Grow Mediums Seymour's 'Think Different' subthread off-topic discussions

[seymour-buds]

Seymour what size air pump do you use in your bubble bucket I'm looking into dwc and just wondering whats the best size thanks

60 ltrs per minute, split between 2 buckets, i know its overkill but ill never ever ever ever ever ever get root rot

 

[Trifid]

60 ltrs per minute, split between 2 buckets, i know its overkill but ill never ever ever ever ever ever get root rot

That's some amazing circulation you have going on there :thumbs:... i think some times over-kill is under-rated! This is clearly an example Haha.. When i make the switch i will bear your specifications in mind - Your attention to the details is obviously a contributory factor to your success here.

Thanks for including this and sharing it with us, it will be really helpful to LED growers to get an idea of these kind of practices for such a demanding system. Can i ask how you prefer to clear/top the reservoir and how frequently?

 

[Cave Dirt Cody]

Hey Cody .. Magnesium is in fact highly mobile (low retention) in colloidal systems including soils - displacements occur most frequently in strongly acidic, or sandy media, where the magnesium can be readily leached into various mineral 'sinks' (sites of accumulation) by cation-exchange. When an Mg deficiency is accompanied with excess potassium availability, the situation is magnified. Despite it's profoundly important role in enzyme synthesis and related processes, magnesium forms the central cation in the chlorophyll molecule and plays an important role in fluorescence - the driving force behind the photosynthetic process.

Therefore, without sufficient amounts of magnesium - especially when the plant is cultivated under optimized photosynthetic conditions such as those provided by LEDs, the plants will begin to metabolize the chlorophyll in their existing leaf mass leading to senescence and abscission. This is often (but not always) indicated by the common, observable symptoms of magnesium deficiency, such as chlorosis, or yellowing of tissues connected to vascular structures which remain green in appearance - this tends to give the leaf a marbled appearance.

Due to the highly mobile nature of this element, the plant will adapt to a magnesium deficit by turning to it's internal source (or 'sink') in older leaves and translocate it to younger tissues - distributing the resource to meet it's nutritional demands. Therefore, the first sign of magnesium deficiency is usually the chlorosis of old leaves which tends to continue as the situation worsens.

So would cooler temps affect cation exchage or make a plant need less k

 

[seymour-buds]

That's some amazing circulation you have going on there :thumbs:... i think some times over-kill is under-rated! This is clearly an example Haha.. When i make the switch i will bear your specifications in mind - Your attention to the details is obviously a contributory factor to your success here.

Thanks for including this and sharing it with us, it will be really helpful to LED growers to get an idea of these kind of practices for such a demanding system. Can i ask how you prefer to clear/top the reservoir and how frequently?

i do a fresh res change every 7 days relgiously and im running around 17ltrs of water in the bucket, the plant will drink around 5ltr every 2 days so ill just top up with plain water, and by the next time its gone down ill change the res, pretty straight forward to be honest but im just so used to doing it, some people will let the res go longer before changing out and just top it back up with a lower dosage of feed, the only problem with that is all the ratios end up out of sync and you could end up with toxic amounts of 1 element

 

[Trifid]

So would cooler temps affect cation exchage or make a plant need less k?

Yes since mineral solubility is proportionate to temperature (with some minor exceptions), a decrease in temperature in the aquatic environment would have the effect of reducing the K availability causing it to precipitate out of the soil solution. Like calcium, magnesium and potassium bound substrates can be released into the soil solution (reservoir) by the cation exchange capacity. There are a variety of primary and secondary mineral precipitates (solids in solution) that sustain the magnesium cation. Magnesium becomes available when these minerals dissolve, and migrate into solution. After release, the magnesium solute contributes to the system's saturation maxima and magnesium is held by the cation exchange capacity of the soil particles or resides in the soil solution. Mobilized magnesium in the soil solution may precipitate into secondary minerals, be taken up by plants, or further leached from the soil into mineral 'sinks' (sites of accumulation).

Thus there are various factors that may limit the availability of magnesium - mediums that are inherently deficient have a tendency to be highly acidic with elevated rates micro-nutrient mobility - if present, excessive amounts of additional 'competing' cations, such as potassium, calcium and ammonium becomes the dominant factor. Competition has the effect of reducing its presence on the cation exchange capacity. Temperatures beyond the desirable range for the suitable cation exchange rate will magnify this effect - causing the changes to the medium profile to accelerate. In pot-culture, soils that pertain a Ca:Mg ratio greater than 10:1 to 15:1, magnesium will likely be deficient.

 

[Trifid]

i do a fresh res change every 7 days relgiously and im running around 17ltrs of water in the bucket, the plant will drink around 5ltr every 2 days so ill just top up with plain water, and by the next time its gone down ill change the res, pretty straight forward to be honest but im just so used to doing it, some people will let the res go longer before changing out and just top it back up with a lower dosage of feed, the only problem with that is all the ratios end up out of sync and you could end up with toxic amounts of 1 element

Thanks.. this is good practice from my understanding, i have seen some people running into problems by changing the res too frequently - this i assume, can only serve to disrupt the aquatic chemistry too often, placing the plant's rhizoshphere under stress that the plant must then recover from. Recovery takes time. Time is crucial for the auto cycle.. Have you trialed any of the aeroflo^2 systems under LED?

 

[seymour-buds]

lol mate im in the uk and if i get busted i could go to jail, im not in the medical marijuana business and only grow for personal supply, with a set like an aeroflo and the way i grow my plants i could probably supply the whole of the uks needs

im dwc through and through because its does the job that i need it to do and supplies me with more than enough personal smoke + im only growing autos lol if i was to switch to reg strains and had the longer veg time id be growing indoor trees

not 100% sure i agree with you on the res change thing but thats because i know my system and its not like repotting a plant in soil when you change out the nutrients, if my res is a certain temp then i make sure the nutrients i add match that temp so its not really any stress on the plants and i do loads of these changes throughout the grow and its never effected the end result

 

[Cave Dirt Cody]

Wow trifid!!!!! You are a wealth of knowledge. I would like to ask you one more question before I get completely of topic. What does the roots exudate? And what effect would this have on Rez ph?

Sorry Cmore. Last one.

 

[Trifid]

lol mate im in the uk and if i get busted i could go to jail, im not in the medical marijuana business and only grow for personal supply, with a set like an aeroflo and the way i grow my plants i could probably supply the whole of the uks needs

Haha.. For sure mate. The proof's in the pudding All learning is a form of imitation - so don't be surprised if my setup begins to look a lot like your's ...

im dwc through and through because its does the job that i need it to do and supplies me with more than enough personal smoke + im only growing autos lol if i was to switch to reg strains and had the longer veg time id be growing indoor trees

Your posts are to the point Seymour i appriciate that.. I am impressed with what your showing us here with the deep water system - i am fully convinced that this is the closest thing we can get to achieveing the full potential indoors, especially under the LEDs. I have a limited knowledge of the LED lamps available commercially, and have heard quite a few complaints from people who own the smaller systems (<150w) - what specification could you recommend to growers wanting to try LED? is their much difference between 300 and 600w systems in the product?

not 100% sure i agree with you on the res change thing but thats because i know my system and its not like repotting a plant in soil when you change out the nutrients, if my res is a certain temp then i make sure the nutrients i add match that temp so its not really any stress on the plants and i do loads of these changes throughout the grow and its never effected the end result

Makes a lot of sense, thanks..

 

[Trifid]

Wow trifid!!!!! You are a wealth of knowledge. I would like to ask you one more question before I get completely of topic. What does the roots exudate? And what effect would this have on Rez ph?

No problem mate. What do you already know about this yourself? The reason i ask is i'm not too familiar with the topic especially with regard to hydro culture. I understand that in soil, the behaviour of the rhizosphere (root-zone) with the soil microorganisms is synergistic in that the plant will supply the soil flora with a sustained source of carbohydrates in return for an enhanced root nodule-surface area, which is provided (in the case of fungus), by the adhesion of the microorganism to the root nodules whereby the plants receive an elevated surface adsorption capacity. In this way the root-zone is able to more readily, and selectivley uptake minerals and macro-nutrients. Some strains of soil microorganisms have been reported to manufacture plant-growth promoting substances in-vitro at the root-zone where they can be redily translocated by the plant. In this way we create a 'lab in the soil' following inoculation, which serves to assist the degradation and chelation of nutrient materials, regulating the soil pH within the ranges desirable for the plant's development.