Does vertical growing need less watts
- Thread starter Testosterone
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ttystikk
Well-Known Member
I'm all about cheap yet effective solutions. What did you put in the cloner water? Did you put the stem of the cutting in the water or keep it above?
The container holds about 40 liters of water, I used tap water, Idumped in a cap of Voodoo Juice and piranha plus around 40 ml bud candy to feed the critters, and maybe two or three hundred parts per million of Sensi bloom solution from Advanced Nutrients. The solution was just oo automatically pH balance my water because my meter was down. But it worked out well and I just kept doing that.
The stems are directly in the water, but since they are in styrofoam and the Styrofoam floats perfectly level on top of the water, the air pump distribute air bubbles evenly underneath the floating layer. I think that's the only reason why they can make it.
My cloner used to be the same idea as my growing system but my pump went out one day and I decided to put them directly in the water and it worked out okay. I don't know if it's the best way, I just know that it works and I am not in a rush to get them so I don't count the days that it takes them to root.
Like they say, sometimes most discoveries happen by accident
The stems are directly in the water, but since they are in styrofoam and the Styrofoam floats perfectly level on top of the water, the air pump distribute air bubbles evenly underneath the floating layer. I think that's the only reason why they can make it.
My cloner used to be the same idea as my growing system but my pump went out one day and I decided to put them directly in the water and it worked out okay. I don't know if it's the best way, I just know that it works and I am not in a rush to get them so I don't count the days that it takes them to root.
Like they say, sometimes most discoveries happen by accident
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Floating the styrofoam, dig that. Very cool!The container holds about 40 liters of water, I used tap water, Idumped in a cap of Voodoo Juice and piranha, and maybe two or three hundred parts per million of Sensi bloom solution from Advanced Nutrients. The solution was just oo automatically pH balance my water because my meter was down. But it worked out good and I just kept doing that.
The stems are directly in the water, but since they are in styrofoam and the Styrofoam floats perfectly level on top of the water, the air pump distribute air bubbles evenly underneath the floating layer. I think that's the only reason why they can make it. My cloner used to be the same idea as my growing system but my pump went out one day and I decided to put them directly in the water and it worked out okay. I don't know if it's the best way, I just know that it works and I am not in a rush to get them so I don't count the days that it takes them to root.
Like they say, sometimes most discoveries happen by accident
Having your cloning game on point is key to success with that setup.
I grow trees, but my gpw is half yours.
I know every grow is a lot of work, but I remember that growing trees was easier than what I have going on right now. It takes me 4 or 5 hours a day to keep this machine rolling. And it takes away my social life quite a bit so it might just be short-term. Your yield is more than respectable... some never even achieve that!
Prawn Connery
Well-Known Member
Trees are never going to beat SOG. More plants = more root mass. Trees have to grow much longer roots to equal the same root mass as a bunch of small plants, which takes longer and expends more energy on nutrient uptake.
Growing is like racing cars: you wanna go fast, you spend more time working under the hood. You want reliability with low maintenance, you have to accept slightly lower performance. That's why I settled on run-to-waste coco: set and forget with many of the advantages of soil (buffering, heat resistance, moisture-retaining media etc) with almost the same speed as hydro (it technically is hydro). With a large nutrient tank, I can leave my plants for two-three weeks when I go away. Longer, if I have a friend to check on them and top up the nutrient solution after a couple of weeks.
Aero SOG is something I've always wanted to do - done properly, nothing else beats it - but it's a lot of time and effort and you really need to be on your toes.
Growing is like racing cars: you wanna go fast, you spend more time working under the hood. You want reliability with low maintenance, you have to accept slightly lower performance. That's why I settled on run-to-waste coco: set and forget with many of the advantages of soil (buffering, heat resistance, moisture-retaining media etc) with almost the same speed as hydro (it technically is hydro). With a large nutrient tank, I can leave my plants for two-three weeks when I go away. Longer, if I have a friend to check on them and top up the nutrient solution after a couple of weeks.
Aero SOG is something I've always wanted to do - done properly, nothing else beats it - but it's a lot of time and effort and you really need to be on your toes.
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Prawn Connery
Well-Known Member
BTW, I love the styrofoam. In fact, I love everything about your system - it's really well thought-out and you obviously haven't just followed the herd. I can see you've spent a lot of time trying different things and dialing in your grow to get to this point. The real test is when you try to think of something - anything - that could possibly improve upon it . . . and come up short
I'm building a slightly simpler system for a friend, it's going to be a nutrient film vertical set up. I won't go into explaining how it works because NFT
is very simple, but I will include a few pictures to give you guys an idea. And maybe you can build something on your own if you're interested in that type of thing.The picture with the baby in it is one of the boxes that is half built so you can get an idea of how it is inside, it's basically a 48 inch radius with five levels inside. They hold 20 plants in each quarter circle. Each level has a half inch slope from left to right for the first level, and then right to left on the second level, and so on. Then it dumps into a 40 or 50 liter Rubbermaid container under each box respectively. The rubber Maids are the reservoirs.I include a fifth Rubbermaid that is separate, and I keep my pump in there so there is easy access. They are all connected together with an inch and a quarter sump pump hose. That's how they balance out each other and exchange the nutrient solution. But the actual solution is pumped up with a half inch hose into the top of each box, so four in total off of a manifold made with plastic fittings.
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ttystikk
Well-Known Member
That's fucking badass. The more details I see, the more I like it.
Frajola
Well-Known Member
Like the idea of maximizing sqf_x_W. Do u think those materials will play along w water and nuts without having any issue, or just prototyping ?
Just my 2 cents.
Frajola
Well-Known Member
wow it is going to hold a lot of plants, like 20 by every 1/4, so its 80 all way around? Seems that is going to be a dense forest. Like it, v good work pal.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Those are building materials that are pretty resistant to water.
I think that's part of the innovation of this setup; it's inexpensive to the point of being disposable.
Frajola
Well-Known Member
I hope that really works well , so those materials will be perfect then ez to build w then.
Thank you i appreciate it, I'm not sure if the materials screw around with the water and nutrients, but this isn't the first time I'm trying this. I started 10 years ago and eventually got to this point. Unlike most people, I have been doing a lot of reading on these forums, and not asking many questions. Not to say that asking questions is a bad thing, but I just like to do my research on my own because I'm not sure if the person giving me advice is actually qualified to LOL.
My first boxes that I ever made like this were rectangular and about six feet high, and filled with perlite! It took about 40 square yards to fill those boxes. What a freaking nightmare! 480 plants..4000 watts...and a measly 800 gram yield...but we learn from our mistakes.
For a while I was lining the boxes with plastic, but it never made a difference because I think that it all comes out in the flush at the end. I always use Flawless finish and get great results. I wish I still had pictures of all those experiments. And the final product. But I lost everything when my phone went down. I will have pictures of my latest efforts by October 15th.
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These are also stackable because each section are only two feet high. When I have enough clones I stack them three rows High and use 4 400 watt bulbs to light the center. That's 240 plants and usually around 8 pound yield. My best performer in there is my Cinderella 99. A phenotype that stood out from all the seeds I got a while back... and I will make sure to keep her around for a while!
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
A good pheno will make your setup really shine, for sure.
Due to the small size of the individual plants, I'm betting that a good indica stain would also kick some ass, that's a weakness of my vertical trees approach.
That's for sure, I have about 8 strains in there right now that I am just playing with to see what else works. I was also surprised that Cindy was good in the setup like that.
Right now there is unknown bag seed strain,looks and smells like NL. There is also strawberry cheesecake, Blue cheese, Chem fire og, Landrace Hindu Kush, Money maker, Money Bush,Incredible bulk and Black Domina, just off the top of my head... all the pheno's are tagged and will be weighed at the end, I will just keep the top performers and multiply those girls. I plan on keeping a few good Indica strains and the Cindy.
Right now there is unknown bag seed strain,looks and smells like NL. There is also strawberry cheesecake, Blue cheese, Chem fire og, Landrace Hindu Kush, Money maker, Money Bush,Incredible bulk and Black Domina, just off the top of my head... all the pheno's are tagged and will be weighed at the end, I will just keep the top performers and multiply those girls. I plan on keeping a few good Indica strains and the Cindy.
Frajola
Well-Known Member
wow 2.27 gpw? awesome. Please keep us posted.