New Grower - Der Kommissar

[derkommissar]

CO2 generator arrived today. Going to plumb it in tomorrow. I had everything in stock sans a 3/8 to 1/2 adapter.
Been working on sealing the light between the 2 rooms. Turns out that is going to be more of a pain than I imagined.
Also tested the main ebb and flow system today for the first time. It worked as i figured it would except for 2 things...
1 the drain pump seems to be to tall, it runs itself mostly dry before it shuts off. I think i'll replace that pump with a sump pump style that draws off the bottom. That's the solvable problem...
2. It siphons. The fill pump (reservoir to bucket) siphons when its off- as in water still flows even when pump is off. Any one have any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[bluefly43]

You might try installing a simple toilet float/check valve. When your reservoir waterline is higher than your bucket waterline, you'll naturally get siphoning, the only other solution would be to get your reservoir waterline below your bucket waterline.

I hope this helps you, I'm sure others will chime in on this problem for you.
Good luck, it looks like your just about there.


Have some reps for a job well done

 

[derkommissar]

You might try installing a simple toilet float/check valve. When your reservoir waterline is higher than your bucket waterline, you'll naturally get siphoning, the only other solution would be to get your reservoir waterline below your bucket waterline.

Waterlines will always be up and down, it's just the nature. A check valve that is set for low pressure is the way I guess. I mean the pump itself isn't putting very much 'pressure' when on, I guess the pressure will be very low when siphoning while it's off. Now just finding a valve that meets those specs. All the check valves i can think of are for much higher pressures.... will have to take a trip to the store I guess.

(got this message when i tried to post this:
"The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 1 characters." LOL)

 

[derkommissar]

on second thought a check valve won't work. It's not back flow that's the problem, it's continuance of the flow.

 

[chris606]

subscribed

 

[bluefly43]

You will need some sort of check valve, no matter which direction. As long as one waterline is lower than the other it will naturally siphon.
You might try HD, Lowes, or a plumbing supplies shop.

 

[bluefly43]

As long as you have one waterline higher than the other, you will naturally have siphoning. You'll need a check valve somewhere. You might check the HD, Lowes or plumbing shops. Check in the underground watering section, maybe they might have something there.

Good luck

 

[derkommissar]

Ok, cool. Thanks for the link. seems you have to delete the last part of it though.

 

[derkommissar]

Had some shit go sideways but I think I have it under control. It started with a few plants yellowing in the start tray. I figured I would flush them real good with some ph 5.5 water. Well that straight killed one of them and made the rest look pretty sad. Got me thinking that something was amiss. I some distilled water under the assumption it's ph would at least be relatively close to 7.
My pen had it at 7.8...then a few minutes later 5.4....then 3.8. Oh shit. My meter is fucked. It's Wednesday eve and I am far to busy to get to the grow shop (50 miles away) until friday. I did some experimenting and decided i could mathematically ph at least some water to get through provided I knew the PH of the PH Down. (I actually did pretty good, hit a 5.9 ph measured on new pen). I got new pen, some calibration solution.I decided the grow media (root riots) were compromised and I had no other choice but to table the little bastards.

13 plants on my 24 plant table. All the other shit is to displace water (and saver nutrients) Just filled with water to the correct line the table holds 70 (fuck me) gallons. with pots, wine bottles, milk cartons i got down to 32ish gallons just about 100 liters.

One of the ones that burnt. The way I understand it is is burn doesn't get better, you just have to wait for new leaves.

This one is rocking. grown at least 25% in the past 3 days since it got tabled. BTW the corks are marked A (Autopounder), B (Bomb THC) and K (Kush).

CO2 Gen up and running. had to reduce it to a single burner. I think it will be adequate, at least for the winter as my basement is warmed with a NG wall heater so my return air is CO2 rich.

Ready for the next phase. Tested leak free the other day. On the flip side it's a bitch to clean out... I got ideas for that.

Hopefully I can get the generator aspect started late next week. As nifty as that is going to be it starts a process that will last 2 to 3 years requiring daily starts, stops, switches, weekly clean outs etc. It 's going to take some getting used to!

 

[Czecho]

Subscribed. Awesome work. Its nice to see you are no eyeballing everything and that you actually have a plan (contrary to what I did)

 

[danklover79]

Looking real good in here, glad to see some plants in there, soon you'll have some monsters.

 

[derkommissar]

Subscribed. Awesome work. Its nice to see you are no eyeballing everything and that you actually have a plan (contrary to what I did)

I hope all the planing pays off. when those plants starting yellowing i can't say I took it well but I know I'm going to learn expensive lessons.

 

[derkommissar]

Looking real good in here, glad to see some plants in there, soon you'll have some monsters.

Some monsters will be nice.

 

[derkommissar]

Day 22

 

[danklover79]

You seem to have it dialed in now, plants are looking nice and green, good job.

 

[Rodrigo]

Hello, Derkommissar.

Overall you have a nice setup and it seems you'll get a nice yield out of it. However, I do believe you went overboard with a bunch of things, which is a common mistake among the most enthusiastic members of the growing community Let me elaborate. (it's going to be long)

I'll start with the ventilation.
I have no idea why you chose to do such a complicated and overly cumbersome air system, I'm not saying it won't work (probably will) but you could have gone much simpler. Normally I'd also say cheaper, but being that you scavenge most of the ducting, that's not a factor. However the fact that they were free doesn't mean you have to use them all!
As long as you push air out then negative pressure will take care of bringing fresh air in.
You talk about stinky air and hot air, I don't understand why you would treat them separately because they come from the same place, the flower room. A single exhaust fan is more than capable of exhausting the hot air from the lights and the top of the room and vent it outside, thus creating negative pressure which will bring fresh air in through the upstairs closet ducting.
I do like what you've done, a bit of an overkill to my opinion but a nice setup nonetheless.

To the electrical.
You seem to have this down, I know I would not be able to wire the place like that without burning down the house, so kudos!

The flood tray.
Here's where I think you should go a different direction. For starters, if you want to keep the system as is, you need to get 2 more legs in the middle or it will cause problems in the future (too much weight). And I'm very sorry to tell you this, but your design is nothing special, other than the small hole you drilled on the overflow pipe, that's how all E&B systems work

Ok so, having a flood table AND buckets is mixing two systems and wasting a lot of space and resources, I explain.
The idea behind having a flood table for an E&F system is to maximize the space available for roots to grow, thus avoiding rootbound issues. This is why this particular system is used for flower and only when you don't need to move the plants around, hence the use of clay pellets and no need for buckets, If you put your plants in buckets and the buckets in the tray, then you're effectively wasting all the space between the buckets, using a lot more water and a lot more nutrients. With this configuration your nutrient expense is going to go through the roof. Plus I can guarantee you'll have rootbound problems inside those buckets.
In order to minimize the changes you'll have to make and optimize your resources, I'd advice you to switch to a drip. So instead of the pump filling the tray, get some small hosing and have the water fall from above and flow through the buckets unto the table so it can drain back to the res (remove overflow pipe so it can drain without filling the tray.
This will allow you to change to a way way smaller reservoir (yes, it does have three Rs), thus using a lot less nutrients and optimizing your resources. Plus, a 700 pounds flood tray is a disaster waiting to happen. Safety also has to play a role.
Flood trays are available, why wouldn't purchase one instead of building it?

You should also reduce your watering schedule to only 3 times a day 15 min at a time or you'll end up overwatering them. Also you should look into GLR, you'll save a lot of money.
For the lights on veg, CFLs and T5 is enough, you don't need the LEDs, that's another overkill.

For flowering.
There's no point in dimming the HPS and using MH as the latter is not the optimal light for flowering, However it does provide a different spectrum and some people use both constantly but dimming the HPS won't help. You can run both simultaneously and that'll probably be good.

I think that's it! Overall very good job but I think there's room for improvements. Looking forward to see you pull it off.

Good luck and happy growing!

 

[derkommissar]

Both airs do not come from the same place.
The light ventilation pulls air from from outside the room, passes over the lights and it exhausted outside the room. The air is never 'free' inside the room and never mingles with stinky air. The 'stinky' air (room air) is returned via a piece of duct hidden in an closet upstairs. The volume of air required to cool the lights effectively and remove stinky air would have been, IMO to great a strain on my houses HVAC. (My house in 4300sq/f and we have central air etc. Imagine in the summer changing the air in the house 10x a day while trying to maintain temp.) By splitting the two i can exhaust bad air out the top of the house and recirculate warm air from the lights through the house in the winter and out a hidden window in the summer.


As much as I love doing electrical I was still nervous when I threw the switch the first time.

The Table: At this point it is what it is. Structurally I think it's strong enough. The base it 4x4 vertically and horizontally and the horizontals are mitered in the corners increasing the strength. The table itself is 2x10 (or maybe 2x12 forgot) and 3/4 treated.

I have thought about drip but i'm really on the fence. I have SO much into the current system that i'm at a breaking point. The big question is could I convert what I have going on in the flowering area to drip easily? The fact is at least the first few cycles are going to be run as is. I simply can't afford to change it right now. could I run drip on the table and ebb on the floor?
You have managed to hit my big concern. Nute's on the table will be crazy. fortunately grow nutes are cheaper but still...

I'll research drip systems. The flood system is kind of fail proof the way it's set up, so if i find a drip system that i like I'll switch.

 

[Rodrigo]

That's alright, I got it the first time, my point was another but given that you plan on reusing that warm air then it all makes the system a great idea and I applaud to you, sir You're gonna do great.

Switching to a drip is actually extremely cheap, probably around $15 or $20, all you need is to hook up the pump outlet to a hose (like you probably have now) and attach one of those drip splitter things, not sure how they're called, and then cut lengths of 5mm polytubing and stake outlet to the base of the plant, that's it. Also remove the overflow pipe so drainage is a at the base of the table and not a few inches above. That's all the changes you need to make, assuming your pots have holes in the bottom, if they don't then drill some for drainage.

It's actually very simple and you have it ready in an hour.
It' better to spend $20 now and make a simple change than to wait 6 months and overspend about $2,000 on wasted nutrients, even if the changes you had to make would cost you $200 it'd still be worth it.
At the current rate you should be going through 9.2lt of nutrients a week, a good hydro nutrient goes for about $25lt, so that's about $235 a week on nutrients alone. If you change to a drip you may be able to get it down to 1.5lt a week, which is about $37. These numbers of course may be slightly off but if you do the math with the numbers you have for nutrients and whatnot I think the difference would still be great and I think it's worth the trouble.

 

[derkommissar]

I totally agree the nutes will be costly. My reservations are:
-Do the HALOs (aka drip splitter things) have maintenance, ie clog.
-How often do pumps fail? And what size pump? I don't mind paying more as long as it's reliable.
-does this require a great deal of 'tuning' or 'trimming'. With ebb and flow everyone gets dead on equal watering. I can see a lot of variation occurring
-does it/ is it necessary to run it 24/7? can it it be run 30 on/30 off?
-why does it have to sit off the surface? Would a ring that sits on the surface be as effective?
-my pots are 8ish inches across, why are the smallest halos 6inches? It seems unless my roots are already established and deep this would completely miss the plant all together? (large concern here)

 

[Rodrigo]

I totally agree the nutes will be costly. My reservations are:
-Do the HALOs (aka drip splitter things) have maintenance, ie clog.

Actually they don't require much maintenance, The splitter thing to which I was referring is this

These are the ones I actually use and they work great, very easy to disassemble and clean if needed but I've only done that once and only to check, wasn't really clogged. There's one with 8 outlets but I couldn't find a picture.
The halos are used to deliver the water to the plant, not to turn the single outlet from the pump into whatever number of outlets you need for your plants.
Anyway, neither of these elements clog because there's nothing to clog them, maybe if you don't clean the entire system in a couple of years they would, I don't even check mine anymore, I'm that confident and haven't had any problems and water flows just as good as it did on day 1.

-How often do pumps fail? And what size pump? I don't mind paying more as long as it's reliable.

Pumps don't really fail as long as they don't suffer from a severe power surge that may damage the coils or water gets in where it shouldn't (which doesn't happen unless you physically damage the seals which are rock hard resin.)
The size will depend on the size hose you plan on using, for my veg I use a 623 gl/h pump which is way more than what you'd normally need, but the way I have it set up I have to pump the water up two levels, or shelves if you will, so I need a little extra power. I use 3/4 pvc pipe to deliver the water to the distributors and then 5mm polytubing from the dist. to the plants.
This pump is a Sicce 2400 (or something like that), it a very good brand and not really that expensive (I think they go for about $50 here) I've had it for 5 years and I used to use it for my aquarium. I never had a water pump go bad so they're pretty reliable.
I tried with a smaller pump once and I learned that's it's much better to have a powerful pump and regulate flow through valves.

-does this require a great deal of 'tuning' or 'trimming'. With ebb and flow everyone gets dead on equal watering. I can see a lot of variation occurring

It does require some initial tuning if the pressure is not enough. With a 600gl/h however you should not have any problems at all, anything over this will provide way more than enough pressure. If you fell like spending a bit more, go for a 1000gl/h to be sure you don't have pressure issues.
I actually have a valve set up just before the distributors, they are open only to about 25%. If I open them any more then they pump too much water for me. I say to me, because since I only use the cubes, if I let water cover the top surface they algae grows in there, so I have to make sure that water gets delivered from beneath. I accomplished this by attaching a drip accessory to the polytubing which allows me to bury the outlet a bit so water doesn't flow over the surface, exposing it to light, thus creating algae. If I open the valve to full, water would flow everywhere and make a mess.
For a system like yours and if you use halo I would probably stay at 100%
Variations between plants should be minimal and I'd label them as negligible.

-does it/ is it necessary to run it 24/7? can it it be run 30 on/30 off?

Run it 3 times a day, 15 min at a time or you'll over water them and have serious issues later.
Have you looked into GLR? it's gonna save you a lot of power and the logic is sound.

-why does it have to sit off the surface? Would a ring that sits on the surface be as effective?

I assume you mean the halo? I don't suppose there's a difference between running it from above or onto the surface, but what I'd probably do is bury it under a layer of clay, the water should have a minimum of light exposure to avoid algae, so burying it would be a good idea I believe.

-my pots are 8ish inches across, why are the smallest halos 6inches? It seems unless my roots are already established and deep this would completely miss the plant all together? (large concern here)

Water is going to reach everywhere, the clay you have on top is going to distribute the water all across the pot, you shouldn't worry about this. The only concern I'd have is your ability to remove the halo once the plants get bigger? will you be able to lift it and remove it with the plant in the way?