Aero/nft --> NFT

Im sure you would! I run a 600w but use side lighting of t5's. There are lots of light charts available to match system with lights. I started out with 400 and it worked ok but better results with the 600. Fyi 600 bulbs are quite expensive here due to not available at electric wholesalers, there not very popular for anything other than hydro I suspect. I can buy 1000w for 1/2 the price lol.

I can get replacement lamps here no problem, the 600 I think is less common in the trades, it's usually 250, 400, 1000 w, odd jobs you only need 600w, all about supply anddemand like you mentioned,
Growtents.com is my best bet to far I think

Well me being a newb and in hvac trade walked into wholesaler, asked for a 600 and got the look lol. I was shocked that 600's weren't used for street lights and stuff lol. Told them my outdoor flood light must be an odd duck .

JustADudeMan said:

Oh and the wife says in too big as it is...

So.. I found 104l or 170l blacktotes, I the 170l arnt to tall ill go that way, if not I'll try and make due with the 104l.

I'll keep you guys posted on the swap over,
Thanks again the help guys! Keep the suggestions coming

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I went back from 70-ish liter (including tube contents) to 60-ish to gain back a little height. Obviously a larger rez has some advantages but it isn't going to make the difference (compared to a sufficiently size rez). Larger isn't necessarily better (in this context...). I remember a discussion about 6 months ago where ss1 and I agreed that 2.5 or 3 gal was the minimum. Lower than that will require to much maintenance, will heat up too fast and hence will go bad too fast.

Superstoner may get away with barely changing the reservoir, in general, and for you that may not work out as well. I change my res roughly every 8-12 days. I top off every 2 or 3 days. Not really as a necessity, but for control and a precaution. If you fill a large rez and use it for weeks, you won't know what's in it for the large part of those weeks, i.e. you won't know the ratio of the remaining NPK and other elements - you will be less in control. Compared to frequently topping off/refreshing with nutrients of which you know the ratio that is. When the results are good that's obviously just a preference. The circulation, return waterfall an possible air stones also become relatively less efficient with an increased rez size, point being there are more trade offs than potentially wasting nutes. 104l is nearly twice of what I use and should be more than enough. 170L for 6 plants is definitely overkill unless keeping refreshes and topping-off to a minimum is actually a goal (of which I don't see the benefit other than convenience, if I wanted that I'd be growing organic on soil ).

Ta Dah!
Took all the advice and grabbed a 120l tote, it sits reasonable low, I cut the pipe into it as high as possible, I got at least 80l in contents of the system, hopefully this should help things.. I've included a pic to show the new res, and the end cap I drilled to create a "dam" and fill the pipe more evenly throughout, the pump is 180gpm, stuck to the side to keep temps down,

Keep the comments coming guys, thanks

When you top off a res with more nutes and water is when you throw the ratios off.

superstoner1 said:

When you top off a res with more nutes and water is when you throw the ratios off.

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Could you expand on that a bit.
Web I filled up the new res I dropped the bite down a bit because I obviously had them to high. What signs shoul I keep an eye out for when trying dial in nutes?

I'm using sensibloom, 2 pt, I was going to go with botanicare but it has recently been outlawed in Canada, according to the snack oil salesmen... Willing to take some opinions on nutes, I've been using AN so far, goo results but not sure I wanna continue down that road, if I he these nutes working good and I have enough left I might play with some big bud,
Have heard good things about the GH flora series .

Say you start with a fresh res, with proper nute levels. This res has the proper ratios from your manufacturer, but after a few days the water level has dropped a few gallons and ppm has gone up or down. Depending on what stage of growth the plants are in they will take more or less of what they need or don't need from the res leaving more of what they don't need. Now you add water and ratios are worse, then you add more nutes , not knowing what has been left behind. So now your ppm may say 1000 but it is not the same ratios. You have more of what they don't need and less of what they need. Start a new res and let it get used then replace it, makes for happy plants.

That seems based on the incorrect assumption that the plants use exactly the ratio of nutrients you provide, which is never the case, and you have a too large rez. OBVIOUSLY refreshing and topping off (with water+nutes) keeps the ratio closer to what 'you' provide, i.e. the ratio on the labels, than using the same rez for weeks. Geez, what's so hard about that... the longer you use a rez the more imbalance, and that's completely regardless of the ppm.

superstoner1 said:

Start a new res and let it get used then replace it, makes for happy plants.

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Unless you use such a large rez that before you replace it (entirely or partly by topping off and thereby steering back towards the initial ratio) the ratios are skewed because it will use one or more elements more than others. At the end of the week your rez has a different NPK Ca Mg than you started.

Its not based on any assumptions, its based on facts. Plants use different amounts of different elements at different times. Having a larger res has more available to them, resulting in less deficiencies. When res has been used dump it and start new. By adding more nutes you have no idea what elements have been used or not used and you are adding more which can lead to toxicity.

I just don't see how you can say adding more nutes brings balance back to the initial ratios. The plants use some and not some, you add more of what they use and not use, then the elements they are not using have higher ratios than originally. Allow the res to get used then start fresh.

superstoner1 said:

I just don't see how you can say adding more nutes brings balance back to the initial ratios.

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I don't see why that's so hard to get across, no offense. Fill a rez (initial ratio), use it for a while (no longer initial ratio), top if off (with the initial ratio) and it gets closer to the initial ratio again. Don't get me wrong, not saying all the way back to the initial ratio. How much depends on how often and how much you top off and the rez size - hence my posts above.

NPK initial ratio 30-20-50

NPK after a week 18-20-48

For simplicity of the example, assume rez is half empty at that time (same thing remains true of you take 10-75% or whatever). If you then top off with a solution of the initial NPK ratio, you'd get the average of the two above, which is obviously closer to the initial ratio then the slightly imbalanced NPK is. Can't make it any simpler than that. It's a form of moderation ("Keeping balance").

Ok, another route. Take a nutrient solution of 50 gallon and use it for 4 weeks, measure the NPK during that time. Take that again 50 gallon, but split it up in 4 portions of 12.5gallon per week each and measure the NPK during those 4 weeks. Of course the NPK in the second situation will deviate less far from the initial supplied ratio than in the first situation - unless you provide very close to what the plant needs, which over a period of 4 weeks is pretty tough.

Interesting thread-----my perceptions about what I feed my girls:

I use observation of plant health (yield) to determine what they need----what works. In my show I run a 75 gallon rez for 3 x 1K flowering-----start with

3'-4' plants and flush and reload nute mixture every 5-7 days depending on age. It seems that after a change out of nute mixture----there is a slight growth

spurt in the girls. Perhaps a larger rez would require less nute changes-----but I'm satisfied with what I have.

"my opinions and beliefs don't matter nearly as much as my right to have them, and your right to have yours."-------Albert Einstein

Just to repeat what I posted earlier:

Sativied said:

When the results are good that's obviously just a preference.

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Aren't you using botanicare ss1? How much does that influence your rez changing schedule?

The values in the desired ratio is a range so with a large rez and plenty of nutrients the ratio changes less fast than in a small rez but that advantage is gone if you use most of the contents in a large rez.

I'm currently harvesting a 480-ppm run (350 first and last week), less than half of what I used previous runs. I don't actually use less nutrients, but I throw away less than half (same amount in gallons, but at far lower ppm), which I couldn't have done without causing an imbalance in less than a week if I didn't frequently moderate the ratio.

Alaric said:

3'-4' plants and flush and reload nute mixture every 5-7 days depending on age. It seems that after a change out of nute mixture----there is a slight growth spurt in the girls.

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Since you mentioned it, I noticed a post from ss1 a few days ago or so in which he said that after a refresh plants can take up too many nutrients initially (misquoted out of context), anyway, I noticed it myself a lot of times last run (because of the frequent topping off, which in a small rez means a good portion of the total max contents), I wondered several times why that happens and actually tried to encourage it.

It drops like 40-50 ppm overnight after a weekly refresh (ah yes, the topic was about whether nutrients level should 'always' be increased after a ppm drop). I can think of several reason why that happens, but cannot measure any of them at the moment (going to get a Hanna photometer sooner or later). Thought first it could be the chlorine from my tapwater evapping, or my ppm meter adjusting to the still dissolving nutrients, but it doesn't happen, at least not nearly as much, if I refresh after 2-3 days (tried/tested). Perhaps, as I suspect, the plant eagerly sucks up the elements that was most out of balance (Ca, or Mg (mag drives...) or N in my example in previous post).

JustADudeMan said:

I've included a pic to show the new res, and the end cap I drilled to create a "dam" and fill the pipe more evenly throughout,

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I would drill another hole near the bottom and close it with a rubber plug. That will allow you drain the tube completely and refresh the system faster (else the contents of the tube is mixed with the new contents of the rez, not a biggie with a large rez but may come in handy nevertheless).

There is nothing to get, you just said it, the ratio will never be the same.

Not the same obviously, but still better and closer to the original than using the same rez for weeks. The larger the rez, the longer you use it, the more it deviates from the original. Anyway, I'm sure you got it after post #52. It's simple math afterall, do with it what you want.

Sativied said:

I would drill another hole near the bottom and close it with a rubber plug. That will allow you drain the tube completely and refresh the system faster (else the contents of the tube is mixed with the new contents of the rez, not a biggie with a large rez but may come in handy nevertheless).

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Good thinking,
I didn't actually glue the cap on, so it allows a little bit of water to flow out of the bottom, and allows me to drain when cleaning the system,
Thanks for all the good info on nute schedules, it kind of proves everyone just find a way that works and stick with it, wether it nute, or system that causes these small differences,who knows,
I'll keep an eye on my res and keep everyone up to date, swapped my low pressure sprayer to a bubble cloner..

Newb here so just what I have experienced with my 100 litre res. I did try topping up at first and things just never seemed to balance out. PH would be all over the map and it became very confusing for me. Now i just watch ph and when it starts to drop below 5.8 i drain and refill. I do this every two weeks at the start and near the end if flower i am doing it every 6-7 days. Yes it cost a bit more but I dont buy the name brand nutes so not a huge deal. As a newb I just found it easier to keep tabs on things.

And as stated in a previous post the plants do seem to get a kick when res is changed. I was always concerned about the water temps as well and figured a top off would be better being less of a change. To my amazement the plants dont actually seem to mind the 43 F water they get from the tap. In saying all this my last run has been a disaster lol. Still not sure what caused it but leaning towards a very low ph level for the first few weeks and a mag def. Next run (september) I will run a thread to get some advice from you guys. For now its outdoors to try and recoup and fill the jars.