How Sexy Roots Does DWC

S

sexyroots.for.all

Member
Hi Roll-It-Up!
Sexy Roots strongly believes that Deep Water Culture done correctly is the best median in which to grow today. My goal is simply to help everyone I can to maximize their yields and increase the quality of their crops. Over the next few days I will be putting together a comprehensive guide on the future of indoor agriculture; DWC. I look forward to answering any questions that you have and furthering any discussions that might arise, however, I request that you wait until I have finished before any comments are made.

Section 1
The first and foremost item on any growers list must be preparing the grow room itself:

What makes indoor growing vastly superior to outdoor growing is the environmental control that the grower is able to gain. Therefore, it is imperative to be able to regulate all facets of your environment. Every experienced grower will tell you having the ability to have 100% control over your temperature, humidity, light, and air(composition and flow) will allow a skilled grower to vastly improve their results. Because of this we have invested in a plethora of equipment to achieve a controlled hermetically sealed room, we recognize that for the average grower this is not feasible, however do your best to control what you can. Remember hygiene is one of the most important overlooked aspects of every grow room.

For Pictures 1 and 2:
We use a 12 ton air conditioner that is hard wired into our grow room allowing us to keep our temperature at a constant 77 degrees. The attached UV air filter functions to kills any unwanted bacteria that could harm our plants.

For Pictures 3 and 4:
Cold air should be pumped from the ceiling, cold air then falls over the plants keeping them cool while simotaniously providing the necessary components for respiration. Respiration is the chemical opposite of photosynthesis because it releases energy, using up food and oxygen and producing carbon dioxide. Photosynthesis requires energy (light) and produces food, using up carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. Unfortunately, breathing and respiration often get confused. Respiration is the release of energy from food. Breathing is the process of obtaining oxygen and removing carbon dioxide, usually using lungs or gills. So in one sense plants don't breathe at all, although they do respire!
Ballasts should be kept external from the grow room not only do they they cause heat rifts. Electronic ballast, which i highly recommend, can interfere with your electronic meters for ppm/Ec and Ph.

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/lk400w120240vhpsmhe-ballast.aspx

For pictures 5 and 6:
Plants need CO2 for photosynthesis, the naturally occurring levels of CO2 are less than ideal for plants so CO2 is dispersed; as CO2 is heavier than most naturally occurring compounds in air it is best to disperse the CO2 at high level and let it fall down.
 

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S

sexyroots.for.all

Member
The best median in which to grow your plants is a vastly debated topic; unquestionably it directly affects the growth rate, production rate and production quality of your plants. Deep Water Culture provides your roots continuous nutrient feeding and root zone aeration, allowing for the plant to reach for its genetic potential.

Deep Water Buckets/lids:
The combination of the bucket and lid is extremely important since together, they have to: be sturdy enough to support a full grown plant, light impenetrable to protect the roots, and create a tight seal to ensure maximum humidity in the bucket. All are essential for the best results.



http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/5galblackbucket.aspx

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/6bucketbasketlid.aspx


Air Pumps:
The air pumps provide oxygen to the roots of the plant via an airstone, which is an essential ingredient in the Krebs cycle. The Krebs cycle, also called the citric acid cycle, is a fundamental metabolic pathway involving eight enzymes essential for energy production through aerobic respiration. This pathway is also an important source of biosynthetic building blocks used in gluconeogenesis, amino acid biosynthesis, and fatty acid biosynthesis. The Krebs cycle takes place in mitochondria where it oxidizes acetyl-CoA, releasing carbon dioxide and extracting energy primarily as the reduced high-energy electron carriers NADH and FADH2. NADH and FADH2 transfer chemical energy from metabolic intermediates to the electron transport chain to create a different form of energy, a gradient of protons across the inner mitochondrial membrane. The energy of the proton gradient in turn drives synthesis of the high-energy phosphate bonds in ATP, the common energy currency of the cell used to drive a huge variety of reactions and processes.

An acetyl-CoA molecule (2 carbons) enters the cycle when citrate synthase condenses it with oxaloacetate (4 carbons) to create citrate (6 carbons). One source of the acetyl-CoA that enters the Krebs cycle is the conversion of pyruvate from glycolysis to acetyl-CoA by pyruvate dehydrogenase. Acetyl-CoA is a key metabolic junction, derived not only from glycolysis but also from the oxidation of fatty acids. As the cycle proceeds, the Krebs cycle intermediates are oxidized, transferring their energy to create reduced NADH and FADH2. The oxidation of the metabolic intermediates of the pathway also releases two carbon dioxide molecules for each acetyl-CoA that enters the cycle, leaving the net carbons the same with each turn of the cycle. This carbon dioxide, along with more released by pyruvate dehydrogenase, is the source of CO2 released into the atmosphere when you breathe.
The Krebs cycle, like other metabolic pathways, is tightly regulated to efficiently meet the needs of the cell and the organis. The irreversible synthesis of acetyl-CoA from pyruvate by pyruvate dehydrogenase is one important regulatory step, and is inhibited by high concentrations of ATP that indicate abundant energy. Citrate synthase, alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase and isocitrate dehydrogenase are all key regulatory steps in the cycle and are each inhibited by abundant energy in the cell, indicated through high concentrations of ATP or NADH. The activity of the Krebs cycle is closely linked to the availability of oxygen, although none of the steps in the pathway directly use oxygen. Oxygen is required for the electron transport chain to function, which recycles NADH back to NAD+ and FADH2 back to FADH, providing NAD+ and ADH required by enzymes in the Krebs cycle. If the oxygen supply to a muscle cell or a yeast cell is low, NAD+ and FADH levels fall, the Krebs cycle cannot proceed forward, and the cell must resort to fermentation to continue making ATP.
Some Krebs cycle enzymes require non-protein cofactors for activity, such as thiamine, vitamin B1 (the second link below is for a B vitamin additive that works great in almost every nutrient regimen). Insufficient quantities of this vitamin in the diet leads to decreased activity of pyruvate dehydrogenase and alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, and a decrease in the ability of the Krebs cycle to meet metabolic demands, causing the disease beriberi.


http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/commercialairpumpwith12outlets110ltperminute.aspx

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/b-52fertilizerbooster1l.aspx


Air Stones:
Now that one can see the importance of oxygen to any root zone, producing oxygen that is able to be harnessed instantly by the root mass requires that the oxygen be diffused efficiently into the solution which then rises up into the root mass. However, most air stones are not able to diffuse the air into small enough particles that accelerate your plants growth. From personal experience, the best results have come from a product called micropores. While most air stones diffuse bubbles into the solution ranging from 3-20 millimeters in size, micropores are able to reduce the size to .25 milliliters. This is the smallest diffusion size I have come across and produces interesting results within the chamber; root hairs form on almost all main pipelines into the plant! These small root hairs are primarily responsible for nutrient uptake, so you will see increased feeding and growth with the addition of these little guys ;).

http://www.hydroponics.net/i/131655



PS, the picture is of 1 of my babies :) Just started flowering after 5 weeks in veg and 1 week in the EZ Cloner

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/ezclonemachine30plantsites.aspx
 

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sexyroots.for.all

Member
Section 3:

To “shed some light” on the proper way to choose and setup your HID’s or LED’s (growing puns!), there are a few important factors to consider.

How many plants (at what size) do you plan on growing?
How much space do you need to cover?
Is there a limit to how much electricity you can use?
To what extent can you control your environments temperature?

Since plants grow faster in DWC, the type of light you choose should be able to cover an area that supplies your plants with adequate lighting on all sides, ensuring even growth. In addition, your lighting setup should be able to deliver intense light down to the bottom leaves of the plant in the correct frequencies! Note*: If you are running a sea of green setup, light penetration is not as important since your plants bulkiest flowers are in the top set of leaves, but sea of green (in my personal experience) is not ideal for DWC.

So, now that one has an understanding about the functions a good grow light has to serve, lets assess the products available individually and rate accordingly.

LED: These lights deliver over 95% absorbable light to your plants, compared to only 15% with High Intensity Discharge (HID) Lighting. To achieve this, LED diodes output light at specific frequencies which are beneficial to the plant. In addition, the power usage of these lights ranges from 90-350 watts (incredibly low!), and the 300-350 Watt models are able to cover what a 600W metal halide is able to do during the vegetative stage (in my personal experience). However, the intensity of the light fades very quickly over distance with these units, since the initial output is relatively low. This means that taller plants will get nice tops but anything below will suffer greatly. The light will have to sit closer to the plants too, to ensure that the full intensity is reached and since flowering plants need more light than their veg. counterparts, LED’s are sometimes inadequate sources of light. Do not worry about heat though: LED’s are great for stealth because in addition to the low electric signature, there is no thermal signature. Currently the technology is on the expensive end, so for growers with a modest budget, this is not an ideal route, but it definitely has a promising future in the market and has already delivered good results for those who use it right!

http://www.prosourceworldwide.com/product_p/illuminator pro series 350w.htm


HID’s or High Intensity Discharge lights can be separated into two categories: High Pressure Sodium (HPS) or Metal Halide (MH).
p.s. - metal halide is for vegetative growth, high pressure sodium is for flowering :)

MH / Conversion bulbs: Combination HPS/MH lamps combine a metal halide bulb and a high pressure sodium bulb in the same reflector, either with a single integrated ballast assembly or two separate ballast assemblies. The combination of blue metal halide light and red high pressure sodium light is said by manufacturers to create an ideal spectral blend and extremely high outputs, but in reality it is a compromise on both situations. These types of lights usually cost quite a bit more than a standard light and have a shorter life span. Also because they use two smaller lights rather than one larger light the distance that the light penetrates is significantly shorter, in comparison to a regular hid bulb, due to the inverse square law of light.

However, companies like Hortilux are producing pure MH “blue” lights that replicate daylight sun and are the first true vegetative HID lights that are not combination bulbs.

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/hortiluxbase-upbluedaylightsupermetalhalide400w.aspx

HPS: High pressure sodium lamps yield yellow lighting (2200K) and have a very poor color rendering index of 22. They are used for the second (or reproductive) phase of the growth. If high pressure sodium lamps are used for the vegetative phase, plants will usually grow slightly more quickly. The major drawback to growing under high pressure sodium alone is that the plants tend to be taller and leggier with a longer internodal length than plants grown under metal halide. . They are used in less color critical applications such as parking lots, street lights and for supplemental greenhouse lighting. The benefit of high pressure sodium lamps to the horticultural industry is their ability to enhance the fruiting and flowering process in plants. Orange/red spectrum HPS is the spectrum plants use in their reproductive processes, which generally produces larger harvests of higher quality herbs, vegetables, fruits or flowers. Sometimes the plants grown under these lamps do not appear very healthy (although they usually are). This is due to the poor color rendering of high pressure sodium, which makes the plants look pale, washed out or nitrogen starved. Benefits to high pressure sodium lighting are their incredibly long usable bulb life (up to two years in many cases); and unparalleled efficiency at six times more light output per watt of energy consumed than a standard incandescent grow lamp.


While HID’s use up more electricity than LED’s or CFL’s (compact fluorescent lighting), they put out more intense usable frequencies from one source than any grow light available to the average consumers. This allows for deep and wide coverage, but remember your electricity bill will be a reminder of the lighting system you are using! In addition, because DWC systems sit underneath the lights, a common problem is that your nutrient solution (and roots) get pretty hot from the heat of the HID. Its for this reason that air cooled reflectors are always recommended to take away excess heat and keep your plants happy and close to the light.

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/daystar6with600wbulbextension.aspx



Basic chart for height above plants and coverage area with HID and LED’s

Vegetative
(400W MH) - 24” / 3‘x3’ coverage
(350W LED) - 12” - 24” /3‘x3’ coverage

Note*: Your plants requirements for light during flowering are 2-4 times your vegetative stage

(600W HPS / Combination) - 24”- 36” / 4’x4’ coverage
(1000W HPS) - 36” - 48” / 5’x5’ coverage

In the grow room seen in the pictures, we are using two MH bulbs, and two HPS bulbs in 4 daystar air cooled hoods (as seen in the link). We chose this lighting scheme for a few reasons...
The plants should produce 1-3 pounds each depending on the strain, so the density and height of the plant requires lighting that can reach to the bottom flowers.
Using a MH during flowering (in addition to your normal HPS bulb) increases potency in the plant because MH bulbs emit more UV intensity, a frequency known to increase cannabanoid contents.


In the next section, we will go over feeding regimens and what nutrients are worth your time for DWC specific growers :)
<3 RIU
 

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goofygolfer

goofygolfer

Well-Known Member
sexyroots.for.all said:
Section 3:

To “shed some light” on the proper way to choose and setup your HID’s or LED’s (growing puns!), there are a few important factors to consider.

How many plants (at what size) do you plan on growing?
How much space do you need to cover?
Is there a limit to how much electricity you can use?
To what extent can you control your environments temperature?

Since plants grow faster in DWC, the type of light you choose should be able to cover an area that supplies your plants with adequate lighting on all sides, ensuring even growth. In addition, your lighting setup should be able to deliver intense light down to the bottom leaves of the plant in the correct frequencies! Note*: If you are running a sea of green setup, light penetration is not as important since your plants bulkiest flowers are in the top set of leaves, but sea of green (in my personal experience) is not ideal for DWC.

So, now that one has an understanding about the functions a good grow light has to serve, lets assess the products available individually and rate accordingly.

LED: These lights deliver over 95% absorbable light to your plants, compared to only 15% with High Intensity Discharge (HID) Lighting. To achieve this, LED diodes output light at specific frequencies which are beneficial to the plant. In addition, the power usage of these lights ranges from 90-350 watts (incredibly low!), and the 300-350 Watt models are able to cover what a 600W metal halide is able to do during the vegetative stage (in my personal experience). However, the intensity of the light fades very quickly over distance with these units, since the initial output is relatively low. This means that taller plants will get nice tops but anything below will suffer greatly. The light will have to sit closer to the plants too, to ensure that the full intensity is reached and since flowering plants need more light than their veg. counterparts, LED’s are sometimes inadequate sources of light. Do not worry about heat though: LED’s are great for stealth because in addition to the low electric signature, there is no thermal signature. Currently the technology is on the expensive end, so for growers with a modest budget, this is not an ideal route, but it definitely has a promising future in the market and has already delivered good results for those who use it right!

http://www.prosourceworldwide.com/product_p/illuminator pro series 350w.htm


HID’s or High Intensity Discharge lights can be separated into two categories: High Pressure Sodium (HPS) or Metal Halide (MH).
p.s. - metal halide is for vegetative growth, high pressure sodium is for flowering :)

MH / Conversion bulbs: Combination HPS/MH lamps combine a metal halide bulb and a high pressure sodium bulb in the same reflector, either with a single integrated ballast assembly or two separate ballast assemblies. The combination of blue metal halide light and red high pressure sodium light is said by manufacturers to create an ideal spectral blend and extremely high outputs, but in reality it is a compromise on both situations. These types of lights usually cost quite a bit more than a standard light and have a shorter life span. Also because they use two smaller lights rather than one larger light the distance that the light penetrates is significantly shorter, in comparison to a regular hid bulb, due to the inverse square law of light.

However, companies like Hortilux are producing pure MH “blue” lights that replicate daylight sun and are the first true vegetative HID lights that are not combination bulbs.

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/hortiluxbase-upbluedaylightsupermetalhalide400w.aspx

HPS: High pressure sodium lamps yield yellow lighting (2200K) and have a very poor color rendering index of 22. They are used for the second (or reproductive) phase of the growth. If high pressure sodium lamps are used for the vegetative phase, plants will usually grow slightly more quickly. The major drawback to growing under high pressure sodium alone is that the plants tend to be taller and leggier with a longer internodal length than plants grown under metal halide. . They are used in less color critical applications such as parking lots, street lights and for supplemental greenhouse lighting. The benefit of high pressure sodium lamps to the horticultural industry is their ability to enhance the fruiting and flowering process in plants. Orange/red spectrum HPS is the spectrum plants use in their reproductive processes, which generally produces larger harvests of higher quality herbs, vegetables, fruits or flowers. Sometimes the plants grown under these lamps do not appear very healthy (although they usually are). This is due to the poor color rendering of high pressure sodium, which makes the plants look pale, washed out or nitrogen starved. Benefits to high pressure sodium lighting are their incredibly long usable bulb life (up to two years in many cases); and unparalleled efficiency at six times more light output per watt of energy consumed than a standard incandescent grow lamp.


While HID’s use up more electricity than LED’s or CFL’s (compact fluorescent lighting), they put out more intense usable frequencies from one source than any grow light available to the average consumers. This allows for deep and wide coverage, but remember your electricity bill will be a reminder of the lighting system you are using! In addition, because DWC systems sit underneath the lights, a common problem is that your nutrient solution (and roots) get pretty hot from the heat of the HID. Its for this reason that air cooled reflectors are always recommended to take away excess heat and keep your plants happy and close to the light.

http://www.hydrogardencenter.com/daystar6with600wbulbextension.aspx



Basic chart for height above plants and coverage area with HID and LED’s

Vegetative
(400W MH) - 24” / 3‘x3’ coverage
(350W LED) - 12” - 24” /3‘x3’ coverage

Note*: Your plants requirements for light during flowering are 2-4 times your vegetative stage

(600W HPS / Combination) - 24”- 36” / 4’x4’ coverage
(1000W HPS) - 36” - 48” / 5’x5’ coverage

In the grow room seen in the pictures, we are using two MH bulbs, and two HPS bulbs in 4 daystar air cooled hoods (as seen in the link). We chose this lighting scheme for a few reasons...
The plants should produce 1-3 pounds each depending on the strain, so the density and height of the plant requires lighting that can reach to the bottom flowers.
Using a MH during flowering (in addition to your normal HPS bulb) increases potency in the plant because MH bulbs emit more UV intensity, a frequency known to increase cannabanoid contents.


In the next section, we will go over feeding regimens and what nutrients are worth your time for DWC specific growers :)
<3 RIU
Click to expand...

looks like mini air comps. on the floor lol . nice i ll take a seat right here scribed
 
vh13

vh13

Well-Known Member
+rep, +subscribed, +excited

Some great info here. Some stuff I've learned myself the hard way, lots more I'm looking forward to digesting fully later.

That microbubble, fuzzy root thing is incredible, it's what sets DWC apart, let me tell you!!! :idea::arrow::clap:

I used to use bubble walls, but along with quite a few other upgrades to my box I recently picked up one of these ceramic stones:

http://www.amazon.com/Micro-Bubbler-Air-Stone-6-in/dp/B0002566VK/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1270536803&sr=8-1-fkmr0

The difference was astounding! SHIT TON of tiny little bubbles, 6inch of ceramic is like 10x more bubbly then 12inch of bubble wall!!! :fire:

I'm considering using seven more of these smaller ceramic stones to run eight 1-gallon buckets rather then two 5-gallon buckets (in the same floor space). I figured it'd be half the cost of upgrading (which I can do later) to two of these:

http://www.wormsway.com/detail.aspx?t=prod&sku=MPH550&AC=1

Plus, 8 buckets can give me a 1+ week turnover in my perpetual system, rather then a 1+ month turnover with two buckets. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
 
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