2015 hydro balcony grow - Pics of completed outdoor setup on page 2

ebh · May 14, 2015

Yellowfin2na said:
Sweet system. How do you get the water to flow through all the pipes? Is it one pump that pushes it through?

I only have one pump that pulls through, rather than push. It gets water from the last container and pumps it out in the control reservoir. I think it's called under current.

A basic schematic would be:
control reservoir -> large pipe -> container1 -> large pipe -> container2 ... container4 -> thin pipe -> pump -> control reservoir

The system at the moment is complete. Most likely nutes will go in Friday and plants will be set in their new homes on Saturday. I've already put the rock-wool cubes in the hydroton filled netpots so they can spread out their roots a bit. They are still fed by drippers, though.

I will post some pictures later today, as I am at work right now, and again on Saturday after I "install" the plants.

ebh · May 14, 2015

Got the plants in early. Some low light pictures, as I can't get any good ones untill saturday....

Yellowfin2na · May 14, 2015

Sick!

ebh · May 15, 2015

Got up early this morning and took a bunch of pictures. Although the system is done, I still need two more things which will get done at the first water/nutes change - replace the reservoir with a white painted one (I got a new one, just need to paint it like the rest) and place a T split with some kind of faucet for easier emptying of the whole system.

ebh · May 24, 2015

Haven't updated the glog in a while, but this was mostly because there weren't many changes since last time.

The 3 large (actually 4, but I count the 2-in-a-container bubblegums as one) got a haircut. Got rid of some of the second Y branches to get the structure better suited to their location (they have more room to grow side to side than front to back). The big plants are now 2 ft tall (65cm). The smaller one is just now starting to flower.

Also, I have finished painting the new reservoir, but it won't get changed for the next two weeks. I think I have about 50 gal of nutes in the whole system and the plants are just now starting to get the roots out of the netpots enough to touch the water. Had to keep top feeding them twice a day. This also made me remember what I always disliked about GH flora series - terrible ph stabilisation (even with their own brand of PH down I keep getting the ph in the 8 range).

Also, on the good side is that they are starting to pod up. I have 3 small jay's peach and one butlah already.

Now, pictures...

I've cut the branches into smaller ones so I can try to get them to root. A friend asked me to give them to him, as I had no intention of keeping them initially.

pepper_rancher · May 24, 2015

Can you let me know if those end up rooting? I never could get peppers to root in just water, but I am pretty impatient...

Blister · May 24, 2015

Interesting that your having problems with the GH Flora stores and ph. I've never had an issue with it holding ph once set. Then again I'm also hand watering and my nutes stay cool in the house When not being used. I take it you're seeing the ph issues in the reservoir?

Neil

Yellowfin2na · May 24, 2015

With a res that big the PH should remain stable. Wonder whats going on to make it swing that high? The only thing that shoots my PH that high is when it rains. Have you gotten any rain?

ebh · May 25, 2015

pepper_rancher said:
Can you let me know if those end up rooting? I never could get peppers to root in just water, but I am pretty impatient...

Will let you know. If I forget, remind me again a 1-2 weeks.
I tried it in the past and it worked out ok for me.

Blister said:
Interesting that your having problems with the GH Flora stores and ph. I've never had an issue with it holding ph once set. Then again I'm also hand watering and my nutes stay cool in the house When not being used. I take it you're seeing the ph issues in the reservoir?

Neil

Yellowfin2na said:
With a res that big the PH should remain stable. Wonder whats going on to make it swing that high? The only thing that shoots my PH that high is when it rains. Have you gotten any rain?

Indeed I am talking about the ph of the nutes/water mixture after feeding the plants for a while. Not when I mix it up at first... I had the same issue last year with one plant DWC. When I measured the ph after 3-4 days it was around 8.

No, I didn't have much rain. The ph rises just based on what the plants use, I guess...

@Blister - also, as far as I know you are not using grow, and usually the more bloom based parts you have in a mixture (any brand), the lower the ph you get when mixing everything up. Don't know if this has anything to do with it, just an observation.

Yellowfin2na · May 25, 2015

ok yea you know what now I remember I had that problem with GH. When I used it during the winter my ph would also rise after a few days. I switched to technaflora and canna nutrients. It's got something in it to automatically adjust as the plant feeds. You should really look into changing nutes. It saved me so much time from adjusting every few days. Now I don't have to test ph so much and I barely ever touch my ph up or down bottles.

ebh · May 25, 2015

I know. I used hesi nutes last year and it worked great (it's also a lot cheaper than GH where I buy from), but I stil have a lot of GH left from last year and will continue to use it untill I finish it all. After that I will go on to using hesi again.

Thanks!

Blister · May 25, 2015

Yep I was only using Micro and Bloom before I ran low on Bloom. I think I have enough to mix up one more jug and haven't replaced my supply yet. I did use it for a bit when I was having troubles earlier this year. Now that things have stabilized for me I've been using up my supply of CNS17 and Canna Coco A+B. Like you I'd rather use up supplies on hand before buying more. Still interested to hear about your experience though. I've never done DWC so I really know nothing about it.

Neil

ebh · May 25, 2015

Well, I by no means say that GH are BAD nutes, they are just harder to work with. For once because they are 3 part and you have to mix everything one at a time, and for second because you have bad ph stability. As plant health/growth goes, they are the same as the rest (I didn't do a real 1 on 1 test, but this is my general impresion from the experience I had with what I used before).

Right now I like hesi because it's a one part solution and I can use only my ppm meter for measurement - if it's too much I add more water, if it's to little I add more nutes. For extra "bloom", I just add p/k 13/14 from the same brand. I used canna coco in the past and it was good, but I find it too expensive (I think it was the most expensive stuff I used, other than biobizz, but that's just for soil).

Considering I have a combined quantity of 12l (I think that's about 4 gal) of GH right now, I find it more resonable to use it up (even though I have to keep adjusting the solution with ph-), than throwing it all away.

Regarding the DWC/RDWC, I find it to my liking at the moment because I am kind of lazy.. and it's something I don't have to tend to every day (maybe even 2-3 times/day). I just adjust the nutes, plug all the pumps in and it does it's thing for 1-2 weeks.
For coco to be as efficient you have to always keep a container size adjusted to the plants age/growth and also water it 2-3 times a day (this could be automated with drippers, though). The advantage is it's not reccirculating so you don't get ph swings and every plant is contained in case of problems.

Will see how the season goes... thanks for all input.

Blister · May 25, 2015

You're spot on with your assessment of coco, at least in my experience. Coco is a bit of work and you have to tend to it on a regular basis. I have to run my plants up to my parents place when I go on holidays because it'll dry out and everything will die over the week I'm gone. When they were smaller I'd put them in about 1" or so of standing nutrient if we were going for a weekend. They always look great when I get back, but that really doesn't give me much time to go away. On the days that I am home I usually end up watering when I put them out in the morning, at lunch when I get home and then again in the evening. It definitely is more work.

I considered DWC when I was looking into options for chili plants, but I went towards coco in the end. I'm just not sure how I would stress the plants when it's fruiting. The only knowledge I have on semi-hydro came from last year. The jolokia's I kept in hempy buckets always had access to water/nutes were hot, but nowhere near as hot as they should have been or as hot as the red trinidad scorp that wilted on a regular basis. I had to spit out the small piece I took a bite of. Curious to see how your peppers turn out.

I like the one part nutes given how easy they are to work with. The downside to CNS17 is that it's so thick and requires you to shake the hell out of it just to get it to dissolve. The canna coco 2 part nutes seems to be working, but requires a bunch of mixing different nutes to get a balanced formula. It was $75 per liter at the first place I looked, but I stumbled across a place that brought it in on request of another customer and were only asking $15 per liter. I grabbed 2L of each. Just had a hard time getting it to work at first. I think I have it figured out now, but you never know.

Neil

ebh · May 26, 2015

If you wanted too, you could get a DWC plant to wilt

.

Last year, growing one plant, it went through the nute solution in about 2 days. If I went away for a we I would find it wilting with absolutely no water left.

ebh · Jun 1, 2015

Got a few pods going already....

Jay's Peach Ghost Scorpion:

and Bhutlah...

They are both bumpy and nasty looking already. Can't wait to see how the later ("real") ones turn out...

ebh · Jun 9, 2015

Small update.... I got the reservoir changed this we with the painted one (unfortunately I still get leaks, so I will have to do some maintenance over the next week-end - which means emptying everything again, unfortunately). Also got the filter in, although judging from the state of the water pump when I tried to clean it, it wasn't needed. The good thing is that it also acts as a "t" for emptying the system right now.

As a side note, I switched the nutes to hesi bloom and pk 13/14.

Some pictures...