Hey G you feed for 3 min duration in ppk? Im delivering a gallon every 12 or 13 secs so i am feeding 3gallons or 35 secs every 2 and a half hours. Not sure if i should slow it down or not. Dont want to overwater them. My gap is 4.5 inches.
I had a great run this summer followed by a bad run and a half. Somewhere along the line my float shifted causing about a 3 inch gap in the tailpipe. The first round vegged under me epap and were awesome the next round of clones from the first round but vegged under a puny cfl and run with the 3 in gap all suffered bad from root rot due to the gap and i think pushing them with too much water with a root system not ready for it.
I had issues in veg with overwatering too. The ones im flowering now were fine but im holding on to two that are either runtish and redundant or are suffering from some root rot.
move the drip hoses away from the stem. stems being wet is bad bad bad. if they are rooted in a medium, do not bury the medium as it retains more water then the turface. an that will lead to stem rot, or slow growth. if you must use a rooting medium place the rapid rooter half buried an lightly hand water around the medium if necessary. put a small non wood stake in there to hold it up if necessary. in a week or 2 tops u want that rooting medium dry. the roots should be far out of the rooting medium by then. remember the turface an all mediums wick. the roots will find the water.
WET STEM = BAD BAD BAD....
lol.
best of luck my friend......be well
bsafe
Gentlemen, my memory is non responsive about hose sizes.
when the whole shebang started, we were using tire valves and 1/4" rez (goop was very important!) lines from control to ppk rez, then came 3/8" hose and now 5/8" garden hose. are we going to progress to 3/4" hose (if we have and I missed it, sorry)? what are the limiting factors? Fast delivery, plunger... bigger pump, bigger hose? bigger pump 1/2" hose is like a water drill.
When we are talking return lines on the bottom of the res's, the change to the rubber/neoprene goodyear 5/8" hose allows for easily sliding into a smaller hole, thus eliminating bulkheads. hasn't leaked on d9 or av8, or me for the year plus since I changed over to it. super easy n less money on fittings.
Now when it comes to the feed lines, pick ur choice. whatever is easier n fits ur style. I know the latest trend is to pulse feed a little at a time, so u don't need much pump power or hose diameter. But with the smaller amount of water per feed, I like the idea of spreading out more. So that's where multiple lines, or better yet a drip ring with multiple holes to spread the water more equal helps out imo.
That's clever, Gman. I like it! I never had problems with rapid rooters but I've had rockwool rot stems up before. I'm convinced that most people are over watering the turface. I do a quart a feed, starting up to 6 hours apart moving towards an eventual 45 minute feeding at the end of flower. I wait for the plants to demand water before I decrease feed interval timing.
hey mckuch get that rooter plug dry.
to each is own. an this may not be the way to do it for everyone but it works well for me. i start with rooting in the rooter plug, then jump up net pot size a little bigger, then a little bigger, then final pot. in this photo you can see the stages. the stem was almost the same size as the rooter plug.
i did use grow rocks on one stage. but turface works well to. i also flood these. i flood high at begining to make sure rapird rooter is wet. i then lower the flood height every 5 or so days. eventually there is only an inch of water in the tray an then the rooter doesnt get wet cause its 4-5 inches above flood height.
u can see the stages here. so far this is the easiest way for me. as the plants progress i jump up net pot sizes as i go. the slow ones stay for next round. some get culled. some move on to next stage. each stage the original rooter plug gets higher an higher.
ive had many problems with the rooter plug staying to wet. this was my fix.
View Image
rooter plug , 5" net pot with growstones, then planted that into 9" net pot with turface, then that went into the final 3.5 gal bucket w/turface.