iwombat

Week 04: Week 05: So far, only minor glitches.

Sounds like a nice setup. My base water is 350 ppm. So I use Tap Hard: With nutrients at recommended dose I measured 1100 ppm. So I set my nutrient range to 1000 - 1200 ppm. It was still fairly easy to dissolve at 1100 ppm. But my 100X concentrate is approx 60,000 ppm. It takes a little time to dissolve. My meter taps out at 4000 ppm, so I can't directly measure my concentrate.

Another comment about Veg+Bloom. It is a powder, my nutrient reservoir must be a solution. I did not have any guidelines about how strong to mix a concentrate for my reservoir. So I measured tap water ppm, then nuted it up according to the instructions and re-measured. That gave me the target PPM to set in the program. Then I decided to try a 100X concentrate, since round numbers are simpler. As a user of V+B, you know how fine it is, it is almost like adding cornstarch to water except that it dissolves better. But with so much powder, I found that even after thoroughly mixing, I would set it aside and come back later to find powder settling to the bottom. I had to agitate my solution for several days before it all went into solution. These facts I did not realize during my first nutrient reservoir filling, so I hooked up a res of half mixed solution. The result was pretty comical, as the automatic doser started pulling from the bottom of the reservoir and sucked milk-of-magnesia concentrated stuff into the barrels. The algorithm adjusts based on the effects of adding, not by you having to tell it the concentration. From the last nute res, it has already decided how much to add to bring it up a level, but when it added, it quickly overshot the target and instead of my target 1100 ppm, it was something like 40,000 PPM. The Alert notifications turned on, the machine started flashing red lights. After I investigated and determined what happened, I quickly emptied the buckets to the waste reservoir (button), refilled from the fresh (button), re-emptied and filled the water reservoirs (manual), and re-started. This time the system recovered perfectly and re-balanced everything, but by then it was 3am and I was pretty wrecked. Live and Learn

This is my first grow with Veg+Bloom, so I don't have any experience pre-automation. However I use the iPad/iPhone app to check in regularly and see how things are going. I can see the pH and Nute levels changing as the plants grow and watch the "balance" events execute and those things adjust. And those levels definitely change constantly. I like the fact that "balancing" happens every couple hours automatically (by default, or as often as you program). Otherwise, balance is your responsibility. The amount of time your nutrients are in-balance vs out-balance affects growth and vitality. As the plants get bigger, they get out of balance more quickly, so by the end of the grow you are running around like a mad-man. IMHO, the percentage of time you are in-zone is important. Glad to hear that Veg+Bloom might contribute to that. BTW: have to make a comment on rock wool. I have used rock wool for cloning for almost 20 years. When I was starting this hydro grow, I needed a bunch of similarly sized clones, so I cut up a large mother plant and started a dozen clones. I only had a couple rock wool left, so I used a few coco-plugs that came with the gro-io supplies. To my astonishment, the coco-plugs started showing roots much earlier. Many of the rock wool never showed roots, so in frustration I yanked them out of the rock wool and shoved them into coco-plugs. In a couple days, they had roots growing out the bottom! Have no idea if I flubbed something with the rock wool, but I am now superstitious about coco-plugs.

Also started turning up the second light: Tasty LED T4-2100 COB Light.

Week 03 Recovering nicely from my manifold trimming.

I initially thought about buying a bloom box. What I liked about gro.io that it is modular. I started out with my own lights. No enclosure means you can use tent, room,.. Plus, you can get it in an ebb&flow configuration where it just adjusts your reservoir, or you can use the full modified-aeroponics setup. In ebb-flow configuration you can have as many plants as your reservoir supports.

Just about to transition to Bloom. Will stop using Push then as recommended by HR.

Another thing I like is that is supports a pretty broad range of feedings. You get three reservoirs that you can assign to either nutrients or additives and then can program how much of each. I am using Hydroponics Research Veg+Bloom and all it's additives: I mixed up a 100X concentrate of each. It maintains PPM levels for the nute and adds the additives on a defined schedule. I have been running 47 days and I've only had to fill my nute reservoir once so far. Couple times a week I manually mist with HR Push.

Reliable sensors are pretty necessary in this setup. The sensors are replaceable. You install the ph sensor from a calibration solution that it ships with. Afterwards, you can re-calibrate it as necessary using a built in procedure and calibration solution: Same with other components. They switched to a more reliable pump for their production devices and just shipped me a new one to install next time I am between grows. Since the pump is also so essential, they monitor the amps being drawn and how long to pump dry. If it exceeds those thresholds it pauses and sends an alert. They tell me that when a pump is about to fail, it usually starts drawing more amps and tips you off that it might be going bad.

So far the automation has worked well. It has logged a few false alarms about nutrient balancing, which seems to be fine despite the warnings. For the most part, I just sit back and watch the system balance, aerate, circulate, etc... My back is much happier not lugging soil, pots, or water around. I just hook up the hose and fill-er up...

Time to main-line the plants to confuse apical dominance:

Week 02: Clean roots forming

I've added an Ideal-Air 700860 Humidifier with a 13 Gallon water reservoir and jury-rigged my Delongi potable AC as a cooler: