my HP aero grow

[Tank]

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.

I`ve never been one for quantity
Imho, the underlying issue is the mist doesn`t create any appreciable runoff to carry away the excess and it quietly accumulates in the rootzone until it reaches a toxic level. Any symptoms occurring after a period of relatively problem free growth will likely be due to an imbalance created over time in the rootzone. Altering the nutrient solution won`t help much as the problem lies within the rootzone itself. The solution is to periodically mist the roots with a good quantity of plain water, a 1 minute misting every few days will do. If you check the ec of the heavy misting runoff water, you`ll probably find its considerably higher than your nutrient solution. You might consider reducing the nutrient solution ec to reflect this buildup as this method of aero requires a low ec.

 

[queequeg152]

i might try misting with straight RO and see what the EC is. TBH i had just been monitoring the the runoff EC, and as long as it was constantly 50% lower, i had just assumed that it was ok. i DO run a very low ec however. i dont know the conversion on my cheep pen, but its 300ppm @ 6ph.

my 5gallon buckets are just a complete mess right now. theey are basically completely full of roots, and i fear only the top roots are healthy. but i knew from the start that hp aero was not suitible for growing very long plants. im thinking of getting some 13 current culture type gallon buckets and running 4 misters in each one not two. i would use a flip floping relay and another solenoid to alternate the spraying so each side gets a seperate mist. beyond 13 gallons i was thinking of building what are essnetially pandafilm tents made from cheep furniture grade 1/2" pvc, but ill have to look into that as it would require welding plastic sheeting.
next time im at the hydro store ill buy some panda film and give welding them together a shot.

 

[queequeg152]

just flushed the buckets with 3 30second mists, the runoff however was almost identical to the RO, i think it was 50ppm higher.

seems like im just getting something fundamentally wrong with my nutes...everything i read says this is a potassium defficiency, but i have sooo much in the formula. ill have to read more.

on the other hand could it have something to do with the buckets being totally full of roots?

 

[Tank]

I doubt it. How is the run off PH in relation to the feed PH, higher or lower?

 

[queequeg152]

just choped the plants today. i threw two away and transplanted the middle into some promix HP. i basically choped all the roots off and pulled the root ball out of the net pot and buried it in soil. the plant started wilting within an hour or so, well see how it does, i dont see how it will survive.

about a week ago i decided to try just soaking. i let the misters go at 10 second pulses every 5 minutes. i didnt notice any change after a week or so.

anyway here they are just beffore the chop.

these things have become obscenly large, they crawled up the side of the wall reached the ceiling.

here are the roots on the right plant

you can see this plant grew through this particular fabric screen.

i cut into the roots with a razor blade. here you can see how the center of the root mass is essentially dead. the roots seem to grow out into a sort of sleeve with the center roots being dead or dieing. you can also see how the roots grow straight up into the misters blocking misting from floating out to the sides.

this stuff is the dead root material, it falls apart like nothing.

here is a shot of the dense root mass that forms under the mister head.
defiantly not fluffy hp aero roots.

root ball.

 

[queequeg152]

i think i had to many images in a single post so ill continue here.

heres one of the more interesting lumps of root.

this is a very hard dense mass of root that lies where the misters were prior to me moving them to where they are now.

this stuff is about as dense as dry coco, its pretty unbelievable.

here is a cross section
i cut into this with a razor from a utility knife.

closer shot.

heres the center plant all alone. without the other plants to crawl all, and the strings to hold it up, it just sort of flattened out

i think this one is the center plant as well

anyway i think next go around im going to try a different plant like an annum.
im going to try to get them into much larger containers, and use smaller 3" net pots. as i think root space is a huge limiting factor. it seems like the large netpot led to the center column of roots to become to wide and not allow mist to penetrate very early on. i still do not know what is causing the spots on the leaves.

 

[megamoo]

That is the biggest root mass I've ever seen! Do the misters you are using spray an ultra fine mist? Because I tried to rig up an experimental aeroponic system but with the best pump I had (pretty weak) I couldn't get enough pressure to make the water into fine mist, even with the right type of misters. I then did one with an ultrasonic fogger and the roots grew really fluffy.

I don't know if you were trying for the ultra fine mist and flluffy root thing ? Non fluffy deep water culture type roots don't absorb the water and nutes as efficiently. It looks like the roots are just trying to grow up to the water/nute supply which is like a non misting sprayer. I didn't think roots ever tried to grow that much!

It could be the size of the container is too small, or the nutes you are feeding them are insanely tasty to the plant! If you up the pressure or with right type of ultrafine misters the roots won't have to work as hard to absorb all the stuff.

I'm no expert, someone with more hydro experience might know more. (It seems I sure like to give my opinon tho! )

 

[queequeg152]

yea they are misters. at 80 psi i think each mister is like .016gpm, so its pretty fine. the roots you see are not the fuzzy white roots you want however, they just ran out of space and turned into a brick.

on another note the tabasco plant i transplanted into soil looks like its doing alright. it started wilting immediately, so i pruned it so i could get it through the front door and outside into the 80% humidity we have right now, seems to be doing alright.

 

[Ictus]

Nice setup!

I'm glad you posted all those pics of the root zones since I am currently trying to plan an aero system. It's interesting to see how your roots grew into the misters and eventually stopped producing the hairs.

What kind of mister heads are those? I am most likely going to try the Reptile basics ones. I also have the aquatech 8800. It's very hard to find a 150psi accumulator, I've found lots of 100 psi ones though.


In my DWC my air pump has an adjustable knob. On the lowest setting, my roots in the air gap tend to get pretty fluffy, but then my leaves feel kinda dry to the touch if I keep it low too long. When I up the air even a tad, the roots change shape and lose most of the hairs except those really close to the netpots (I guess 'shielded' from larger drops by the other roots).


So many things to consider when trying to develop perfect roots. I am now questioning weather doing Kale in a 5x5 vinyl post would be way too crammed.



I also have one question about your nutes. A few times you said things like you had ~300ppm potassium.... but that your overall EC was only 0.8. Are you figuring in an overall dilution rate when you listed the individual nute ppms? Because you'd have way less than the ~300pm of K if your overall TDS was only 400ppm... unless I missed something.

 

[queequeg152]

they are the red TEFEN nozzles with the optional check valve. since this grow, i have actually leaned of some other nozzles, biocontrolls? something like that... they are cheap looking impingment nozzles, but apparently work the best. like 10 $ each tho, so ill stick with my tefens.

yea im stupid i dont know why i phrased it like that, what i was doing was mixing nutrients in a 5 gallon bucket w/ ro water to that profile, then diluting it into my 15 gallon res to maintain that ec. you probably already know, but hp aero requires very low ec, i measured the runoff as it collected in the condensate pump and it cames out at ~200.

unless you want to run super high pressures, just get a therm x trol tank, they are the cheapest as far as i know. i got mine on ebay for like 25$ 15 of which was shipping if i remember right.

 

[Ictus]

Thanks for the info. I have read a bit about biocontrols but I've heard some people had bad luck with them, saying as many as 10-20% drip or don't mist right. I'll check into the ones you mentioned, found them as cloud top tefens..

Aha... thermal expansion tanks... I knew I wasn't doing the right kinds of searches. Looks like 100 bucks for a 10gal is a pretty good deal on those and you'd have spray for a long time.


Yea I've heard about the lower nutes aero requires. I'm wondering if that also means that intercropping (mixing diff plants) with one single system is even less feasible than in hydro. Well maybe kale and lettuce could be mixed... but probably not lettuce and peppers unless you way under feed the peppers. I know it's certainly not recommended but I can't help but wonder if its possible. I'm glad I dont move into my new house until next month, gives me time to research and not be tempted to start buying crap I may not want.



One more Q: Did you have your light at the same height throughout the grow in this thread, or did you have it lower and raise it up?

 

[Ictus]

one minor though WRT the intercropping question:

I'm growing my Habs with Lucas formula right now, which is a 'poor mans' general nute profile, doesn't even closely match what's required by peppers. I wouldn't say my growth is perfect.... but they're growin. so maybe intercropping in aero is possible, just suboptimal. I guess I'll just have to see for myself in the end.

 

[queequeg152]

Thanks for the info. I have read a bit about biocontrols but I've heard some people had bad luck with them, saying as many as 10-20% drip or don't mist right. I'll check into the ones you mentioned, found them as cloud top tefens..Aha... thermal expansion tanks... I knew I wasn't doing the right kinds of searches. Looks like 100 bucks for a 10gal is a pretty good deal on those and you'd have spray for a long time. Yea I've heard about the lower nutes aero requires. I'm wondering if that also means that intercropping (mixing diff plants) with one single system is even less feasible than in hydro. Well maybe kale and lettuce could be mixed... but probably not lettuce and peppers unless you way under feed the peppers. I know it's certainly not recommended but I can't help but wonder if its possible. I'm glad I dont move into my new house until next month, gives me time to research and not be tempted to start buying crap I may not want. One more Q: Did you have your light at the same height throughout the grow in this thread, or did you have it lower and raise it up?

i started my light pretty low, but progressivly raised it up... its the only thing that stopped the leaves from rolling at the margins. 2' i think i stopped at.

one minor though WRT the intercropping question:I'm growing my Habs with Lucas formula right now, which is a 'poor mans' general nute profile, doesn't even closely match what's required by peppers. I wouldn't say my growth is perfect.... but they're growin. so maybe intercropping in aero is possible, just suboptimal. I guess I'll just have to see for myself in the end.

i actually ran an 18 plant tropof blumat garden with like 8 different plants, annums chininses frutenses, etc and didnt have any problems. my aji limon definatly stressed first showing nitrogen def., followed up by the chinenses, but when i didnt neglect them they all thrived. i ran the resh profile the whole time. as far as lettuce goes... i would assume you could get them all happy pretty easily.
i actually ran the hp aero system as high as 800 ppm( cheapo hanna) without problems, so there is a bit of flexibility to work with if one variety is deficient... with peppers anyway.

 

[Ictus]

thanks for the info.

Hey, got another question for you about your setup, since I'll be using the 8800 pump also.

Where'd you get that adjustable pressure switch? I found out the 8800 has an internal bypass mechanism that kicks in around 110 psi, so I need to plan on filling a tank only around 100.


What pressure did you set the switch to shut off at? You mentioned your output regulator was 80psi so I'm assuming you had the switch turn the pump back on just above that?


The only suitable switch I've come across has an 80-100 psi range. I could use that, but I think 80 is a bit low for the switch on, since I was also wanting to use 80psi for final pressure, maybe even 85 if possible.

 

[Ictus]

also noticed that those xtrol tanks are only precharged to 40psi. Did you have to manually increase the pressure using and air compressor to match the desired pressure?

 

[queequeg152]

thanks for the info.Hey, got another question for you about your setup, since I'll be using the 8800 pump also.Where'd you get that adjustable pressure switch? I found out the 8800 has an internal bypass mechanism that kicks in around 110 psi, so I need to plan on filling a tank only around 100. What pressure did you set the switch to shut off at? You mentioned your output regulator was 80psi so I'm assuming you had the switch turn the pump back on just above that?The only suitable switch I've come across has an 80-100 psi range. I could use that, but I think 80 is a bit low for the switch on, since I was also wanting to use 80psi for final pressure, maybe even 85 if possible.

i bought some cheap switch on ebay, this was ages ago, but its adjustable up to like 120psi with a 10(maby 20?) psi dead band if i remember correctly. it would cut on at 90 and off at 100( or maby 110).
anyway i would not recomend the one i bought, it was like 20 bucks new and its to big and its cheep as hell. it chattered pretty hard at cut out even when right next to the accumulator, this went away eventually, but before it did it sounded awful. try to get a good square d switch or something higher quality.
i can go grab it and give you the model number if you really want one.

also noticed that those xtrol tanks are only precharged to 40psi. Did you have to manually increase the pressure using and air compressor to match the desired pressure?

yup, used a bike pump. they have a little schrader valve on the top. i had it charged to 88psi 2psi under cut in


edit: on yea, the 8800 depending on the model will bypass at as low as 80 psi, but you can adjust this with an 1/16" allen key. i got mine up to as high as 140psi, but these pumps cant move crap at that psi. the flowrate starts falling prety hard at high psi

 

[hydromike]

It's been awhile since you posted, but did you use a pressure release valve for the accumulator? If so do you have any links?

Trying to setup a HPA system myself. Purchased a Well-x-trol 2 Gallon tank with 3/4'' male threading. Trying to find a pressure release valve that can double as an adaptor to 3/8'' tubing.