Synthetic ferts kill the beneficial microbes...
They hinder the growth of certain microbes if over applied, but by no means do they kill them all if used properly. I assure you my chow mix is teaming with all kinds of microbes in spite of me using synthetic nutes. The real key to achieve what I believe you're looking for in organics, is to learn to build/sustain the complete soil food web . Once this is well established all kinds of good things happen
Yes there is lots of benefits to running semi-organic. The beneficials just don't thrive like they would in a completely organic grow.
I see someone has found the neg rep button for me again... Lol
Thanks bobble. I usually do the same with the hot water. I mix in 1/4 tap with my RO so I get 4-5gal of hot from there and dissolve it all then mix with RO in the res. The jet mode on my water hose hooked up to the tap does a pretty decent job of mixing it all up.
Just ordered up a bunch of 1/4" top-hat grommets and a 295gph pump. This will be enough to get the first manifold setup. Already have tons of PVC and fittings laying around. What size drill bit is recommended for the 1/4" top-hats?
The Orca plus the 2x4's I already have on hand should be all I need to get the wall framed and chamber sealed up. Drywall can go up after since I only plan on drywalling the outside of the room for now. Electric will be done this weekend.
Still debating and changing my mind about how I want to handle DTW. It has to cross the room to the shower, preferably just along the back wall. Options that sound good right now:
- Bato buckets. 2 x 1 1/2" drain manifolds hooked up together and plumbed over to the shower drain. Drawback is investing in the buckets and always having a set limit of sites.
- DIY Dutch bucket - essentially the same thing but more like a hempy bucket plumbed together with grommets, 1/2" fittings and tubing.
- DIY drain table. None of the commercially available drain tables will fit this design. Drawback is a typical drain table would cover the bottom resevoir area which I was hoping to draw cool air up from.
- DIY-improved drain table. Build a drain table with the middle taken out. Basically like a bunch of leach trays around the edges of the chamber (but again - leach trays wont fit). This leaves the middle open to mount a honeywell fan and draw up cool air from the floor. edit: added model.
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In both cases the drain table offers a significant advantage: I intend to run 2 gal smart pots with 2 basket drippers per. A table or common drain surface would allow me the flexability of filling in with 1 gal smart pots and 1 dripper per if I was doing a pheno hunt or had more clones available. This gives me the flexability to run anywhere from 4-16 plants per donut for improved dialage per-strain when monocropping. If using hempys or batos I am not totally limited, but much harder to change things like plant count on the fly.
Another idea I have been kicking around: Instead of draining from the bottom, leave a 2" resevoir in the table. Fill with perlite or clay balls and set the smart pots on top. DTW with a group hempy resevoir. Similar to what Alien Dawg is doing with his PPKs but not actually burying the pots and hempy style instead. I think bobble also had something going like this with buckets tho.
I really want to try that idea and don't really since how it could cause any problems since even if the res is empty or lacking O2, you still have a full pot of healthy roots. But all bad ideas started off as a good idea...
for the ingenuity MrA. Sometimes ya have to work with what's at hand .