Diary:31/05/07: Flood & Drain 1st Try

[home.grower]

Greetings & Thank You For Visiting This Thread

31/05/07 marked the day that a flood & drain system with a sum of 32 x ''20-day-old'' Dunk (G13) and AK47 clones arrive in the flowering room.

The flood & drain system consists of 1* 60L+ reservoir and 2* trays that are seated in an NFT fashion.

There are 32 net pots, 16 on each tray. Each net pot is filled with Washed clay medium.

On each tray there is an air line hose attached to a pump. These hoses deliver oxygen to the water which floods the top trays. The air bubbles are constantly released beneath the net pots.

The reservoir has a single submersed water-pump that feeds both trays by use of various connectors and pipe fittings. There is also an air stone situated near the pump.

That is the basic setup of the flood and drain system. i won't go into the Manufacturers names unless asked specifically.

There is a single 600W HPS with an Adjust'a'Wing shade lighting the setup, but there are other lights in the space which totals around 3kW of HPS lighting on 12/12.

The room's air conditioning consists of; a constantly open window covered with a blackout curain, 2* 16" oscillating fans, and a 8" box fan terminated with a pretty long 8" carbon filter (both at ceiling height and horizontal) and ducted to a chimeny. With 3kW of light during the daytime the temperature doesn't exceed 27C. But back to the flood & drain specifics.

I will add better quality photos as time goes on, but for now you will be able to get an idea of the setup with the poor quality pic taken with my webcam below.

Thanks for reading!!

home.grower Reviewed by home.grower on 06-01-2007. Diary:31/05/07: Flood & Drain 1st Try Greetings & Thank You For Visiting This Thread 31/05/07 marked the day that a flood & drain system with a sum of 32 x ''20-day-old'' Dunk (G13) and AK47 clones arrive in the flowering room. The flood & drain system consists of 1* 60L+ reservoir and 2* trays that are seated in an NFT fashion. There are 32 net pots, 16 on each tray. Each net pot is filled with Washed clay medium. On each tray there is an air line hose attached to a pump. These hoses deliver oxygen to the water which Rating: 5

[home.grower]

Greetings

The submersed pump is set to deliver a flood 5 times per day. At the moment the timer is switiching every 4 hours or there about. The duration of the flood is currently 15 minutes.

All Nurtient Products are from Advanced Nutrients

In the tank is around 60L of pH balanced water (6.0-6.2). To this I added enough Mother Earth Bloom to raise the EC to 0.8-1.0. Voodoo Juice, Barricade and Liquid CarboLoad were then added in mild strength. I checked the pH again and added a little more pH down then did a final check on the EC which was giving around 0.9.

The clones were potted in small cubes with the roots just showing out of all of them. Voodoo Juice should encourage rapid root formation over the next few days. Barricade is simply silicon which should asist with stem and branch strength and add resiliance to some pests. While CarboLoad is something I just tend to use a lot of without really knowing what its actually doin, but I believe it does something... maybe providing some kind of energy?

The reason for starting with a mild solution is because previous experience has tought me that hydro style growing can cause changes in a plant to occur far quicker than in soil. It is better to add elements and compounds to a solution slowly to avoid loss. Also, these clones are quite slender even though they are well rooted. I just don't think they were ready for EC1.2 immediately.

Other products I will be adding at a later stage will be Fulvic F1, Humic H2, Sensi Bloom A&B then Big Bud and Overdrive at the right stages.

Thanks for reading.

[home.grower]

...Barricade is simply silicon which should asist with stem and branch strength and add resiliance to some pests....

Barricade is Potassium Silicate.. Correction on the terminology used!!!

[home.grower]

Greetings

Today is actually day two. I didn't add anything to the reservoir besides a splash of pH down. The reading before adding was around 6.4, so i brought it back to 6.0.

For the rest of week 1 I will probably continue to add pH down and top off with Mother Earth Bloom if necessary. Standby for daily reports!!!

Thanks for reading

[hows.your.roof]

any co2 supplementation

[home.grower]

Greetings readers. Thanks for dropping a comment hows.your.roof...

No there isn't CO2 set up in the garden.

Today the sun was out and the inside temperature rose to 30C. I go back on what I earlier said about the 27C thing. That just shows that anything can occur when one is least expecting it and it is crucial to monitor everything as closely as possible.

As for CO2, it has been on my mind for a while. Once I see what the yeild of a set up like this brings forth I will then see about replacing the whole garden with flood and drain. At that point I will be installing new features and a CO2 injection system will probably be near the top of the list. I will then be able to compare differences between CO2 and no CO2 using the same kind of methods.

So, to drop my temperature I opened the door to the garden and left it with a blanket hanging over the door way. Because the Extractor is pulling air all the time at an adequate rate, the temperature soon dropped back to 27C and stabilized with the door open. The door will be closed in time for the night cycle.

I checked the pH and it was around 6.15 so I didn't make any ammendments as this reading was just in range. I checked the EC and it was reading 1.0-1.2. This shows that the balance of the mixture of nutes in the reservoir is being tipped because the plants are feeding and taking what they want.

I will make any changes tomorrow. Measurements are quite ok in my opinion, but time will tell if I'm making the right decissions.

I also had to prop-up my reservoir at one end as it seemed the top trays were on a slant preventing the end cubes from becoming moistented. To add, I've increased the feeding from 5 to 6 times per day as the cubes were appearing a little too dry by the time the next flood started. As far as I'm aware, all is well and the next few days will determine how I'm getting on.

Here are a couple of better quality images taken today.

[home.grower]

For anyone interested in the air supply beneath the pots then this is for you.

I was undecided until the very last minute as to what method of flood and drain I was going to use.

I was goin to copy the method used in a DVD that I saw. Top Quality Grow DVD of something, not 100% on the name.

With that method the top trays would have been filled with washed clay and the clones would have been positioned without pots; directly in the clay.

The air line was to supply oxygen from beneath.

I was considering a continual flood. The air supply would be very important with a continual flood.

With the net pots then, I have stuck to the same method but used less grow medium, much less infact. Anyone worried about waste from soil pots will be better off if they can yeild the same using hydro methods. I will still be able to continual flood as the pots sit on the airline which is pierced to allow bubbles to flow directly below the pots.

I purchased 5m of this hose/airline and used 2.5m on each tray.

2nd and 3rd opinions reveal that the clones have already started growing and straightening up. I removed one of the cubes from the pots and saw that a root structure was approaching 2cm from the cube in just over 2 days.

I will add images of the roots soon before the first week is up. I'm hopeful that roots will be visible outside the pots by the end of the 10th day of bloom.

Keep tuned in & thanks for reading this thread.

[LOC NAR on probation]

I like the grow reports. Keep them coming. I did it in my day.
Unless you can close up your room and use A/C and a very good vent system. It's hard to do c02. Control everthing.

Peace.

[home.grower]

Greetings readers. Thanks for dropping a comment LOC NAR on probation.

I would like to seal the room totally and install air conditioning. I'm eager to have full control over everything. It's the only way. But when one has full control they have to concentrate on what is going on and understand whats happening. I feel I'm ready to take full control pretty soon. The results of this current op will determine how confident I will be in around 50-60days time.emperature

Ok, to the diary. I'm having temperature problems. As the weather changes and we approach the summer months I'm finding that 3kW of lighting is causing my inside temperature to reach 33C and beyond. I have had successful crops with soaring temperatures in the past, but I don't ever recall having such high temps so early in the year. I suspect that by mid July my garden will be in the early 40s.

I checked my pH and EC as normal today. The pH was above 7 and the EC was around 0.8 (though I cannot fully recall the EC). I decided to change the solution instead of wasting pH down. This might have been a bad idea.

I partially flushed the reservoir then topped off with around 40L of tap water. The flood pump was turned off to ensure a flood didn't occur while I was doin mainenance.

To the reservoir I added 1/3rd doses of H2 and F1 (Humic and Fulvic Acid), I added mild dosages of Barricade and CarboLoad. I then brought the EC up to 1.0-1.2 with Mother Earth Bloom then pH'd at 5.5.

I chose to pH at around 5.5 because so far the pH has risen as time has gone on. I'm hoping that I might get an extra day before I have to make ammendments in the reservoir. This might not be all good, but my changes are not over dramatic and I should be able to see problems occur quite quickly. I'm sticking to mild feed to enable me to make errors.

I'm at a stage where I'm wishing I was in soil as it's more straight forward. But I'm kinda expectant of 1-2 Oz per plant at the same time.

Feel free to indicate a balls-up on the horizon readers. This is my first go and I'm open to ideas.

No pics till the start of week 2. Thanks for reading...

[Chabnoc]

I just harvested my very first grow ever. I first started my plants in soil, and had so much trouble, that after about 2 weeks I washed off the roots and put them in a hydro system i bought. I got about 1.5 OZ average per plant. I am sure you can do better then I did. The Buds are Amazing though.

I will be watching your grow closely. :thumbsup: