Siv's second time lucky? 2020 Glog

Siv · Jun 21, 2020

So time for a hydro update. Almost two weeks but I have some time today so thought I'd bring it forward a day.

White Ghost and Dorset Naga. The Naga is flowering but the white ghost is thinking about it. These get the least direct sun as they're the furthest to the left.

Fatalii (growdown seed), Piri piri and Datil. Same with these guys - plenty of growth but limited flowers. The piri-piri is reaching for the sky!

Purple Thunder (from Paul), KSLSB & Bahamian Goat. The purple thunder has a ton of flowers and is starting to set fruit.

White Ghost, Aji Amarillo (from Harry D) and SRP. The Aji has a couple pods on the go and it still stretching out.

LGS (from the seed train), Aji Cristal, Peppadew and Datil. The Peppadew is now my tallest plant - he didn't even fit the photo - I'm gonna have to string him up some more. The Datil has set a ton of pods and has slowed growth considerably.

Orange Ribbon, Solid Gold & White Ghost. The Orange Ribbon has lots of flowers now and had to be tied up.The other two are still in growth mode.

SRP, Peppadew and LGS. The SRP and Peppadew are podding away but the LGS is chilling.

The 32 gallon nute reservoirs are barely lasting a week now. I'm keeping the feed at 2g Masterblend/ 2g Cal Nitrate/1g epsom salt per gallon since there is probably more evaporation that feeding.

HeatMiser · Jun 21, 2020

Awesome progression Siv, a month makes a big difference in hydro... However, as more nutrients are used up by the plants, they become more expensive.

How long are you keeping your plants for? My first successful hydro grow was only 5 months (May to October) and I ended up with more peppers than I knew what to do with, and that was only from 2 plants!

PaulG · Jun 21, 2020

+1 HM!

Your plants look awesomely healthy,
just like last season!

i looked at some pics of wheel bugs
online. Looks like something out of a
sci-fi horror movie. Also read that they
have a fearsome bite. Watch out, bro!

Siv · Jun 21, 2020

HeatMiser said:
Awesome progression Siv, a month makes a big difference in hydro... However, as more nutrients are used up by the plants, they become more expensive.

How long are you keeping your plants for? My first successful hydro grow was only 5 months (May to October) and I ended up with more peppers than I knew what to do with, and that was only from 2 plants!

To be honest, I never really thought about how long I would keep them - I just assumed that they would stay there until we get a good freeze and they die off.

Right now I have 21 plants in hydro consuming about a 33 gallon reservoir a week. My "kit" of 10lb masterblend, 10lb CaNO3 & 5lb epsom salts cost $58 shipped which works out to about 77c per week in nutes so it's not costing me much.

I don't really know what's gonna happen as the year progresses. Last year most of the plants died or were set back severely when they ran out of water when I was away on vacation. Now that I'm stuck here, we'll have to see what continued feeding brings!

Siv · Jun 21, 2020

A bit of a conundrum on the soil side. These are supposed to be Aji Cristal but clearly they're not! The seeds are from fatalii.net and they have baccatum looking flowers - I wonder if it was a seed mix-up or a cross of some kind? The seeds were put in in my second batch which only had Aji Amarillo and Aji Cristal so definitely not a mistake on my end. The plant confused the hell out of me as I have two Peppadew and two Aji Cristal next to each other and I could have sworn that I put each variety in the same row but looking at the pod shapes, I thought I had put them across from each other. I had to check the tags several times and see the pods to realise that this is something odd. These pods are much lighter green than the peppadew. Anyway, I'll be interested to see how they ripen.

skullbiker · Jun 21, 2020

I had orange/pumpkin spice jalapeno seeds from 3 different vendors this year. I have plants from all three that are producing off pheno pods.

HeatMiser · Jun 22, 2020

Siv said:
To be honest, I never really thought about how long I would keep them - I just assumed that they would stay there until we get a good freeze and they die off.

Right now I have 21 plants in hydro consuming about a 33 gallon reservoir a week. My "kit" of 10lb masterblend, 10lb CaNO3 & 5lb epsom salts cost $58 shipped which works out to about 77c per week in nutes so it's not costing me much.

I don't really know what's gonna happen as the year progresses. Last year most of the plants died or were set back severely when they ran out of water when I was away on vacation. Now that I'm stuck here, we'll have to see what continued feeding brings!

Yup, masterblend definitely brings the price down considerably, specially when it is bought in bulk. The numbers look very different with GH Flora series at ~20c/gal! That's why I switched to MB, but CNS17 is sooo much easier to mix, and similarly priced as a 5lb pack of MB...

Siv · Jun 22, 2020

HeatMiser said:
Yup, masterblend definitely brings the price down considerably, specially when it is bought in bulk. The numbers look very different with GH Flora series at ~20c/gal! That's why I switched to MB, but CNS17 is sooo much easier to mix, and similarly priced as a 5lb pack of MB...

I have never heard of CNS17 - seems like a miracle bullet! I can't find definitive hydro ratios but it seems like 200:1 which would be between $2.50 and $5/week for my lot depending on the quantity I buy. I may try some though - for my indoor hydro experiments, particularly salad. Mixing large batches for the outdoor hydro is not a big deal since plus or minus a gram isn't a problem when it's being diluted in 30 gallons. But the smaller ones are a pain - getting exactly 2.5g for a gallon takes more attention and hence time.

HeatMiser · Jun 22, 2020

Siv said:
I have never heard of CNS17 - seems like a miracle bullet! I can't find definitive hydro ratios but it seems like 200:1 which would be between $2.50 and $5/week for my lot depending on the quantity I buy. I may try some though - for my indoor hydro experiments, particularly salad. Mixing large batches for the outdoor hydro is not a big deal since plus or minus a gram isn't a problem when it's being diluted in 30 gallons. But the smaller ones are a pain - getting exactly 2.5g for a gallon takes more attention and hence time.

Yup, it's the smaller mixes of MB that were a pain in the butt for me, until Unc recommended CNS17 (which I hadn't heard of before either)

https://www.botanicare.com/products/cns17/

And yes, the ratio is 1:200, but they say that for DWC systems (which I translate to hydro) the strength can be reduced to 50 - 57%. This gives you about a 1:400 ratio at 50%, which is what I'm using right now. The resulting EC is 1.2... it could definitely be hotter, but works well so far...

Siv · Jun 23, 2020

I almost forgot about my indoor turbo pube. He was looking pretty happy but the temps were reading a bit high so I raised the light to the top of the tent. He them promptly dropped all his flowers. A week later and he's grown a bit and put out some new flowers - I guess he likes the bubbles. I moved the fan to the base and added one as a vent- hopefully this provides some strength and circulation. I hope some fruit set this time!

PaulG · Jun 23, 2020

Rocoto looks great - I can see the new flowers.
Hope they set up for you.

Siv · Jun 29, 2020

We've had rain every day since Friday 19th June so the soil side has been soaked. My son and I managed to find a little slot where it dried up enough so we could add some additional support ropes to the shade cloth. It's pretty level now with no major saggy bits. Here's a shot from his bedroom window.

So I took a little wander trying to avoid the puddles and we have pods!

Sugar Rush Peach is almost ready for a harvest:

The Piri-piri has set a few pods but they're on the small side. They're still green so may grow some - I'll keep an eye open.

The Leviathan Gnarly Scorpion has set a ton of pods. Looks like I'm gonna have plenty of heat available:

The Peppadew has also set lots of pods. I'm looking forward to stuffing these, they're growing quite large.

Most of the other plants only have a couple pods though. A few Bahamian Goats:

A sole giant pod on the Dorset Naga:

A few large pods on the on pheno Aji Cristal

And finally, my off pheno Aji Cristal is looking very funny now with mixes of on and off pheno pods. I suspect there is more than one plant here - perhaps up to three seeds in the block.

Siv · Jun 29, 2020

And, of course, some hydro plumbing. My toilet float thing just doesn't work, I suspect it needs higher pressure water than my gravity fed nute tanks can supply so it doesn't seal when the float reaches the top and just overflows. I've binned that idea though the most annoying thing about it is that I've ruined two buckets with that experiment.

So given that the main problem is solids build-up in the inlet to the float, I've added an in-line removable filter. Hopefully this catches the bulk of the solids and even if it doesn't, I fit quick connects so that it can be removed giving me access to flush the line to the bucket easily. Not pictured is another valve off the the right so I can flush from both directions.

The sure fire way to increase the reliability of this system is to add some redundancy. So that's next on the list. I've bought another float, identical to the one I'm using now, and I'm going to set up a second "master" bucket with the level just slightly below the primary. So if the primary fails, the second one will take over. My only problem now is that I've run out of black plastic buckets and don't really feel like ordering another 10 as I'm sure I'll fill them with plants! I have a papaya tree in one which I'll transplant to the ground and use that bucket. Something to keep me occupied over the 4th July weekend.

Mr.joe · Jun 29, 2020

What about a valve that was built for exactly this? I see you can buy one from auto pot. I've never used one of these systems so I cannot speak from experience just throwing stuff out there.

Siv · Jun 29, 2020

Another amusing discovery - I opened up the nute tanks to refill them and saw one tank had a mosquito nymph squirming around in it (or maybe a dragonfly nymph). Anyway, I tested the solids concentration and it was 200ppm. So it looks like I had refilled that tank with water and forgotten to add nutes. This past week, my plants had only been fed water! I refilled both tanks, dosed nutes and tested at 1100ppm so we should be good for the next couple of weeks.

Mr.joe said:
What about a valve that was built for exactly this? I see you can buy one from auto pot. I've never used one of these systems so I cannot speak from experience just throwing stuff out there.

I've looked at many solutions. The problem is that the flow in the float valve is usually through a very small orifice - this lets the relatively small leverage from the float close the flow by simply pressing against the orifice with a rubber pad or similar. The autopot seems to work in a similar manner. The small orifice allows for control by the simple float but it also susceptible to blockage from solids crystallizing out of the nute mix. What would be ideal is a larger orifice but that would need a larger pad and more force to seal tightly so a longer arm on the float and maybe a larger float - this would then need a much larger bucket to put them in. The other problem is that the valve opens as soon as the level drops slightly so there is a tiny trickle of flow. This tiny opening of the valve makes the problem worse as it doesn't open far enough for a good flowrate to flush any solids through and they just accumulate.

This seems like a bit of a pain but really I only had one failure last year and one at the start of this season so it's not a regular problem. I just have to be disciplined enough to go check the master bucket regularly. What would be cool is some kind of level sensor that would send me an alarm if it dropped too low. Hmm... this is something I'll have to research!

HeatMiser · Jun 29, 2020

I vote for 10 more buckets! :dance:

That Leviathan Scorpion looks mean, Siv. The plant is also producing a lot of pods...

It's been interesting to follow your quest to fix the valve issue you are having. If you are considering going the sensor route - have you thought about converting the system to RDWC? You'd need a pump, but (I believe) you completely eliminate the need for a valve.. either way, you'd be adding some electric component to your system.

Siv · Jun 30, 2020

HeatMiser said:
I vote for 10 more buckets!

That Leviathan Scorpion looks mean, Siv. The plant is also producing a lot of pods...

It's been interesting to follow your quest to fix the valve issue you are having. If you are considering going the sensor route - have you thought about converting the system to RDWC? You'd need a pump, but (I believe) you completely eliminate the need for a valve.. either way, you'd be adding some electric component to your system.

Hehe - 10 more buckets would be cool but I've run out of roof overhang so rain will get straight in them. And I'm sure my wife would have more than a couple words to say about it!

This whole hydro thing was meant to be as hands off as I can manage. Did I mention I'm lazy? I purposely avoided pumps and air stones etc to eliminate failure points and anyway, half the bloody plants are taller than me now so I don't need any more growth encouragement. After watching Peter Stanley's videos for inspiration, my build was meant to be a simple solution however given my inexperience, I didn't know that solids would precipitate and block the float valve.

In my day job, I'm a reliability simulation consultant. I know that the most unreliable equipment in a system is generally the rotating machinery so I intentionally avoided adding pumps. I also know that adding redundancy increases reliability by an order of magnitude so I'm confident that a backup will increase the system performance considerably. Adding condition monitoring that doesn't directly impact the system operation allows failure identification before the impact is felt ensuring corrective actions can be taken in advance. Knowing all this is driving me towards a passive system with redundancy and some independent monitoring. Redundancy is easy to add, remote monitoring is another issue. I've already found water level sensors that work with Arduino etc but I know nothing about these things so I'm looking for an off the shelf system. I've found wifi enabled water level sensors that are designed to detect high levels (to prevent flooding in basements etc) but my need is to detect low levels so these systems won't work out the box. I'll keep searching - I'm sure a solution is out there but can I find one that's simple to implement? Time will tell.

CaneDog · Jun 30, 2020

Things are looking great, Siv. The "gnarly" on your LGS is just crazy. And a classic looking flower on the piri piri. Just how small are the pods? Hopefully they'll get chunkier with a little more time on the bush.

Too many good things to comment on. Glad it's going so well!

Oh, and I'm with HeatMiser - 10 more buckets!

Siv · Jun 30, 2020

CaneDog said:
And a classic looking flower on the piri piri. Just how small are the pods? Hopefully they'll get chunkier with a little more time on the bush.

I took that pic to include the flower with you in mind. The pod is about 15mm long and 5mm diameter right now. I'll be watching these like a hawk to see how they turn out. I hear they taste great but the taste better be great if I'm gonna have to deal with picking and processing tons of tiny peppers! I purposely grew large podded varieties this year to try and reduce the processing workload.

CaneDog · Jun 30, 2020

Yep, you and me both on the small pods. There are some small peppers I really like, but the picking and processing can just be too much.

Siv's second time lucky? 2020 Glog

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