Nice to see one in action, besides sitting at my hydro store. Always thought it would be too limiting on height and light burn might occur, but yours is looking great. Whats you water cycle? I also give you props for choosing house and garden, I use it religiously with a few other botanicare, mad farmer products. I think H&G would blow away AN in a nutrient challenge, but AN doesnt want you to see that. Do you use superthrive(drop a gallon), its a hormone with b1 and I use it in every stage of growth. Highly recomend adding it to your schedule, cheap and will last you forever.
Also your nutrient reservoir, do the PPMs climb mid-week? do you add any water to refill for the evaporated water? I use aeroponic boxes with seperate ressy's and find that PPM climb quickly as water gets absorbed/evaporated. I have had a root rot issues when I just add RO water midweek and now Im making new nutrients twice a week to keep the problem at bay, also I cut back watering schedule to dry out the roots more. I cant find high % peroxide anywhere now(someone prob made a bomb with some), I used to use that to clean the roots, pumps and ressys. I use a 5 gallon reservoir for every 10 plants also and have 40 plants under 1 1000watt thats on a light mover. Its all about lbs per light
Great to have you aboard the thread!
Water cycle - weekly water changes, aerated RO water with <10 TDS used as the base.
Superthrive - I do not use it - first I have heard of it. Is it similar to the B series within Root Excelurator? I would be interested to see what is inside. I will look into it tomorrow. (thanks for the tip)
Reservoir - I currently have not added any makeup water to make up for evaporation, as up until now, the plants were not absorbing enough to adjust the PPM too far out of bounds with a weekly 100% water change. This week, I will start testing for PPM and adding fresh water as necessary. The reservoir is 100 gallons capacity and due to the design of the Roto, I have opted to cover most of the top with plastic, save where the aeration pumps are working, to cut down on humidity, evaporation, and light penetration in the reservoir area (algae prevention). It would be interesting to study the water evaporation rate, and the rate of nutrient uptake to the plants throughout the week in terms of relative PPMs. I wonder if they would cancel each other out? I have also developed an automatic top off that I use for my marine reef aquariums that could be a perfect fit for keeping the reservoir constant if the PPMs fluctuate. That coupled with the auto-Ph device I have nearly completed testing and this baby should be on autopilot!
Peroxide - there was a link posted by kpw555 for food grade. Shipping is a b$itch, but at least it can be ordered online. I was thinking about checking the local hydro stores before buying it online to save some shipping costs. I will report back on what I find this weekend.
lb/watt - I can definitely see why growers would be interested in this type of setup if the yield makes sense. I can appreciate the need to maximize the return on investment if that is the goal. Personally, my interests are in perfecting the art of the grow to produce some really nice MJ. Growing itself relaxes my obsessive compulsive nature and I can ensure my meds are 100% grade A.
I end up giving most of my 'experiments' away to a few close patients who help with curing/trimming/etc. and the heavy lifting when I need a hand. Its a win-win for everyone - well, maybe not so much for the poor saps who taste some of my uh, not so great ideas. HA! Thats a story for another thread.
