Before we get into that let me first show you all my small boy setup. Originally I was going to use a gravity buct with a flot valve for runoff since I though I was not going to have a nearby water source. Being the stoner that I am, I never thought to look behind this small metal door right next to my ress.
OMFG its H2o!
https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3985&stc=1&d=1172245310
I must say that I love this water line! I used several t connectors and on/off valves to make the system vey easy to use and versitle:
https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3986&stc=1&d=1172245310
https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3987&stc=1&d=1172245310
Now that I had my new filtered water source I went ahead and put 10 gallons into my 20 gallon res. Since my res and bio-buckets are all at the same water level I use the res to sync all off the water lines by the res. I was think about getting control bucket but that that I wouldn't need it. It also just so happened that 10 gallons was perfect placing the water lince about an inch from the bottom of the basket.
My initial PPM was 200 and PH was around 8 (yikes). I went ahead and adjusted the PH to 5.8 and then added first pure blend read grow and then liquid Karma. I followed the directions to a T and my final PPM was 450.
Does that sound right to all of you? I see a lot of threads where people keep their PPMs much higher but I just decided to do what the bottle said for now.
You can get a close up look of the clone to gauge their size. I used the nute dose reccomended for smal vegetative plants.
1st gen (burned ones)
https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3988&stc=1&d=1172245310
2nd gen
https://www.rollitup.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3989&stc=1&d=1172245310
Now back to the res...
Once the initial ten gallons was mixed I activated the pump and the let the drip lines satrate the soil and then fill the buckets. The 10 gallon res emptied out completely so I went ahead and capped the res and bixed another 10 gallon bactch like I had done previously before. Keep in mind that the return line was turned off so that no water was coming back from the buckets.
Once the 2nd res was mixed I fed it into the system as well. At this point the soil was catching a lot of moisture and the buckets were almost filled to their desired level. i then added another 5 gallon batch to te res and then fed it in with the return line open to equilize the system.
With the float valve set and water levels good i then put in the plants. I packed them in ther well and then added more dry ready grow to fill them in. Afterwards I sprayed bottled the soil to moisten the top layer so that the fans wouldn't blow it around everywhere. I ran the drip lines again for more testing and observation and also to further moisten the medium.
Currently my cycle stat is set for 1 minute waterings 3X a day. Do you all think that that is good?