Hi Dunny I prefilter the nutes through a 1 micron filter as i put them into the res. I run drain to waste and the res is replaced daily on the 350gal outdoor setup (10 minute job), it runs 24/7 for 5 months through the summer. I dont use a res on the indoor as the accumulator holds a weeks worth of nutes. I let the nutes EC/PH stabilise before putting them into the tank and they remain stable for the week. Your roots are the only ones on the site that resemble true aero, unless its the camera/lighting, the root tips seem to have a brown tinge which happens when they are kept a little too much on the dry side. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hDRrJxIggc]true aeroponic root development.wmv - YouTube[/ame]
i don't even have a real res tbh. main res is a 2.1 gallon accumulator. water comes out of my tap, goes through ro, autodoser, then pressurized in the accumulator. water comes out at 500ppm 5.6ph pressurized at 100psi at any of the available outlets i've installed in the rooms. my 2.1 gallon "res" currently supports over 100 nozzles every 3 months or so i replace the ro membrane/filters and add more stock nutes but that's about it in terms of maintenance. never have to worry about huge spills anymore either. funny you mention the tips of my roots. they're always a different color, regardless of my feed times. the roots are almost transparent and you can see the growth tip of the root, it's a different color, pink-ish to dark purple or just brown. all my plants are on different feed times that i've found to work well for the given stage of growth.
Hi dunny Nice roots. A dosamatic coupled with an accumulator is the ideal solution. I did consider buying one once but ultimately went with 6.6gal 16bar accumulators, plenty for my needs and they get an easy life at 120psi. Mixing a bucket of nutes every day is ok, running drain to waste cuts out daily ph/ec testing and the weekly res change. It would be boring if you had nothing to do.
my roots get anywhere from 3 to 5 feet long. The roots follow the water flow and have plugged my drain from time to time. I have found a large drain is needed and I have seen roots all the to my reservoir. After reading some of the posts here, dunny, I believe I am doing okay but no where the sophistication of a system. 20 gallon tubs, Sprays and a 1000gph aquarium pump, nuts at 350+ ppm, Ph 6.5...24/7. I have been thinking about putting the pump on a timer. Does anyone think that would be okay to conserve on energy costs? I have shut my system down for hours for maintenance and the roots stay wet and the tub maintains humidity. I see 4 inches of growth almost daily, can it get any better than that?
i have a rl job that's pretty demanding (60-80 hours/week on a regular basis, 100 if there's a large pending deal) so if i had stuff to maintain on daily basis, i would probably have quit growing awhile ago. i only have real time for gardening on sundays and sometimes not even then. its pretty important for me to be able to go more than a week without having to worry about my plants. no other system gives you that kind of freedom. plus its ALWAYS sterile. there's so many convenience benefits. i remember there was some guy who was touting his accumulator-less system as being just as good and building super tall plant sites to deal with his super long roots. long roots is a very clear indicator that you're spraying way too much or the mist isn't fine enough. without a solenoid and accumulator setup, you'll never get rid of the bleed off from the nozzles at the end of the spray and you'll always have long roots. if your spray times are too long or too frequent, again, roots will get really long. if you're going the low pressure aero route, long roots are unavoidable. there are a few ways to deal with the long roots though. one way is to clip a small hook to the side of the netpots and hang/wrap the taproot around it. roots behave similar to the top portion of the plant. this method is like lst-ing your roots. you'll have a bunch of new tap roots start to shoot down and fight for apical dominance just like when you lst up top. and just like how topping is another option up top, you can also just "top" the roots. sometimes you see some leaves wither and die as a result so i generally only use this method on aero mothers that are going to be trimmed anyhow. in the alternative, get an accumulator, figure out your feed cycles and never have to worry about long roots. when i harvest my plants, they're around 18-24" tall and the roots are about the same length. what's up top generally matches what's down below.
Thanks Dunny...I will have to look into it for sure..At the time the longest I have gone without visiting has been five days. I work from home, so I visit a lot, but don't have to do anything special. I will look into your suggestion though. The roots have seemed to tame down since I increased the ppm and started watching the Ph. You must have your lights adjusted well above to leave them for a week. May I ask what kind of lights you are using?
Vacation with dwc is so possible . I have no problem in going on a two week holiday and returning to a surprise of incredible growth. With dwc you can link up several resivours all filled to the top with nutes and air pumps and low pressure submersible pumps . or a big gravity fed drum feeding a res with a float ball valve to keep perfect levels .MY brother got married over seas and i was the best man so i had to leave a crop 5 weeks into flower so i linked up several resivours . I knew my ladies would drink 1- 2 litres each daily so i had to times 14 days by 2 litres by ow many plants plus a few extra just in case ,so for example if i had 2 plants i needed 28 litres plus some extra . I was worried the hole time i was away . When i returned i had one week to go it was a rewarding effort .L.C
i use small wattage cmh (100-150w) for my small side projects. not concerned about yield in these scenarios and in my experience (hurray for anecdotal evidence) flowers grown under cmh are more aromatic and flavorful in my bowl. obviously for the real garden i don't really have much of a choice other than to roll 1000w hps but it gets the job done. only indicas are allowed over here so the girls don't get too tall past week 2. barely have to raise the light if at all past that point. it also helps that i vege with cmh which keeps the nodal structure super short and tight. i could probably ignore them for several weeks with my delivery system. was planning on a relay to cut all lighting if a drop in the main is detected but laziness has got the better of me thus far.
cool story. you should repost it in a thread on the main hydroponics forum. i'm sure you can find plenty of folks there interested in how to set up a dwc. not so sure people on the aeroponics subforum are as interested.
Quit spamming Ruby Roots or what ever lol... Smh. If you want people to buy your product, you make a threat or something along those lines and do a comparison.. Simple as that. Any other way is BS IMO!
I wouldnt waste your cash, its just hype. Custom aeroponics? lol they look completely clueless to me.
The fact is, you probably can't find a commercial system that will give true aeroponics results, you have to read and learn alot, and build it yourself... Oh hello- virgin poster here...
aer·o·pon·ics ËŒe(É™)rÅˈpäniks/ noun a plant-cultivation technique in which the roots hang suspended in the air while nutrient solution is delivered to them in the form of a fine mist. "Fine mist" is in the eye of the beholder.