According to the web site 12-24 vdc, 24vac (12 to 24 VDC Permissible ripple: 20% max). I too am wanting to keep as much 12v as possible.
High-pressure (aka "true") aeroponics - nutrient schedule?
- Thread starter QuentinQuark
- Start date
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
Oh cool... Well let me know how it works for ya. I remember fatman saying it was no small feat programming that timer. And judging by his banter, if he found something complicated it might be quite a little job... He spoke really highly of them and I like lab-grade equiptment, so I am curious to hear how you do with it...
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
Well, those pics show still young roots. But by the time they reach the floor in a couple weeks, they'll be sitting in the wet bottom, I wanna try to keep them as dry as reasonable for the elusive pom-poms
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
Not sure KM... 'tis better to include an actual link so we can see the exact thing as you. I'm trying to find out what works best, if I do I'll let ya know. I do know that normal windowscreen is way too big of holes, and the roots grow right through it. I also know you gotta install the screen tight, or the roots get under, and press through... So far I beleive a certain type of silkscreen, and that ntf capillary matting have both been used sucessfully. Treefarmer once put fishtank bioballs in the bottom, and it didn't work very well unfortunately- but I give him props for being creative...
PetFlora
Well-Known Member
TB: You confused me, as my topic was "new PVC Coupler ."
First, there is a relationship between plant height and pod depth/volume to consider. Pod depth should be greater than plant height; shallower than that and you will soon have a thick entangled root mat on the bottom.
IF you' re growing 3+ ft trees in 20" deep pods you are going to have a problem. Last grow I had to leave the starters in the bubbler r days longer than I wanted, as I was working on my new DIY tent.
Where the roots are nice and bushy in the above photo and would have remained more like that (pom pom), the tap roots all hauled-ass south to the bubbling water. The sooner plants are introduced to atomized mist the sooner they branch out collecting the nutes from the surrounding air, instead of down.
If you flip to 12/12 ~ 10 days before the roots hit bottom you should have minimal roots on the bottom. I solved that by placing a plastic commercial lighting grate on the bottom, raising it with a couple stone paver bricks. It worked great. Should be a photo here. check my album. hth
First, there is a relationship between plant height and pod depth/volume to consider. Pod depth should be greater than plant height; shallower than that and you will soon have a thick entangled root mat on the bottom.
IF you' re growing 3+ ft trees in 20" deep pods you are going to have a problem. Last grow I had to leave the starters in the bubbler r days longer than I wanted, as I was working on my new DIY tent.
Where the roots are nice and bushy in the above photo and would have remained more like that (pom pom), the tap roots all hauled-ass south to the bubbling water. The sooner plants are introduced to atomized mist the sooner they branch out collecting the nutes from the surrounding air, instead of down.
If you flip to 12/12 ~ 10 days before the roots hit bottom you should have minimal roots on the bottom. I solved that by placing a plastic commercial lighting grate on the bottom, raising it with a couple stone paver bricks. It worked great. Should be a photo here. check my album. hth
Mike Young
Well-Known Member
I found this site that is actually cheeper: http://www.msj-gallery.com/servlet/the-104/Monofilament-Polyester-110-Silk/Detail
151 micron has a 0.006 opening. I can't see a root going through that.
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
I got my nozzles today. Damn that's a small hole .016. I received my solenoids and timer a few days ago. I played around with the timer and I think I have everything figured out, only took me two days. I programmed it last night at 20 seconds delay and 2 seconds on and letting it cycle not hooked to any thing to see how dependable it is. I plan on getting two more and hooking them up so I have a main timer controlling a night cycle timer and a day cycle timer for nutes. And the main timer will also control my lighting so everything will work together. I have a rough sketch on paper I drawed out to help me keep the wiring staight with all the different timers, relays, solenoids, and such. I figured that If I went this route I wouldn't have much more money in the system if I went with the cap or the other timer that is a little nicer and a timer for the light. This way everything is digital and very precise with no stop watches trying to set timers.
I plan on getting a 24v pump from reptile basics, the 8800. With everything else related to the pump being 12v I am going to rig up a battery back up using a car battery and a dc to ac converter to power all the little 12v and 24v transformers. I am going to make it where if the ac power goes out It will trigger a relay turning on the battery back up power and still keep the pump and nuke timers working weather the lights are on or not.
Let me know what you guys think.
I plan on getting a 24v pump from reptile basics, the 8800. With everything else related to the pump being 12v I am going to rig up a battery back up using a car battery and a dc to ac converter to power all the little 12v and 24v transformers. I am going to make it where if the ac power goes out It will trigger a relay turning on the battery back up power and still keep the pump and nuke timers working weather the lights are on or not.
Let me know what you guys think.
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
Sounds pretty cool KM... The only thing I question is if you might want to just buy all 12v components like I am. Then you can just wire everything to a 12 battery and keep a trickle charger on it 24/7. -If the power goes out no biggie as the battery will keep things going for a while without the aid of the trickle charge. I don't remember which timers you went with, so that may be a factor if they're running off mains power, but I'd tend to think it is a little inefficient to run a dc to ac invertor just to power your 12 and 24v transformers that bring you back to dc power again... Feels like to many conversions going on and if you could keep it simpler it would be easier. Those invertors get warm and usually have a fan running in them taking up power, and are likely not meant to run 24/7- not to mention they are another failure point. Perhaps I didn't understand what you were describing though..?
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
That's cool KM... I got a flojet 12v that's a nice pump. Since I haven't heard the 8800 for comparison, I cannot vouch which would be quieter (too bad pump specs don't routinely include DB levels). I do remember reading the 6600 is really quiet however.
Oh wow- since this was originally a nute thread- I'll say this: I have just been trying to open the pandora's box of nutes and figuring out what will work for me in my setup. Atomizer gave me some good advice (as usual) on how to mix GH products to come close to what he uses- which is a homebrew of Canna Hydro- a line specifically designed for drain to waste. Not having access to the Canna products for anything less than rediculous prices for shipping has me delving into the subject deeper. I decided to take a "from the ground up approach". I happened across some plant tissue sample reports and will attempt to come close as possible to mimick their ratios- gonna try a stab at it with my own personal mix of Dynagrow foliage pro, magpro, protekt and bloom. My Potassium will be a bit higher than what Atomizer and Tree farmer run, but with the higher temps here it may prove beneficial. I also have a bit of an issue where my calcium will be only double my mag (Ideally it would be about 4:1 over the mag)- but I am starting to understand how nutrients work and it might be ok (this is my own deduction from all I have read-and I would appreciate being set straight by anyone who knows better if my theory is flawed). So far how I understand it- is you have an allotment of salts that can be applied to the roots with a maximal cap that keeps water flowing into the roots by having the salt concentration always lower on the outside than in the roots themselves (this prevents "burn"). You can pretty much throw whatever at the plant within that allotment, as long as no deficiencies exist without the need to add an element that would raise the ec higher than to break the salt balance... Does anyone know if my current understanding is about right? If I am correct, then my mix, although imperfect, will be able to supply all of the ratios in the ballpark of the tissue samples at an ec level that keeps the salt concentrations properly balanced. My only wish is that I had some access to individual chemical elements, incase I notice a calcium deficiency for instance, then I could just add in a little calcium, rather than trying to keep a balance with a bottle that also adds 5 other elements in whatever ratio they were packaged in the bottle with... I can definitely see that I will eventually graduate to completely mixing my own nutes someday though. Oh- and I will probably just use the Dynagrow foliage pro for veg- it's already a 3-1-2 ratio- (supposedly the target for veg) and as a 1 part formula, it also includes all the micronutrients I might need apparently -easy!.
Thats great stuff TB. That was going to be one of my next questions. I have read some of Fatman's post and he usually mixed his own nukes and was going to send that info to Tree Farmer by PM. I would love to have that, but it seems both have fell off the planet so to speak. I don't know if anyone else may have that info or not (hint-hint). But I do know as well as you that the current mix in nukes that you buy, that most if not all are not made for hp aero. So if you do get it figured out please be sure to drop me a PM or something. It's still several weeks out before I am ready to grow. Good luck!
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
Well, I've been made to understand that if it works in hydro, it should work with hpa. The big problem I see is that formulations made for recirculating have quite higher allotments of P and K because those elements buffer the solution for ph stability. Since we are DTW, none of this is important to us, and is just a bunch of overhead ppm that will be wasted... As I said, Atomizer provided me with a recipe to mix 3 bottles of GH that would come close to his regimen. Here was the mix in ml/liter:
0.7ml micro
0.2ml Bloom
0.8ml Grow
I think all of this is probably only as complicated as you make it. If I wasn't so foolish/curious I would probably just use this mix and get on with life.
To be honest, I think I've decided to just buy a one time round of the canna substra 1L size bottles. I can use them as a benchmark to compare results with anything else I try. Wow- to make it all easier I just came across a place that will sell me the 5 litre bottles for under $40 each- and shipping for 4 of them (20L total) is only 40 bucks or so. This might be just what we need to KISS. http://www.discount-hydro.com/productdisp.php?pid=54&navid=12Thanks for sharing the receipe. Great find on the canna. Correct me if I'm wrong, I was reading up on the web site you linked but don't the plants need more nitrogen than anything else? Seems like I read that somewhere, but with so much BS out there it is probally wrong. But anyway that calculates to 500 gallon of nutes for $80, 16 cent a gallon. And no more than is required per day that is affortable. Again GREAT find. Woops forgot the shipping, make that 24 cent a gallon, still not bad at all.
Edit: Looking around the web, found this site http://www.4hydro.com/nutrients/substraFloresAB.asp
they have all four in 5 liter shipped for $176.11. That may be cheeper than where you were looking. Of cource you don't have to buy all four.
Edit: Looking around the web, found this site http://www.4hydro.com/nutrients/substraFloresAB.asp
they have all four in 5 liter shipped for $176.11. That may be cheeper than where you were looking. Of cource you don't have to buy all four.
Trichy Bastard
Well-Known Member
Cool KM- I have shipping to Hawaii, so for me the other site was still better- but either is good. Yeah about the nitrogen- take all you read with a grain of salt. I have been pulling my hair out with all the conflicting info out there- I decided trusting someone's real life experience must be the best route here. If it works for Atomizer then I think that's worth more than any advertisement or literature put out there by a nute company with alterior motives, or another guy regurgitating what he's read somewhere... He strikes me as a person who's mind will always seek to do things the best way possible, and he's had enough time to decide the Canna wasn't working for him by now- but he still uses it... I will say this though- I think in the end if you were looking for the "perfect ratio" then you probably cannot copy anyone's exact recipe- because the environmental conditions that influence things like respiration, your heat levels, co2, altitude, wind, hours of light, etc, etc, all make little points where the nutes could be tweaked to work best with the conditions. But I also think that if it works for one, then the same formula will work well enough- and in time you can perfect for your exact situation and phenotype...
Sorry, I forgot you were floating around on an island, LOL. I wasn't aware that he used canna himself, that says a lot. If it is good enough for him, its good enough for me. Yea he seems to always have and willing to share great info. I respect his opinion very much. Thanks again for the info.
I went with canna because G-Love had good results with it, iirc he also used a mix of canna aqua with success when he ran out of substra. Treefarmer did just as well with GH so there are a few tried and tested nutes that work with hp aero. If you use one of these initially it`ll be one less variable to worry about.