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First thought of the morning...
Can NFT be combined with a aero/drip method and produce a effective 3-way hybrid hydro system?
Second thought of the morning...
Will Monday let me get it done? Maybe I should check around for some favourable horoscopes.
the 8 degree drop was with a fan pointed at the cooler on high.. without the fan I get a 2-3 degree drop. Im concidering distroying the thing and using the guts to fasion up a drop in cooler like you were talking about.. i think it will work better.
The thing I have noticed about combined hydro systems is that nutrent requirements will change drastically depending on how the plant is getting most of its juice.. like for seedlings it will be getting it thru drip to the rockwool.. then in the middle it will be mostly aero.. and then when the roots hit the res.. DWC.. I had three different control bands to worry about and some would get roots faster than others and it just wasnt an optimum setup for me.
I keep thinking that the solution tank will need to be in a joomungous cooler in order to prevent ambient room temps from meddling with the temp of the solution.
I'm also having a rather odd notion of simply...removing a vent cover...shoving one end of duct hose into the duct, and the other down into the tank.
Cool air and airation all in one, moderately bulky package.
oooooo....and an inline fan too!
yea but that will cause a super fast evaporation rate and cause your PPMs and PH to go all over the place.. It will cause evaporative cooling but you dont want that water to evaporate any faster than it already will be in aeroponics.. I just cut the minifridge up and stuck the entire chiller part into the res.. I will post pics if it works better.. it seems like it will.. I took pics of me tearing it apart too so we will see how the $54 brand new dorm fridge does.
That 8 degree drop is questionable too.. i had highs of 86 without the cooler and lows of 78 with the cooler.. but sometimes res temp would get up to 82 with the cooler.
Ya, that occured to me after my eyes stopped being bigger than my stomach.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aaron385
Taking your's apart...did you end up with that white couplant all over if you ended up getting your fingers in it?
I got nada done with this project today. The beater plant is still hanging out in that pitcher. I did though schedule for the water softner folks to come by and get the system tuned up. Oh oH! I've also begun shopping RO systems. Which is an easy thing to see mutual self and plant benefits for.
RO is the shit! My H20 starts at ZERO ppm. You cant beat PERFECT! And that is from an elcheapo china system off of "an online auction site" that set me back a whole $60 USD (plus another $30 for the DI setup and a bunch of extra resin that took it from 15ppm to 0ppm).
Im not sure what you mean by white couplant? I had a shit ton of insulation that went everywhere.. i will post pics of it if it works and i feel less lazy than I do right now.. (camera is in the other room)
I fully dismantled mine. Between the semi-conductor---the plate---and a cover plate, each has a white couplant for a tight seal, and likely it has a lower freezing point than 32.
If ya encounter it, its a tad messy.
I was looking at some ROs on ebay. Ck the links when ya can and let me know if I can do better elsewhere. Different models for wider usage is about all I see as far differences.
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Reef-6st-100...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Portable-4st...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/AQUA-SAFE-100GPD...QQcmdZViewItem
Should I bother with a cheapy TDS? Or something more upscale brand-wise?
http://cgi.ebay.com/Digital-TDS-METE...QQcmdZViewItem vs a Milwaukee?
that cheap tds meter should be fine.. just make sure to get a calibration solution with it as well.. I will say that again.. get a calibration solution with it as well!! (I got mine and it was about 500ppm off out of the box.. but once callibrated it did fine).
Res temps are at 72F and probably still going down!! YEA!! I will post when I know it has bottomed out. Its currently 102F outside.. 89F in the room.. with the cocrete floor the res is sitting on at ~86F.
The second system you listed (the portable one) is exactly the one I have.. but I did add a DI to the discharge of the second charcoal filter and let me tell you it is worth its weight! When you DI (deionize) water it makes it completely ph neutral.. which means I can pour a 5 gal bucket of the h20 into my res to top it off and it does not change the ph at all! No adjustments.. no nothin.. and you will notice probably more desirable ph characteristics too. If you dont want to make any mods to your house/apt at all that one is the way to go.
Including pics of the fridge I hacked up.. just imagine dangling that white ice box thing into the res and that is the setup ive got now.. and a pic of my RO system before I put the DI stage in.. which if you do that (Which you can do later.. without it you can see i got 11ppm water) you will want to rig up a bypass and I can show you how to do that.. Ive made a few hundred gallons of water with that system so far and it has done just fine.
You messy mofo!
That DI bit is news to me...gracias.
Tomorrow a bigger, better, badder water softner unit is arriving here. (thats more for household use, but will help with overall H2O quality before it hit the solution tank)
RO is next.
tds too.
oh, and calibration goo. I'll prolly do a goof thing like pH some jello on the super thin side for that!