"Mini PPK Grow" - Jacks 15-12-26 - Coco/Perlite

[DanDanger]

gee thanks snook!

you guys have been SO helpful!!!!!!!!!

a wealth of knowledge here on this form. Highly technical, many times, that suits me

i had been hanging out on another forum, but i am learning that this forum suits me better

Great job, man! I've always wanted to take the hydro plunge. Just haven't had the guts! I, personally, find soil so versatile.

I'll be hanging around this forum more, too. Since the other one is almost, nearly completely dead.

 

[Ravenboy]

It will get harder and harder to go back to those other sites, RB, even to visit. GL.


EDIT: 3 more posts and you can receive PMs!! GO,GO,GO

i'm so GONE from there.....

3 more posts and maybe i can EDIT a post too!!


woohoo

 

[Ravenboy]

Great job, man! I've always wanted to take the hydro plunge. Just haven't had the guts! I, personally, find soil so versatile.

I'll be hanging around this forum more, too. Since the other one is almost, nearly completely dead.

guts? don't think you need them. but in my opinion using meters helps..... especially at first. later on, you'll find you don't need to use them as often.

I have a lot better results with hydro than i ever had with soil. with hydro you find a problem and you can tweak the mix and se the results in hours. in soil when things weren't perfect it took me more time to diagnose, treat, and verify the results of treatment (like a week in many cases) - that slows the plant down. extends the veg or bloom time....... yuck

-----------------

there are a few other forums..... i am not naming the one i am bailing from...

I have seen some flame wars on this forum just like on the others, no online forum is perfect

but for the most part the technical level of many of the growers here has impressed me a lot.


i have already had more responses in this thread than i had in two years in two threads at my old forum!!!

 

[Snook]

I keep thinking about going back to RDWC but they require too much attention to detail and with the PPK I can go away for a week or three, if not too far into bloom, and not worry about it. Lemme ask, are you thinking about adding CA at any time?

 

[DanDanger]

guts? don't think you need them. but in my opinion using meters helps..... especially at first. later on, you'll find you don't need to use them as often.

I have a lot better results with hydro than i ever had with soil. with hydro you find a problem and you can tweak the mix and se the results in hours. in soil when things weren't perfect it took me more time to diagnose, treat, and verify the results of treatment (like a week in many cases) - that slows the plant down. extends the veg or bloom time....... yuck

-----------------

there are a few other forums..... i am not naming the one i am bailing from...

I have seen some flame wars on this forum just like on the others, no online forum is perfect

but for the most part the technical level of many of the growers here has impressed me a lot.


i have already had more responses in this thread than i had in two years in two threads at my old forum!!!

Guts? Shit. I meant money. Hahaha! Don't have enough of that. Seriously. Until then, I can drool over hydro setups. Learn a thing or two, and maybe pick it up after my kids all move out of the house... Looking at 18 or 20 years plus. You are correct in regard to the hydro/soil issue there. Find a problem in hydro, fix it. Find a problem with soil, fix it, wait... Wait... Fix it again... Wait... Yeah. Understandable.

I'm slowly falling out of touch with everyone at the.. Other forum, if you know me from there then you do. If not. Hello! Hi! I'm Dan
This place is jumpin'! Though it seems like every forum I join, it slowly goes downhill. Here's to hoping that doesn't happen here. Already beginning to enjoy this place.

Cheers, brother! Can't wait to see more of this setup of yours at work.

 

[Gry]

Just did find this, have to agree with the previous posters. neat thread.

 

[Ravenboy]

I increased the volume on the two first PPKs yesterday... the plants had grown so much that i though i would try a really heavy flood.

2 liters, 15 seconds. its been 24 hours, 18 flood. they look the same as yesterday - not quite the same, they are bigger.

i took some precautions to make the transition to PPK go smooth as i could make it go.

i think the big thing is that in the 1.5 liter pots, i was hitting them three times a day with between a liter and 1.5 liters of feed. and the bottoms were always wet, water roots were coming out the bottom.... i did this intentionally to prepare them for a periodically 100% saturated container.

and i use a shock free method of transplanting.

i will say the precautions i took were a result of reading some threads here and noting where the problems seemed to occur.

They way i hand watered my hempies was fast and furious, so i had experience in watching coco/perlite, and how hitting it fast and hard FIXED overwatering (theres that term again) er... fixed them when they looked under oxygenated

as H3AD advises, if they looked underwatered i watered them again. always worked, and it even works even with young seedlings in coco/perlite, when drainage is really good.

so i am reluctant to fix any PPK under oxygenation problem by cutting back the feed and waiting for coco to dry. I would try to hasten the drainage first.

if they start to look under oxygenated, i know what to do. it could only mean that the pot isn't draining fast enough, the result being its not oxygenating enough - either that or the tailpiece is clogged and the pot isn't draining.


I also think tall containers as opposed to wide are going to get oxygenated better during a flood, there is more hydrostatic head (the accumulated water is deeper), the water pressure at the top end opening of the tailpiece is more than twice as high as in a wide low feed pan.

and another tweak i made is that the bottom 1 inch of the pot is pure chunky perlite (as is the tailpiece) , covered with screen. the coco has a large surface area to drain INTO, my test pushes showed that two liters drains easily, initial flow out the tailpiece is amazing, and in 5 minutes its a dribble.

I'm getting some feedback that the in coco i am hitting them to often with too much feed. some concerns that that i could see problems soon

however the plants don't lie. stay tuned, maybe soon they start looking crappy.... but 4 days in, with 30% INCREASED flood volume since day one, they look very happy

 

[Ravenboy]

here are the two

one has been in ppm 4 days, the other 3, started at 1.5 liters delivered in ten seconds every 90 minutes

increased to 2 liters every 90 (15 seconds) 24 hours ago.

both have outgrown the remaining plants in the 1.5L containers

look ok? yes i see the lower yellow leaf, happened because i was upping the feed too slowly when they were younger. it was that way when i transplanted

otherwise, to me these look ok

(feeding at 550 PPM base nutes concentration , water is 170PPM, ,5 scale, if they continue to thrive when i change the reservoirs, i will go to 600 PPM base nutes)

 

[Ravenboy]

transplanted two days ago
1.5 liters in 10 seconds every 90 minutes for two days

transplanted yesterday
1.5 liters in 10 seconds every 90 minutes

 

[Ravenboy]

more picts:

 

[Snook]

about the coco

this is GH Cocotek compressed block. and its been used for two previous grows.

its now as fine as coffee grounds
the perlite is chunky, for the most part

the leica rock on top serves a couple purposes. it more evenly distributes the spray from the drip ring (but doesn't drip, it sprays gently though about 28 holes that i melted in using a soldering pencil. the pumps deliver almost 900 liters an hour!

and it weighs down the coco/perlite, which means more fluid can be pulsed in without the coco/perlite floating so early.

and when i remove the top halves of the 1.5L containers, i will cover the remainder with leica, it helps prevents fruit flies. they seem not to want to crawl into the dark to find the wetness underneath.

I've been growing in this place , 5th floor apartment, for a while. all i ever get is the occasional locust visitor (only in the summer, its still winter here), and fruit flies, probably from the nearby balconies and the gardens on them.

this is just a question, RB, I use turface... does the coco at the 'coffee ground' part of its life ever get to the end of life and you have to trash it and start over with new?? ..the more I look and engineer, I'm liking your cut the container in half idea..

 

[Snook]

too much water!!! HAHAHA! I thought I was in this thread! but I wasn't.. sorry McKush


????Now I forget ??? OH! too much water vs O2.. I'm learning here RB.. i've seen young plants droop from over watering where used media wasn't draining faster than new nutes were added.. yes, they weren't getting enough O2 even though the new water was O2ed.. am I saying the same thing you are but on the other side of the street?

 

[Ravenboy]

this is just a question, RB, I use turface... does the coco at the 'coffee ground' part of its life ever get to the end of life and you have to trash it and start over with new?? ..the more I look and engineer, I'm liking your cut the container in half idea..

yes, maybe three grows is it....


yes the container is cut in half twice, once horizontally, then the top half is cut in half vertically. for me this works best with square containers.

than i tape it back together using that aluminum foil tape for heater ducts

then i line it with a strip of mesh - i use 2mm square plastic gutter mesh

this goes from the top of one side, down that side, across the bottom and to the top of the other side, then pack in coco perlite

if you use clear tupperware 1.5 liter storage containers, you can see thru the sides to check roots. slip this one inside an unmodified same size container that been taped or painted to prevent light penetration. to check roots just slip the inside one out of the opaque one.

drill a bunch of drainage holes in both of the containers (the pot, and the outer container, the root zone cover-er), the fact that these are nested promotes water roots between the two containers if they are sitting in a little nutrient..... i feed, and let them sit in the runoff, so longs as its producing roots at the bottom.

when you transplant, cut the tape between the TOP and BOTTOM halves of the container using a sharp knife. then "work" the bottom of the container away from the root mass. the roots will be sucking to the drain holes if all is well, so wiggle that bottom off gently.

the mesh will keep the coco/perlite was totally in shape, even if there are no roots to do that job.

transplant the plant, the upper half, the rootball, AND THE MESH into the new pot. the roots will easily grow thru the 2mm mesh later.

and you can start LST before transplanting, just tie anything to the edge of that inner 1.5 ml container. when you transplant, leave the LST rigging in place, attached to the upper half of the 1.5L container.

later when the tops grow enough, remove the LST rigging and retie to the outer edge of the PPK pot. remove the upper half of the 1.5L pot by slicing the tape that holds its halves together with an exacto knife, grab one side, and slide it up out of the coco/perlite and single the top out in two pieces so you can clear all the new LST rigging, and the drip ring

been doing it this way forever. but the is the first time i even mentioned it online.... surely someone else is doing it this way, but i learned this by having enough coco root balls crumble as i turned the plant upright to plant it .... the plant usually lives anyway, but there is a LOT more stress when the root ball crumbles like that

this is the lowest stress to do a transplant that i have so far worked out.

the upper half of that 1.5 L container, it will have air roots in it. after a transplant I water that "inside the old container" area by hand in case sufficient water doesn't wick up from the medium below, so the plant has something to live on while its making a lot of "water" roots from the bottom of the rootball . after the transplant, 1/2 of the original root ball is in direct contact with the medium of the PPK and the bottom of The traps;need plant already has water roots , if you have your flood volume set high enough, that part of the root zone will get well saturated with every flood so it starts responding fast to the wetter conditions and grow more water roots, while the air roots above keep the plant happy during the transition.


all of this is could be why i am able to hit these plants so hard with a floods or pulses right away after the transplant

oh, and also i hit them hard (hand watering DTW) three times a day once they were three weeks old...... to encourage water roots at the bottom of that little container.

so they were used to feeding from a combination of air and water roots, and when they get in the PPK, really the environment hasn't changed at all. except for the frequency of the flooding



if i hadn't hit them hard in the PPKS, the area where there once were water roots would have wanted to revert to air roots. then BACK to water roots again as i increased the frequency and volume of the pulses over time: that time and transition stress doesn't need to happen if the the plant is ready for the PPK before the transplant.

thats my theory anyway

i thought about all of this long and hard ...... it all became the plan before i started.

 

[Ravenboy]

too much water!!! HAHAHA! I thought I was in this thread! but I wasn't.. sorry McKush


????Now I forget ??? OH! too much water vs O2.. I'm learning here RB.. i've seen young plants droop from over watering where used media wasn't draining faster than new nutes were added.. yes, they weren't getting enough O2 even though the new water was O2ed.. am I saying the same thing you are but on the other side of the street?

i dunno, but yes if it doesn't drain, even oxygenated feed/water cant provide the needs of the plant for long. in hydro with soililess mediums, its the drainage that pulls new air into the medium. this is true for all medium, but the benefit of that drainage is directly proportional to the RATE of that drainage. faster being better.

i'm on the hydro side of the street. nothing needs to dry out. if O2 drops, the plant will wilt - the textbook and so-called "overwatering" look

and requirements for oxygenation and remedies for insufficient oxygen vary depending on the existence of medium, and when it exists, what kind of medium.

and coco/perlite the fix for that droop is to make sure its draining. if it is, hit it again with another feeding.

letting it dry out (like soil) works too. but:
evaporation causes salt build up in coco

it takes more time than oxygenating by feeding

its less effective than oxygenating by feeding

why stress the roots when another solution works better?

plant isn't feeding while drying out in a stressed condition - faster fix is better, plant doesn't lose so much growth time


and honestly if you water coco/perlite a lot, you will not see "overwatering" symptoms. if you do, your drainage in the bottom of the pot is usually the culprit. i am talking about 50-50 coco/perlite here. 100% coco is unusable for me.

overwatering DOES happen in soil. and it could happen in any soil-less medium if there isn't enough interstitial void, and sufficient drainage. coco/perlite ISNT one of these.


if there isn't enough interstitial void AND sufficient drainage, when you totally fill it with water , there isn't enough oxygen after a couple hours. the ONLY fix really is to let it dry, which gets oxygen into the interstitial void. so in soil, we don't WANT to completely fill that void, so we intentionally UNDERWATER, because we know the root zone cant handle being completely saturated for very long, because it doesn't have sufficient interstitial space, and it cant drain fast enough to suck air into the soil (the way coco/perlite does)

but weed doesn't NEED a dry cycle. Dirt does.

but a weed plants : its roots DO need Oxygen.

 

[Ravenboy]

i just had a brainstorm, don't know if this has been proposed

the blocked tailpiece issue:

What if there were two tailpieces installed. one is capped at the bottom, doesn't drain a anything... its filled with medium just like the other "working" tailpiece, but roots are unlikely to grow in it, the fluid in it isn't being renewed, its likely got very little oxygen in it. I think roots will follow the feed out the working tailpiece rather than hunt out and find the "spare" tailpiece, and grow into stagnant water.


if the first one clogs, just remove the cap on the other one.... party on....

if they both end up clogged well than you are forced to fix it the old way, but so far i haven't been reading about growers having it happened TWICE during a grow.

or are clogged tailpieces just not a big deal? is this idea overkill?

I am wondering about this issue, because the place i see vulnerability in my large fast pulses is migrating coco fines downward and clogging the tailpiece.

once during testing i intentionally floated the coco perlite during a pulse. instant clog. don't want to float that shit to the point that the 1" of pure perlite at the bottom becomes a sludge of coco perlite. the pot still drained but it took a while - too long - if that happens i know what to do. I have a block of coco that is cut 1/2 inch long fibers.... if i mix that up, its unlikely to migrate much from a pulse so long as it isn't floated.


comments?

 

[Ravenboy]

we'll i gotta be doing something wrong... oh no... i mean right

though really just applying what I've learned reading a lot on this forum.....

these plants are growing like mofos..... even though i am drowning them with 10 gallons of nutes a day....... in 2.5 gallons of coco/perlite


i guess if conditions are right, they LIKE being drowned... these plants were topped about ten days ago, and LST'd to horizontal the same day they were planted in PPKs

after a couple days its amazing what they are doing. the lateral growth below where i topped is exploding..... as are the two main tops, which when they grow another couple inches will be tied to the edge of the pot, heading in opposite directions to make a lot more colas.

these are going to be BIG

 

[Ravenboy]

and while i am musing here in my apartment basically doing nothing

i've been hand watering for a long long time

in the past, transplanting into 2.5 hempies meant - now the work starts. hand watering every day

i feel totally liberated. now i am just hanging around, making sure my new installation doesn't leak, checking the reservoirs. watching the growth rate

goddam, i am happy to say i like active hydro

and happier that PPKs were invented to make it even easier

hats off to D9

 

[Ravenboy]

i do realize that i will probably find that my dinky 4 .5 gallon mini-ppk reservoirs will prove to be a hassle to maintain once the plants start big time eating

but for now, all is good and very stable. plants are eating more, i see tell from the meter readings.


what i love about this system is how little work i have to do to add a central reservoir. when i do so i will move the 4 mini ppm pumps into the main res. As mini-PPKs, they are already on their own individual cycle timers and pumps which means i can just plumb the drain lines, and toss those pumps into a central res and be able control each plants feed schedule and duration independently just as i am doing with the mini-PPKs i am using now

what a great world it is\


but the acronym PPK?


it should really be

ATFRHCTLTPARNCAINIP

automated top feed recirculating hydroponic cultivator that lowers the PWT and requires no chillers and is nearly idiot proof

speaking as a lifelong stoner, idiot proof is number one, and nearly idiot proof would be.... second best

 

[FoothillsFarmer]

Jacks is awesome. best of luck with this run, I'm gonna tag along

 

[Snook]

i do realize that i will probably find that my dinky 4 .5 gallon mini-ppk reservoirs will prove to be a hassle to maintain once the plants start big time eating

but for now, all is good and very stable. plants are eating more, i see tell from the meter readings.


what i love about this system is how little work i have to do to add a central reservoir. when i do so i will move the 4 mini ppm pumps into the main res. As mini-PPKs, they are already on their own individual cycle timers and pumps which means i can just plumb the drain lines, and toss those pumps into a central res and be able control each plants feed schedule and duration independently just as i am doing with the mini-PPKs i am using now

what a great world it is\


but the acronym PPK?


it should really be

ATFRHCTLTPARNCAINIP

automated top feed recirculating hydroponic cultivator that lowers the PWT and requires no chillers and is nearly idiot proof

speaking as a lifelong stoner, idiot proof is number one, and nearly idiot proof would be.... second best

when you come up with the strategy for no clog wicks, lemme know.. this will be the first time I'm running 2, 1.5" wicks ina 4 gallon tub.. my pulse rez is bigger in diameter than the ppk tubs res'.. using the same sized (shorter) tubs leaves not enough water to pulse to your desired amount and the bigger diameter pulse rez will hold more water... idiot proof! yep!