Hi id like to introduce plans for my newest experiment. I AM LEGAL MMJ PATIENT WITH GROWING RIGHTS ORGANIC SUPER BIO TABELS 4 plant setup 1 4x4 piece of solid 1" foam insulation 1 4x4 flood table with no drain needed(Mine is shallow so I keep it filled 2" from the top but a taller one would work too) 5 5 gallon buckets (NO LID) black is best but im using orange with reflective tape that I install after the unit is built 1 lid for 5 gallon bucket 1 80 gph pump 1 250 gph pump 5 bags red lava rock 20' 3/8" rubber hose and a spliter with valves to connect to smaller 80gph pump(best to put pump in cheese cloth or filter screen of some sort 5' 1/2" or 3/4" rubber hose for the large 250gph pump 1 bulkhead fitting to connect to the hose for the 250 gph pump 1 high powered air pump with a 8 way airline splitter 8 6" airstones 20' 1/4 airline 1 1000k hps with vented cool tube 1 4/8 grow tent with other side being used for vegetables with cfl lighting earth juice grow, bloom, micro and catalyst so this is the setup I plan on building, ive used earth juice in coco feed dtw with only changing my rez once a month(topping up the water level and nutes as needed) no ph just let the microbes do that for me.I always bubble the mix 24hour before adding plants when I start any new medium so I was gonna do the same with this new setup. 1st I drill all five of the buckets with as many that will fit large 1/2" holes drilled into the bottom 5 inches of the bucket( then ill put in an airstone at the bottom with 2' tube hanging out one of the holes then I fill buckets 4 of the buckets with lavarocks 1" from top of buckets(yea no lids) the 5th bucket I leave empty but install bulkhead fitting in center of the lid and place on to of the fifth bucket I put the 4x4 grow tray on the floor then I take the foam panel and place a empty bucket on it to mark it I layout the holes so there are 4 evenly placed and 1 dead center. I cut the holes with a jig saw then place the foam lid on top of the tray and carefully place the buckets filled with lava( Our grow buckets) in the 4 outside holes and place the empty one(this is just to make highly dissolved oxygen,, thank you bio buckets.) in the center hole i lay additional 4 airstones down in the grooves of the tray and connect all the airlines to the airpump manifold(with valves if best) So each bucket gets its own stone supplying oxygen directly to the roots and causing a NFT effect both pumps are in the rez near the middle and the big one ones the the bulkhead fitting in the lid of the center bucket and shoots down with high pressure in the bottome of the bucket(which should have allot of holes drilled in it to allow easy flow and exchange with the rest of the reservoir) the smaller pump it then hooked up to a manifold with 4 lines(one for each grow bucket) and run up to the top of the bucket and into the lava rock in the middle i will top off res as needed and add nutes weekly for now but would like to install a float valve directly hooked up to my water supply(my RO filter, kinda old so the water is 200ppm, also my water is 500-700 out the tap)so i only have to add nutrients gonna put 2 blue dream and 2 Charlie sheen feminized seedlings in there that are currently in tiny hempy perlite cups( will wash off the perlite as best i can) so that's pretty much it this is the system ive designed based off every bio/aquaponic/krusty bucket, earth juice grow i could find within all the pot forums on the web(and a lot of aquaponics) this system is designed to maximize oxygen and microbe life and i expect the highest growth rates ive ever had...did pretty good before with coco drain to waste,with earth juice, pretty good but still standard hydro yields. i would like to veg for 2 weeks and flower for 9 and yield at least 1/2 lbs per plant. again this is a theorized method so please only respond with positive helpful input...closed minded haters should look elseware for their ego boosting... im bulding this over the next week and will try to post some pics of the process and the finished setup as soon as i can. Id love to hear what experiences bio/krusty/organic hydro/ earth juice growers think of my plan and design grow lots of weed and let all of your sins will be washed away
Interesting - to hear that you've been successful before with this in coco is cool, but was that drain to waste? My concern would be the nutrient reservoir going stinky but perhaps with enough dissolved O2 you can get around that. I'd love to see this work; it'd be a cool thing for sure. J
yes the my last grow was coco drain to waste with earth juice but I also had my res run through a 5 gallon lavarock bio filter and the microbes loved it and I kept my solution alive for 30-45 days just topping off with my shitty RO water and adding more nutes weekly. all the oxygen and microbes keep it healthy , I felt like I could have gone the whole grow without a change out but tried to stay within the manufacterers directions(they say the rez is good for 30 days) In my new setup the buckets act as the bio filter, the center bucket provides a waterfall effect back into the tray, providing insane amounts of oxygen. all the pumps will be running 24/7 the microbes from the lava rock and oxygen from the waterfall and airstones make the res smell sweet and earthy ive tried to run a res without the lava rock bio filter and without the waterfall effect, only an airstone and it got smelly after 3-5 days with a proper microbe herd the nutes never go bad, in this case cause its a recirculating system I will just top off with fresh nutes weekly this method would theoretically work great for ebb and flow as long as you used lava rock as your medium and made sure to have a pump recirculating at least 10 times per hour and dropping the solution back into the res with a 1' drop to create dissolved oxygen. my focuse in this grow is having as much microbes and dissolved oxygen readily available to the plants and res as possable
Subbed. Built on of those bio bucket systems years back. Insane growth for sure. Had to unexpentlly buy a water cooler due to high rez temp$$:-( messed up by using orange HD buckets and didnt tape um up and got i think it was brown algae. After a rez change and tape up all good. I will be watching. Have a good grow