It takes about 7.5gallons of water to fill 1 cubic foot of space, the same amount converted into 5-80 micron droplets would keep the same cubic foot constantly full of mist for 63 days. If you geared the 7.5gal to last as long as the recirculated res you could mist 6 cubic feet (or seriously overmist the 1 cubic foot) for 10 days and "waste" the same amount of nutes As most of the runoff will be unused nutes (mist that missed the roots) you have the option of collecting it and using it on something else, topup for a drip system, dtw coco etc. Reusing a 10 day old recirc res would be risky.
What makes Aeroponics more difficult?
- Thread starter bluntmassa1
- Start date
rob333
Well-Known Member
nft ebb resert top feeding dwc bubbles and aero i have touched an edge on all of these or have sen them run at the end of the day man a good coco system will kill each and every one of them with less hasselHey, I'm thinking of giving hydro a try. I almost want to build an aeroponics system but everywhere I turn someone is saying it is more advanced, harder or some shit.
It don't look much harder to me though and sounds like the best hydro system just a bit harder to build one other than that what is so much harder about it?
Also does it even yield more than ebb and flow? That thing just looks so easy too build.
The tank holds around 40L at 140psi, it runs two 16ft x 2ft (1500L) chambers and a shallower 7ft x 2ft (300L) for 2 days.@Atomizer,
thank you for the effort in response to my questions.
However; i'm too stoned or drunk to figure out how much nutes you dtw every day -----drain to waste { you probably knew that}
A~~~
@rob, i use coco and flood and drain (hydroton) for some things and they both work well for that. For larger scale the HPA is less hassle. Fewer containers = less plumbing, no medium to buy in or cart away and no res to look after. I`m not trying to convert anyone, use whatever method you like
.
Alaric
Well-Known Member
Having to deal with any medium in a 4k flowering show is a hassle I'm NOT going to do---even if it does "kill" a gram per watt every 60 days.
A~~~
since1991
Well-Known Member
By far and away....most top shelf pros ive seen...heard or personally knew used a top feed (drip) fertigation system and some type of rhizosphere buffering and insulating substrate medium. Largely depends on crop (lettuce thrives in raft and nft systems)...but the vast majority of professional greenhouse vegetable and fruit growers use this method and theres a really good reason behind EVERYTHING in these massive greenhouses. Top feed...non solution recovery coco coir/rockwool/peat mixes win....everytime. Ive used or tried every single system out there. They all work. Its a question of how forgiving. ...time energy and money your willing to give up to make them work.On the TV news, the majority of the raided grow ops seems to use drip systems. I often ask myself if the professional illegal growers choose drip systems because it's simple, considered less likely to fail and over time is more profitable. Or if perhaps the most successful growers actually do use aero or DWC for larger yield and profit, but never get busted because they often are more experienced than the average grower.
What kind of hydro systems does the largest indoor growers use out there?
polishpollack
Well-Known Member
The reason why people come here is because of reducing the time, money, and energy spent on systems. For those that will read this... if you don't really know what you're doing (read about it, learned from others, experimented), then try to keep it as simple as possible. Potting soil works but takes longer. DWC is great and fast, but you need to know your ppm and pH levels (just knowing pH isn't good enough because ppm drives pH so you need to know it). Don't pump more fert into soil that already has fert in it (unless you know for sure you need to). Adopting a more challenging method because "it's the bomb" will cause your grow to blow up in your face. Drip sounds like a great idea, never seen it work, but it makes sense. There must be something to the constant movement of water that is beneficial.
TheChemist77
Well-Known Member
the amount of oxegen in the water is the key to great grows.. ive run just about every hydro system and found that building your own system or hybrid system is cheaper and better than bought systems.. i loved airo but hated cleaning the clogged heads,,i built 5 gallon dwc buckets for large plants, 3 gallon drip buckets that use coco, many different flood n drain tables.. but i built a hybrid dwc,nft, undercurrent system with 4 inch pvc and 3 inch net pots, the water is very oxegenated from the constant movement and splashing back into the res, no air stones needed and growth is crazy.. the roots fill the 4 inch pvc.. i never thought id see a hefty producing plant in a 3inch rock wool cube placed in a net pot,,but ive grown 4ft tall monsters in the tiny 4 inch pvc,, it seems the larger the roots the larger the plant,, but then ive seen very nice 4ft plants in 4x4x4 rock woool cubes that keep all the roots in the cube.. ive found airo to be the best way for cloning but for growing i can get great results with less work using dwc, f&d, nft, under current, etc
Yesdog
Well-Known Member
I'm now on my.... 3rd bubble-ponics system, and one classic (kratky) water culture 'root incubator'. Bubble-bucket for cloning, kratky (motionless) for root prop, top-fed bubble ponics DWC for my main system, and classic DWC bubble-ponics for mothers. My main and 'mothers' system both have 8" gaps, main system has 2 massive air stones, watefalls and top feed. Everything in the rez is soaking wet, definitely not an efficient aeroponics replacement, but i get big hairy fish-bone roots above the water and below and don't have to really intervene with anything.
With my mothers system, I just left out the waterfalls and top-feed. Just shallow water with massive bubbles. Everything is still soaked, the top of the rockwool is still perfectly wet (from the bubbles on the bottom), and the maintenance has dropped to virtually nothing lol. I really thought the pumps would be necessary for keeping the plant alive and keeping the medium moist until the roots touched down (I also never intended to leave an 8" gap), but I'm pretty sure the pump does nothing at this point for me. It's actually kinda odd, my most recent mother i had rooting in the kratky system- grew really long, straight roots. Once i put it in the mothers bubbleponics it started to branch out more roots from the media and netpot above the air. So it's getting something! Even if its just a well-oxygenated water- roots will eventually touch the main rez anyways.
So IMO, adding a pump is a major major maintenance step. They clog, they heat up, and they might flood the place (like what happened to me a few times when the plants started to tip and knocked the top-feeds out of place).
TheChemist77
Well-Known Member
its true a pump can cause major problems if something goes wrong,, ive seen flooded rooms.. but pumps are needed for certain types of hydro, cant flood n drain w/out a pump..
Yesdog
Well-Known Member
Yep, absolutely. Bubble-ponics is probably just the only worthy pumpless option around, but it requires a small single shared rez, is rather prone to rotting, air stones fuck with your pH. It's not perfect lol. If it was, it'd be the preferred way. But my god is it half-decent. I just think there's still lots of good ways to take advantage of the simplicity of water culture with minimal moving parts.
Especially after seeing how well this kratky 'incubator' works. It's just a shallow container of water filled with great white and rapid start that has slits on the side for passive ventilation- theory being that you get enough dissolved oxygen just by having a 'flat' volume of water and passive/convection air flow over the water. Fill it up JUST enough to touch the bottom of the net cup and RW. 1" root growth per day.
But if i really had the time, space, and money, I would have some insanely complex shit going for sure lol like, 2-story aeroponics rooms and shit... and probably some people working for me.