my HP aero grow

I was so glad to find this forum, i recently decided to try my hand at growing peppers and assuming some degree of success id also like to try and make my own hot sauce.
I'm hoping you guys can give me some feedback on a problem I've been having with my Tabasco pepper plants.


so this is my third attempt at growing anything period, and first ever aeroponic grow.
my previous two grows were of the DWC variety, and while i got some impressive tomato plants, and noise of the air pump and maintenance required really turned me off to the idea.

Anyway, this year i built; from scratch, a drain to waste high pressure aeroponic system.
here's a few pictures of said system.





this thing basically consists of a high pressure diaphragm pump controlled by an adjustable pressure switch, an accumulator tank(good for 150psi)... a pressure regulator adjusted to 80psi and finally a 24vdc solenoid.

the heart of this system is this macromatic cycling time delay relay. i have this guy set for 1.25 second on and 3 minutes off.
here is a photo


If anyone is interested i could detail some of the finer points of this system in the grow technology forum, tho I'm sure most hydro guys are already familiar with this sort of system.

anyway the reason i'm posting is that i've had a rather unsightly problem with leaf roll.
here's a few more pictures...









and just for kicks...
9-09-10

9-13-10

9-19-10




the problem seemed to start when i moved the plants out from under my 220watt PLL seedling lamp into my HP aero system under a 600w HPS.
i think one would naturally assume that the difference in heat would be a likely culprit, however the plants actually were getting much hotter under the fluorescent lamp.
you can actually see in the 9-19-10 picture a leaf that was physically burned by the bulbs. i typically keep my fluorescent lamp 1-2" above the canopy, however this guy reached right in between two bulbs.

a little more info...

this is my target nutrient profile. this profile is from a book called hydroponic capsicum production by Dr. Lynette Morgan and Simon Lennard.

nitrogen:302ppm
phosphorus:103ppm
potassium:364ppm
magnesium:96ppm
calcium:330ppm
sulphur:174ppm
iron:4.9ppm

and this is what i arrived at using GH flora 3 part, and Magnesium sulfate hepahydrate(Epsom salt).
in the future im just going to buy raw salts and make my own ferts, 10$ a quart just doesn't make sense considering the ingredients.
i run this solution at 450ppm thats .4ec i think?
my tap water starts at 240ppm... mostly calcium id guess... tho i really don't know, our local water report only lists the ppm of toxic substances.

nitrogen:339ppm
phosphorus:129ppm
potassium:347ppm
magnesium:158ppm
calcium:292ppm
sulfur:139ppm
iron:5.4ppm

you guys see anything wrong with this profile?
im aware that the rolling could just be physiological leaf roll disorder but id appreciate any input on this profile.
does anyone else encounter this growing Tabasco peppers?
is this common with other capsicum frutescens plants?
my room temp is 76-82f and usually ~40% RH

id also like to mention that i run sodium hypochlorite( soon to switch to calcium hypo, as the PH swing bleach causes is a downer.) in my reservoir at about 1-1.2ppm and periodically shock it up too 2-3ppm.
i know a lot of people scorn chlorine... aerating tap water to drive it out... but its really a much weaker oxidizer than hydrogen peroxide. it also has the added benefit of remaining at residual levels a great deal longer. i have found chlorine to be the best way to stop pythium(root rot) without relying on air pumps and chillers.
regardless im sure CL2 isn't causing the problem, as the plants initially ran without it and rolled none the less.

thanks in advance... i am so pleased to have found this forum.

The only aspect I really feel comfortable about responding to: the use of HPS lights for seedlings. IME they simply are worthless. I'm growing tomatoes using a very simple aeroponics system but a 600 watt MH and I have way, far, much more foliage and blooms than I did using an HPS bulb.

YMMV,

Mike

wordwiz said:

The only aspect I really feel comfortable about responding to: the use of HPS lights for seedlings. IME they simply are worthless. I'm growing tomatoes using a very simple aeroponics system but a 600 watt MH and I have way, far, much more foliage and blooms than I did using an HPS bulb.

YMMV,

Mike

Click to expand...

interesting, in both my tom grows they exploded after i took them away from the 220watt pll lamp put them under the 600hps. id love to see how they finish with a bluer spectrum. i had always assumed flowering plants needed more red.

also, i dont know if i made this clear, but my plants are now in their 5th week from germination, i wouldn't call them seedlings by any stretch.

There is a huge host of thought that says HPS is necessary for flowering, and I can't say it isn't. But, I asked a company I was buying lights from (htgsupply) and they were the ones who said I really didn't need HPS to get lots of blooms and fruit - the plants would bloom once they accumulate - paraphrasing here - enough Growing Degree Days based on their biological age.

All of my grows are in rooms that have a ceiling that is 8' or less tall, and I noticed plants under HPS lights grow taller but with no extra leaves or blooms; that's why I decided to try just the MH.But it is working for me - so far!

Mike

wordwiz said:

There is a huge host of thought that says HPS is necessary for flowering, and I can't say it isn't. But, I asked a company I was buying lights from (htgsupply) and they were the ones who said I really didn't need HPS to get lots of blooms and fruit - the plants would bloom once they accumulate - paraphrasing here - enough Growing Degree Days based on their biological age.

All of my grows are in rooms that have a ceiling that is 8' or less tall, and I noticed plants under HPS lights grow taller but with no extra leaves or blooms; that's why I decided to try just the MH.But it is working for me - so far!

Mike

Click to expand...

very interesting, makes me wish i had a switchable ballast.
when i grew toms with the HPS they easily grew to 10'. i had to lean them over a wire i ran across my grow room, just to keep them from hitting my(also) 8' ceiling.
i can only guess what growing degree days are, im still quite new when it comes to plants.
i had always thought plats produced flowers when conditions allowed the plant to produce and hormones that begin the flowering process.

edit:
i meant to add this to the original post but it says ive added to many
its a photo of the fuzzy roots that atomized nutrients tend to form.

a very late update.
i had hoped to update this every two weeks or so, however my camera has been in the hands of relatives for a few months. sorry.

anyway heres how the plants look today




i think this is at 90 days or so.

i think you will notice the lower branches are very bare, this is because i lost power like a week beffore thanks giving for a period of time like... 2 hours, and a good deal of the roots died, the plants have sort of been stunted since then. they droped all their flowers and like 1/3rd of their leaves. but you can see they have began to come back somewhat since then.

ive had a few problems with this setup that ive been addressing along the way. first, i have found that the once the roots began to accumulate at the bottom of the bucket they tended to rot away in what i assume is anoxic water. this surprised me as i had measured the volume of water that would not drain out of the bucket through the bulkhead fittings to be less than 10ml. i at first solved this by increasing the PPM of chlorine in the res to 5-6ppm chlorine... and this worked, but i decided to just get the roots out of the water entirely. this was accomplished by nesting another bucket inside the origional bucket. this bucket had the bottom completely removed, and in its place a fine meshed nylon fabric was glued in place. so now the roots are completely contained inside their own bucket, separate from the drain fitting and accumulated water.

another issue im having is one of convenience. at the moment the only thing that can control the solenoid is the time delay relay, this becomes burdensome as you from time to time need to completely drain the system, and this means removing the relay from its octal socket and changing the dip switches to force it to say on for a period of time until the system drains. when these plants come down i am going to add a double throw double pole switch in between the 24vdc power supply(that fires the solenoid.)and the time delay relay. one side of the switch will bypass the relay entirely so i can keep the solenoid open indefinitely if i need.

im also having a water hammer problem when the solenoid slams shut. this is causing the pressure switch to trigger the pump for just a fraction of a second, which i suspect is bad for it. for those that dont know, water hammer is just a sort of shock wave that travels down your plumbing when a valve slams shut... Anyway im going to have to add a water hammer arrester to the system when i take it down. i figured id have to do this from the start, but i just didnt want to.

other than that stuff, this setup is working pretty well id say.

It sounds like you know your stuff. Have you pruned off lower branches, I'm looking at the wide picture with the long stems and all the node things on them. If so, what is the reason for this? Does it lead to a greater yield in the end? I'd think that its much longer for all the nutrients to travel up the stem and so more effort by the plant to grow its leaves and pods.

You changed from a DWC because your air pump was noisy....? You can mount the pump remotely.

I'll bet you have noise with the water hammer and high pressure pump.

Your system is cool but it has waaayyyy more parts to fail than a dwc and requires a lot more operator input.....clearly your choice.

well i wasnt fond of DWC for alot more reasons that than TBH, i the noise issue is an oversimplification.
the pump(aquatec880) is the same type of pump you see in a RO water system when its moving water it is almost silent. the only noise the system makes is the solenoid slaming shut and sometimes the pressure switch tiping over. I could sleep in this room if i liked.

i agree there is more to fail, as evidenced by my power outage. in the future im probably going to buy a UPS, the system only draws like 2wats idling and 36 or so when the solenoid is powered on so.

you might think all this was expensive but it really wasnt, the most expensive parts were all the john guest fittings which i think were ~ 100 bucks, most of this i got for a fraction of their cost on ebay.

still i hope to see some kind of advantage over conventional hydroponic techniques eventually, tho ill be the first to admit with the issues i had loosing power for a while it isnt happening this time.

megamoo said:

It sounds like you know your stuff. Have you pruned off lower branches, I'm looking at the wide picture with the long stems and all the node things on them. If so, what is the reason for this? Does it lead to a greater yield in the end? I'd think that its much longer for all the nutrients to travel up the stem and so more effort by the plant to grow its leaves and pods.

Click to expand...

to be honest thats how they grew, i assumed the frutenses just grew like that. as soon as it began flowering it just opened up like that. i had like 2 lower branches on the very bottom of the plants but they died during the power outage. they were doing crappy anyway, i don't think i had enough light to feed them properly.
All the pruned nodes you see are just the large leaves that died off after the larger canopy opened up and blocked their light.

Beautiful Tabasco plants. I wish I had some.

I think that curl up of the leaves is not good for the plants. It can indicate too much salt or since fertilizer is a salt, it can indicate too much fertilizer. Since the salt kills the roots. After all the roots are sitting in the salt. It can indicate a root problem.

You did indicate a root problem so the curl might be linked to that.

I have never grow hydro. Too hi tek advanced for me. but I read a lot on the internet. So if my memory is correct you might look into that.

I thought once I read that there is high salt in Spain soils. A big problem in Spain. Anyway I was under the impression that a build up of about 250 parts kills plants. You said your water starts at 240 and you add ferts. So you might look at the water and use distilled or R/O to clean the water. reverse osmosis.

I was using well water and switched to rain water and my problems went away. And that was growing in soil in pots outdoors. The absolutely less the salt in the water or the softer the water the better the plants will grow. My well water was hard. Rain water is soft. You might want to look into using soft rain water. Dont know but be careful of germs and bacteria in rain water. I am sure you can boil it to kill it off or add a chemical. You are on your own on this one. But some body should have experience trying to use rain water in hydro. check the pH on rain water. it might be acid rain.

I am in new england but if I were in Texas I would look into taking the hydro system outdoors in the summer. keep the system running. but not when too hot outdoors if it keeps the flowers from setting fruit. I have read about a few people growing tomatoes using hydro outdoors in florida where they have soil problems. I think mostly with nematodes eating the roots.

If you can clip the stems off and root the stems I would buy a bunch of rooted cuttings from you in the spring. I would love to grow some tabasco outdoors in soil in the ground. and get some peppers for hot sauce. Awesome.

Tabby Basco said:

Beautiful Tabasco plants. I wish I had some.

I think that curl up of the leaves is not good for the plants. It can indicate too much salt or since fertilizer is a salt, it can indicate too much fertilizer. Since the salt kills the roots. After all the roots are sitting in the salt. It can indicate a root problem.

You did indicate a root problem so the curl might be linked to that.

I have never grow hydro. Too hi tek advanced for me. but I read a lot on the internet. So if my memory is correct you might look into that.

I thought once I read that there is high salt in Spain soils. A big problem in Spain. Anyway I was under the impression that a build up of about 250 parts kills plants. You said your water starts at 240 and you add ferts. So you might look at the water and use distilled or R/O to clean the water. reverse osmosis.

I was using well water and switched to rain water and my problems went away. And that was growing in soil in pots outdoors. The absolutely less the salt in the water or the softer the water the better the plants will grow. My well water was hard. Rain water is soft. You might want to look into using soft rain water. Dont know but be careful of germs and bacteria in rain water. I am sure you can boil it to kill it off or add a chemical. You are on your own on this one. But some body should have experience trying to use rain water in hydro. check the pH on rain water. it might be acid rain.

I am in new england but if I were in Texas I would look into taking the hydro system outdoors in the summer. keep the system running. but not when too hot outdoors if it keeps the flowers from setting fruit. I have read about a few people growing tomatoes using hydro outdoors in florida where they have soil problems. I think mostly with nematodes eating the roots.

If you can clip the stems off and root the stems I would buy a bunch of rooted cuttings from you in the spring. I would love to grow some tabasco outdoors in soil in the ground. and get some peppers for hot sauce. Awesome.

Click to expand...

thanks for taking the time to reply.

the only way ive been able to mitigate the leaf curl issue so far is to raise the lights to 18+ inches, invariable when the plants reaches a few inches higher than that they begin to roll up. ive since purchased an RO unit i meant to mention that earlier, my starting water is now 4ppm according to my old beat up ec meter... ive been using this water for about 45 days now and this hasn't changed any of the rolling issues ive had. ive tried backing the nutrients off to 350ppm, then upping them to 550, and ive noticed no change. i really want to try growing these plants indoors again in a different medium to see if i get the same result.

i might try a more traditional nutrient profile rather than the one i found in that book to see if it changes anything, i doubt it, it seems like these plants just cant handle the light and heat. i really do think its just physiological leaf roll disorder, but i cant find much information about it in pepper plants.

and yes i have plans to run a recirculating system outdoors after the last frost. probably 8 13gallon buckets, tho the atrium i plan on doing it in only gets maby 6-8 hours of direct sunlight early on in the year.

edit: oh and sorry, but i plan on chopping these in about a month and replaceing them with some bhuts, so i dont think i would be able to mail you any clones. if for some reason i do keep these id be happy to clone some plants for you, ill only do it for free tho lol just send me a prepaid shipping label or something.

What kind of nutrients are you using? I had the same problem a while back but I remember it going away after I switched to General Hydroponics nutrients. Anyway, here's a link that might help: http://www.hydroponics.net/learn/nutrient_deficiencies.asp

The problem could be a magnesium deficiency.

aram said:

What kind of nutrients are you using? I had the same problem a while back but I remember it going away after I switched to General Hydroponics nutrients. Anyway, here's a link that might help: http://www.hydroponics.net/learn/nutrient_deficiencies.asp

The problem could be a magnesium deficiency.

Click to expand...

im using gen hydro 3 part, and magnesium sulphate hepahydrate

I get the leaf roll at times- it is related to Ca. It seems our municipal water filters it sometimes and doesn't at others. I follow the mix formula from http://www.hydro-gardens.com/41838.htm. I use the Tomatoe formula, as it was recommended if you are growing both, toms and peppers.

Using Clorine or Hydrochlorate, you won't be able to use any beneficial mycorhizae, as the chlorine will kill it. The mycorhizae helps protect against rootrot.

queequeg152 said:

i can only guess what growing degree days are, im still quite new when it comes to plants.
i had always thought plats produced flowers when conditions allowed the plant to produce and hormones that begin the flowering process.

Click to expand...

That pretty much sums up GDD! GDD equals the average temp per day above a certain level - usually 52-55. For peppers, take 55 degrees. If the average temp is 85, you add 30 GDD. I'm not sure about peppers, but mid-season tomatoes need about 1300 GDD to flower and 2100 GDD to ripen. Other things factor in, but if you average 30 GDD per day, it would take 70 days to produce a ripe fruit.

Mike

Datil Patch said:

I get the leaf roll at times- it is related to Ca. It seems our municipal water filters it sometimes and doesn't at others. I follow the mix formula from http://www.hydro-gardens.com/41838.htm. I use the Tomatoe formula, as it was recommended if you are growing both, toms and peppers.

Using Clorine or Hydrochlorate, you won't be able to use any beneficial mycorhizae, as the chlorine will kill it. The mycorhizae helps protect against rootrot.

Click to expand...

lol we were just talking about this in the chat room!
do you have any papers or something i can read on this? im using chlorine to prevent root rot, so if thats the only benefit of Mycorrhizial fungus in a non organic hydro system then i dont see the point.

update

not much going on here.

sorry for the crummy quality pictures, the HPS was like 2 minutes from comeing on, i was rushed.




these are only like a week old, just came out of no where.


http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa385/Queequeg152/aerogrow_8-30-10/IMG_1406s.jpg

ive been seeing alot of this lately on the lower leaves. its not uniform... just a leaf here and there and only on the older leaves.
it looks like a potassium deficiency, but my ph is 6, and according to the saltmix xls i should have 330ish ppm potassium... very confused.








any ideas? like 3 or 4 of these leaves drop from the plants every day.

edit: posted wrong picture.

Hi
Thats a nice aero setup. The black spotting and curling could be indicative of a magnesium excess. It can show up as a potassium and/or calcium deficiency even though there is plenty of both in the solution. I had similar spotting affecting older leaves and put it down to magnesium building up in the roots over a period of time.

thanks for the relply tank, i dont know how i missed your post for so long.

can you elaborate any on this? i did have a what looked very much like a magnesium deficiency very early on, this went away after adding some epsom salt.

you say youve had similar issues, did you ever solve them?
are you suggesting i hit the roots with some sort of isotonic solution to flush the plant and get rid of the build up?

since my last post ive upped the potassium considerably. im at about 2-1-4 NPK with like 130 mag and 90 something sulfur.

i see you only have one post! i hope you are still around.