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passive plant killer

jjfoo

Member
My rez is just another bucket in the system with no plant in it. It is right on the floor. I have a loop and at each T is a bucket. All but one of the buckets has another bucket in it. For a wick I use a tailpiece, with no screen. I have used forestry tubes in the past with large holes in the bottom, bigger than the tailpiece, with no coco falling through. One bucket is empty and has a pump in it, which is hooked up to a drip system. I have not yet set up a float valve, but have one ready.
 

jjfoo

Member
d9,

I was thinking about what you said about giving the plants nutes/water and letting them take what they want.

Maybe, I've misunderstood. I just want to be sure and understand.

If you have a bucket to bucket connection the nutes can diffuse an the EC in the bottoms can be moving toward equalibrium. If you have the buckets more isolated you are giving them a set amount of nutes/water. If they consume more water the salt will rise and vice versa.

so on say day 1 you give them 1.5 ec, say there is a plant that is a bit bigger it could drink more water relative to the nutes/water given, the EC will be a bit higher in that container, so it will have a hard time to get water if it wants more water

if the nutes are able to mix, they will head to equal and then they can actuall take what they want

do you see what I'm getting at?

I am confident that the nute sweet spot is large (I assume you agree, but can provide references to studies upon request), so maybe I'm worried about a non existent issue. With this in mind, I could argue that it isn't important but I wouldn't agrue that the plants can take what they need with no limit. There is a fixed amount of water/nutes given to each plant.

I'm suggesting that it is better if the EC is close to your target EC in all the containers as much as possible.
 

delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
Quotes by jjfoo

“if you are giving each plant the same EC and one plant needs more water than another plant it will start to accumulate salts

So even though this may not harm your plant in a way that is obvious, I think it is less than ideal. I'd like my plants to have access to water has a uniform EC and from that they can drink and feed as there needs dictate.

I dont' know if I'm being clear... in other words, if the plant gets a does of nutes/water it can't feed as it pleases, but rather is limited to the EC or nute/water ratio it has recieved... if the bottom buckets can 'communicate' and diffuse the salts then the plant *can* take what it wants.”

hey, jjfoo! My buckets do “communicate”. There are only slight differences between the ec and ph.


“I was under the impression that to pulse water you needed a good amount of water coming out. I mean more than a drip line would supply. I want to have 16 buckets. It is hard to get a manifold this large, so I am just running drip line. Which seems to have to same flow as a drip manifold anyways...”

I pulse 6 oz's every 2 hrs in veg and 12 oz's every 2 hours in flower. It is more than enough volume to keep the tops wet. This is in a 5 gal bucket of coco.

As I shoot this out of an open drip line in 15 seconds in veg and 30 seconds in flower it qualifies as a pulsed application. That's 3 minutes total run time per pump per day in veg and 6 minutes in flower.

It would be very easy to build a 16 bucket manifold but only recommended if you intend to pulse the same volume in both phases. I run 2 pumps, one on each system.


“My rez is just another bucket in the system with no plant in it. It is right on the floor. I have a loop and at each T is a bucket. All but one of the buckets has another bucket in it. For a wick I use a tailpiece, with no screen. I have used forestry tubes in the past with large holes in the bottom, bigger than the tailpiece, with no coco falling through. One bucket is empty and has a pump in it, which is hooked up to a drip system. I have not yet set up a float valve, but have one ready.”

I really need to see pics. Are you using the same tailpiece I am? Here you mention a float valve, previously you mentioned multiple float valves. I use 2, one on each system, only because they are on different levels of the house.

If they were on the same level I could just run one float/control bucket and two pump chambers.


“d9,

I was thinking about what you said about giving the plants nutes/water and letting them take what they want.

Maybe, I've misunderstood. I just want to be sure and understand.

If you have a bucket to bucket connection the nutes can diffuse an the EC in the bottoms can be moving toward equalibrium. If you have the buckets more isolated you are giving them a set amount of nutes/water. If they consume more water the salt will rise and vice versa.

so on say day 1 you give them 1.5 ec, say there is a plant that is a bit bigger it could drink more water relative to the nutes/water given, the EC will be a bit higher in that container, so it will have a hard time to get water if it wants more water

if the nutes are able to mix, they will head to equal and then they can actuall take what they want

do you see what I'm getting at?

I am confident that the nute sweet spot is large (I assume you agree, but can provide references to studies upon request), so maybe I'm worried about a non existent issue. With this in mind, I could argue that it isn't important but I wouldn't agrue that the plants can take what they need with no limit. There is a fixed amount of water/nutes given to each plant.

I'm suggesting that it is better if the EC is close to your target EC in all the containers as much as possible.”


The connection between reservoirs occurs at the control bucket for the sub-feed. I'm going to put up that flow diagram again in view of recent discussions.

This system, operated the way I am using it, has the most stable ec and ph parameters of any hydro system i've ever tried.

Remember the link you put up from usu.edu? Part of that deals with the concept of application of nutrient elements by mass balance.

This is the concept that, in a closed system, all nutrients applied over the life of the plant are present in either the plant, the medium or the reservoir.

While my system is not completely closed because of the removal of 5.54 gals per week out of 52.63 gals total in the floor or “contaminated” part of the system, it is nearly so. Feeding at EC 1.5 I am not getting salt accumulation. EC does not drop or climb appreciably. Nor does ph. I could put away the ph meter.

I hope this helps, later, d9
 
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delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
you see in the diagram that liquid is moved by gravity to maintain all containers in the "floor" part of the system towards equilibrium at all times.

the bottoms of all reservoirs are linked to the control/float bucket. the intake at the bottom of the pump bucket is linked to the control/float bucket.

the pump fires onto the top of the medium. this draws down the pump chamber creating a demand from the control bucket.

this also immediately draws down the control bucket and fresh solution from the volume tank begins entering through the float mechanism.

simultaneously the old solution from the pump bucket, which is the same solution as the rest of the floor part of the system, creates a wave effect as it travels through the medium.

this wave moves some solution into the reservoir, which now back flows to equalize with the control bucket.

this causes the control bucket to act like a mixing station for old solution and new solution and the contents of all reservoirs. serving to equalize them as it continuously re-blends solution.

match this to nutrients being fed at the proper EC and ph and sealed containers and you get unbelievable stability.

i have tried to explain before that this occurs immediately after the pump fires. after a period of time, depending on environmental conditions, flow from the control bucket reverses and sub-irrigation takes over again.

forces acting on the medium creating movement:

pulsed body of liquid hitting top surface

wave effect created by pulsed application traveling into a wetted front (see links to hysteresis papers posted earlier).

wave moves the point of equilibrium between the gravitational flow potential and the capillary rise potential downward temporarily until levels equalize throughout the system and then the point of equilibrium moves back up again. i feel this creates a secondary surging effect.

evapotranspiration. in this system evaporation is limited to the medium. thus all movement is through the medium or the plant.

the combination of all this movement plus the elimination of the pwt in the root zone seems to be creating this dynamic effect on the medium and keeping the air, water, nutrient interface nearly perfect.
 

delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
D9 here are a few pictures from when I was just starting out in March - May. I will try to get some more recent photos up this weekend. I am going to be cycling the PPK's into service over the next 8 or 9 weeks. I currently have three 6' (4" plastic fence posts) under a 1000w 6' light mover.

I also have a girl I was attempting to grow like the famous Hawian Cucumbers in a 5 gal black bucket with nothing but nutes and a air hole. After 3 weeks she looked healthy but only streched about 3" to 18" total height (I do not think she could pull the Nutes she needed from the Organic Nutes I use and was also getting the worst spill over light available). She has nice bud sites but is small. After the three weeks I moved her and another girl to a 18 gal tote and started spraying them with nutes 1 min on 5 min off. These two girls and 6 in veg are going to be the first in CoCO and Jacks this weekend. I am going to try a plant with only roots hanging in Jacks in a few weeks as the Passive Cucajuna Killer (PCK).

Any questions just ask.

Thanks for starting this thread and for everyone who has given input.

Soorc

hey! your plants look nice. you know what you are doing. the transition to ppk's will be easy for you. you will really appreciate the stability. i'm looking forward to your build and the PCK experiment.

later on
 

SoorcNor

New member
hey! your plants look nice. you know what you are doing. the transition to ppk's will be easy for you. you will really appreciate the stability. I’m looking forward to your build and the PCK experiment.

Thanks, I really do not know what I am doing yet but I am learning (I can just follow directions really well).

The pics were taken this Saturday the first three are the roots and plant I left in a 5-gallon bucket with nutes and nothing else for 3 weeks. The next two are of my supply tank and a PPK unit. The next picture is showing the back of my room with 3 of the fence posts and 2 PPK units to the far right the last 2 pics are of 9 girls in veg and 9 clones. I am going to be reducing my plant count to 6 in flower and 8 in veg. I want to be harvesting 2 plants every 3 weeks.

As I harvest the fence posts I am going to have a lot more room in my room. Right now I only have 24 inches on the right side to move about. I do not have a pulse system going yet I am hand watering about 10 oz from the bottom reservoir 3 times per day during lights on. I will hook up a pulse system when I finish with the fence posts in about 8 weeks because then I will have a Cap ART-DNe timer available.

I have a couple of extra clones and I want to start a Cucajuna test grow. I am planning to use the same type of control reservoir but use no medium at all. Does anyone have any ideas about how much air space I should give it and how big of a bucket I might need?

Soorc
 

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DevilWeed

Member
Delta, this thread in phenomenal! I can see you do this because you love it but posting such accurate and detailed info for all of us to consume is going above and beyond! Thanks to all the other posters as well.

I have a question I'm hoping someone can weigh in on. I'm slowly switching over to coco w/ Blumats. Went that route before reading this thread end to end. Anyone wanna buy some Blumats? ;) j/k I still have a bunch of soil plants and I don't really feel like buying more "special" nutes. I have a tub of jr peters 5-12-26 and a tub of the 15.5-0-0 cal nitrate. Can I use these on the soil based plants? Soil is LC1 mix (peat, castings, perlite and dolomite lime). Would I need to modify the standard mixing formula?

Thanks!
 

ImaginaryFriend

Fuck Entropy.
Veteran
DW...

Depends on how hot the mix is...

The hydro formula is 'complete'. So if there are already a surplus of elements tied up in your soil mix, you might be out of balance/super-hot.

If I were you, and you aren't lazy, I'd mix light strength at standard ratios, and then bump up slowly from there if deemed necessary...

I really like the look of blumats... except for the occasional report of one of the valves getting stuck open and the hole res dumping through on plant...

But that doesn't seem to be reported too often.

Good luck.
 

jjfoo

Member
I have a tub of jr peters 5-12-26 and a tub of the 15.5-0-0 cal nitrate. Can I use these on the soil based plants?

Thanks!

I use this stuff on all my house plants and out door container plants. I am transitioning to coco in all my containers, but many are still in soil and have done well with these nutes.
 

jjfoo

Member
I pulse 6 oz's every 2 hrs in veg and 12 oz's every 2 hours in flower. It is more than enough volume to keep the tops wet. This is in a 5 gal bucket of coco.

As I shoot this out of an open drip line in 15 seconds in veg and 30 seconds in flower it qualifies as a pulsed application. That's 3 minutes total run time per pump per day in veg and 6 minutes in flower.

I thought that you said at one point that you needed to actually get enough volume of water out quickly to cover the top of the coco so it would equally wet. This is why I was thinking that the water had to come out at high volume.

Since, it seems that I have misunderstood and don't need that much water, my drip lines can supply enough water.
It would be very easy to build a 16 bucket manifold but only recommended if you intend to pulse the same volume in both phases. I run 2 pumps, one on each system.

what do you mean by both phases? Flower, veg? I have 16 buckets in my flower room, not 8 in veg 8 in flower. My veg and flower are separate currently...
 

delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
Delta, this thread in phenomenal! I can see you do this because you love it but posting such accurate and detailed info for all of us to consume is going above and beyond! Thanks to all the other posters as well.

I have a question I'm hoping someone can weigh in on. I'm slowly switching over to coco w/ Blumats. Went that route before reading this thread end to end. Anyone wanna buy some Blumats? ;) j/k I still have a bunch of soil plants and I don't really feel like buying more "special" nutes. I have a tub of jr peters 5-12-26 and a tub of the 15.5-0-0 cal nitrate. Can I use these on the soil based plants? Soil is LC1 mix (peat, castings, perlite and dolomite lime). Would I need to modify the standard mixing formula?

Thanks!

hi, devilweed! thank you! i don't see any problems with using your jack's but as IF said, i would start really light. i don't know anything about growing in soil but you may have conflicts with whatever is in your mix. you already have a lot of calcium from the lime and the instructions for ro water have you using a lot of calcinit. i would think you may have to cut back on the calcium nitrate.

later
 

delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
I thought that you said at one point that you needed to actually get enough volume of water out quickly to cover the top of the coco so it would equally wet. This is why I was thinking that the water had to come out at high volume.

Since, it seems that I have misunderstood and don't need that much water, my drip lines can supply enough water.


what do you mean by both phases? Flower, veg? I have 16 buckets in my flower room, not 8 in veg 8 in flower. My veg and flower are separate currently...


my mistake, i thought you were running 8 and 8.

when are we going to get some pics?

later on
 

DevilWeed

Member
Thanks for the advice guys. So far everything is doing well at EC 1.6. I'm keeping an eye on everything for now.

Delta, one more question for you. I read back through most of the thread again but didn't find a specific answer. How do you have your bloom room lights setup? From what I could find they are in cool tubes 42" on center. That still valid? How big is your room? I have a 12' x 15' space I'm trying to divy up as efficiently as possible...would like to squeeze veg and flower in there if possible. Time to get out the sledge hammer...

Yours look anything like this?
picture.php
 

delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
hey, devilweed!

my flower space is set up like your drawing except now i'm on 44" centers instead of 42".

the room is 6.5' wide and 18.5' long for a total of 120 sq ft.

the room is too narrow. i wish i had at least 8' width.

i would prefer to run lights without cool tubes but i don't have a choice. even with tubes i regularly burn plants now.

so you need to cut up the 12x15 into 2 rooms?

are you going to run perpetual harvest? i ask as this makes a big difference on how you allocate space. you can get more plants in a space if they are all different sizes.

how many weeks veg time?

if all your plants in veg and flower are on the same level and you run jack's at the same dose on all you can get away with a single float/control bucket.
 

DevilWeed

Member
Thanks for the info delta. I was trying to stay within the confines of that room but I'm already thinking I want more space. I have 20 x 40 to play with, but I want to keep it as small as possible while still being maintainable. I find I skip maintenance on things more often if they are difficult to get to so I need some space. The plan is to go perpetual of some sort. I would like to harvest at least once a month, but I like your method of weekly harvests much more. That and low plant counts = WIN! Veg time would be commensurate to whatever my yield goal is, but likely would grow tree's.

Right now I'm using Blumats but a single reservoir is still what I plan. My clones, veg girls, moms and flower girls are all getting 1.6EC of the "jr peters recipe" for lack of a better name. So far, I see no difference in health between the soil and coco plants so that's all working out well.

So...8'x18.5' would be ideal for the tree's you grow? Does that allow for a bush at each end as well?
 

jjfoo

Member
delta,

why would you prefer to run bare bulbs? I don't like maintaining ducting but I like how my light fixtures and glass don't get very hot...

In my veg environment I use a bat wing reflector that has no ducting. It is very easy to work with...

I've attached some photos, if they are not self explanatory, let me know.
 

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delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
delta,

why would you prefer to run bare bulbs? I don't like maintaining ducting but I like how my light fixtures and glass don't get very hot...

In my veg environment I use a bat wing reflector that has no ducting. It is very easy to work with...

I've attached some photos, if they are not self explanatory, let me know.


hey, jjfoo!

i don't like the ducting but other than that the cool tubes work well. i don't think the light loss is significant in the frequencies the plant uses the most.

if i build a new room i will use bare bulbs with a lot of ac and circulation.

thank you for the photos, i now have a better understanding of your grow.

i still surprised that the coco doesn't fall out of the tailpiece.

thanks for the link on IF's thread about the timer. very interesting.

later
 

delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
"So...8'x18.5' would be ideal for the tree's you grow? Does that allow for a bush at each end as well?"

hi, devilweed!

unfortunately it is not ideal and i can't get plants outside of the end lights.

this is one of those situations where i added light and gpw went down but yield per week went way up.

20x40 is huge. how high is the ceiling?

if you are willing to build a room within a room you can do all kinds of tricks there.

one that immediately comes to mind is split flowering areas with the same ballast and flip flop relays. they could both be closed for light control with your vegging area in the center.

i would build these three areas 10x10 each so that you would use only 300 sq ft of floor space yet with a perpetual set up whack a huge plant every week.

this can help keep plant counts down. i only have 18 plants right now and don't let it get over 20. they really get uptight around here when you hit 21 for some reason. forget a sog with a couple hundred plants, you'd never get out.

these would be the actual lit grow areas but only the flower areas would need to be closed.

this would allow you to use the air volume of the 800 sq ft total area as a lung, so to speak. much more control over temps and humidity.

i hope this helps, d9
 

DevilWeed

Member
That does help, thanks. I have 8ft ceilings in there. Building is almost perfect...concrete (secure), floor drains and a sloped floor all around...50amp service for now...100 very shortly. It's attached to my house but has separate entrances. And during the cool months I heat it with an open vent herosene heater. It's drafty enough to stay fresh, but CO2 stays around 1800ppm. :D

So let's say I did the flip flop route. Would you do 2 or 3 lights down the middle of each...or maybe even 5 with 1 in each corner and 1 in the middle? I can see that producing some monsters...
 

delta9nxs

No Jive Productions
Veteran
That does help, thanks. I have 8ft ceilings in there. Building is almost perfect...concrete (secure), floor drains and a sloped floor all around...50amp service for now...100 very shortly. It's attached to my house but has separate entrances. And during the cool months I heat it with an open vent herosene heater. It's drafty enough to stay fresh, but CO2 stays around 1800ppm. :D

So let's say I did the flip flop route. Would you do 2 or 3 lights down the middle of each...or maybe even 5 with 1 in each corner and 1 in the middle? I can see that producing some monsters...


what a nice space you have. i intend to build the 5 light per 10x10 or 8x10 room when i move.

by splitting the flower rooms and running them staggered it evens out the heat in a 24 hr period. your veg lights could be run 24/0 or 20/4 with the off 4 hrs straddling the switchover between flowering spaces.

so using 2 10x10 spaces built in the corners for flower with the 8' ceiling you would only have to build 4 total 10x8 panels to seal off the light. the vegging area could just be a 10x10 plastic lined trough on the floor. i would put it in the center between the flowering areas to keep the heat even.

by cycling the flower rooms (800 cu ft each) air through the much larger volume containing the veg area (4800 cu ft) you will have much better control over temps.

with light proof intakes and outtakes and some good fans you are ready to rock.

growing like this would allow you to light all plants on all sides. add a 7 or 8 week veg and the right strain and i think you could get 1.5 lb's per plant every week and still keep plant counts under control.

later
 
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