Rotating hydro opinion request

Tead

Tead

Well-Known Member
Grow Journal of the Month
January 2017
So, I've see the rotating gardens. They really look great. Very dense and lush.

I'd love to give this a try later in the year after the temps drop back down a bit.. but I'm not about to put out the pennies for the pro grow systems.

My thought... and old tire. If you rotate the tire, the neuts would roll around the bottom of the tire, and the plants would be (somehow) mounted to dip into the neut solution ever time the tire rotates. Mount a light in the middle, and presto... instant rotating garden.


I'm not sure if the rubber would react poorly with the neuts, but we use rubber fittings often, so I suspect that it's OK.


Any opinions out there?

Cheers
 
Have you thought about a barbecue rotisary motor ? Put a large wheel on the rotor with a pulley to a smaller drive wheel toughing the tire. Changing the size of the bigger wheel changes the speed of your tire. I am thinking it would have to be REAL slow or water would drip down from still wet plants on the top. Also it would have to be a big tire? alot of weight. It might be easier to biuld it out of wood or plastic & line it with rubber. But I think using gravity to keep a self contained resivour in place is a good idea.


Just my 2cp Ogre
P.S. I am not actually an Ogre Imnelf
 
tead said:
It sounds do-able. I mean, we use rubber in many points of a hydro setup. I can't help but think it will be ok.


Cheers!
Click to expand...

The rubber we use in fittings is not vulcanized. My best guess on this would be that organic nutes would probably be ok, chemical nutes could potentially react with the tire rubber. However, I'm sure you could come up with a liner for the tire that would do away with that possibility.
 
Imnogre... I'm happy my concept of the "gravity controlled res" (bonus naming points to you) came thru in my words. No, I had NOT thought of a BBQ rotis. Sweet Idea... and I have an old one somewhere. You can BUY big ass tires.. seems like some whecking yard somewhere might have some lying around... you know.... old school tire swing material. Gonna start small tho. Thanks for the ideas.

SouthernWeed... loving the new avatar you're sporting. I wonder if I used an innertube as a liner... I believe that innertubes are not vulcanized rubber... I could use one as a liner... it IS the perfect shape after all. Geez... can one still find innertubes at tire shops these days???

Thanks for the ideas and input all !!!

Cheers!
 
well tead, i was poking around outside of my normal corner on this site and found this thread.
since i have a bit of experience under my belt with a rotational, and i've been thinking about building one of these for a long time now, i'll chime in if you don't mind.

number 1 question:
how big???
i want a 6' diameter for my most ideal sog/scrog plant size of 2-2.5 feet.
i think it will be hard to get MJ to flower under 14 inches minimum, do you agree?
that means 28" diameter, plus room for the light, so add 4" minimum = 32" bare minimum.

i think wood would be much easier to work with.
but, maybe a tractor tire would be big enough, i thought about using one of those a while ago. could prob get a cheap one with no tread at a junk yard somewhere.
 
Don't mind one damn bit WOF! Chime in any time you wish!!!
I didn't take plant height into the equation even!!! Of course... you'll need a bigger circle to make bigger plants. Seems so obvious now... and I see that it's the major factor, but it just hadn't dawned on me. I was thinking about 2 or 3 plants in a very small grow. Very happy you mentioned plant height... I feel like a dumbass.

Circles can be hard to deal with when working with a linear building material like wood. I like the tire idea.... seems simple. I will, of course, have to find a tire that big. I wonder how flexible a 6 inch PVC tube that's cut in half would be.... perhaps flexible enogh to bend into a big circle??? hmmm.... the wheels are turning (pun bonus points!)... I'll have to see what kind of materials I can scrounge up.


Cheers!
 
another thought i just had,
you could grow in a much smaller diameter if you only had one or two plants, and trained them with string or mesh to make them grow around the circumference instead of letting them migrate towards the light.

in other words keep them tied to the outside. then if you had lets say a 20" tire, the circumference would be ~60" and you could fit 3 plants? without overlapping.
 
OH CRAP!!! You could LST them along the inside!!! Nice!
hmm... this is getting interesting. If you angle them out a bit on each side of the tire, you might be able to layer them in some... if that makes any sense.
Hmmmmm.... one might even envision something like those upside down planters.... if you were to move the light to the outside of the wheel after the plants got a few inches tall.

Cheers!
 
WheeloFortune said:
well tead, i was poking around outside of my normal corner on this site and found this thread.
since i have a bit of experience under my belt with a rotational, and i've been thinking about building one of these for a long time now, i'll chime in if you don't mind.

number 1 question:
how big???
i want a 6' diameter for my most ideal sog/scrog plant size of 2-2.5 feet.
i think it will be hard to get MJ to flower under 14 inches minimum, do you agree?
that means 28" diameter, plus room for the light, so add 4" minimum = 32" bare minimum.

i think wood would be much easier to work with.
but, maybe a tractor tire would be big enough, i thought about using one of those a while ago. could prob get a cheap one with no tread at a junk yard somewhere.
Click to expand...
I dont know if you have ever handled a tractor tire but the one I have is about 5 ft and weighs about 100 lbs
 
thats heavy, but a great diameter if you could handle the weight. almost perfect actually, i think 6' would be perfect.
 

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