- Thread starter
- #61
I'm just going to be honest here.
a) Yes you were.
b) You then went on to do it again.
I don't doubt your intentions are good, but your tactics/presentation is severely lacking. This is how it sounds, in a nutshell, "You screwed it all up, take it apart and rebuild it like I did or your system will fail miserably. P.S. your nutrients are complete shit."
No, you didn't use those words, but that's how I read the underlying message. Which is where the presentation is lacking.
What I don't think you have grasped yet is that if I take any of this apart, then it's all scrapped. I'm not setting pipes on fire to get them apart.
There's no way around any of it. If I have to take any little piece apart to make a change, then that's it. It's all in the trash. Why? It's all glued together, and really well I might add. That's why I have rubber couplings in places: so I can take it apart when needed.
Now, if you want to try this conversation again, let's start with discussion about each piece and maybe try asking if I have thoughts or a plan for something before just jumping in and saying whatever you think I'm doing is completely wrong.
Could this be better? Yes, it could be. It's not 100% perfect, but neither is anything else.
Will it work? Sure it will.
Let me give you a brief, big picture overview of what exactly I have going on here.
Basic 4-site setup. There are two water loops. A primary water loop, and (if needed) an isolation loop. I will detail those more in a second. Here's most of the main parts.
Basic Parts:
(4) 5gal buckets
(1) 27gal res (primary)
(1) 5gal res (isolation)
(4) 6" net pot bucket lids (pots are 4.5" deep)
(1) 400gph external pump
(1) 600gph air pump (w/ splitter for the buckets)
(2) 125gph air pumps (one for each res)
(1) Blue Guardian monitoring setup with temp, pH, EC/PPM/TDS
Main Water Loop:
Supply line: 3/4" PVC
Return line: 2" PVC
Isolation Water Loop:
Supply line: 3/4" PVC
Return line: 3/4" PVC from bucket, into 1.5" main
Here is a decent shot of the back, that shows both the main and isolation return lines:
You can see that 2" comes out of the bucket into a tee fitting. One side has a 2" valve for the main return, the other side has a 3/4" valve for the isolation return. All return lines operate by gravity and trying to equalize their height with the res. As water is pumped from the res into the buckets, it causes water to be pulled through the return.
This isn't how the plumbing was laid out in my head, but due to space limitations, this was the best overall way to get it done.
Now, what this isolation shit allows me to do is exactly what its name implies. What is one of the biggest issues looming over a multi-site, single res operation? That's right, individual plants. When there is an issue with a single plant (wants more/less nutes, has other issues) it's a pain in the butt to be able to handle the situation and manage it as effectively as you could if it was on it's own.
Enter the isolation loop.
The isolation loop allows me to isolate any combination of buckets. Granted there wouldn't be more than two running on it at any given time because if I were going to isolate 3, I would just isolate the 1 and leave the other 3 on the main loop.
For a bucket I can turn off the main supply, then turn off the main return. Then open the isolation return, and finally the isolation supply. Boom. Now that bucket is running on the isolation loop and I can feed/dose as it needs without causing issues with the other plants.
Got 2 plants that want to run a little cooler on the nutes? Isolate them.
Have 1 plant that starts to get a fungus? Isolate it.
See how that works?
It won't be in use most of the time, but it's like an insurance policy. It's there if/when you need it.
Inside the tent, the tent, the main return has 2 rubber couplings. The isolation return has 2 as well. This lets me separate the front and back buckets into 2 sections, as well as separate them from the outside lines to the res.
Supply lines are the easy part. Both are 3/4" PVC. There is a tee fitting at each bucket. Left and right sides have a valve which is connected to a supply line. The center coupling has a 4" length of pipe (actually 4.75" to account for the part inside the tee) sticking into the bucket. This creates the waterfall effect.
Each bucket also has a single air stone. Not really needed with the waterfall, but better safe than sorry. Can't have too much air.
For those pesky roots, it is what it is. My initial plan was a very, very fine screen. I was going to make a tube of it, wrap it around the pipe, and let it extend across the bucket. Kind of like a pipe extension, but with screen as the pipe.
It's super fine screen. We're talking super, super fine screen. Roots can find a way, obviously, but it should slow them down at least. Combined with the much lower flow rate as compared to a traditional undercurrent, it should be fine.
What I've considered in the past day or so has been:
a) create an "overflow" type box of sorts, for lack of a better term. Effectively the box kind of goes around the return, and lets water in at the top. Something that's maybe 4x4x4. It fits around the return line, and in theory the majority of flow comes in through the top, although the bottom/sides would allow for a minor percentage of flow.
b) create a partial false bottom. I say "partial" as it would be at an angle instead of completely flat. Options with this would be to drill a bunch of small holes, and line the back with the super fine mesh. Some holes may get a root, but as long as 1/3 of the holes are open, it should be fine.
c) full false bottom. I've seen setups which used this same screen to create a full false bottom, and it worked fine.
d) add a 1/2" drain line to each bucket that is only used for drainage purposes and can be blown out. THEN put an elbow on the internal part of the return pipe, and then add a length of pipe to create an overflow. This would require a little more plumbing, but not much, and the roots wouldn't be getting into that as they are trying to go down. This would also provide a constant water level in the bucket.
e) another option of "d" above would be to go kind of half and half. I could put a tee on the inside, with one side having a bushing to make it a 1/2" opening, and then the other side would be the water-level overflow. My guess is that wouldn't work very well, as the flow most likely wouldn't be enough to get the level up to the overflow.
Why does the screen seem to work pretty well? Because of the pretty low flow per bucket. It will never flow any faster than its input. I aim to turn the buckets over about once every 6-8 minutes. This means about 7-10 times per hour. I may even cut it back to 5x per hour. There is plenty of circulation, even at lower flows, but not too much to where it's creating a massive suck on the roots and pulling them into the return. IMO, this is why roots get into return lines. Not from necessarily "following the water", but because of the suction from the return. Return creates suction, it sucks the roots towards it, there's water there, so off they go.
Slower flow, less "suck" on the roots into the return lines. Hinder their path a bit, and they end up pretty content where they are at.
If I've used the isolation line, I can unhook it at one of the couplings and suck out the leftover water.
In between runs, I can unhook it and clean most of it.
I'll be running z7, which I've had nice results with, and honestly it's reduced the need for a real scrub down. Love that stuff.
Now, if I were to rip all this shit out and do it over, would I do it differently?
Well, yeah, I would.
So what specifically would I do different?
I would do one of several things, knowing how the space has made its limitation.
First, I would run the main return line either around the outside (like I did with the isolation loop) or I would have the left buckets facing the back (as they do now) and the right buckets facing the front. This would let me use a tee instead of a cross. The real goal here is to get the plumbing out of the center, and provide a little easier access without pipes in the way. It's not bad, but it would be an improvement.
Second, I would say screw it and spring for the square/rectangle shaped buckets. The flat sides are better to work with, regardless of whether you use a uniseal or a bulkhead. At $10/bucket for the square or $3/bucket for the round, well, there ya go. I cut a corner where I could, and while not great it's not the end of the world.
Third, I probably wouldn't have glued the return lines. At least not initially. There just won't be much PSI on them at all. Yeah, it's safer with glue, but it's also a pain if you need to change something. At the very least I would have dry fit the whole thing, then checked for leaks and only glued if needed. Would have made changes at this point much easier. But for $12 per 2" valve... um, yeah... In just valves, to replace both return lines it's $60. Plus pipe and fittings. Pipe is cheap, fittings... not so much. I'd be looking at dropping about $120 to redo it all, just for pipe.
Buckets? Add $40. Then add another $35-$40 for the bulkheads/uniseals. Shit adds up. I could do that. However, just because I can doesn't mean I should, which is why I can in the first place.
Fourth, I would definitely explore using the place where the tent doors come together as the duct port. It's a little shorter, but with that my main concern is closure. It's a decent idea, but I'm not sure it could be sealed up as well as the duct ports. Thus you're still on a riser, or having to get creative in managing the water level so that it can take that hump out of the equation.
I think a little taller bucket (like the 13gal ones) combined with using an overflow internally to the bucket would do the job.
What's the real gain on all that shit though?
About 6" in grow height, and maybe a little safer with the bucket sitting on the floor. Right now, that height is kind of balanced out. I moved the carbon filter/fan outside the tent, so gained some height there, but then put the buckets on a riser and took the gain back. It evens out to what I would have had, but could be better. As it stands right now, I have about 54" between the top of the buckets and the bottom of the lights at their highest point. I could potentially get the lights another 3" higher, but would have to get creative with my ratchet hangers. I may do this, but not sure yet. If I needed to do it later, it wouldn't be terrible to do so. However, if I did it now it might make it a little easier to raise the lights overall. I'll have to see how that all goes.
So, this is where I'm at. I wouldn't say stalling (I don't have time to really plumb anything this week anyway, and I dislike doing it in 15 or 20 minutes spurts) but I would say while I wait for the next chance to work on it that I'm taking some things under consideration to make it even better. If I can do that, but keep the cost down, I may consider something. But really, at this point, I've dumped way too much into this bullshit just for a legal, medical hobbyist size grow.
