Well my cuties have poked their heads up and the time has come. My grow room consists of 4 Hybrid DWC /Aeroponic tubs. 2 buckets of same. You'll see in my pictures a small germination/cloning area and also no pics of a small area with a Mercury vapor lamp in it. This is my seed propagation area. So buying seeds won't be nessesary in the future. What you don't see is another room which can hold about three plants and that will be for keeping two males into maturity for harvesting pollen. I have two combo 400w HPS/MH lights, 1 250w MV and multiple smaller lights in areas needing supplement or its own lighting. This grow will be 5 super skunk, 5 White Widow, 5 Northern lights and 5 Mazar. I plan to propagate seeds that are pure White Widow and then crosses NLxWW, MazarxWW and SkunkXWW and finally MazarXNL. I"ve done a ton of crossing in my day and enjoy it. This will give me a ton of varieties for next grows. When I get them in the buckets I will be sending a floor layout and we'll follow them through to maturity. I really wish to provide photos on proper fertilizing for seeds. So follow along and I hope someone gets something out of this monster grow. This is my first grow in years but its like riding a bike. I'm starting with forty sprouts. You'll get a better idea when everything is in under lights.
I have nodda experience with creating hermies. I have had a few go hermie on me before.....How do you force a plant into hermie ?
Sorry to say but i doubt that pump will be powerful enough to give you the spray you want for proper aeroponics grow.
When I have them for that area three plants are going in that space. Until then , that light won't be on. In response to the pump....I tested it and it puts off a nice spray. Its 150 GPH. I purchased three 250 GHP pumps from Harbor Freight for $12 and they will be the main pumps. Maybe it isn.t enough spray but it seems good. Its seems to appear like it would if it were out watering a lawn. If this doesn't work out then I am dumping the hybrids for DWC buckets. Quick and easy to make but I will have to grow 4 plants less. The sprayers operate fairly well but my concern was there being too much pressure behing the spray. I actually might go to more of a misting sprayer instead of lawn. Say like the ones used for cooling patios and such. http://www.mistcooling.com/doit_yourself.htm Lastly I will be using the MV for supplement light were needed as the grow progresses. Back to forcing hermies, how is this done ?
I also forgot to tell you that pump you see in the pic is for one tub. Each tub will have their own pump. These tubs are not in the grow area they are in another room in this pic. I appreciate all the feedback. I am so happy to have this around. Back in the eighties we didn't have such a "Tour De Force" of info to fall back on.
150 gph is not enough pressure. you dont want a SPRAY, you want a MIST, dropplets have to be microns big not actual water spray droplets like a sprinker.
First off I never really considered these to be true aeroponic units. They are more of a hybrid DWC. I realize that true aeroponics is a small 5-10 micron droplet that is easily absorbed by the roots. I took an ultrasonic humidifier apart and found it was just a standard ultrasonic fogger. http://www.mainlandmart.com/foggers.html . So I ordered one of these peoples 3 head units. It puts off awesome fog but it also heats the water tremendously. So I set that aside for future experiments and went ahead and bought a Futuregarden Aerospring Aeroponic unit (shown in photo above) Then I just duplicated it realizing it wasn't true aeroponics. I figured it must work or they wouldn't sell them. Most of the fine spray nozzles require an air compressor to get them to operate correctly. I found the ones I mentioned above which I do intend to try. Then from the same place on a different page I found these http://www.mainlandmart.com/coolings.html Operating at standard water pressure (city40psi) Definetly something that deserves a closer look. I needed something fast and these were cheap to build. If they don't work, I can remove sprinklers and convert them to DWC in minutes. As I looked at the spray that the 150GPH pump made verses the 250GPH that came with the unit, I didn't see much difference. Foggers like the Truefog unit are too expensive at near $400. I figure I can build it for a fraction of that but it takes time and that will wait. Do you know of a better nozzle ? I was worried about high pressure banging on those roots. ALL input appreciated my brothers. I know some of you have tried this shit already.
In the original post the top unit is the Futuregarden Aeroponic unit. The ones right below that are my dupes. The buckets were just to fill space left over. DW do you think I'm wasting my time with this. I originally used a flood and drain hydo setup in the eighties. Worked great at that time. I wanted to get into some of this cool new shit. I had read so much about aeroponics but they are truly spendy. Until I can build something I'll go with what I can afford. These guys shouldn't label these as aeroponic units.....I know this. There are very few true aeroponic units out there anyway.
there are NO TRUE aeropoinic units out there, they all squirt water like your pissing which is no where as good as True Aeroponics
I am very interested in true aeroponics though. It also pisses me off that they call these areos. Here is the unit I purchsed and the mist it produces is definetly the right stuff. I took one of my kids Fisher Price toys and made the buoy. They are avail at the same company for $5. This is a single head unit and puts off enough for one chamber. Because of heat I think it would have to run at 1/2 hour on 1/2 hour off to stop the overheating. I suppose I should have built ten of these instead of these damn tubs..
it shouldnt run all the time anyways, maybe 4-5 times a day just enough to keep the roots misted and a little wet, it takes a while for them to dry out. i would say run it for 1/2 hour every 3 hours. But that effect is exactly what you want right there. I dont trust the ultrasonic foggers much though as with nutes they tend to stop working after a while and you have to replace the disk.
I too had concern with build up on the disk. They give you a free cleaning kit and replacement disk with the unit and 5 extra for the bouy. I will try it like you say.....about 4-5 times a day. I'll watch the roots closely. I have to say I really appreciate your input DW. It saves me a ton of research. I am going to put plants in one of the true Aeros then in a true DWC bucket and finally these bins. Watch and see where I get the best growth and switch the whole system to that on the next grow.
Caribean......ah must be nice. Been there numerous times. Three times Jamaica, twice Virgins and twice in Barbados. Much younger then though.
Easy, after putting your clone 2 flower - 12/12 lighting, have the light come on half way through the light cycle for an hour, in no time you'll start seeing balls/bannana, as they ripen remove them and pollinate your selected buds. There's a post on it, I just don't recall the title, but I used "feminized" to find it.