passive plant killer

[delta9nxs]

32 c is almost 90 f. I'm an old fish keeper and I know free o2 molecules begin disappearing from water around 85 f and are almost totally gone by 90f.

But the water doesn't stay at 32c around the clock, so as it cools it probably picks up some o2 from the air because of atmospheric partial pressures. This is probably occurring on a 24 cycle given enough of a temperature difference.

Also, there could be some kind of a gas expansion and contraction inside the rigid container due to the effects of heating and cooling. Maybe this could cause some “breathing”.

Condensation and droplets dripping down the sidewall could contribute to o2 concentration in the solution.

And, of course, as water is used by the plant it must be displaced by something.

The containers stuck through the lid must be full of “air” type roots now.

Whatever the reasons, it's working!

Do you think you'll have enough time to get a little bud?

Got any shots of the tops of the plants?

 

[Darth Fader]

D9, I'll keep an eye on how that Jacks nute works out for you. I like the idea that it was developed for ro water. Unfortunately I'm completely lost when it comes to the chemistry & math you're putting down. It should really be on the top of my list of things to learn. Do you have any good links for getting a handle on that stuff? As long as it's not too technical on the chemistry end I should be able to catch on.

 

[delta9nxs]

Hey, darth, your plants are looking good! But instead of milk for powdery mildew you should try goats cheese. That's right, just smear a big handful all over your buds and mildew will be the last of your bud problems.

That's funny! Until I read your thread I had never heard of milk as a treatment.

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=21119

this link is a good place to start and in it is a link to cannastats, which has a nutrient calculator.

I really like the jack's so far. I loaded the whole veg system with 846 ppm @5.2 ph on the 15th. It is the 21th and i've got a reservoir average of 842 ppm @5.4 ph. This is in ro water. I won't do a correction until I can see a definite curve in my readings. There is an inverse relationship between tds and ph. It is what I watch for first.

Extreme stability so far. It's a little premature at only 6 days but the plants are showing no symptoms of nute deficiencies or other problems. They made an abrupt transition from one nutrient to another with no displays and no slow downs.

Mixing jack's doesn't really require any math. Just a set of decent meters. In distilled or ro water just add 630 ppm jack's stirred into solution. Make sure it's dissolved and then add 216 ppm calcium nitrate until dissolved. You should have 846 ppm or thereabouts. I don't think hitting the exact numbers is all that critical. The people at jrpeters said they used hanna meters so this is all at .5.

As I've mentioned before, growing a perpetual harvest style forces you to compromise all things. I have 16 plants in 16 weekly stages of growth. 8” transplants to big, mature, heavily budded plants. So I need a compromise nutrient program that works well at all stages of growth.

The 750 ppm flora nova bloom with 100 ppm calcium nitrate and 50 ppm magnesium sulfate (900 ppm) will not burn new transplants yet regularly yielded between 7.125 and now 9.78 oz's per plant in these passive devices thus far.

I think the jacks at 846 ppm will be able to do the same.

The jack's with the calcium nitrate has a total nitrate count of 150 ppm. At first I was thinking this would be a little too much for flower and that I would have to substitute calcium chloride instead for that phase.

Here's the jack's again, with the calcium nitrate;

N150
P52
K215
Mg 63

and here is the gh flora series used as directed by the manufacturer for the bloom phase; 5 grow, 10 micro, and 15 bloom.

N159
P92
K219
Mg66

so, in view of this I believe i'll run the same jack's formula all the way through flower as well as veg. A single recipe for all stages with no additives.

Ppk #9, pictured in the cardboard box above, is my first plant since I started using these things that went over 9 oz's. It is dry enough to snap the stems at 9.78 oz's. Now we're getting somewhere.

It was 40/40/20 perlite/turface/coco. I'll be taking another plant in the same mix tomorrow. It doesn't look as large. It's the last plant with a cloth wick.

I now have 4 100% coco plants in flower. None have been top watered since onset of 12/12. they are all very large plants and have a thick mat of snow white roots right under the surface. The medium always feels moist to the touch.

 

[turbolaser4528]

hey delta glad to see your still at it. improving, innovating, experimenting, LEARNING!!!!!!!



awesome man, love the dedication, very inspirational if i may so so.




we could all take a page out of your book for venturing into the unknown for the benefit of humankind, thank you sir





O yeah, what are your thoughts on maximizing o2 levels in the rootzone/media? ie: your optimum mix/style to provide the highest yield/fastest growth? always thought plants in coco and coco mixes could benefit and yield greater with more 02 in the media (This is why hydro tends to yield more correct? (generally speaking)



take care man!!!!!!!1

 

[SilverSurfer_OG]

32 c is almost 90 f. I'm an old fish keeper and I know free o2 molecules begin disappearing from water around 85 f and are almost totally gone by 90f.

But the water doesn't stay at 32c around the clock, so as it cools it probably picks up some o2 from the air because of atmospheric partial pressures. This is probably occurring on a 24 cycle given enough of a temperature difference.

Also, there could be some kind of a gas expansion and contraction inside the rigid container due to the effects of heating and cooling. Maybe this could cause some “breathing”.

Condensation and droplets dripping down the sidewall could contribute to o2 concentration in the solution.

And, of course, as water is used by the plant it must be displaced by something.

The containers stuck through the lid must be full of “air” type roots now.

Whatever the reasons, it's working!

Do you think you'll have enough time to get a little bud?

Got any shots of the tops of the plants?

The 02 thing is interesting. Does temperature corellate with h202 losing its 02 molecules? When i do this next season i will have food grade h202 and will just add a little every visit.

I have some pics but my upload speed is v.slow right now. Add some when it speeds up again.

I sure hope to get a small amount of buds... theres some clones that will give me some 4 sure and maybe the others will if the weather holds out. Was reading a thread about mould and ordered some stuff called greencure that kills it. This should allow me to finish off crop, fingers crossed

 

[delta9nxs]

Hey. Turbohead!
“hey delta glad to see your still at it. improving, innovating, experimenting, LEARNING!!!!!!!”

this is all a hoax! I'm just having fun at the expense of others.

“awesome man, love the dedication, very inspirational if i may so so.”

I got nothing else to do.

“we could all take a page out of your book for venturing into the unknown for the benefit of humankind, thank you sir”

thank you, but mostly I venture into the unknown for the benefit of an old pot head who smokes all day every day.

“O yeah, what are your thoughts on maximizing o2 levels in the root zone/media? ie: your optimum mix/style to provide the highest yield/fastest growth? always thought plants in coco and coco mixes could benefit and yield greater with more 02 in the media (This is why hydro tends to yield more correct? (generally speaking)”

I am done playing with mixes for a while. I've now grown plants in this device using all the stuff in this thread in various combination's and all produced decent plants.

However, I now have 11 plants in 100% atami coco. 6 in veg and 5 in flower. I'm firmly convinced at this point that coco is a superior medium. And that it functions best when used alone with the only qualification being that you use high grade coco.

Earlier in this thread I put up a chart showing air and water porosity of various substrates. It showed coco to be around 10-12% air porosity. This sounded low to me in view of everyones collective experience here at icmag.

Then I began using the atami product. It and several other high grade coco's have air porosity in the 30% range.

The atami stuff looks very fine until you pick up a handful of it and inspect it closely. It has all sizes of particle as well as longer fibers which probably keep it from compacting.

When I first load this device I make sure water moves through it before a plant goes in. Water flows right through a 5 gal bucket with a 1 ½ “ hole in the bottom.

Since rebuilding my veg area, growing one sided plants under a bare 1K hortilux, using coco and pulse irrigation on the vegging plants i've been able to grow bigger plants in less time.

I attribute this to improved o2 in the root zone.

The plant I put into flower last night was 42” and really bushy with a large stem and branches. I was vegging 7 weeks and now i'm only going 6 and getting better plants.

All coco is not equal. Get the good stuff.

But it's funny that you should mention o2 in the roots at this time as I just read, with fascination, the link in silversurfers post on the bio box. It deals with the subject of o2 enhancement by means of air injection into the water used in irrigation.

as you know my device does not allow much air into the reservoir, in fact my entire system controls evaporation tightly. There is no air exchange except in the root zone. Which in my device is isolated from the nutrient/water solution.

I believe at this point that this creates a more stable ec and ph in the solution. I don't believe a nutrient solution treated in this fashion will “go bad” before it can be used if outside forces are not allowed to interact with it. The outside forces include atmospheric gases and root exudates.

The plants have been on the jack's feed for one week. A total abrupt changeover.

My input solution on the 16th was 846 ppm and 5.2 ph. Today my reservoirs average 861 ppm and ph averages 5.4.

It is well known by hydro enthusiast that continuous aeration changes ph because of co2 saturation in the solution. This is a temporary condition that is usually maintained continuously. If that makes sense.

My question is why aerate the water at all? If you are going to run an air pump why not aerate the medium directly? Or better yet, why not directly inject pure o2 into the medium?

Hey, silver surfer!

“The 02 thing is interesting. Does temperature corellate with h202 losing its 02 molecules? When i do this next season i will have food grade h202 and will just add a little every visit.”

This is from wikipedia;

Reactions
[edit] Decomposition
Hydrogen peroxide always decomposes (disproportionates) exothermically into water and oxygen gas spontaneously:
2 H2O2 → 2 H2O + O2
This process is thermodynamically favorable. It has a ΔHo of −98.2*kJ·mol−1 and a ΔGo of −119.2*kJ·mol−1 and a ΔS of 70.5*J·mol−1·K−1. The rate of decomposition is dependent on the temperature and concentration of the peroxide, as well as the pH and the presence of impurities and stabilizers. Hydrogen peroxide is incompatible with many substances that catalyse its decomposition, including most of the transition metals and their compounds. Common catalysts include manganese dioxide and silver. The same reaction is catalysed by the enzyme catalase, found in the liver, whose main function in the body is the removal of toxic byproducts of metabolism and the reduction of oxidative stress. The decomposition occurs more rapidly in alkali, so acid is often added as a stabilizer.
The liberation of oxygen and energy in the decomposition has dangerous side-effects. Spilling high concentrations of hydrogen peroxide on a flammable substance can cause an immediate fire, which is further fueled by the oxygen released by the decomposing hydrogen peroxide. High test peroxide, or HTP (also called high-strength peroxide) must be stored in a suitable,[citation needed] vented container to prevent the buildup of oxygen gas, which would otherwise lead to the eventual rupture of the container.
In the presence of certain catalysts, such as Fe2+ or Ti3+, the decomposition may take a different path, with free radicals such as HO· (hydroxyl) and HOO· being formed. A combination of H2O2 and Fe2+ is known as Fenton's reagent.
A common concentration for hydrogen peroxide is 20-volume, which means that, when 1 volume of hydrogen peroxide is decomposed, it produces 20 volumes of oxygen. A 20-volume concentration of hydrogen peroxide is equivalent to 1.667*mol/dm3 (Molar solution) or about 6%.
Hydrogen peroxide available at drug stores is three-percent solution. In such small concentrations, it is less stable, and decomposes faster. It is usually stabilized with acetanilide, a substance that has toxic side-effects in significant amounts.

 

[delta9nxs]

just thought i would throw this in to mess up the rest of everybody's day as you think about continuously counteracting a temporary condition.

"Influence of carbon dioxide on alkalinity
Carbon dioxide can change the pH of water. This is how it works:

Carbon dioxide dissolves slightly in water to form a weak acid called carbonic acid, H2CO3, according to the following reaction:
CO2 + H2O --> H2CO3

After that, carbonic acid reacts slightly and reversibly in water to form a hydronium cation, H3O+, and the bicarbonate ion, HCO3-, according to the following reaction:
H2CO3 + H2O --> HCO3- + H3O+

This chemical behaviour explains why water, which normally has a neutral pH of 7 has an acidic pH of approximately 5.5 when it has been exposed to air.
C

http://www.lenntech.com/carbon-dioxide.htm

 

[Carl Carlson]

My question is why aerate the water at all? If you are going to run an air pump why not aerate the medium directly? Or better yet, why not directly inject pure o2 into the medium?

that's a good question. an airstone in every pot?

There is an infamous thread on this forum, NBG's 400w HPS, 450g, 1 plant SCROG. Instead of a waterfarm type setup, he's got "a big storage tub; the medium consisted of 2-3'' of pure hydroton in the bottom with airstone, then the majority of the tub filled with pure diced rockwool/cellmax & a layer of pebbles again on the top to keep algae at bay." In fact in the thread he remarks that he got sick of waterfarms.

I think the grow was handwatered once a day. He wrote, "i think it was drinking about 4-5 litres a day? Thats just a guess though because i wasn't really measuring it."

 

[Carl Carlson]

that's great info. about the Jack's hydro formula and the calcium booster products. I might be picking some up soon.

had you in prior grows before the ppk tried a peat based mix?

i was surprised when you said all coco was the best in the ppk. I thought it was going to be the 70/30 turface/coco with worm castings after reading your description of the buds.

 

[Carl Carlson]

The 750 ppm flora nova bloom with 100 ppm calcium nitrate and 50 ppm magnesium sulfate (900 ppm) will not burn new transplants yet regularly yielded between 7.125 and now 9.78 oz's per plant in these passive devices thus far.

I think the jacks at 846 ppm will be able to do the same.

The jack's with the calcium nitrate has a total nitrate count of 150 ppm. At first I was thinking this would be a little too much for flower and that I would have to substitute calcium chloride instead for that phase.

Here's the jack's again, with the calcium nitrate;

N150
P52
K215
Mg 63

and here is the gh flora series used as directed by the manufacturer for the bloom phase; 5 grow, 10 micro, and 15 bloom.

N159
P92
K219
Mg66

so, in view of this I believe i'll run the same jack's formula all the way through flower as well as veg. A single recipe for all stages with no additives.

edit: I'm confused by the "no additives" part. is that a reference to the calcium nitrate, the epsom salts, both, neither?

 

[*mistress*]

maybe, in this thread, delta9nxs posts about using epsom salts & cal-nit w/ the p&t%rs hydroponic formula... as they did w/ fnb...
the bag has instructions for inclusion of both w/ mix.
most greenhouse grade formulas dont include ca.

 

[delta9nxs]

Hi, carl! Thanks for your input! What I meant by “no additives” is that no other substances are ever added to the nutrient solution.

When I first started growing cannabis indoors, I had already had 20 yrs experience keeping live marine specimens alive. Some of the systems I built were 20,000 gals. Concrete and epoxy.

So, I naturally went right to hydro techniques. I've never grown a pot plant in dirt, or even standard potting mixes like promix.

I've never used peat except outdoors.

At first, I leaned heavily towards medium less, or mostly medium less styles like nft, dwc, rdwc, bio-buckets. Then I went to capillary mats with high number sea of green in turface. Then large sog hand watered in one gal standard nursery pots in saucers. More turface. Then hempy's with turface, perlite, lava rock and hydroton. Containers from 1 to 10 gals. Some with the hempy hole (ha, ha!) and some with different heights and patterns. Lastly to what you see me doing now.

I really went after the holy grail of hydro, which is “more o2”.

In the bio-buckets I think I maxed the principle without crossing over into the world of pure o2 injection. I was getting 23 volumes per hour through each bucket, then through a thing involving a foot thick layer of plastic pot scrubbers with a blower on it, before forming a waterfall as it went into the res.

With ambient air it is not possible to get more than about 10 mg/l of dissolved o2 into your solution. Typically I think 6-7 mg/l is about what most hydro folks get and that is a huge amount. In nature plants probably get no more than that ever.

I get the idea some think that they can “turbocharge” the plants growth by adding as much o2 as “possible” to their water. But water is self limiting. We have seen that it can only hold so much o2.

May I submit the idea that a plant, being dependent on many growth factors to achieve it's maximum genetic potential, can use only so much oxygen. It needs a minimum o2 input sufficient to supply oxidative power to the various chemical processes. My device demonstrates that the plant doesn't care where it gets it. Once you get to this potential, you are just wasting materials. I've done a lot of reading on this and throughout the plant research world no one will commit to a fixed number.

The grower commits to a method of o2 delivery before he even starts by selecting a style. If you pick dwc, you are going to grow a shit pile of roots in liquid solution in a very small area. The solution o2 demand is tremendous as water can't hold more than a certain amount of dissolved o2. You are now totally committed to supplying o2 via this medium at all costs. You are also training the plants roots to adapt to this method of o2 supply. You can grow monster plants if you stay on it and keep it right.

In another style you might use a lot of medium with good air pore space in a large container. This style uses available ambient atmospheric o2 applied directly to the root zone via the porous medium. Ambient o2 at sea level is typically around 21% dependent on humidity. So ambient air already contains much more o2 per volume than any body of water. It is also .038% co2. If you've got your container, medium and irrigation correct you can grow big plants this way also. You have “trained” your plant to get it's o2 in this manner. I think my little experiments have shown that it's the overall “air porosity” of whatever medium mix you choose that matters more than the actual substance. From what i've read around 30% air porosity seems to be ideal. Another good argument for heavy room ventilation.

There is an excellent comparison available here to illustrate this. Our member highonmt has a thread here in the hydro section showing a pre-98 bubba kush he has just harvested. This plant was grown using dwc and has a massive root structure. I mean he all but “blew up” the bucket with roots. One of his pics shows the stem. He's holding a bic lighter up to it for scale. Nice stem. Big high yielding plant. Pure classic active hydro technique using heavy aeration of the solution. I'll try to put a pic of it here. I don't think he would mind. I'll also put up a pic of the stem of a plant in coco in the third week of flower in one of my devices. This plant still has a minimum of 6 weeks to go.

What i'm trying to illustrate here is that these two plants have been grown using very different types of o2 delivery. Both are valid techniques. It's the growers choice how you want to supply o2. But be aware that your choices are committing you to a pathway. Sometimes that pathway can become a narrow ledge on an ice covered cliff.

Back to the subject of aerating a medium mechanically, we know water has a limited ability to “store” o2. This is variable upon temperature, atmospheric pressure, and the mineral and biological contents of the column. And when it's gone it's really gone until you do something about it. Atmospheric partial pressures will only allow stagnant water to take up free o2 molecules at a rather slow rate without continuous aeration. Protein concentrations can form “plastic” barriers to this flow on the surface of the column just like laying a piece of saran wrap on it. This is an accelerating process as the decomposition of organic wastes occur.

So, while I don't believe it's necessary, I think the most expedient route for mechanically supplementing o2 into a container medium would be to inject “air”directly into the medium. Maybe a diffuser ring type thing anchored in the bottom. I would be concerned about over drying the medium though. You would have to have a really reliable continuous source of moisture.

Each root hair is encased in a little bag of water and that water transports minerals to the plant. A dry medium cannot work properly. As the medium dries the moisture on the root hairs is the last to go.

Who knows what exactly would happen? It would be interesting to do a plant with it and one without it.

The first two pics are from highonmts' thread. Btw, love that plant. A fine statuesque example of flowering cannabis femininity. What am I talking about? #3 will be my stem from the plant in the 3rd week of flower. And a foliage shot of the same. It's been on jacks 8 days.

 

[delta9nxs]

having trouble uploading pics. i'll try again later.

 

[delta9nxs]

.

 

[delta9nxs]

well, now i can upload pics again. here are some random shots of plants in flower. 5 of these are in coco.

 

[delta9nxs]

here are the two newest plants in veg. the larger one is two weeks and has been on jacks 9 days

the smaller one has been in one week and is naive to any nutrient except jacks.

 

[Darth Fader]

...

 

[delta9nxs]

Whacked the first plant with no cloth wick today. Nice plant. Root development about the same as the cloth wicks. No big differences. Two more of these in turface and then we get to see the first all coco plant.

Can report last weeks plant went 8.17. It was the same medium, 40/40/20 perlite/turface/coco, as the previous week's plant which yielded 9.78. No explicable reason for the difference in weight.

I have a pic of the rootball.

Also, for you folks interested in the Jack's Professional I've got readings.

The jack's has now been in use 2 weeks.

The input was 846 @ 5.2.

Today the res average is 854 @ 5.5.

No run off and no res change outs so far.

The (a) pic is the same as the small plant from 3/25 above, which has known only jack's in it's two weeks of growth.

The (b) pic is the same larger plant from 3/25 which has one week of the flora nova and two weeks of jacks.

 

[cactusjack]

Hey Delta!
It's been over 2 months since I stopped by. Man, you have been BUSY! Looks like the PPK has proven its worth.

I killed a set of clones and then my mothers (the plants, not the people) due to a series of quick fixes that didn't... My problems were all related to too-cold temperatures and too-hot fixes. Clones and mothers were in DWC and I cooked them. I was sloppy and overconfident and got distracted. A bad combination in any field.

So I dropped off the map and reveged my last round. Important lesson - never chop all of the last generation till you have a healthy next generation. I now have a healthy new mother as well as new clones for my old LUI line.

I'm attaching pictures of my version of your PPK. Two 5 gallon buckets, one for the media and one for a reservoir. When stacked, there is about 4" of space between the two with a float valve in the bottom of the reservoir bucket to maintain the level about 2" below the media bucket. The float is set so the reservoir holds about 0.4 gallons. There are twin wicking wells straddling the float valve. After a week or so of top feeding to set roots, I plan to bottom feed exclusively through the float valve with Flora Nova. Media will be 80% Turface with 20% coco and about 2 cups of worm castings.

I'm especially proud of my wicking wells. They are CHEAP! Made from 1-1/4" PVC pipe with rings cut from 1-1/2" PVC pipe, fiberglass window screen, and glued together with PVC cement. The rings are split on one side to allow them to stretch around the smaller inner pipe. Holes in the inner bucket for wicking wells were drilled using a 1-5/8" hole saw resulting in a very tight fit. Each well cost about 20 cents. My Scottish ancestors would be proud.

 

[turbolaser4528]

yeeah delta, lookin good bud