New Grower HYDROPONICS- Reverse Flood Table- Abducted by Aliens in the Bermuda Triangle

[Mushinronsha]

“Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is.” -Carl Sagan

Hello. Hello....... Is anyone there? Is this thing on? Well.. if we manage to reach you, we have something to share. We have journeyed far and wide and tall (too tall) and have come to a new place. This place is much like the old, yet very different. Many things are familiar from our last trip but slightly skewed. We welcome you all on this new adventure. As we traverse a familiar path to some, yet in new to many. Here is our project.

Welcome back again my friends. While our first attempt did not go as well as we wanted, we did learn a lot from our failure and shortcomings. As such this has giving us a chance to make some changes. I'll detail these below. If you want to skip the details, feel free to just glance to list.

The first of these was height. Our previous system of flood and drain was pretty standard minus the enormous amount of growing medium we used. This also required we have the table suspended off the ground for proper draining. This forced us to lose almost a foot and a half of grow space (40-50cm). So we decided this wasn't going to work. We really wanted to put the flood table flat on the ground. So we did some searching and asked our local hydroponic store, to which they had never heard or seen anyone do that. Well than... Challenge accepted lol! Now I would love to say it was just a matter of putting a pump in the flood table but I would be lying. Physics of water pressure, gravity, airflow etc do not like this idea. But after a few days of trial and error we got her to work. She is basically a carefully balanced system of timers, inline pumps, venting and custom draining. Ive had her running for a few days now and she is purring.

The 2nd issue we had was our growing medium. I love the clay pebbles so they stayed. The idea of soil or coco just sounds so messy. But we did have an issue of not knowing what was going on with anything below the surface ( Like when we found a foot of roots being sucked down the drain) Where the table was flooding too, root health etc. We also could not move any of the plants.
So this round we decided on smartpots ( fabric pots). Filled with our favorite medium. Which btw, is also not very common. Most people do a mixture it seems. We also changed our table from a 3x3 to a 2x4. Giving us more room to train the plants vs an unnecessary amount of space for root growth.



Some of the last issues were minor but worth changing. Things like getting a tower fan to save space and with lower speed settings for safer direct air movement. Additional power outlets for timers and devices.

One last thing worth mentioning is the Nutes. We are going with the Mega Crop 2.0 formula and plan to out it to the test. We will not be using any other product ( hopefully) unless of course things go wrong. Say we realize we need to supplement cal-mag. We also our going with more recognizable breeders this time. We have 2 Alien vs Triangle ( thus the title) from Mephisto and 2 Royal Jacks from Royal Queen Seeds.

Medium/mix: Clay Pebbles

Grow Method: LST and most likely topping at 4th node.

Fertilizer: Megacrop 2.0

Supplements: Hopefully None

Water Source: Tap water, de-chlorinated and PH'd between 5.5-6.5

Sex: Feminized

Breeder: Mephisto/ Royal Queen Seeds

Strain: AVT, Royal Jack

Indica, Sativa or Hybrid: Sativa Dominant

Light: Horticulture Lighting Group HLG 300 LED

Light Spectrum: 3000K for veg and bloom

Light Schedule: 20/4

Set-up: Gorilla Shorty

Dimensions: 5' x 5' x 5'8"

Hydro or Soil: Hydro

Container volume: 2x4 flood table with 5 gal smartpots

Reservoir: 20 Gal

Number of plants: 4

Temperature/Humidity: Currently fans and ventholes but looking to upgrade soon.

PH: General Hydroponics PH kit

Tools: TDS meter, Infrared thermometer

Odor Control: none



Enjoy the ride!!!!
______________________________

 

[Need4Weed]

Good luck with your grow @ColoradoDreaming420

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

nice set up and revisions lots of thought and detail where most jump in head first,and dont check if theres water first
good luck with the new starts

 

[Mushinronsha]

Good luck with your grow @ColoradoDreaming420

Thank you ! We will take all the luck we can get. I hope we have something to share at the end of this one.

 

[Mushinronsha]

nice set up and revisions lots of thought and detail where most jump in head first,and dont check if theres water first
good luck with the new starts

Ah ha! See that was the first time. We was blind and stupid... This time we are only blind. But arnt we all blind to our futures? lol

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

you seem to have your head screwed on
we all different some learn by getting their fingers burnt others will reseach for 2 years,all the while going without a smoke somewhere in the middle is good.im growing in the same cupboard 6 years on my 5th light,still tweeking and making adjustments.and still have a shopping list
keep er lit.

 

[Mushinronsha]

@R_HIDIA
@davisgirl
@Iriee Vibez
@EvilScotsman
@ChroToker
@STILLSMOKIN
@Garage_Grower
@Dichoti
@Mañ'O'Green
@wetwood
@Dabber
@bushmasterar15
@Frankthetank
@Need4Weed

Adding everyone from last thread. If you interested feel free to follow along. Im going to try to make it to the end this time !

I just finished doing a final flush on my substrate. New water and PH'd with Mega Crop in it at about 30% strength. One of the Royal Jacks have poked its head up, and one of the AVT is at the surface. Than the other of each strain seems like they are slightly behind ( maybe have to figure out up/down still) but I am sure they will germinate show up soon enough. They are currently sitting in plan PH'd tap water in a humidity dome in peet moss plugs.

My RH is a little low from me working in the tent earlier. It goes down quick but its starting to creep back up. It was sitting at 70% before the work. I also added a heater to the nutrient tank as the water temp had hit around 52 degrees F. Its slowly rising back up hopefully to 64. If we can get through these first 2-3 weeks I am sure we will get a nice harvest this time .
Happy Growings!

 

[davisgirl]

@R_HIDIA
@davisgirl
@Iriee Vibez
@EvilScotsman
@ChroToker
@STILLSMOKIN
@Garage_Grower
@Dichoti
@Mañ'O'Green
@wetwood
@Dabber
@bushmasterar15
@Frankthetank
@Need4Weed

Adding everyone from last thread. If you interested feel free to follow along. Im going to try to make it to the end this time !

I just finished doing a final flush on my substrate. New water and PH'd with Mega Crop in it at about 30% strength. One of the Royal Jacks have poked its head up, and one of the AVT is at the surface. Than the other of each strain seems like they are slightly behind ( maybe have to figure out up/down still) but I am sure they will germinate show up soon enough. They are currently sitting in plan PH'd tap water in a humidity dome in peet moss plugs.

My RH is a little low from me working in the tent earlier. It goes down quick but its starting to creep back up. It was sitting at 70% before the work. I also added a heater to the nutrient tank as the water temp had hit around 52 degrees F. Its slowly rising back up hopefully to 64. If we can get through these first 2-3 weeks I am sure we will get a nice harvest this time .
Happy Growings!

View attachment 1008322 View attachment 1008323 View attachment 1008321

Looking good! The second grow is so much better than the first!

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

@ColoradoDreaming420 I hate to be a Debbie Downer but I learned this the hard way doing exactly what you are doing. The clay pebbles in those soft planter bags will act just like grinders when and if you try to move the bag. I moved two medium sized plants and nearly killed them both as the moving clay pebbles sheared the roots. I suggest you get some plastic nursery pots and slip the whole thing right into it, then when you move the plants the pebbles will remain stationary.

The rest of your plan is solid. I went through a lot of the phases you seem to be moving through. I ended up here.

 

[Mushinronsha]

@ColoradoDreaming420 I hate to be a Debbie Downer but I learned this the hard way doing exactly what you are doing. The clay pebbles in those soft planter bags will act just like grinders when and if you try to move the bag. I moved two medium sized plants and nearly killed them both as the moving clay pebbles sheared the roots. I suggest you get some plastic nursery pots and slip the whole thing right into it, then when you move the plants the pebbles will remain stationary.

The rest of your plan is solid. I went through a lot of the phases you seem to be moving through. I ended up here.

View attachment 1008340

@ColoradoDreaming420 I hate to be a Debbie Downer but I learned this the hard way doing exactly what you are doing. The clay pebbles in those soft planter bags will act just like grinders when and if you try to move the bag. I moved two medium sized plants and nearly killed them both as the moving clay pebbles sheared the roots. I suggest you get some plastic nursery pots and slip the whole thing right into it, then when you move the plants the pebbles will remain stationary.

The rest of your plan is solid. I went through a lot of the phases you seem to be moving through. I ended up here.

View attachment 1008340

that kind of defeats the purpose of air pruning and limiting root growth doesn't it lol. I would think the idea would be to never move the pots unless in case of emergency? I joke but in all seriousness we would lose all the benefits of doing smartpots. I had actually though of doing airpots but all my research suggested smartpots were the go to. I can see what your saying but it feels like this would be a rare occasion to move them and it would hardly offset the benefits of the smartpots. Do you find you have to move them alot?