Mech's New Adventures in Vertical Aeroponics

Thanks man!

Here is the rest of my work from today. I guess I didn't give up. Began the adventure with feeding this tube down through the vent from above, and connecting it to the res.


You can see the tube next to the left duct.


Then I had to do the other end of the line, I felt this would be the hardest part. I was right, but things actually went my way. Don't tell my landlord about these holes I made behind the dishwasher.


What I was looking for was this- the other end of this vent pipe, that is the vent for the various drains in the kitchen and laundry. I wanted to run the tube up through that.


This is the area I have to drill a hole in- It's a bitch. Can't even photograph it in there.


Lucky I have the tool for the job.


I even had to cut and gouge out more of the wall to get the angle to drill the entry into the vent pipe.


I threaded the tube into the hole I made, then I pulled it back out because I had an idea. I put this large finish nail into the tube so I could grab it later with this cool magnet I have.


Kinda like catheterizing my house. . . Eeeewwwww...


Hey Hey! I got lucky and here it was first try! It was hot as fuck up there- 2 minutes was full body sweating- so this was a blessing.


Grabbed it with my badass bluepoint magnet/scribe and pulled it up.


Gotcha!

Tape it off. . .


We already looked at threading this end of the line from the reservoir up through the vent. I later buried all the line in the insulation, and it worked out well.


Before it was all over, I had to re-up with a switch, connectors, hose, and some Killian's.


The switch gives me on/off control over the sink supply hose.


These connectors are expensive and bulky but they are quick and reliable. Fair trade off. Especially since they are priced individually, but I found a package that had two in it! Score!


The water pours in at a slow stream- comes out cool, so no worries about it's high-temp trip through the attic.


I added this piece of my wife's knitting yarn to "silence" the stream by keeping it from splashing. The water just runs down the yarn.


I just looked at it and 2 hours has about filled it. 18-20 gallons ready to go , plus the about 4 gallon pressure tank means I have 20+ gallons or RO available that refills automatically. It was work, but hopefully it will save me the effort of filling gallon jug after gallon jug.

Anyway thanks for looking folks.

 

Thanks man. Sometimes I feel that I take too many, and that the effort isn't worth it for what people get out of it. But really, the pics tell the story and I'm so practiced at it now that it's second nature.

Also, I know a lot of folks are lurking this, what else is there to say for them?

I do appreciate it when people encourage me, though, thanks for that.

Hey man thanks for that compliment. I'm glad I've gone to one strain too. I had a plan, but it was really not worth it to risk those problems.

To tell you the truth, that Cheese may well be the first strain that I cut from the lineup. Who cares if it's great smoke if you can't grow it?

When that cheese clone was bought, it was $20 dollars for a 3 oz. cup with a few hydroton pebbles and a scraggly little clone. I often wonder how likely it is that clone is just some random bagseed.

And as far as that res installation. . . Well, just look below.

Thanks man, all my ideas came from here too! Nah, sometimes a web search will lead me to another site but those guys are all hosers.

Heh heh, yeah. My buddy left that here, and I told him I was going to pour it down the sink, because scotch is just nasty, even good scotch. (He feels the same way about my tequila) Somehow, after the stores close, the taste of it magically improves. Hard to let good alcohol go to waste.

Well, last night I was plenty sober but it didn't stop me from screwing up. As I was installing the hose, I had to remove the hose from one of those connectors I used- It's not really meant to be reusable so I had to force it a bit. I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "If this fails overnight from my unreasonably high house water pressure, it will be at this joint. At least the huge flood it will make will seep through to the air conditioner closet in the garage below, and not into the house."

So uhh, anyone wanna see a picture of that?


Don't think it's supposed to be raining from there. Floor pretty wet too.



Heh heh, whole fookin' driveway was wet. . .


It came apart at the very place I suspected it would. I can be really stupid sometimes. I'm one of those people that is as smart as I need to be, but fails to apply it rigorously enough. Heh heh. What would life be without fun of this nature?


At least this can be fixed with a new 2 dollar connector. Honestly, it's not that big a deal, because the water just went straight down onto a concrete floor, and spreading out water on a warm concrete floor in the sun is as good a way to get rid of water as I can think of, so the mess is sort of self-cleaning.

I guess it spilled about 50 gallons or so during the time it was leaking. With the bypass water that's 250 gals or so, about $4 bucks worth. Not a BP level spill.

It has already dried from the driveway and mostly from the drywall and garage floor. I hope that is the only leak I have to deal with, if this happened at the other connector it would be a true disaster.

As a matter of fact, this lesson shows that I really need to put a valve inline near the filter, so I can shut off the supply completely when I don't need to fill the tank. This could save me a mess.

On the other hand, if I can't trust the line, I can't really ever use it safely. I guess I'll fix that connector and keep a real close eye on it for a few days.

Thanks for looking, I hope this was amusing- It was to me really. No biggie.

 

So the Homer averaged almost a mile a minute- 60 mph. I wish I could hoof it for 15 miles at 60 mph. . . Damn.

Did you smoke out the aviarist? Is that what they are even called? What happens if the pigeon gets really high before it leaves- maybe it stops for a hotdog.

Anyway I got that leak taken care of:


I agree that a brass compression fitting with inserts would never leak, but these connectors are marketed for use with this piping so it should be good. Needless to say I'll be checking closely tonight, but it has all held for several hours now so I think I'm good.

Good news about the bird ultimately, glad it was able to return home.

Have a good one man.

 

Well, I remember saying that writing a bunch of flowery prose filled with weird simile wasn't going to help anybody understand the taste of this weed, but I'll put it like this: While drying, I was worried that it stank of nasty chlorophyll and like cut grass almost. Not too pleasant really. Dried, it still has a touch of that, but also has a piney, orangy scent that has grown as it cures, displacing the other smell. This ratio alone means it gets better as it ages. Each jar is a noticeable inprovement over the last, but that's mostly because it's still moist. It takes me a week or two to go through a quart jar of it- 20 grams.

The taste is a bit strong, but DANK. I prefer my percolated bong with it, but I can hit it straight up if I want (I smoked schwag for along time!)

Honestly, probably could have stood to pull it a bit sooner, but I'm glad I got this experience. This would make a great "Nighty Night" weed- it's put me out on many occasions.

I get so fooking high on it that my face and scalp tingle, pretty reliably. It's pretty strong. It's hard for me to judge though, because now this all I smoke. I'd say it's easily comparable in potency, almost as smelly/tasty, and not quite as pretty as the dispensary selections I've seen, which were a few bags from CO.

With a closer trim and no leaf burn it would look as good or better than that stuff.

Now, I've let perhaps 10 people try it, part of that was samples distributed to people I don't know by a friend. These three responses are the ones that I've heard back:

1- Hey Bro, I need your number because no one around here has anything close to that. . . (which I poitely decline to provide)

2- Man, that is second only to the finest West Coast dispensary weeds.

3- Duuuuuuudeeeeeeeee....... That's the best weed I've ever had.

So take that for what it's worth. I really have little experience with weed like you dudes grow, so I guess over time I'll get to where I can tell "kush" from "skunk" by smell- not there yet.

I'm already looking forward to having some variety in my stash, but if this weed were the only one left in the world I could live with it. If I rationed it it would keep me high a long time, but for right now having an essentially bottomless jar of A grade weed is keeping me good and stoned- and here on GC at 3:00 pm on Monday instead of out chasing paper like I should be.

Heh heh, least I don't spend $200 a month on weed anymore, or well, I do, but in a different and much less frustrating way, and the weed I get is better by a lot, and I have "all I can smoke."

Seriously, I will say this:

If you rolled 5 joints of this, and lit one off the roach of the other, I'd say it would break out like this, just a rough guess-

1st joint - 50% quit during or after
2nd joint- 25% quit
3rd joint- 20 % quit
4th - 4% become comatose
5th - That last 1% standing and awake is that guy that's gonna hit whatever comes his way hell or high water. You know, the same dude that never seems to have any.

Stupid chart but the point is one or two shared joints of this would have lightweights worried about driving home.

That give you an idea? He heh heheh.

 

Neat pic man and definitely an entertaining find. I wouldn't even admit to thinking about ripping on this board or anywhere! Did the rod man see it first or did you show it to him? I wouldn't be above a sample, but I'd actually want to get the hell out of there really.

Thanks for sharing that, definitely a cool pic.

This isn't really the place to discuss it, but basically, no, she doesn't smoke. She also doesn't tell me what to do, and I don't tell her what to do. She trusts me to do the right thing, and I don't worry about the things she decides to do. I don't need to, because she's way smarter than me and acts more safely than I do.

I probably ought to hear about it, because I throw a fair bit of money and time into it, but she knows it floats my boat and that make her happy, that it makes me happy.

Her trust in me and my careful consideration of my actions frees her from the risk and my happiness and its resultant benefits for us alleviate the cost.

Plus, in the paraphrased words of Early Cuyler: "It helps with all my bitchin' and that mess."

She appreciates that about it.

 

Thanks man, I looked back and yeah, a bunch of that stuff sounds funny out of context, or even in context. . .

Sorry your jar is low. I'd be fooked if I had to buy- I don't know anyone around here, well, maybe that one dude but yeah, huge hassle.

Around here, a bill gets you a quarter of "nug" as they call it here, but it doesn't hold a candle to mine. I'd say it's what you'd call mids. I've had friends suggest I should, umm, "vend" some of mine, but I have to remind them that my #1 purpose in all this is to get myself high, and not worry about where the next jar is coming from.

Man, there are a million things you could do, blackmail, all kinds of shit. But we're here to promote growers and growing, so we're not going to do that shit. Hoever, if I wanted to have fun with the guy- I'd just leave him a note, that read like this hanging on one of the girls:

"Hey- nice plants. #4 could use some cal-mag. Anyway, can't wait to see what the harvest is like- Good job man- see you soon."

Now then, I would of course NEVER go back, because if I were that dude I 'd have your grave dug and ready the next day. Oh yeah, those plants would get some fertilizer.

I don't really mean you should fuck with the poor unsecure weed grower. It's funny to think about but the truth is, you're and angel for knowing about the plants but leaving them alone. We need more like you.

Indeed I have. I've recommended that very thread, and in fact it's the only offsite thread I ever linked to from here I think.

I really like that design, but when I started, I was big into what Rumpleforeskin was doing. Rump hates any sort of recirculation that you don't personally attend, and he's got his reasons. Leaks and extra risk of flood and so forth. . .

Also, that system is really better suited to larger grows. The waterfall effect is noisy, and it's not the only way to agitate water to aerate it. Balancing the inputs is a task. The double bucket and required drop make the system taller.

Well, in the end, my recirc system did flood, but due to operator error, not a clog. When I set up my second (current) system, I had more room so I just used buckets. The roots had not filled the ten gallon tubs to capacity anyway even though my plants were huge, so a bucket is really plenty of room.

I used Budslinger's plan essentially for my current deal. It is essentially straight RDWC, lacking the lava rocks and the waterfall of the Bio-Buckets, but otherwise is pretty much the same. It achieves balance not through valves but through all the branches of the manifold being equal and level at their output.

I'm not sure how much the Bio Bucket system would improve things, but it is taller, louder, and more finicky.

Maybe after my comparison run if coco loses the next comparison could be RDWC vs. BioBuckets. . .

I'd say that's a pretty righteous smackdown. Any answering pics?