Hunting for Old School

916DanFan

In Bloom
I'm doing a light defoliation and then installing drip on this garden. Things are looking good! The two FDM Cindy's have a glorious stem rub aroma. Same with several Congo's but a "different" earthy aroma with less gas. An AK is kinda loud, yet the Slymers have no real smell yet. The one variegated gal is still pushing yellow out on new leaves. I hope that trait holds on.

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Caddis

Zinger

916DanFan

In Bloom
Coming along nicely!
I’m a big fan of auto watering. I made some rings out of tubing, but half asked drilling the holes. I saw too late about using a hot pin. Hard to dial it in if the rings don’t water consistently.
Curious about your drip rings?
Thanks Caddis and you hit the nail on the head with "Hard to dial it in if the rings don't water consistently"... that's like gospel man! It's all about the components and this can be daunting for some people. You know the type... "man you don't have to get those forty cent drippers, these fifteen cent ones do the job"... EPIC FAILURE!

It's not just watering consistently either. It's ALL THINGS consistent, especially medium volume and density. When all the drippers are watering consistently, you'll see quickly that "shallow" pots runoff faster than others. The key is to water regularly "but not to runoff" and even then it takes monitoring and schedule adjustments to keep all the balls in the air :D
 

916DanFan

In Bloom
I only have fifty rings set up on the production plants right now. I have to get more delivered to finish the rest and I'll handwater those until the rings arrive.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I used these on another garden with 0.3 gph drippers and thought it was too slow (pump ran too long) so I used 0.58 gph drippers on this garden. Layout of the driplines is very important as well... this setup works like a recirculating system in that the water leaves the rez, gets distributed through the feeder lines, and then returns to the rez on a return line. I'll put together an illustration to show the flow path shortly.
 

916DanFan

In Bloom
I hope this makes sense. I didn't remove all the pot numbers so please disregard them. The flow goes like this: Submersible Mondi pump in the 44gal Brute rez pushes water through a "short" garden hose over to a standard drip irrigation wye filter and then transitions to drip tubing "header" with three "laterals" that each water two rows of plants on the way to the return line (red), which waters the last row of plants along the wall on the way back to the rez.

There's a ball valve at the return line going into the rez so potential excess pressure can be released with the benefit of additional rez aeration. I forgot to take a pic but you understand... the water going back into the rez is clean, just recirculated through the line. It's not runoff from the plants.

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916DanFan

In Bloom
I learned quickly that you want to do these two things if your nutrient mix does not fully dissolve into solution...

#1 - GET THE PUMP OFF THE BOTTOM OF THE REZ. SIT IT UP ON SOMETHING ABOUT SIX INCHES

#2 - GET A PROPER PUMP FILTER BAG OR AT LEAST USE A STOCKING OVER THE PUMP

I did neither of these when I tested the system thinking the powders (that I didn't mix) were fully dissolved... NOT! I had to clean the screen on the filter (easy) after it clogged in under five minutes. None of the sediment made it past the filter screen but flow stopped.
 

JL2G

Jesse Loves 2 Grow
Staff member
Moderator
Q-36 Space Modulator
Man J... it'll be tough getting in there each week past week three when stretch is over. One of the drawbacks to this tight spacing... and it takes all friggin day! I'm already complaining when they're this small?!
Yeah, it's alot easier to do when there's only 5 plants flowering atm. Lol.
Last summer I couldn't keep up with trimming, or much of anything else except watering them. And that was tough some days. Lol.
Had too many plants going on for me, but you've got a much bigger and better system than I did set up. Looks easier to maintain imho.
 

916DanFan

In Bloom
Yeah, it's alot easier to do when there's only 5 plants flowering atm. Lol.
Last summer I couldn't keep up with trimming, or much of anything else except watering them. And that was tough some days. Lol.
Had too many plants going on for me, but you've got a much bigger and better system than I did set up. Looks easier to maintain imho.
Next run should be a lot better. I think we're getting off the floor and on to 4x4 tables with casters... nine plants per. I'm hoping we'll run a Freak line to replace the Ice Cream Cakes, @Frimpong says the Pure Michigan line is "the business" and those Pigs in a Blanket look scrumptious!
 

916DanFan

In Bloom
Just some pics of the progress. I haven't got more NetBows delivered yet so I improvised... the bows use a .58 gph emitter and I had a bunch of .29 emitters on hand so I put two of those in each of my 20 plants... same gph but not as good distribution (two outlets versus four). We'll monitor and I ought to have the rings this week.

Here's the pics:

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916DanFan

In Bloom
Hey guys thanks for being patient. all has been well and I've just been busy with work on a couple of new projects and other stuff. I didn't see the plants for nine days until just last night. We had plenty to do when I got there with hanging the last two lights and weeding out some plants (not mine). Bro says I topped too early and that's why most of mine are so short (two Congo's are pretty close to the size of his). Yeah they're short but fairly uniform in that I topped them all identically and plan to cut clones the same as well to achieve the same number of colas per plant as much as possible.

Oh BIG CHANGE... because mine were shorter we brought the trays back for them (YAY!) and have nine plants per tray. Nine Slymer's in the back tray. One more Slymer in the front tray along with two Congo's, two AK47's, three Cinderella99's, and a Back to the Congo. On the floor in saucers are the two tallest Congo's. About a week to flower and here are some pics, then I'm gone to bed. Busy days ahead...

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916DanFan

In Bloom
In Flower Since Yesterday...
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Bro says I topped too early and my plants aren't gonna be tall like his. We'll see after stretch . We put all of mine except two Deep Congo's on flood trays for height. The automated watering is making this too easy for so many plants. I retooled the whole system when the plants got spread out and all eight lights were on.

There's more to say and show but will have to wait until tonight. I AM SLAMMED with regular work (not complaining) and no time to journal. We're looking good though!
 
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