Delusional's Aeroponic Journal of DOOM!

A bit of a background first....

I have grown mostly outdoors for the past 13 years. I have also grown indoors a bit but most plants were vegged indoors for a bit due to our short seasons and then moved outside to finish. I also have kept a stable of mothers for a few years and raised clones for relocation outside.

In the off season I'd flower a few here and there inside, nothing too major. I recently decided to step up things indoors and did some research here and on a few other forums I frequent. I've been a lurker up until recently.

I tore down my previous flood trays in two rooms I had set up to veg and started from scratch.

I selected a larger room in the basement, divided it with a wall and door to split flowering from veg light cycles, and went to town researching possible designs and obtaining supplies.

This is the room I started with... What a mess.







Cleaned it out, and then painted a few coats of drylock.

I almost went and purchased a few aeroflo systems but I could not justify spending thousands for something that looked like it could be built from a few trips to home depot, a few hours, and a couple hundred bucks. The spots looked too close together and $1000+ per unit seemed a bit insane for glorified PVC. After some debate I decided on a aeroponic /nft system which was designed by Stinkbud here on RIU. It was also featured in High Times Magazine as many of you may have noticed.

I also constructed a aero cloner and aero veg unit. The goal for this new room is approximately 1-1.5lbs every 21 days.





















There are three aero/nft flowering units. 14 spots each, 42 total. plants will be rotated in 14 at a time, 21 day cycles for a perpetual harvest.




I'm using 2x1000w HPS with hydrofarm air cooled reflectors. The air that is cooling the lights is drawn from outside, pulled with a 250cfm inline fan through the lights, and then exits right back outside. Closed loop.




I have a 55lb carbon scrubber on a 500+cfm vortex can fan exhausting the flowering room, which is roughly 10' x 13'.







Right now I have a tray of Northern Lights #5 X White Widow left over from a previous grow that was going to go outside but it was still quite cold. I decided to finish them inside the new flowering room. Once those finish I'll ditch the tray and move the third flowering unit in. Better use of the space, and I'm tired of hydroton and rockwool. Just an unneeded expense at this point. The aero\nft rails are MUCH more efficient.











I am running CO2 at approximately 1200-1500ppm in flowering when lights are on. Each NFT flowering system has its own pump and reservoir. They are run by a Sentinel recycling timer which is set to a continuous 1 minute on, 5 minutes off 24 hour cycle. Same with the cloner and veg units. I am using Botanicare Nutrients.









I'll be working with many strains at first, testing around a bit to find what works best, choosing some mothers perhaps, timing things out to see what finishes when, nute tolerances, etc. I'm basically going to keep popping beans, grow everything out, and if\when I find keepers I'll hold back a mom. If its shit, its shit and it'll be tossed. Final product will determine what stays around.

I'll be working with the following strains......
Dutch Passion Blueberry
DJ Short Blueberry
Dutch Passion Power Plant
Sensi Seeds Big Bud
Thai Super Skunk
Lowryder #2 X AK47
Buddha Seeds White Dwarf
Northern Lights #5
Northern Lights #5 X White Widow
G13 Labs Super Skunk
G13 Labs Diesel
G13 Labs Purple Lady


On Deck.....
Strawberry Lights (Strawberry Cough X Northern Lights #5)
SFV OG Kush
DJ Short F-13
DJ Short Grape Krush
Reservor Killer Chemdog
Reservor Chemdog BX2


Wanted....
Sour Bubble BX3
Bogglegum
and of course many many more....
(I like to collect strains, I've done it for years)

Instead of germinating in water like I normally do I popped the seeds into rapid rooters directly. I ended up with a 100% germ rate. Worked great.







Once they produced the first tap roots the rapid rooter plugs were carefully crumbled away since the material is much like chocolate cake and the seedlings were put into 2" neoprene collars and netpots and placed in the cloner.







The cloner just has two daylight cfl's, dosent need more than that...









A few weeks there, and then they go into the veg unit for approx 3-4weeks. Veg unit has a 400w mh.







The cycle from clone will be exactly 3wks cloner, 3wks veg, then 9wks approx flower.

















I also have a few autos in flowering. Lowryder 2 X AK47 and Buddha Seeds White Dwarf. The autos were just tossed in the mix to give me something a bit sooner while I veg out a few strains from seed, select some new moms, and get some cuts started....







veg shots....





More to follow.... Enjoy, post, share, etc. +rep will be returned.

Now all of this started being put together in March. Since then things have come along nicely. I'll now spam all of you with a photographic timeline to bring you guys up to date on the progress. Dates should be fairly accurate. Enjoy....

5/11





5/12





5/13





5/14





5/15



5/17 - The first plants in the aero units are starting to really fill in about now. Got some new cuttings going into the other units, etc.



5/18


DP Blueberry... Love this strain


Right about this time I sealed up the room and had an issue with humidity and temps. I went out and bought a portable ac\dehumidifier. Works great.





5/20



5/23



5/24



5/25 - Autos really taking off....



5/27 - Becoming a Jungle...




Take a guess which one is the "Big Bud" lol



5/28





5/29





5/30





6/1 - The white dwarf autos are really giving off a strong lemon\pine\fuel smell. Its great




NL5xWW are coming along good as well....


Safe to say things are looking quite nice and the new room is a hit....







6/3













6/5





6/6









6/7 - Autos are getting close...











6/8 - Took down a small NL#5 X WW Plant for some test nugs....



6/9 - I just want to gobble up the autos..... They smell like lemon candies.


nl5xww


autos







6/10 - Chopped one of the White Dwarf plants.... Mmmmm



6/11
white dwarf


white dwarf


nl5ww


6/13 - DP Blueberry Shrub. (not topped a single time, self topping mutant)

Chopped a couple NL5 x WW this morning.....

Very very nice dude keep up the good work
+ rep

Looking nice, bro. No replacement for killer genes.

Thank you

Hey man thanks for the link to your new journal. Ill be following it here instead.
Your grow is looking great as usual. Nice harvest!!!!
Hey I have a question. Does that can 50 carbon scrubber remove the odor for all those plants? Ill bet they smell wonderful.
Im trying to decide between the can 50 and the can 100.

bigtomatofarmer said:

Hey man thanks for the link to your new journal. Ill be following it here instead.
Your grow is looking great as usual. Nice harvest!!!!

Click to expand...

Thanks. Just plucked a few plants, I'll be plucking the rest in that tray over the next couple days. They're a bit staggered, some have a bit more to go.

bigtomatofarmer said:

Hey I have a question. Does that can 50 carbon scrubber remove the odor for all those plants? Ill bet they smell wonderful.
Im trying to decide between the can 50 and the can 100.

Click to expand...

It works great, Unless you're standing in the room you would be unable to smell a thing.

But hey.... bigger is always better

The room smells wonderful, much like sticking your nose into a container of blueberries.

Dude thats BADASS!!!!!!!!
hope my stuff looks that yummmmmmmmy!!!

Few, got a bit worried when I couldn't find the original thread.

Scribed

Those buds look amazing man, nice to see the fruits of your labour hmm.

Few new pics...








love the blueberry..... with the lower growth trimmed it comes in like a perfect tree with tons of nice tops. the whole flowering room already smells like blueberries. So much so that I can honestly say I would feel 100% comfortable running without any odor control. should turn out nice

just chopped down the rest of the nl5 x ww in the last tray.... now to set up the other aero flowering unit ive had waiting and say goodbye to ebb flow forever.....

Have you had any problems with salt build up on the aero? And what about power cuts, do you have any backups in place?

None yet. A computer UPS backup backs up my pumps.

one hellava garden there +REP , loving it & your avatar is great too.

thanks much

Here is a bit of the NL5xWW post-chop, another day or two drying it all on screens and then into the jars to cure.......... Should end up being roughly 1lb after all is said and done. Not too shabby. Can't wait for the first aero harvests now....

alright, that looks yummy, well done sonny

caddyluck said:

one hellava garden there +REP , loving it & your avatar is great too.

Click to expand...

Thanks, x2!

Wow impressive and inspiring.