. the one i just took down was vegged 4 weeks and 4 days and it produced 13.5 oz's dry.

it's twin, vegged 4 weeks, is about to come down in a few days and i'll get some pics of it.

we have grown a lot of very large plants in the regular old 3.5 buckets so they are still a very viable option as are the 3 gal rubbermaid totes stacked on each other giving a medium height of only 11". if i go back to a smaller amount of medium i'll probably use those myself.

the amount of medium needed is dependent on your veg time.

what we are trying with the wide ride containers is to ascertain whether the peripheral surface area grows a bigger plant. somewhere i did the math showing a wide flat 5 gal container having an almost 20% greater peripheral surface area than a 5 gal bucket. same amount of medium.

so far i think it does. the reason you don't see professional grow containers shaped like this is that they are trying to limit the perched water table by design.

they have to because they don't deal with it other than to almost dry the medium between watering events to keep from drowning the plant.

 

[delta9nxs]

also, i have already cleaned the turface from the above root ball and cleaned and reloaded the container. slight rust starting on the ferrous parts of the clamps worm gear. i'll get some plastic ones soon.

another thing i've been meaning to mention is what to do in the event of a power failure or a broken pump or other interrupter of the pulse delivery.

some folks have reported plants starting to wilt and, in a ppk, if your porosity and choice of medium and volume of medium is all correct this should never happen.

the plant should feed from the reservoir until the volume tank goes dry.

but, if it does start to wilt all you have to do is raise the water level under the grow containers as much as possible without overflowing by adjusting the float valve. temporarily eliminating the air gap or most of it.

and turn off the hid lighting to reduce demand.

and, you can always bucket water from the res to the plant containers although i have never had to do this in a ppk.

belt and suspenders!

 

[icdog]

Thanks D9. One thing for a long power failure would be a UPS.

Have you posted pics of your clone setup? That sounds like what I'm looking for as I don't want to transplant for growth, its for the size of my veg room. With a smaller container I can cram more under one light.
How do you transfer from the clone container to the final container with the turface?

Are you using a bubbler for rooting?

 

[icdog]

my little veg room. i'm going to keep the cool tube here for safety. i've moved one of my ac's and removed the ducts.

the middle one is my first new clone. it's been in there for about 2 days and has grown 2" from transplant.

Hey d9 this is from your post number 74, is that a passive ppk in those clear containers on the ground? If so and you can transplant from that it will solve my issues.

 

[zeke99]

Hey d9 this is from your post number 74, is that a passive ppk in those clear containers on the ground? If so and you can transplant from that it will solve my issues.

He's talking about transplanting cuttings. That's not a 'passive ppk', it's two containers stacked one inside of the other, with holes drilled in the inside container and a fabric wick dropping down into the reservoir (outer container).

 

[disciple]

 

[delta9nxs]

the veg room. it's a hexagon and i have five old t-12 fixtures at 5 of the apices as you see. this is a test to see what the daylight (6500k) spectrum does to the plant's morphology.

as it has gotten hot i have stopped the 8-4-8-4 veg schedule and gone to 12 hours in one session with the 1k hps but the flo's stay on 24/7.

the 12 hours on with the hps coincides with the 12/12 flower schedule so both are off during the hottest hours between 10am and 10 pm.

a stack of the clone containers. these are 3 liter sterilite kitchen storage containers from wally's. it's just one within another with the top one drilled with 1 3/8" hole and 3 3/16" holes in the corners.

the fabric wick goes into the 3/8" hole. i use a 2"x3" piece of polyester batting from the fabric store called "thermolam plus". don't buy the "fusible" type right next to it or close by. you want the straight polyester, no deviations.

i soak the medium (turface) in a 400 ppm solution of flora nova bloom of which 110 ppm is my tap water so approx 300 ppm with ro works fine. a couple of hours is good.

drain it and fill the bottom container about halfway to the top container leaving an air gap.

the wick sticks down into the solution and feeds the plant.

last weeks transplant, a couple of rooted clones and tomorrows transplant.

 

[delta9nxs]

so here we have a shot of the inner container showing the wick arrangement.

fresh clone.

side shot of the whole thing showing the liquid level, air gap, and media volume. about to the molded line formed by the outer container.

i put a lid on them taking it off at random intervals to fan them to get a little gas exchange.

as soon as roots appear anywhere it is safe to go to jack's at 600 ppm or ec 1.2.

i've lost 3 cuts in the last four years.

part of the canopy of the plant that is about to come down. it's about 7.5 ft wide and to the ceiling. it's twin just yielded 13.5 but both of these were stalled clones and did not enjoy dialed in climate.

they were vegged 4.5 and 4 weeks plus grown through stretch uncontrolled and stretched like mad again. they were defoliated once at end of stretch.

i have done different treatments to each of the next 6 plants so far trying to get a handle on this runaway stretch syndrome.

i think i may be wasting my time trying to get yield from this plant. i have pulled a lb from it twice and had a bunch of 13-15 oz plants but i think it's just not going to do what i need done.

it's a beautiful plant with a great high and flavor but it's heavily sativa and i'm tired of fighting it. very labor intensive compared to the old sweet tooth #4 i had and some other indica dominant plants.

the clone with the yellow tag is the top of one of the 5 plants on top of the res. they are supposedly grandaddy purps x great white shark. i'm flowering the bottoms for sex. maybe i'll get a nice plant.

 

[delta9nxs]

a side angle shot of the one that's about to come down. a lot of small but dense bud. again more labor trimming by hand.

all the same plant with slight variations on pruning and defoliation, all a week apart.

still haven't filled the room yet. another few weeks until the environment will stabilize.

a total of 4k in hps on 10 plant positions.

the same container and turface from the root ball photos.

 

[forkup]

Thanks for the clone setup refresher course Perfect timing So after you soak the media in nutes you drain then fill the clone res with nutes or plain water?

I started piecing together parts for a ppk setup of my own yesterday. I'm going with 3 gallon buckets over 5 gallon buckets as I'm not looking to grow the big trees yet. I'll have to start out smaller and build my system up over time as I get the cash to do it. My cross country move took a bigger bite out of my budget than I anticipated. I'm thinking maybe 2 smaller plants/week in a perpetual similar to yours, maybe veg to 2' then flower.

Btw US Plastics has plastic 1 1/2" hose clamps at http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=34093&catid=858 I think they would work well using 1 1/2" tail pieces with fiberglass window screen.

 

[disciple]

 

[delta9nxs]

Thanks for the clone setup refresher course Perfect timing So after you soak the media in nutes you drain then fill the clone res with nutes or plain water?

I started piecing together parts for a ppk setup of my own yesterday. I'm going with 3 gallon buckets over 5 gallon buckets as I'm not looking to grow the big trees yet. I'll have to start out smaller and build my system up over time as I get the cash to do it. My cross country move took a bigger bite out of my budget than I anticipated. I'm thinking maybe 2 smaller plants/week in a perpetual similar to yours, maybe veg to 2' then flower.

Btw US Plastics has plastic 1 1/2" hose clamps at http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=34093&catid=858 I think they would work well using 1 1/2" tail pieces with fiberglass window screen.

hey, i fill the space created by nesting the containers about 1/2 full of the same solution i soak in.

and don't top it during rooting, it will slow down the process. by the time some root gets to the sidewall or bottom you will dump it anyway and switch to jack's.

glad you're getting established there. i hope you enjoy the life of freedom.

thanks for the tip on the clamps.

later

 

[delta9nxs]

it looks like its got mini-kush buds stretched out on a sativa frame.

weird. saw the Nuken do the same thing a while back. 76 day, 72 night (on the wall - much hotter at canopy no doubt) helped the situation a bit... then got more sparse colas again spread out on a big sativa frame.

it was the like the first thing the plant did after throwing out some roots was run up to find the ceiling.... then it quickly claimed as much lateral space as possible... then it remembered to throw out some buds.

the buds are really dense but there are a million of them, marble to golf ball size.

i'm friggin cross eyed by the time i'm done.

i think i'll keep it around for a while but i need something better for production.

i did the nuken and it was a stretch queen for me too.

so, are you back? or is this just a cameo appearance?

 

[icdog]

Thanks d9 great info.

 

[disciple]