fatman7574
New Member
Large Tube/Deep Chamber Medium Pressure Aero
Why Large Tube or Deep Chamber?
Simply out, and a major reason an aero systems is a highly effective growing method is that the roots suspended in air assure ease at supplying nutrient water saturated with dissolved oxygen DO.
So why large tubes or deep chambers rather than just using the commonly used small diameter PVC pipes and hollow PVC fence posts. With the small tubes/pipes roots within a few weeks must stack up in a thick layer in the bottom of the tubes. Water does not readily penetrate through these masses quickly. The water that reach the inside of these masses seldom contains adequate DO required by the roots. At best the small amount of suspended roots is free air get adequate DO and about the top half inch of the root masses. The roots stacked up under this uppermost layer get ever smaller amounts of DO as the water slowly seeps through the water logged roots. Does intermittent spraying lead to improvements in the amount of DO supplied to the roots laying stacked up in layers. No it just makes the matter worse.
Very large tubes(tall tubes) and deep chambers alleviate this problem as all or nearly all roots are suspended in air throughout the full grow.
Why Medium Pressure Aero
Aero sprayers are made for pressures of 15 to 30 PSI. http://www.dripirrigation.com/drip_irrigation_info.php?cPath=39&products_id=395
Aero misters are made for pressures of 35 to 85 psi. http://www.dripirrigation.com/index.php?cPath=43&sort=2a&page=3
Mj plants roots can most easily take up water droplets of a size between 30 and 80 microns. This is the size delivered by misters supplied with medium to high pressure nutrient solutions.
Medium pressures are cheaper and easier to supply. They do not require pressure regulators or pressure/accumulator tanks. They do not require pressure switches or pressure relief valves. All these are required by a high pressure mister system.
The pump needed for a medium pressure aero system is regularly available cheaply on eBay as they are widely used which is not the case with the Sureflo pumps most commonly used for high pressure aero systems.
The pump used for medium pressure runs 24/7 so it does not wear out prematurely do to constant on and off cycling.
Low pressure pumps actually provide water streams most commonly as the water pressure delivered by most aquarium and fountain pumps is only about 2 to 3 psi. The plants roots do not uptake this water easily. This is method called over saturation. It is equivalent to a flooding method where there is no media. I is not an efficient method of watering. As can be noted the manufacturers state the minimum pressures required for proper use is 15 psi, not 2 to 3 psi.
This information is from the patent application of the owners of the atomix aero system:
[0051]Droplet micron size for effective aeroponics should be between 30 and 80 micron and not below 5 micron. The present growing method is the first growing method to use this range of microns.
[0052]Optimum aeroponic root growth requires a specific concentration of atomized liquid that is suspended inside the grow chamber. If the atmosphere provided by the present apparatus has too high a concentration of the atomized liquid mixture, it may cause saturation of the roots and may restrict the oxygen and carbon dioxide surrounding the root structure, because too much water soaks the roots and blocks their supply of air. In one embodiment of the instant invention, the apparatus provides to the exposed root structure inside the container an atmosphere that has a concentration of the atomized liquid mixture in the atmosphere in a range of between 0.0004% (4.times.10.sup.-4%) and 0.000000027% (27.times.10.sup.-9%) by volume of the atmosphere surrounding the horticulture, depending on the plant species. A concentration above 0.0009% (9.times.10.sup.-4%) by volume of liquid will result in the saturation of the roots and restriction of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Why Drain To Waste Nutrients
Drain to waste is the safest and most easily managed nutrient system for growing pot with a sprayed nutrient delivery system. With drain to waste the nutrient system always is supplying a balanced nutrient that never changes and that always has a constant pH so the nutrients are always available. The amount actually drained to waste is small as little is sprayed. As the [0052} paragraph explains, little is needed. With recirculating reservoirs the nutrients levels and ratios change from the minute their use is started. The pH changes constantly, the EC changes constantly. The maintenance times needed for EC and pH measurements and adjustments are absurd and always insufficient.
You might want to scream the costs of drain to waste is too high. That is not the case. Consider that the vast majority of commercial green house vegetable growers growing hydroponically now use drain to waste systems, Their grow products sell for bout 25 cents to a dollar per pound versus having a value of over $3000 per pound.
How To Make The Large Tube Assembly
You will need:
A small drill and drill bit.
A manual pop rivet gun.
About 10 to 12 pop rivets per tube.
A measuring tape or ruler.
A marking pen
A drill and a hole saw.
A sheet of ½” or thicker plywood.
A saw to cut the plywood.
Some sheet rock screws to assemble the.ply wood.
To make tubes 6 inches wide and 19.5 inches tall, first go to Home Depot or Lowes or any other large hard ware Store. In the kitchen cabinet and kitchen wall covering section they will sell thin sheets of plastic wall covering that are 4 foot by 8 foot. They cost $12 to $15 each. These are simply rolled into a tube that g has a 2 inch wide overlap. While someone holds the tube wrap some tape around it to hold the round shape. Now drill a hole through both layers of the over lap a few inches from one end. Insert a pop rivet and squeeze the handle as directed until the excess rivet stems pops off. Now go to the other end and do the same. Now install a rivet every 8 inches or so. Take off the tape. Set the riveted side down on the floor or a table top. Now push on the top side. Squeeze down to approximately 6 inches tall. This is a 6” by approx 19.5 inch tube. If you want a 4 tube wide system (24 inches wide( you need to make three more tubes. IE one tube for every six inches of width. You can also make the tubes shorter and taller by roll the tubes side ways.
Now for 24 inch wide tube arrangements. Cut a piece of plywood 24” wide plus add the thickness of tow layers of plywood as once the plywood is put together it should be 24” wide inside the wood trough. Now add two sides 24” wide. Cut all of these a to about 94 inches long. Screw the sides to the 24 inch wide bottom to form a trough. Cut some 1” to 2” wide slats the length of your bottom board width. Keep the drill and slats handy. Now with the help of another push all four tubes into the box trough so that they are squeezed to 6” wide and 19.5 inches tall approx. Now install temporarily some cross slats to hold the tubes in place and to prevent the ti op of the trough from spreading. Now mark for a net pot hiole every 6: or what every spacing you prefer. I grow sog so I use 6” spacing. Now half way between each hole marking measure out for a mister head and put an X mark there. Drill your holes moving cross braces as needed. Now reinstall your cross braces where they do not interfere with your holes.
For now simply close the ends of the tubes with some black plastic bag material held in place with tape. Cut a hole in the one end bag for drainage. Use a piece og PVC gutter, two end caps and a down spout adapter for the drainage collection. Run this to a reservoir so that you can occasionally measure the drainage EC and so as to calculate the amount of water up taken by the roots. Later you can cut plates out of acrylic plastic for the tube ends so as to be able to see how your system and the roots are doing. These are simply held in place with some silicone caulking.
Tube End Plate Cutting Directions
For the 19.5 inch tall tubes 6" wide. Draw on a piece of paper a rectangle 13.5 inches tall and 6" wide. Now draw a half circle 6 inches wide and three inches tall on the bottom and top of the rectangle. Cut out the paper pattern on the inside of the lines so smaller by just just about 1/8 of an inch. This is the pattern fot the acrylic plates. It is also nice to put one about 2.5 feet down fron each end to help hold the tube shape. For the ones inside the tubes and the drainage end cut out a half circle at the center bottom of the plates with your larger hole saw used to make the net pot holes. The plates within the tubes can be held in place with a generous amount of silicone and friction. The same for the end plates.
The Pump and Its Controls
Previously I posted a thread for the misters. They supply ¾ to 1 gallon per hour. Therefore they need to spray approx 2 seconds per every minute as it takes about half that time to fully build up to over 35 psi in the tubing feeding the misters. If you spray too much you get to few hair roots but the plants will grow taller. If you spray too little the plants will grow huge amounts of hair roots and the plants will be short (dwarfed) plants. If you spray small amounts at long intervals between sprays the plants will have short inter nodal spacing (thick long buds) and will be short, and will bud very quickly. IE Ideal SOG conditions.
The pump I recommend is the IWAKI MD-70RZT pump. It is designed to run continuously. It can easily supply water to over 500 sprayers. The MD-30RZT also works but supplies more water in the 30 to 50 micron range and will only supply up to about 50 sprayers. A Hundred cam be supplied but no real well. As the system is high pressure, barbed fitting will not work well as too many leaks always appear and therefore the pressure is greatly reduced. Therefore I use John Guest fittings in my designs. They are available cheaply here in bulk.
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/m-3-john-guest.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=john%20guest%20fittings&utm_campaign=Search%20-%20Brand%20-%20John%20Guest&KEYWORD_K=john%20guest%20fittings&TRACKING_ID_K=2819d8d4-f994-fb49-9a60-00005417b730&CHANNEL_K=google&CAMPAIGN_K=Search%20-%20Brand%20-%20John%20Guest&AdGROUP_K=John%20Guest&gclid=CNSOroTi8JsCFRIcawodKQ1l-w
I run white polypropylene fittings.
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/c-500-john-guest-pp-range-white-polypropylene-fittings.aspx
This at the beginning to attach to3/8” tubing.
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-2975-male-connector-nptf-polypro-38-x-12-nptf.aspx
This for each two misters.
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-3030-reducing-tee-polypro-38-x-14-x-38.aspx
Also this one to connect to the last fitting:
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-2978-union-tee-polypro-14.aspx
This to connect to each mister.
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-2981-union-elbow-polypro-14.aspx
These for the end of each feed 3/8” line.
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-2998-plug-polypro-38.aspx
[URL]http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-2985-union-connector-polypro-38.aspx[/URL]
Timer
For the timer use a timer that allows for increments as short as two seconds every one minute. At the discharge of the pump install a tee fitting 3/4 “ and two electric solenoids. A normally closed and a normally open. The normally open is installed on the branch of the TEE fitting that supplies a return to the feed reservoir, The normally closed is installed on the branch of the Tee fitting supplying water to the misters. The pump runs constant so as to not have a shortened life span due to being repeatedly and frequently turned on and off.
Alternative Designs
Use deep chambers. A deep camber can be made easily out of dead chest freezers. They come with a drain. They are deep so allow for long large root masses. Simply remove the lid and cover with a piece of acrylic plastic painted first with Krylon Fushion flat black pai t and then flat white paint Drill holes with a hole saw for net pots and misters.
Also a good option is to make deep cubic shaped boxes with a drain and paint them with tow part epoxy paint. The paint is made foruse in painting the inside of drinking water tanks so it is safe for use with aero grown plants. Use an acrylic plastic lid drilled and painted.
There is no other system with a full write up anywhere in this forum, or anywhere else on the web with a higher yield in a shorter time then this system. And there are no low DO issues or root rot issues. Low nutrient reservoir temps are not necessary.
Lighting
I use horizontal 250 watt lights, two HPS and one 6500K halide lights from eBay. I use DIY liquid cooled so the lights are only a few inches above vegging and budding plants. Air cooled lighting tube also work well but require the lights be a higher. With close lighting the 47 watts per square foot is mre than enough lighting. Larger lights must be hung higher so many times they actually supply poorer light as well as porrlydistributed uneven lighting. The reflectors are simplehomemade parabolic reflectors made with specrralar aluminum from Canada. I use glass tubing from here. they sell it in 60 inck long tubes but cut to orger. I buy it cut to 20" lengths.
http://www.winshipdesigns.com/home/ws3/smartlist_35/oversized_clear_tube.html
The alumnum reflector material:
http://anomet.com/cgi-bin/online/storepro.php
This sytem can easily be up sized or down sized and is not really an expensive or difficult system to set up. Thepump is usually available on Ebay for about $110. The misters are only a few cents more expensive than the low pressure sprayers. The solenoids are available on ebay.
.
Why Large Tube or Deep Chamber?
Simply out, and a major reason an aero systems is a highly effective growing method is that the roots suspended in air assure ease at supplying nutrient water saturated with dissolved oxygen DO.
So why large tubes or deep chambers rather than just using the commonly used small diameter PVC pipes and hollow PVC fence posts. With the small tubes/pipes roots within a few weeks must stack up in a thick layer in the bottom of the tubes. Water does not readily penetrate through these masses quickly. The water that reach the inside of these masses seldom contains adequate DO required by the roots. At best the small amount of suspended roots is free air get adequate DO and about the top half inch of the root masses. The roots stacked up under this uppermost layer get ever smaller amounts of DO as the water slowly seeps through the water logged roots. Does intermittent spraying lead to improvements in the amount of DO supplied to the roots laying stacked up in layers. No it just makes the matter worse.
Very large tubes(tall tubes) and deep chambers alleviate this problem as all or nearly all roots are suspended in air throughout the full grow.
Why Medium Pressure Aero
Aero sprayers are made for pressures of 15 to 30 PSI. http://www.dripirrigation.com/drip_irrigation_info.php?cPath=39&products_id=395
Aero misters are made for pressures of 35 to 85 psi. http://www.dripirrigation.com/index.php?cPath=43&sort=2a&page=3
Mj plants roots can most easily take up water droplets of a size between 30 and 80 microns. This is the size delivered by misters supplied with medium to high pressure nutrient solutions.
Medium pressures are cheaper and easier to supply. They do not require pressure regulators or pressure/accumulator tanks. They do not require pressure switches or pressure relief valves. All these are required by a high pressure mister system.
The pump needed for a medium pressure aero system is regularly available cheaply on eBay as they are widely used which is not the case with the Sureflo pumps most commonly used for high pressure aero systems.
The pump used for medium pressure runs 24/7 so it does not wear out prematurely do to constant on and off cycling.
Low pressure pumps actually provide water streams most commonly as the water pressure delivered by most aquarium and fountain pumps is only about 2 to 3 psi. The plants roots do not uptake this water easily. This is method called over saturation. It is equivalent to a flooding method where there is no media. I is not an efficient method of watering. As can be noted the manufacturers state the minimum pressures required for proper use is 15 psi, not 2 to 3 psi.
This information is from the patent application of the owners of the atomix aero system:
[0051]Droplet micron size for effective aeroponics should be between 30 and 80 micron and not below 5 micron. The present growing method is the first growing method to use this range of microns.
[0052]Optimum aeroponic root growth requires a specific concentration of atomized liquid that is suspended inside the grow chamber. If the atmosphere provided by the present apparatus has too high a concentration of the atomized liquid mixture, it may cause saturation of the roots and may restrict the oxygen and carbon dioxide surrounding the root structure, because too much water soaks the roots and blocks their supply of air. In one embodiment of the instant invention, the apparatus provides to the exposed root structure inside the container an atmosphere that has a concentration of the atomized liquid mixture in the atmosphere in a range of between 0.0004% (4.times.10.sup.-4%) and 0.000000027% (27.times.10.sup.-9%) by volume of the atmosphere surrounding the horticulture, depending on the plant species. A concentration above 0.0009% (9.times.10.sup.-4%) by volume of liquid will result in the saturation of the roots and restriction of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Why Drain To Waste Nutrients
Drain to waste is the safest and most easily managed nutrient system for growing pot with a sprayed nutrient delivery system. With drain to waste the nutrient system always is supplying a balanced nutrient that never changes and that always has a constant pH so the nutrients are always available. The amount actually drained to waste is small as little is sprayed. As the [0052} paragraph explains, little is needed. With recirculating reservoirs the nutrients levels and ratios change from the minute their use is started. The pH changes constantly, the EC changes constantly. The maintenance times needed for EC and pH measurements and adjustments are absurd and always insufficient.
You might want to scream the costs of drain to waste is too high. That is not the case. Consider that the vast majority of commercial green house vegetable growers growing hydroponically now use drain to waste systems, Their grow products sell for bout 25 cents to a dollar per pound versus having a value of over $3000 per pound.
How To Make The Large Tube Assembly
You will need:
A small drill and drill bit.
A manual pop rivet gun.
About 10 to 12 pop rivets per tube.
A measuring tape or ruler.
A marking pen
A drill and a hole saw.
A sheet of ½” or thicker plywood.
A saw to cut the plywood.
Some sheet rock screws to assemble the.ply wood.
To make tubes 6 inches wide and 19.5 inches tall, first go to Home Depot or Lowes or any other large hard ware Store. In the kitchen cabinet and kitchen wall covering section they will sell thin sheets of plastic wall covering that are 4 foot by 8 foot. They cost $12 to $15 each. These are simply rolled into a tube that g has a 2 inch wide overlap. While someone holds the tube wrap some tape around it to hold the round shape. Now drill a hole through both layers of the over lap a few inches from one end. Insert a pop rivet and squeeze the handle as directed until the excess rivet stems pops off. Now go to the other end and do the same. Now install a rivet every 8 inches or so. Take off the tape. Set the riveted side down on the floor or a table top. Now push on the top side. Squeeze down to approximately 6 inches tall. This is a 6” by approx 19.5 inch tube. If you want a 4 tube wide system (24 inches wide( you need to make three more tubes. IE one tube for every six inches of width. You can also make the tubes shorter and taller by roll the tubes side ways.
Now for 24 inch wide tube arrangements. Cut a piece of plywood 24” wide plus add the thickness of tow layers of plywood as once the plywood is put together it should be 24” wide inside the wood trough. Now add two sides 24” wide. Cut all of these a to about 94 inches long. Screw the sides to the 24 inch wide bottom to form a trough. Cut some 1” to 2” wide slats the length of your bottom board width. Keep the drill and slats handy. Now with the help of another push all four tubes into the box trough so that they are squeezed to 6” wide and 19.5 inches tall approx. Now install temporarily some cross slats to hold the tubes in place and to prevent the ti op of the trough from spreading. Now mark for a net pot hiole every 6: or what every spacing you prefer. I grow sog so I use 6” spacing. Now half way between each hole marking measure out for a mister head and put an X mark there. Drill your holes moving cross braces as needed. Now reinstall your cross braces where they do not interfere with your holes.
For now simply close the ends of the tubes with some black plastic bag material held in place with tape. Cut a hole in the one end bag for drainage. Use a piece og PVC gutter, two end caps and a down spout adapter for the drainage collection. Run this to a reservoir so that you can occasionally measure the drainage EC and so as to calculate the amount of water up taken by the roots. Later you can cut plates out of acrylic plastic for the tube ends so as to be able to see how your system and the roots are doing. These are simply held in place with some silicone caulking.
Tube End Plate Cutting Directions
For the 19.5 inch tall tubes 6" wide. Draw on a piece of paper a rectangle 13.5 inches tall and 6" wide. Now draw a half circle 6 inches wide and three inches tall on the bottom and top of the rectangle. Cut out the paper pattern on the inside of the lines so smaller by just just about 1/8 of an inch. This is the pattern fot the acrylic plates. It is also nice to put one about 2.5 feet down fron each end to help hold the tube shape. For the ones inside the tubes and the drainage end cut out a half circle at the center bottom of the plates with your larger hole saw used to make the net pot holes. The plates within the tubes can be held in place with a generous amount of silicone and friction. The same for the end plates.
The Pump and Its Controls
Previously I posted a thread for the misters. They supply ¾ to 1 gallon per hour. Therefore they need to spray approx 2 seconds per every minute as it takes about half that time to fully build up to over 35 psi in the tubing feeding the misters. If you spray too much you get to few hair roots but the plants will grow taller. If you spray too little the plants will grow huge amounts of hair roots and the plants will be short (dwarfed) plants. If you spray small amounts at long intervals between sprays the plants will have short inter nodal spacing (thick long buds) and will be short, and will bud very quickly. IE Ideal SOG conditions.
The pump I recommend is the IWAKI MD-70RZT pump. It is designed to run continuously. It can easily supply water to over 500 sprayers. The MD-30RZT also works but supplies more water in the 30 to 50 micron range and will only supply up to about 50 sprayers. A Hundred cam be supplied but no real well. As the system is high pressure, barbed fitting will not work well as too many leaks always appear and therefore the pressure is greatly reduced. Therefore I use John Guest fittings in my designs. They are available cheaply here in bulk.
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/m-3-john-guest.aspx?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=john%20guest%20fittings&utm_campaign=Search%20-%20Brand%20-%20John%20Guest&KEYWORD_K=john%20guest%20fittings&TRACKING_ID_K=2819d8d4-f994-fb49-9a60-00005417b730&CHANNEL_K=google&CAMPAIGN_K=Search%20-%20Brand%20-%20John%20Guest&AdGROUP_K=John%20Guest&gclid=CNSOroTi8JsCFRIcawodKQ1l-w
I run white polypropylene fittings.
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/c-500-john-guest-pp-range-white-polypropylene-fittings.aspx
This at the beginning to attach to3/8” tubing.
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-2975-male-connector-nptf-polypro-38-x-12-nptf.aspx
This for each two misters.
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-3030-reducing-tee-polypro-38-x-14-x-38.aspx
Also this one to connect to the last fitting:
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-2978-union-tee-polypro-14.aspx
This to connect to each mister.
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-2981-union-elbow-polypro-14.aspx
These for the end of each feed 3/8” line.
http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-2998-plug-polypro-38.aspx
[URL]http://www.freshwatersystems.com/p-2985-union-connector-polypro-38.aspx[/URL]
Timer
For the timer use a timer that allows for increments as short as two seconds every one minute. At the discharge of the pump install a tee fitting 3/4 “ and two electric solenoids. A normally closed and a normally open. The normally open is installed on the branch of the TEE fitting that supplies a return to the feed reservoir, The normally closed is installed on the branch of the Tee fitting supplying water to the misters. The pump runs constant so as to not have a shortened life span due to being repeatedly and frequently turned on and off.
Alternative Designs
Use deep chambers. A deep camber can be made easily out of dead chest freezers. They come with a drain. They are deep so allow for long large root masses. Simply remove the lid and cover with a piece of acrylic plastic painted first with Krylon Fushion flat black pai t and then flat white paint Drill holes with a hole saw for net pots and misters.
Also a good option is to make deep cubic shaped boxes with a drain and paint them with tow part epoxy paint. The paint is made foruse in painting the inside of drinking water tanks so it is safe for use with aero grown plants. Use an acrylic plastic lid drilled and painted.
There is no other system with a full write up anywhere in this forum, or anywhere else on the web with a higher yield in a shorter time then this system. And there are no low DO issues or root rot issues. Low nutrient reservoir temps are not necessary.
Lighting
I use horizontal 250 watt lights, two HPS and one 6500K halide lights from eBay. I use DIY liquid cooled so the lights are only a few inches above vegging and budding plants. Air cooled lighting tube also work well but require the lights be a higher. With close lighting the 47 watts per square foot is mre than enough lighting. Larger lights must be hung higher so many times they actually supply poorer light as well as porrlydistributed uneven lighting. The reflectors are simplehomemade parabolic reflectors made with specrralar aluminum from Canada. I use glass tubing from here. they sell it in 60 inck long tubes but cut to orger. I buy it cut to 20" lengths.
http://www.winshipdesigns.com/home/ws3/smartlist_35/oversized_clear_tube.html
The alumnum reflector material:
http://anomet.com/cgi-bin/online/storepro.php
This sytem can easily be up sized or down sized and is not really an expensive or difficult system to set up. Thepump is usually available on Ebay for about $110. The misters are only a few cents more expensive than the low pressure sprayers. The solenoids are available on ebay.
.
ump runs 24 hours with solenoid
It's all good. I grow soil so I don't have a lot of use for this info but it looks good to me. 