SisterMaryElephant wrote:Yep, 8/16 + RO the whole way except for seedlings and newly rooted clones...

LF is more for hydro, I assume your mother plant is in soil?

I run 5.8 the whole way but I never tried aeroponics.

If the pH is too high or too low you can lock out either Ca or Mg (among other things) so I shoot for 5.8. With LF, using RO water, in hydroponics, the only time you *should* see calmag problems is if the pH gets out of whack. I guess some strains are different but for the most part LF works pretty darn well.


There is no one, single, right answer when it comes to growing...

BTW, SME....I have never had a Mother plant...something I am trying...lol. But what I am trying is in hydro...I don't have much of a clue what I am doing...but I am trying and determined!!!
Right now I am grooming 6 babies from one strain, have clones from a 2nd strain that are almost ready to go to a baby tub, and I am getting ready to take about 10 clippings from a 3rd strain. My thought/goal is to get where I have about 4 Mothers of each of the 3 strains I started. Each strain will be kept in separate hydro tubs, in the same tent, just for cloning material. I am thinking this way, with a little planning, I can harvest, clean the system and have plenty of babies to populate the it after each cleaning.
I read somewhere that organics shouldn't be used in an Aeroflo and didn't know if this included Rockwool....So when I put my first group of future Mother clones into net pots, I put them in with nothing but the Hydroton....and I have beautiful white roots shooting about 6-8 inches out of every one after about a week and a half.....will this work for the long term....as in Mothers?? Dunno, but I am wondering if without the Rockwool, the roots would get more air and be less likely to get any root fungus or rot??? Make any sense?
If I correctly understood what I read, I think my next grow will have no Rockwool.....cuz the Rockwool tends to clog pumps & sprayers when it breaks down?? System failure in the middle of a grow certainly has to suck!!

Will something like this work? If not, how do I go about developing Mother plants of various strains??

hey happy,

saw you have a water cooler DIY chiller idea too. I've seen a lot of posts on how to do it on other sites. I dont' like the idea of submerging the copper coils in nutes. there has to be some leeching going on.

I decided to buy a real chiller until I could get my DIY one going and fully tested.

How are you running your current chiller? I have a second tub outside the room with 2 pumps: one for chiller and then one pumps out to a stainless wort chiller (homebrewing device) that is in my grow tub. that way the nute solution is always separate. it works really well. I set the chiller 1 degree cooler than I want my nutes.

Hey rkymtnman!
Yea, I am trying an Aeroflo system for my main grow but have other homemade tubs in a tent that contain a cloner and babies that I am trying to groom into Mother plants....and it is those tubs that I am looking to keep at a steady temp. My chiller is on the Aeroflo, so barring any equipment failure I should be set there. I read enough to know to over-size the chiller I bought, so I just use a submersible in my reservoir to pump to the chiller and have the return line coming back in the opposite end of my reservoir. So far, so good, it keeps my reservoir a steady 66-67.. Somewhere i read that if your chiller is marginal, you may have to go to an inline pump to shave off the degree or two generated by the extra pump inside the reservoir.
The thought I have for the DIY chiller is to have some sort of coil in each tub, that is stubbed to the outside of each tub. I have read to avoid copper and nickel coils...because of the leeching issues....seek out the ss ones. Then set up a separate reservoir of plain water, connected to the DIY chiller and a pump to form a circulation loop through my tubs without mixing it with the nutes, and then returniing to the res to be chilled and pumped through again... I just have to figure out which would be better suited to the app....and tear into it. Water cooler of dorm fridge?? Plus making the time to do it!!
If you find useful info in your search please send me a link or something??

Happy

hey happy,



I tried the dorm fridge: had a big pot of water with a small pump to pump it thru the wort chiller and back to the fridge. even with the fridge as cold as possible, the water would go from 38 to 80 in about 10 minutes. the heat from the pump and the heat transfer from the wort chiller. I even tried frozen water bottles to help but they melted in minutes too.

for the water cooler, i'll try to find a link. but basically, you take it all apart very carefully to not crimp any copper tubing and use the copper coils submerged to cool the water.

I thought water temps in aeroflo weren't that important but maybe i'm incorrect. in rDWC, temps are everything IMO.

good luck with the mother's. i'd like to get one going. would save me $10 per clone. but I'm less than 4 plants at a time so its not too expensive to keep doing it my way either.

You can keep mother plants in hydro but it's harder to control their growth and still keep them happy. In soil you can use a small pot to keep her root-bound and maintain her the same way you'd maintain a houseplant or bonsai tree. However, you don't want your unrooted clones in the same room as the mother plant because the mother's light should be on 24/0 and the cuttings root better with a dark period. Additionally, you shouldn't need more than one mother per strain unless you need a LOT of clones.

Now, on to chillers:
You're both right that you don't want copper or nickle in your nutrient reservoir but I'd try to avoid stainless steel too, even though that's what most hydro stores sell for wort chillers. The salts in most nutrients will corrode stainless eventually (so you *can* use it but you have to replace it more often) which is why most salt-water aquarium chillers (like we use for hydroponics) use titanium. They do make titanium wort chillers too.

To convert many other heat pumps (like refrigerators or window ac units) into a water chiller the evaporator can be replaced with a "titanium coaxial heat exchanger" which is what you'd find inside a salt-water aquarium chiller if you took it apart.

If you have a professional doing the conversion just tell them you're building a large salt-water aquarium and you don't want to pay the big bucks for a store-bought chiller. You can find links by searching the web but they aren't cheap which is probably why chillers are expensive...

Thank you both for the input...please try to keep me on the right path...lol
As far as temps in the Aeroflo, when I first got the system I only set up with 4 of the 6 chambers. Before I got all sites loaded I was seeing signs of root rot on the first few placed in it(about 4-5 days)...and temps were the only thing I could find that was out of whack. I treated with peroxide and flushed the system, cleaned it thoroughly and flushed it again, before adding nutes and plants back. Then I kept it cooled with frozen bottles mostly until my chiller arrived. Haven't had the problem again. I have read(no practical experience) that because of the amount of roots that develop in those 6"x6" grow chambers during a grow that if you aren't careful the roots can ball up, and can block the flow of nutes and oxygen to the center of the root mass, then root rot can develop no matter what temps are. Dunno, but even if it weren't needed, that chiller takes away worry.
I bought the Aeroflo 60 with the idea of eventually running the staggered configuration(provides more room between plants) but that isn't possible in the space I have it in right now, plus I would have to have twice the lights. I am still adjusting to the the idea that smaller is better with the Aeroflo.....prior, I flowered in a 4x4x6 tent and would run out of room to raise the lights! Big girls! Now my biggest girl is about 15" and I have spaced them to every other site...and there is still overlap. Can't imagine how tiny plants have to be in order to fill all 60 sites!! Maybe I just have to think smaller?? LOL Can you put them on 12/12 as soon as they drop roots?? J/K....
Regarding Mothers...I don't know what I am doing...just trying to figure out something that will work in my situation...lol But thought was to start with about 6 of each strain, narrow it to 3 or 4 each strain, keeping the healthiest looking. Then each different grow I would cycle through the strains, one at a time.... Won't it take more than one Mother to populate 30 sites in the Aeroflo?

Hey Happy,

I can answer one question about right from clone to 12/12. I did it on a 6 plant tub about a year ago and after I bought the clones, I gave them 2 days in their new "home" and then switched. They went from 4-5 inches to about a foot and I got an ounce per plant. I can't remember what strain but each plant was just one main cola.

As for the mother, I wouldn't think 1 would give you 60 clones. It would look like Charlie Browns Xmas tree. LOL.

Keep the pix coming. I love that aeroflo setup. I never knew they were that expensive though. But One harvest would pay for it!
RKYMTNMAN

Man!! I think you helped me figure out my next grow rkymtnman...lol Oz per plant? Times 60? Hell Yea!! I don't have much grow experience at all, no HID at all, but that is the kind grow I am reaching for!!! From what I have been reading, anything between .7 & 1g per watt seems to be a successful grow??... I have 51+ w/sq ft, which I have been told is good, so I am hoping to hit high in that range.....HOPE...
Took some misc pics...You can tell who Big Bertha is and I took one specifically of my runt. Overall I think the grow is going smoothly...unless there is something I don't know or have overlooked!! LOL
I thought I was keeping my plants small by cutting the lights to 12/12 with the avg height being 10-12"....Now after a week of 12/12 my tallest is 18"(Bertha)!! I think it is AK-47...I know the grower of the seed and he showed me pic of an outdoor plant that got over 10' tall and grow very thick stalks... My smallest is 11", but still a healthy, bushy little plant...Figure avg to be about 14-15"...and even just populating every other site there isn't much space that isn't green! I think this grow one problem is not knowing what strain each plant came from. I have gotten a little better organized now...and next grow I will know the Mother, even if I am not sure of the strain!!

Comments, advice, bs.....all is welcome.

Happy

Am I supposed to be sizing my pics smaller so they fit in the tread full size? Went back and looked and only way I could see whole pic was to open in another tab....

Not all root rot is temp related, there can be pathogens even in the colder water. I suggest adding a worm casting + mycorrhizae tea to the reservoir to promote root health.

He's not going to get 60 clones from one plant at one time, I thought he said he had 4 strains and was only using 30 sites. Also, since he has multiple lights he could stagger them a month apart.

Anything above .5g/w for a first timer should be pretty good.

I think 800x600 fit forums well but you'd have to experiment to find what works best for landscape vs portrait.