Dystopia's PPP 250w VScrOG

Dystopia

Active Member
Wow that sound like a good capacity for a recirculating dwc. DWC with 18 tops is gonna yield huge!

I see it says marine on the ice chest. Should I look for a particular brand?
They're Igloo Marine Coolers designed for hauling your beer with you when you go boating. They even have a ruler on top for measuring your fish, or buds, or whatever.

http://www.igloocoolers.com/products/FullSize/Marine/210/

I got these at WalMart, they were on sale for like 24.99 each if I recall. I went to the Walmart site but didn't see this size there, maybe they've been discontinued and that's why they were on sale?

Anyways, coolers come in all different sizes and you don't necessarily have to use these, it was just the cheapest one I could find that was the size I wanted.
 

Dystopia

Active Member
Your nutz Dystopia!! :bigjoint: I like the bushy bushy. Could get tough to manage but definitely better than not having enough sites.
You gotta be nuts to try this...I'm not sure I'll do it again, you got to REALLY love spending time with your plants during the three weeks or so it takes to train them in the screens...I can definitely see issues arising with a significant other - "You love those plants more than me!"

that is fucking awesome man... good job.. lol, i was just on this thread where this guy was tellin me how useless cool tubes are. lol. subscribed to this one for sure
Yeah, I wouldn't try this in the summer or without a cool tube for sure. The leaves are growing right up to and around the bottom of the tube, with very minimal burning at the tips.

You could certainly do this with a higher wattage bulb; hell, look at Heath Robinson's 600 watt vertical grows (my inspiration, BTW), he pulls like 3 pounds off one vertical 600 watt light.

But he does it SOG style without screens. I couldn't imagine working in screens around a 600 watt (or even 400 watt) light - I'd be blind by now. I have to wear a hat and shades in there as it is right now!
 

MostlyCrazy

New Member
Yeah I was looking around myself after I asked and come up with the same thing. Not that cheap, more around $40/per. They had a drain fitting in them. Do you use that? I've seen some other cooler conversion but most have a problem with the lid thickness and being able to fill the res enough to get anywhere near the bottom of the netpot. Did you have that problem?
 

Dystopia

Active Member
Yeah I was looking around myself after I asked and come up with the same thing. Not that cheap, more around $40/per. They had a drain fitting in them. Do you use that? I've seen some other cooler conversion but most have a problem with the lid thickness and being able to fill the res enough to get anywhere near the bottom of the netpot. Did you have that problem?
Yep, I took out the drain fitting and put in a screw-in barbed fitting (from Home Depot) with a hose and valve connected to it so I could drain the upper reservoir if necessary. I also use liberal amounts of Plumber's Goop to seal things up, I've yet to have a leak with any of my projects when using this stuff. They're sleeping now, or I would take a better picture of it.

And yes, the lids are too thick if you use anything smaller then like a 5" netpot. I started out hand-watering the seedlings, but I had to work late one day (and of course it was the hottest day of the year) and I missed a couple of waterings and one of the seedlings dried up. So I went to RIU to find a solution to this problem and discovered Bubbleponics, and the rest is history, LOL!
 

bubbleobill

Member
Incredible grow, and I like your ideas behind gradually changing the water, looks like I need to upgrade.
Happy harvesting.
 

polishfalcon420

Well-Known Member
Thanks! I've been growing hydroponically off and on since my college days in the early 80's (dating myself). Though I have been involved in larger-scale ops in the past, I only grow for personal legal MMJ use now. This will be my 6th grow using a 250 watt light, each one has yielded progressively more as I try new things...






Thank you!





Thanks, man! It really wasn't that hard to build, just measure twice and cut once LOL! I enjoy DIY, though, so it isn't a chore!

OK, you say "I am going to be experimenting with fewer res changes myself with my new diy setup...but Im not sure about how this would effect the benefical bacterias in the system as in would it let them build up to a harmful measure." I don't believe this is a problem you need to worry about, the beneficial bacteria building up is a good thing - this is called "aging" the water.

In fact this is probably the reason I can run the system so long with lower-level nutes between res changes - the beneficial and symbiotic bacteria/fungi that have built up in my res are keeping the water clean AND allowing the roots to take up ALL of the nutrients.

All frequent water changes and reservoir cleanings do is make this "aging" process start over again! If you've ever maintained a large-scale aquarium (I've done reef tanks) you'll understand that you want the beneficials to build up and that you never do a full water change or thoroughly clean the system (unless something is seriously wrong). You want the water to achieve a balanced condition and this takes time; if you do a full water change and kill off the beneficials you have to start building them up all over again to achieve a balance.

If you monitor your pH you'll probably notice that when you first start up the system and add water the pH will usually move around, usually up. If you leave the pH pretty much alone, then within a few days it should start to stabilize - this is an indication that the beneficials are starting to build up. Once the pH has stabilized your water is pretty much balanced and you should never have to worry about pH again.

But time and time again I see newbies chasing the pH, trying to maintain some "optimal" level only to shock the plant, leaving the plant vulnerable to attack from pathogens. And every time you do a full res change/cleaning you have to start this process all over again, leaving the plant open to attack.

Notice I haven't said anything about organic nutrients yet. In my opinion, there are basically two ways you can maintain your water to insure that pathogens don't take over: maintain water conditions that the beneficials thrive in, or sterilize the water so nothing (except roots) can grow in there.

Beneficials love cold water with lots of dissolved oxygen (DO). If you can maintain your water below 70* F then you should have NO PROBLEM attracting and maintaining the benficials REGARDLESS of whether you are using organic or chemical nutrients. The beneficials will keep the water clean and all frequent water changes will do is upset the balance. If you must change the water, then only change one quarter of it at a time.

Nasties love higher water temp with low DO. If you CANNOT maintain low temp/high DO water conditions then in my opinion you should maintain STERILE water (with something like a preventative H2O2 regimen) and ONLY use CHEMICAL nutrients. While organics do attract and feed beneficials (the beneficials are, in fact, necessary for organics to work) they will ALSO attract and feed the nasties IF the water conditions are conducive to the nasties growth. So in poor water conditions I would use chemical nutes only and I would also use H2O2 and do frequent water changes and cleanings to maintain sterile water.

So in short, yes you can grow with few or even no water changes - it is even BETTER if you do, IMO - IF your water conditions are conducive to beneficials. If not, then I would recommend using only chemical nutes and maintaining sterile water with frequent water changes.
thats some great info there man thanks for the great response thats what I wanted to here. one thing that I did learn about the ph chasing is it sucks and is very frustrating. when I first started I would ph my water and then add the nutes and recheck to make sure it was where I wanted it but once it got in the res for the first two or three days the ph would rise and keep rising if I didnt address it but I would try and do it slowly with not many good results. then out of nowhere the ph would crash way below what it should be then Id have my hands full you know. so on one res change for shits and giggles instead of phing my water first I just added nutes and then checked the ph. by the way I use GH Floranova organic. after I added the nutes and checked ph it was spot on 5.8 I thought cool we'll see how this works. I did the res change and had no issues at all will ph fluctuation it did move up and down a little here and there but nothing major and stayed well within the proper range. I also stopped ph adjusting my top off solution whether or not it had nutes in it and found that the nutes that were already in the res would balance it out without any problems. this was a great discovery for me as it took care of my biggest issue. after I discovered this all was good as I was able maintain stable ph everything else was trivial. Im not saying this is how it will be with all ph balanced nutes but I think everyone should try it.I feel that when I was using the ph down and the balanced nutes they fought eachother until they balanced out causing the ph swings. thanks again for the info Dystopia especially the aquarium analogy as I have maintained large tanks of african cichlids and understand the bacteria in that sort now that I think about it why wouldnt it be comparable.
 

Dystopia

Active Member




I’m going to talk a little more about how I mange the water and canopy today, but first a little root porn. I haven’t looked at the roots in about a month, so I took a peek and they’re looking good. The reddish-brown tinge is typical in my experience when using the General Hydroponics Flora series nutes:









PH AND NUTRIENT MANAGEMENT

OK, I’ve been on the standard GH flower nutes (at ¾ strength) for a week now. It’s been 2 days since my first post, where the pH was at 6.17 and the ppm’s were at 862. I did a straight water top-off yesterday, and now it’s time to add back some nutrients. Here are the current water conditions:





The pH has climbed to 6.45, and the ppm’s have dropped to 816. The pH climb is larger and faster than I was getting with veg nutes; this tells me that the plants are still sucking up nitrogen (which causes the pH to rise). Since there is less N available in the flower nutrients the pH is climbing faster - at least that’s what I believe. So I’m going to add back more N with this top off by going with a 1:1:1 ratio of Grow-Micro-Bloom; this will give me about 4% more N than the standard 1:2:3 ratio for flower.

I want to raise the ppm’s by about 50 to get back to the mid 800 ppm range (go from the current 816ppm to around 870ppm). I have 14 total gallons in the system; I’m going to use the GH Flora calculator to figure out how much nutrients to add to 14 gallons of water to achieve 50ppm:

http://www.genhydro.com/genhydro_US/fchcol.html

The calculator doesn’t go up to 14 gallons, so I’ll halve that to 7 gallons and see how much to add to get 100ppm (I hope this makes sense). So I set the calculator up for ml per 7 gallons. I want a 1:1:1 ratio, and if I put 10ml Grow, 10ml Micro, 10ml Bloom into the calculator I get 107ppm. Good enough for me. So I add that amount to my pH-d top-off water and add it to the bottom reservoir. I know I said that I do n 't use ph up/down very often, but in this case the pH is climbing a little faster than normal so I added 1/2 tablespoon of pH down to the bottom reservoir. The combination of nutes and pH-down drops the pH to 6.14 and raises the ppm’s to 995 (hard to see that):





Remember, this is the bottom reservoir – the top reservoir’s water is still unchanged. This is where the recirculating system comes into play. My water pump is on a timer that turns on the pump for 15 minutes out of every hour. So the bottom reservoir’s water will be slowly mixed into the top reservoir’s water, minimizing rapid changes in the root zone. After a few hours the water in the entire system has stabilized at the following readings:




Pretty close to what I was shooting for. Now a little more about the N usage. It seems like many people switch to flower nutes at the same time they go to 12/12. I don’t like doing this; in my experience the plants are still using lots of N for 2-3 weeks into flowering. If it doesn’t find sufficient N in the soup then it will start sucking it out of the older leaves, and many people who switch to flower nutes too early will see significant yellowing of the leaves. So I like to stay on veg nutes for 2 weeks into flower; apparently PPP likes it for longer, hence the pH rise.

Eventually (hopefully soon), in my experience the pH will stabilize and actually start drifting down. I believe this is the signal that the plant is truly done stretching and is going into full-scale flowering. It will start using more Ca, Mg, and K which are basic in nature – so the pH will become more acidic as these nutrients are being used up. This is when I’ll add a P/K booster – I use Advanced Nutrients Hammerhead – to the mix to supply more of these nutes and help control the pH. I’m also doing some more research on Cal-Mag, and may add it to my repertoire if the Hammerhead isn’t enough to control the pH.

As you can see in this picture, these babies are still stretching with no hint of yellowing. I’m glad I planned for lots of stretch; these plants have easily tripled in size since I flipped to 12/12 a little over 3 weeks ago.





CANOPY MAINTENANCE

I’m not quite done with the canopy maintenance, either. I’m still trying to maintain an even canopy as they stretch; any shoots that get fruity get tied back or super-cropped. I’m a strict disciplinarian when it comes to my plants:






That's it for now!
 

Lt Shiny Sides

Well-Known Member
They look beautiful. My nutes recommend using grow nutes throughout flower as well but I think I'll cut back after 2 weeks in.
 

thedude121212

New Member
just found this grow must be fate cuz i was thinking of doin a scrog with what im currently doing and a net like that wood be perfect thanx for cutting out the thought/design process for me even though it was unintentional. +rep for sure
 

Dystopia

Active Member
one thing that I did learn about the ph chasing is it sucks and is very frustrating. when I first started I would ph my water and then add the nutes and recheck to make sure it was where I wanted it but once it got in the res for the first two or three days the ph would rise and keep rising if I didnt address it but I would try and do it slowly with not many good results. then out of nowhere the ph would crash way below what it should be then Id have my hands full you know.
This is fairly common, I believe. I like to call it the pH "popping". I believe what happens is that you finally add enough pH-down to overcome the buffer and wham! the pH drops like a rock. Then it doesn't matter whether you add pH up or down - the pH swings wildly because the buffer has been nuetralized. But this is just what I think, don't take it as fact or gospel, I'm not a scientist...


thanks again for the info Dystopia especially the aquarium analogy as I have maintained large tanks of african cichlids and understand the bacteria in that sort now that I think about it why wouldnt it be comparable.
Yeah, whenever you first start up an aquarium you typically will let the water and filters and pumps run for a week or two before adding fish or coral or whatnot to allow the water to "age" and the beneficials to build up. I've never used organics, but if I did I would probably give some thought to aging the water before I put the plants in it. I know they make products to "turbo-boost" these beneficials, both for aquariums and hydroponics, but it still takes time for them to become established in my opinion...
 

Dystopia

Active Member
Brilliant logic. explanation and monitoring of your system! The only problem I see is that you may be too good and I'm not sure you can smoke all you will yeild! LOL!

Here's a better GH calculator.


http://www.genhydro.com/calculator/index.html
Thanks! Yeah, I typically have pulled from 5 to 7 oz's from my 250 watt grows, which is enough to keep me going 'til the next harvest. IDK, I don't think 10 or more zips is out of the question with this grow if I can pull it off.

My next grow will definitely be less labor-intensive but I think still high-yielding (for a 250 watt light, anyways). I'm already mulling over some ideas, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, eh?!
 

Stgeneziz

Active Member
Well those girls definitely have the girth to make any man happy! lol. and such vigorous growth! I'm thinking chiller once i'm done with this grow for sure.. everyone says it really makes things easy when you have good water temps. mine bounce between 72-75f. Scary when the room gets real hot some days..
 

Dystopia

Active Member
just found this grow must be fate cuz i was thinking of doin a scrog with what im currently doing and a net like that wood be perfect thanx for cutting out the thought/design process for me even though it was unintentional. +rep for sure
Thanks, man!

I'll be raising the light tomorrow, so I'll go into more detail about how that's set up then...
 

MostlyCrazy

New Member
Think your right. I netted out 6.6 dry from my last grow with the 250 but your current density would indicate 10 as a possibility or even a probablility. Pretty sure that would max out a 250. That would bust the gram per watt mark.
 

blueybong

Well-Known Member
Dystopia ~ like many others have said, "Most excellent grow & knowledge!"

Your knowledge & experience really helped me in understanding how to maintain the rez, w/o doing weekly changes. Plus how you handle your nutes & ph has been very beneficial too.

I'm building a DIY multi-Flow E&G that I'll be using as a recirculating DWC. I'm growing 4 plants in 3.5 gallon buckets(all with airstones) and was wondering if you could share your thoughts on the following?

How often should I drain and how long do I keep it drained until it's time to reflood?
How long should I keep them flooded between drains?

Look forward to your input!

Again, most excellent!
 
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