Stevehman's 780W LED - DIY 4 in PVC Recirc - Caramlicious Grow

[BlazinUSA]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

you guys sure are throwing down some great information here, i am looking into getting a big dwc setup of some kind going for my next grow improvement.

I am just having a hard time seeing the want or need, other than easy res changes, to spend all the money creating a recirculating or undercurrent dwc system. From what i can tell sub pumps, control boxes and rather large reservoirs are all required for both these systems.

I understand the higher o2 levels delivered to the root zones as well but in my circumstance, growing 6-8 strains all at once,this would be a hard operation to run, not to mention i have no where near the space for something of this volume.
I figured id get 18-25 gal tubs, each with 4 8in netpots in the lids, and 2 12 or 14in air stones in the bottom of each. Now with chance of freezing dwindling away i will bring my garden hose through the basement to fill res's in the grow room.

Here is where i see problems

1 i will need to supply air to approx. 110 gallons of water minimum. Any good pump ideas?

2 how to keep 6 to 8 18 gal tubs chilled during the summertime? DIY chillers may be a good answer but electricity bills may become an issue at this point.!

I dont know sorry for rambling and dont mean to jack ur thread but im really excited to get crackin on this after i see what my 5gallon bucket dwc's are doing currently.

 

[SteveHman]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

you guys sure are throwing down some great information here, i am looking into getting a big dwc setup of some kind going for my next grow improvement.

I am just having a hard time seeing the want or need, other than easy res changes, to spend all the money creating a recirculating or undercurrent dwc system. From what i can tell sub pumps, control boxes and rather large reservoirs are all required for both these systems.

I understand the higher o2 levels delivered to the root zones as well but in my circumstance, growing 6-8 strains all at once,this would be a hard operation to run, not to mention i have no where near the space for something of this volume.
I figured id get 18-25 gal tubs, each with 4 8in netpots in the lids, and 2 12 or 14in air stones in the bottom of each. Now with chance of freezing dwindling away i will bring my garden hose through the basement to fill res's in the grow room.

Here is where i see problems

1 i will need to supply air to approx. 110 gallons of water minimum. Any good pump ideas?

2 how to keep 6 to 8 18 gal tubs chilled during the summertime? DIY chillers may be a good answer but electricity bills may become an issue at this point.!

I dont know sorry for rambling and dont mean to jack ur thread but im really excited to get crackin on this after i see what my 5gallon bucket dwc's are doing currently.

Blazin,
That is why I would consider an undercurrent type system. Just one external pump, one air pump that can supply enough air to each of the buckets, you put a chiller on your main res and it will keep the whole system cool. Figure out how many gallons you will have total and get a chiller that is rated for that capacity, mine is made for 132 gallons.

No controller box, just need a way to keep your res topped up, that is an easy fix. I made a top-up res out of a 11 gal petfood container and put a float valve in the main res. You could also run an R/O right to the float valve.

If you go to one of the web sites that is advertising the system you can see how it is put together, very simple to DIY. When space permits, it is the way I will go.

n the air pump, Google Danner Air Pumps, they're built for ponds.

 

[BlazinUSA]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

right on, do you think that just keeping your ppm at a moderate level instead of maxing out would eliminate my concern for multiple strains in one system?

Also is this the best way to be doing large volume?

Within the next few months i will be expanding and expect to be running some sort of 72 plant perpetual harvest. 7 or 8 of these will be mothers of my strains and clones in 1 cab, then a veg cab and of course bloom.

Any other more versatile ideas as far as multiple strains and big numbers?

 

[SteveHman]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

right on, do you think that just keeping your ppm at a moderate level instead of maxing out would eliminate my concern for multiple strains in one system?

Also is this the best way to be doing large volume?

Within the next few months i will be expanding and expect to be running some sort of 72 plant perpetual harvest. 7 or 8 of these will be mothers of my strains and clones in 1 cab, then a veg cab and of course bloom.

Any other more versatile ideas as far as multiple strains and big numbers?

I would tailor the nutes to the most sensitive strain, I think the rest would be fine.

I think for a large volume, the recirculating system makes the most sense, since it only requires you to control the temp in the main res and it will keep the rest of the system cool. You could run the return line back through the chiller and only need to use one pump that way. I would put a 2 valve splitter on the return line if you do that, that would allow you to control the flow through the chiller and send the rest right to the res. That would allow you to use a high volume pump without compromising the efficiency of the chiller.

You also don't need a massive control res to do this. As long as you have a method of keeping the nute levels constant you will be fine. Since the system is in constant circulation, the entire volume in essence becomes your res, with the control res providing a means to maintain the fluid levels. The more plants you have the more water you will need to top-off with, so depending on how much they drink per day and how many days you would be away form the system tells you how much capacity you need in the top-off res. My girls drink about 2 gallons of water a day, so my 11 gallon top-off res gives me a 5 day cushion. You could also buy an R/O system and plumb it straight to your res with a float valve to have a truly hands off system (an R/O system and valve would be less than $200).

The system is so simple to setup, you could do multiple systems (veg, bloom, moms) and still use a single R/O that would feed the individual control res's. I found the 27 gallon heavy duty totes at Lowes ($16) are perfectly suited for the control res function. I'll send you a PM with links to the uniseals and a cheap source of buckets. (since neither are sponsors I won't post them on the public side).

The other thing is that this method is scalable, you can use 4 gallon square buckets or go as big as you want. The only limits you'll have will be how much can you pump move.
Good luck with your build. I wish I had the extra space, maybe this summer I will buy a bigger place and rent this one out.

 

[SteveHman]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

Day 43 in 12/12:

Res temp 66 (like clockwork, love the chiller)
pH 5.28
ppm 990
ec 1999
temp 85
RH 55%

Adjusted the nutes, added 25ml of micro, 60ml bloom, 45ml sweet, 30ml hydroplex and let the system circulate for 10 minutes and then added 5ml of pH up to bring it up a few ticks.

pH 5.5
ppm 1217
ec 2442

I will be gone until Monday , so I won't be able to update until then. I brought the nutes into the 1200 range so they will have enough over the next 4 days. I plan on doing my res change next week.

The girls are looking very frosty and when I move them to take pictures of the back flowers my hands feel like I dipped them in glue. I am very careful to avoid touching the buds so all of that stickiness is coming from the sugar leaves. Odors are very nice. Compared to last grow these girls are out performing their older sisters.

I've noticed some tip burning and think it is more of a light issue than nutes. The plants that are further from the lights don't have the burnt tips that the closer ones do. I think anything closer than 8 inches is too close--you will get burning and bleaching (at least with the GLH and Advanced LED's).

I have 3 of 4 seeds popped and looking good, the Twilight has not popped yet. If it is not open on Monday I will put another one in. I am thinking I should have started these 2 weeks ago. It is looking like these girls will finish up in 2 weeks, 3 at the most.

Here are some pics of the girls:

I'll post an update on Monday. Everyone have a great weekend!

Steve

 

[Hydrologist]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

is 420 magazine being weird for anyone else today? so far i've had a few posts disapear after posting them and now for some reason I can't get to your page 12 steve-0 :?

 

[Hydrologist]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

weird. now i am on your page 12 haha. Anyways I get to go refill my c02 tank today and get a warranty replacement for my 3 month old 30 dollar Hanna PPM tester. Im pissed man the damn thing is freaking out. It'll nail it and get it right dead on when its testing water lower than like 50 ppm (my RO'd water from the water store down the street has a board thats updated every day with the PH and PPM numbers) But I go to test shapey and it claims its 2200! she'd be dead! I re calibrated and tested my babies and its claiming 1500 they would DEFINETLY be dead. So whatever. it was a crappy 30 dollar one what do i expect. Maybe i'll get a dope one today hmmmm...no must save money till harvest!

Hydro out

PS BEUTIFUL PLANTS!!! LOVE THE NEW PICS!

 

[Hydrologist]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

yo where you been at?

thought this might make you smile haha

 

[SteveHman]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

Got back late last night from a 4 day rock climbing trip. I'm wiped out. I will get some pics up later and will be doing a full-blown update tomorrow when I do a res change.

I had to take care of a small "spill" i the box. The nutes spilled out from around one of the plants, roots must have caused a slight blockage/dam and I had a couple gallons that leaked out everywhere. Definitely need to plan for that for next grow.

 

[BlazinUSA]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

yo where you been at?

thought this might make you smile haha

 

[cryodude]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

Hydro, wow you DEVIL you. That is pretty hilarious. Hope Steve had a catch pan on the floor in there.

 

[zzoomm100]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

Just curious where you went rock climbing Stevehman. Joshua Tree? I've done that. It was spectacular. Land of the lost.

Anyway, I just dropped in because I'm thinking about buying an LED grow light for my 4x4 tent. I'm looking at that Spectra LED 290 from Grow LED hydro. Their website says that the 290 is the size to get for a 4x4 space. I was just wondering if you had an opinion or knowledge about the 290's light coverage since you're using two 180's from them.

Its a lot of bones but if I could get three growing seasons out of that bulb then I'd consider it a worthwhile purchase. I'm a CFL guy who's ready to move on to something new. The simplicity of these lights are what interests me.

Very informative thread. Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

[cryodude]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

Zzoomm, if you can afford it, do two of the 180's in there instead, better core coverage and you can fill wall to wall with buds 2-3-4 plants, cant let em get over 30" probably for best penentration though as well. The overlap on lighting in the center will be excellent as well.

And Steve has two of the GLH 300's ( last years model and 1 180 from Advanced LED so 780 watts in a 2'w x 6'L area.)

 

[SteveHman]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

Day 48 in 12/12:

Res temp 66 (like clockwork, love the chiller)
pH 5.5
ppm 1166
ec 2343
temp 85
RH 53%

I did a partial res change today and decided to add all of my supplements before adding my micro and bloom nutes. I had read that in a few posts that you should do that, so I gave it a try. Well, for whatever reason it threw my pH off. Not sure if it was the Cal/Mag or what, but it dropped my pH down into the 4.6 range. I let teh system sit for an hour before adjusting the pH up to 5.5. I will go back to adding my base nutes first for now on (don't mess with whatever is working for you!).

While I was gone for the past 4+ days i developed a bit of a small flood. Nothing too serious, but the nutes were spilling out of the NFT tube through a plants base. The roots are getting pretty dense and are slowing down the flow in the system causing a backup. I gave the downspout adapter a half-turn to lower the level and raise the pipe on the inlet end an extra 1.5 inches. Problem solved. For every running a system that has a potential to leak, make sure you have a liner or catch tray just in case. I will be adding one to the box before grow 4.0 kicks off.

Things are getting very bushy, I trimmed some of the larger fan leaves to give some light to lower buds (a few are looking almost albino). A little light on the lower guys can't hurt.

Here are some pics of the girls, starting off with a shot of the downspout adapter, I'm glad I didn't glue that in place.

The tick marks on the door are an inch each.

A shot of the girls on the left under a GLH 300.

Girls in the middle under the Advanced 180.

And the girls under the GLH 300 on the right.

Picture don't do them justice, they are looking very nice and are sticky as hell. After trimming s few fans leaves my fingers are stuck together, even after washing my hands twice. Anyone know a good-safe-solvent that will get the resin off my fingers?

I am wondering how much bigger these will get, they are already bigger, stickier and more aromatic than the last grow was at harvest. I had to support a few with some plant wire and am going to string some more up this week.

 

[cryodude]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

Awesome Steve. Nice weekend trip, come home to a small pond, but no major disaster and your babies are getting bigger every few days. Grats bud!! about 3 weeks to c day now??

 

[SteveHman]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

Just curious where you went rock climbing Stevehman. Joshua Tree? I've done that. It was spectacular. Land of the lost.

Anyway, I just dropped in because I'm thinking about buying an LED grow light for my 4x4 tent. I'm looking at that Spectra LED 290 from Grow LED hydro. Their website says that the 290 is the size to get for a 4x4 space. I was just wondering if you had an opinion or knowledge about the 290's light coverage since you're using two 180's from them.

Its a lot of bones but if I could get three growing seasons out of that bulb then I'd consider it a worthwhile purchase. I'm a CFL guy who's ready to move on to something new. The simplicity of these lights are what interests me.

Very informative thread. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Zzoomm, if you can afford it, do two of the 180's in there instead, better core coverage and you can fill wall to wall with buds 2-3-4 plants, cant let em get over 30" probably for best penentration though as well. The overlap on lighting in the center will be excellent as well.

And Steve has two of the GLH 300's ( last years model and 1 180 from Advanced LED so 780 watts in a 2'w x 6'L area.)

zzoom,
Cryo pretty much answered it to a "tee". I would go with the 180s, more coverage, more wattage, about the same price.

JT was a blast, need to get back out there before the temps get too crazy.

Awesome Steve. Nice weekend trip, come home to a small pond, but no major disaster and your babies are getting bigger every few days. Grats bud!! about 3 weeks to c day now??

Cryo,
I'm on day 48 of 12/12 and I chopped my last grow at 56. I want to let these go as long as I can, mostly because I won't be ready for Grow 4.0 for another 3-4 weeks. These buds are getting very big, I can't imagine how much more weight they can throw on in the next three weeks--but I am waiting to see. I will do a res change and put some overdrive in there for the last two weeks to see if it kicks in a little extra growth spurt.

I'm real curious how the SSU is going to work. I am not planning on using it, mostly because I don't foliar feed (too lazy--or too busy).

Thanks for stopping in.

Steve

 

[Hydrologist]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

Hey steve the best solvent I know of at the moment is good old rubbing alcohol also works great on getting resin off just about everything except clothing I think that includes pipe or bong resin too. I even use it on the lense of my mini L.E.D Micro scope that I use up close when looking for Red trichomes and inspecting for spyder mites..just in case. (When the summer starts the heat things up watch out cuz those bastards will come out of thin air). Just make sure with the rubbing alcohol your hands and everything are all dry and rinsed off before touching your plants again. I dont think it's a great idea to get on your plants but idk what the consequences really are.

Also just wanted to say good work on retooling your system to deal with the larger root systems slowing down flow I admire your system and liked the way you took care of that.

My grow that is in Veg right now, my cycle number 3 is having a bit of a ruff time im sad to say. It hurts me inside a little. We had hot ass temps not to long ago and these black buckets im using heated up their water something aweful and im not using and sort of zyme on them right now and I should be, I own sensizyme but it saiz your not suppose to use it in Veg so im not and temps have dropped so now they have been looking much better and are recovering but one of them, the weaker more effected one has bee growing really FUCKED up leaves, they're like these 3 ugly cleft lip status leaves. Here look:

its like looking a child with messed up 3 fingered disfigured hands from birth defects for me. It sucks. Its not cool and its from the water getting really hot and probably caused some cells to denature is my guess, or caused the DNA to get F'd up possibly. Whatever the case im glad I grew two this session....it just sucks to know that I might not be able to flower that one. I'll continue to do my best regulating their water tempuratures with the frozen water bottle trick,

but jsut tonigth I had to throw them away when I saw frozen gross ass fungus looking stuff in one of the bottles and realized im probably re introducing this gross virus after every rez change through these stupid frozen water bottles. So Tomorrow i'm buying new water bottles and changing both rez's and getting paid tomorrow and buying a zyme for veg. Let me know if you have any in mind.

Take it easy dude.
Hydro

 

[zzoomm100]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

Allright, thanks for the information fellas. There's actually a $300 difference between the two choices so I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. Maybe buy an HPS and wait until next year.

 

[cryodude]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

Yeah Zzoomm, the really higher quality LED's are expensive still. Probably for another year or till later this year when they start mfg'ing 5w high quality LED's. I'm getting ready to purchase 4 myself for 3 x 8 area, maybe 5. and clone lights. I will be all of 2500 + and that is a ton.. but i should be good for 4-5 years. i hope heh.

 

[SteveHman]

Re: Stevehman's 780W LED, DIY 4 in PVC Recirc, Caramlicious Grow

Allright, thanks for the information fellas. There's actually a $300 difference between the two choices so I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. Maybe buy an HPS and wait until next year.

zzoomm,
HIDs are definitely less expensive. I have height limitations and heat issues, so for me they were not an option. Believe me though, the LEDs do a great job and will pay for themselves after the first grow. Also they produce less heat, use less Watts and have a 50,000 hour lifespan (so over the course of 5+ years you'll replace your HPS bulb twice a year +or- ).