Hydro Druid, One more quick question. Just ran a test of my CC to check for leaks and to see how good the flow was. Everything was excellent. However, when I drained there was still at least a quarter gallon left in the bottom of each of the modules. When you are doing your drain and fills, it's obviously very hard to get that water out of there with the root mass. What do you do about this? Looks to me like there is approx. 3 gallons of water left in entire the rig when drained. Thanks TyBud
Hey Druid, hows it going man? I had a couple questions about Under current systems in comparison to Recirculating bubble buckets. I was hoping to set up a 4 bucket recirculating system awhile down the road but would like some input. I was thinking about doing a 2, 2 plant systems, which would consist of 1 res and two buckets each. This would allow me to run 2 strains at a time while still maintaining the ease and convenience of an external res. Before any decisions are made I would like to weigh all of my options. With under current, what are the main advantages to using this system over a recirculating system? I would imagine the system would run much cooler considering the pump is on the outside of the res. I'd also think the the circulation time would be far less with undercurrent since the tubing connecting the buckets have such a large diameter. If I were planning on only running 4 buckets would it really be worth the trouble to build an undercurrent system or is it more beneficial for people growing more plants?
Coming tonight I drain completely and refill wth straight water and drain a second time. If bottom remaining water TDS is still high I fill and drain again. Then add fresh batch of nutes. It's a minor but time consuming flaw in the UC system. ~HD Right now it's too soon to really gather all my evidence of which technology is superior. The larger diameter piping between each bucket that links everything is the biggest advantage I can see thus far. Fluid moves rather quickly through each bucket and yes the external pump is keeping res temp much cooler. A chiller is still needed however. I made the mistake of running this first run with out and my water temp right now is 74 degree's. Waiting on my chiller to arrive so every day I'm waiting for the root rot or the chiller to come first. LOL ~HD
So I just entered week 3 in the UC system and have my control rockwool group in there at week 5. All the plants are the same age from clone but the UC needed more veg time to fill space more evenly. Final weight will be recorded. At the moment I'm still more impressed with my refined rockwool technique. My growth has been healthier overall in the rockwool. I do however, account for the fact that this is my first UC grow and I've done rockwool for over 11 years. I won't make a final decision on which is better until 3 runs on the UC. So at the moment here are my experiences with the UC. Last weeks flooding from the cracked bucket was a major disappointment. I'm now somewhat paranoid of other buckets. If another cracks later on during flowering it could mean disaster. The UC requires lighter feeding. This has been problematic. Just going slightly over ppm and I see over fert signs really fast which stall growth. The plants are using water & nutes so fast that the ppm falls too quickly and deficiencies pop up quickly too. I'be had to remove severally damaged leafs from the UC. I've not removed one damaged leaf from my rockwool. Leafs = energy so this is not an ideal situation. There really doesn't seem to be a happy medium. Compared to my rockwool set up. I'm spending much more time on the UC system adjusting and tending to it. The buds on my rockwool system at week 3 were far larger and healthier then the buds on the UC system for the same week. Rather disappointing. ~HD
If I may I'd like to ask you a few questions about your rockwool setup. Is that basically an ebb/flow set up? NEVERMIND I SEE DRIP LINES HEHE drain to waste? recirculating? GUESSING DRAIN IF USING DRIP, YES? do you ever have algae problems in the channels of the flood trays? I don't see a cover on the tray but they look super clean. do I see two blocks stacked up? Is that for root expansion or just to get that plant higher up for even canopy or similar? What strain is that again...sorry I forget and lazy to hit the back button are u running the same nutrient profile for both systems? thanks playboy!
Recirculating top feed. I don't use drip because I like to dial in the blocks. I feed for 35 seconds ON and 2 hours off during flower. 35 seconds on gives me a 10% runoff which I collect and test for pH swing, ppm usage. 2 hours off allows cubes to dry out to around 70%. Mary loves her dry spell. The run off is filtered through a mess screen with a coffee filter layer. I inspect the coffee filter daily for soil zone pest (root aphids nymphs mostly) since my area has RA infestations all the time. I have covers for the channel but find them to be a pain. Algae isn't a problem. I use black/white poly sheets with the black side down. Between the blocks hydroton/cocco mat. The one plant with the two blocks was a reveg PK-LAV strain. Super nice plant and this was a part of an experiment for tissue culture. We flowered her in the single block and then revegged with two blocks to promote a quicker transition. Plus she's such a short strain the extra hieght from the second block helps. She's the least healthiest in the whole tray. She's having to acclimate to a sativa flowering food regimen. Yes same H&G food for both UC and recirc tray. Aqua Flakes A&B Drip Clean (wks 1-8) Root Excel (wks 1-3) Mulizen (wks 1-3) BudXL (wks 4-8) Top Booster (wk 5) Shooting Powder (wks 6-8) Folair spray Magic green/superthrive/Penitrator (wks 1,3,5) Weekly folair treatments Azatrol, Sucrashield, Coco wet, and Pyronyl (except week 7-8) TGA's Jillybean Pineapple Kush Jack herer and the single PK-LAV ~HD
ahh right, I was thinking "top feed" not really drip...drippers are those mushroom head things that only let out x-amout of water per hour...thx for clearing up. what brand/model timer do you have that does 35sec-on intervals? have you looked through my journal I think I had root aphids too...that's what the dudes at the hydro store said. I went away for a snowboard weekend and came back to all these lil buggers clinging to my roots. The hydro store gave me a small bottle of Merit insecticide. I mixed 2ml per gallon, 3gallon total and poured 1/2gal over each pot and drained into my bathtub. It worked great, no more bugs. What do you use to control them? Prevention or if you have an evasion what do you use? Obviously we all like to avoid chemicals and insecticides, do you have any alternatives? I love Subcool and can't wait to run some of his genetics. I'm trying to hit up the Med Canna Cup this April in Denver and hit some of his Space Dust hash! [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j27IkeLJ0RI[/ame]
Merit 75 is nasty stuff man. I use root drenching with none systemic agents 2.5 ml per gal Pyronyl (Pyrethrum 5%) 2.5 ml per gal sucrashield 4 ml per gal Azatrol 2.5 ml per gal Coco wet Folair spray right after root drench all foliage top and bottom. I also spray everything outside..all weeds, bushes, roses, food garden, greenhouse. EVERYTHING! 5 ml Pyronyl 5 ml sucrashield 4 ml Azatrol 2.5 ml Coco wet Clean all equipment, walls, floor, and all nooks and crannies of space and surrounding space with: Physen 20 Algaecide/Virucide/Bactericide Archer IGR (insect growth regulator) - Suspends adults and nymphs from completing life cycle *Physen/Archer IGR will kill plants if spray directly. It's a lot more work but the med's stay poison free. Root Aphids are a sexual and give birth to live nymphs. No eggs to worry about so a single drench before going into flower works great. That's why I watch the run off so closely. If I see even a single nymph I add Azatrol/Pyronyl and Sucrashield directly to my res and it stop's them in their tracks. I battled them for 2 years before I found a method that actually worked every time. I use a ART-DNe by CAPS (Adjustable Rate Timer). So far it's my favorite timer recycle timer. I had the pleasure of getting my genetics directly from Sub and TGA. They also gifted me a tester strain they hadn't released to the market yet (Handi-cap). Very cool to be a part of his testing. ~HD
Today I found a second bucket cracked and a flood. Started to google and I'm finding it's very common for UC's buckets to crack or fail. I'm starting to re-think the UC systems.
Ouch! Do you think it has something to do with the amount of water being forced through each bucket? I couldn't imagine the pressure being that high but perhaps it's high enough.
Perhaps... other UC users are having these issue's too. It's the plastic..it's not strong enough to handle the extreme force the uniseals use to make a good seal.
Why use the seals if your setup is stationary couldn't you use fiberglass or something to make the seal without Torquing on the plastic? Do you break down for cleaning?
This is the first run. Haven't broken system down. This system could easily be redesigned to match the 4" hole on both sides with a bulkhead union. Yes, I'm sure there is a better mouse trap. I wouldn't use fiberglass or any type of permanent solution. Being able to tear down quickly and cleanly is important to me. Bulk head unions of this size that are food grade are roughly $60-$100 per and I need 24 of them. $$$$$$ to fix I'm experimenting right now and have taken a bucket and sealed the inner/outer edges of the uniseal with silicone and re-enforced the bottom ridges. Perhaps the elasticity of the silicone will help. IDK yet.
Nice. Thanks for the heads up. My hydro store has the Physen 20 algaecide stuff and Azatrol. The other stuff I'm not familiar with. Obviously no one likes chemical insecticides but on the spot I needed a fix and it worked great. I'll look into these alternatives and be prepared next time. I freakn love Subcool not just for his genetics but his youtube vids you can feel his sincerity and passion for the ganj. I watch so many vids where growers talk up their shit and have a big circle jerk with their internet show and tell. Subcool seems like an honest man, good company. Respect. If I get my ass to Denver this April I'm gonna name drop you at his booth! "YA ME AND HYDRO DRUID ARE LIKE BFF'S DUDE"
Think I discovered the potential problem causing the cracks in the bucket. I'm using schedule 40 PVC with has a wall thickness of roughly 1/8 inch. Schedule 125 has a slightly smaller outer diameter which might help reduce the pressure placed on the plastic when the seal and pvc are joined. I'm going to replace all the PCV. ~HD
I had a crack in one of my buckets at the end of the system where my end pipe was a little cooked and torquing on the bucket. I found some cool puddy near the silicon at walmart. It is blue and white and you mix it together, worked for my one major leak. Druid, if you change the size of the PVC, it will not fit as tightly, but you will then have leaks inbetween the seal and the pipe. Plus the tight fit of the 40 is what keeps the seal between the seal and the bucket. It sounds like it needs a little tweaking but that sounds like a lot of unnessesary work without really knowing if its going to work. Just my thoughts I guess. Let me know what you decide to do.
I think I know the stuff you're talking about. Don't think it will solve my issues though. Unfortunately, the buckets are cracking from seal down through the ridges along bottom and causing massive flooding quickly. It can drain the whole system in 3-4 hours. I have to pull apart system just to look at the bottoms and find cracks. Three buckets have cracked in the same week. That tells me the plastic cant handle the pressure. Every single day I'm now stressed out and spending all my time going down to check. In over 15 years of growing and many of those years with DIY this is by far the worst I've had with regard to fixes. Keep in mind this system was built and full of water & testing for over a month prior to plants to prevent this vary issue.... Room environment is perfect and constant. I matched everything exactly to CCh20 except the PVC pipes. CCh20 won't tell me the PVC type either.. Big secret They did say that 1 in 100 buckets fails. Pretty weak ratio. Tells me the researcher doing the R&D didn't do a very good job.
Hey Druid, I know your crazy busy with all the UC hickups you've been dealing with lately, but if you could help me out quite I'd greatly appreciate it. My girls are 26 days from the switch to 12/12. One plant started showing her first pistils 4 days after the switch where as the second plant didn't show her first one until 7 days in. They are both White Widow with an 8 week flowering cycle. If i remember correctly Bud XL is to start on the forth week of flowering and the 4 day Top Booster stint should be done mid week 5. My question to you is how many weeks flowering would you say these ladies are? From first sign of pistils it was about 1 week from the switch, making this the end of week three (from first pistil). Would you suggest I add my Bud XL next week and continue on with the schedule? Is there anything important I should know about The Bud XL? Specific PH I should aim for or anything? Thanks