The Great and Secret Garden of Ganja Ged - Indoor-Ebb&Flow-LED-2 Tent Perpetual

[oldjarhead100]

those are looking great GG , I cant wait to get home and check on my girls but wifey would get upset if we left early so I will have to wait until Monday to see them

[GanjaGed]

"There's perfect harmony, in the rising and the falling of the sea." ~Ronnie James Dio

Ebb and Flow:

A recurrent or rhythmical pattern of coming and going or decline and regrowth

As with many Hydroponic Systems you have the choice of purchasing a complete set-up, buying the various pre-fab pieces and assembling, or DIY.

Pre-fab parts and systems come with some issues, especially for those growers who use tents. Many of the measurements are based on the inside measurements of the tray, this means the rim and lip of the tray, as well as the stand are not accounted for so some systems advertised as a 3’x3’ may actually be as large as 40” which makes getting it into a 3x3 tent a bit difficult, although doable usually.

There’s also the cost. A 3’x3’ tray alone can run nearly $100 and a complete system in the $600 range. Don’t get me wrong, many of the systems are quite nice and work great, but $600 might be a bit much for some, plus if we could get that price down that’s extra money that can be put into a different budget, say lights, environmental control, or ourselves!.


Note: This is my current set-up as of 10/6/17, and is itself the 2nd gen. version. It was made with my grow system in mind, to be modular, to use easy to find items requiring the fewest tools and DIY ability possible. The 1st gen. was a little cheaper than this one but the overall quality is better now.


Materials

• Wire Shelf Unit (3 shelves 23x13) $20
• 2 - Sterilite Storage Bins $15
• 15+ Gal. Reservoir Bin $10
• 2 - Ebb and Flow Fitting kits $30
• 1 Submersible Pump (180gph) $20
• 1 Barbed T-Fitting $1.00

You can almost certainly bring the cost down by shopping around but these are pretty standard prices.


Assemble 2 of the shelves as single units. The 3rd shelf is extra and can be used as a drying rack, modified for a ScrOG frame, etc.





I made a set of both 2" and 3" sizes. Easy to switch out between grows. In general I prefer to run the smaller trays.



Make a "T" off the pump up riser to feed both trays at the same time.



Note how all 4 fittings are over the reservoir. If a leak occurs the water will simply pour back into the reservoir causing no damage. I put a small bead of silicone around the base of each fitting. The stripes of silicone on the bottom sides is actually outside just to hold the trays steady on the shelf.

The back 2 fittings are to prevent overflow and drain back into the reservoir like a waterfall.

The front 2 fittings are the fills and once the pump cycles off they also drain into the reservoir back through the pump, no waterfall.



A look at it all set in place.



Tent A with ScrOG screen.

[Aloner]

Great how-to! Thanks GG!!

[alltatup]

Very smart, very inexpensive!!!

[abadtrip]

That's awsome I like your set up nice and high that's one thing I hate about all this is getting on my knees to tend to the girls.

[D.A.A.S.69]

I agree with Aloner ,Ganj looking nice. Sure hate to hear about TomPetty , they were an awesome band, especially if you ever got to see them play live.

[oldjarhead100]

that was very interesting GG if I ever decide to grow hydro thats the way I would go great writeup

[GanjaGed]

Added:

10gal RO

48ml Cal/Mag

36ml Micro

70ml Bloom

5 cups H2O2


Res has been running 22 days, steady PH and PPM,

I'll get some pics tomorrow.

[GanjaGed]

Been out of it for a few days, with a lot of "off-time" Such is life with this condition, lol.

Nutes, light, etc for the next grow should be here Friday, yay! Providing I can manage Tent A should be running sometime next week. Also got the stuff to do dry-ice sifting in this order so I should be trying that soon with the 4 jars of frozen trim I saved last harvest.

Tent B

added another 12ml ea Cal/Mag, Micro, Bloom. I've had zero burn/def this grow, the reservoir has run super smooth this way so I decided not to do a change over at this point. I'm going to let it run until it's ready for a top off then do a complete change.

It's a jungle in there, lol. I was not prepared for the Northern Light stretch at all and that just made a difficult situation worse. I'm a bit concerned that the yield is going to suffer a bit. I knew this was a possibility and it's already corrected for the next grow so I'm just gonna keep wrestling and clipping a little here and there. I think I'll be in a good situation to try some staged harvesting, taking the top and then the middle then the lower levels, I'll have to see how that develops.

A few pics:



Say hello to my little friend!




Northern Light




Wonder Woman




Candida




Welcome to the jungle!

[alltatup]

They look awesome, GGed!! Don't get swallowed by the jungle!!!!

[GanjaGed]

Got everything in today!

Spent the day washing and charging new LECA and finishing setting up Tent A. Only thing left is to set and secure the ScrOG, but that needs to wait until the plants are going so I have room to backfill and such easy after seedling stage.

[oldjarhead100]

good morning GG this is a picture of those clips I told you about they work really well , I used them on both cloth and plastic pots, the bigger ones would fit on something about a inch wide the smaller ones about 1/2 to 5/8, Im going to order more today have a great day

[D.A.A.S.69]

Those look like some nice clips OJH, How do you order them ??

[oldjarhead100]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 you get two 40 piece packs for about 6 bucks , I used 3 packs on 10 plants so I ordered more

[D.A.A.S.69]

Thanks, I'm ordering some right now.thanks again OJH

[GanjaGed]

Hey guys, still having some issues, I'm hoping most are due to the recent switch in my med dosages and will calm down as I adjust again.

I've got some of those clips in my cart for my next order!

[GanjaGed]

Time to get Tent A fired up.

Fall 2017 Tent B


Set-Up

3x3 Tent

2x 300we LEDs (~150 draw ea)

Ebb and Flow

ScrOG

5gal Smart Pots ( cut down to ~7")


Nutrients and Additives

Tap Water

RO Water

Dyna -Gro (KLN, ProTeKt, Mag-Pro, Foliage-Pro, Bloom, Dyna-ZYME)

3% Hydrogen Peroxide

GH PH Up/Down (only on hand for emergencies, I control PH with nutes)


Strains


2x Wonder Woman - Nirvana (Seedsman)



Propagation

10/15 - 2 seeds set to soak in solution (1gal Tap, 5ml KLN, 5ml
ProteKt, 2 ml Foliage-Pro)

10/16 - Seeds into paper towels.

[oldjarhead100]

how come you cut your pots down GG ? I figure its for a couple extra inches of height. Hope your feeling better

[D.A.A.S.69]

Sounds like a plan to me, looking good Ganj. Yeah, hope you feel better.

[GanjaGed]

Height is one consideration, esp. without doing a ScrOG.

Another is that in the E&F I'm watering from the bottom up and while LECA does wick to an extent it won't go all the way up a full 5 gal pot.

7" is the height of the tray walls and about double the the waterline which lets all but the top inch or so get moist and the roots can use the entire pot rather than wasting growth through a bunch of dry medium. I could add a drip system but that just adds maintenance that's not needed. I root in a Rapid Rooter then put an empty rooter down so about half of it is below the waterline and stack the rooted one on top of it. The wicking action keeps the seedling going perfectly. I water from the top once a day for about a week and let her go. The 1 and 2 gallon pots are already close enough the right height.

I'm not even positive yet that the pot size matters all that much but that's a test that will happen next grow. What I do know is that in Tent B the Northern Light in a 1 gallon pot is growing just fine and at least as far as size is bigger than the Wonder Woman plants in 2 gallon pots. Now some of that is strain related but that 1 NL could have filled the tent on it's own out of the 1 gallon pot.

[GanjaGed]

Seeds into paper towels today, same solution

[oldjarhead100]

I can tell you thought it out well GG , I find it very interesting the differences between hydro and dirt, my girls stay in one gallon pots for about 2weeks then 5 gallon hard pots and 10 gallon smart pots, do your roots grow out the bottom of the pots?thanks for explaining it all to me

[GanjaGed]

No problem, I love talking about grows

Yea the roots grow both out the bottom and up the sides as far as I put LECA in the tray. You can also see where they come out above the LECA but they prune themselves off.

My plan was to start the plants in a 1gal and then place that inside a 5gal but I really don't see a need, at least yet.

The current idea for the next grow will be clones from Tent A and either test GH Flora Trio against Dyna- Gro by using a separate res for each tray or more likely right now run 3 clones i ea in 1gal, 2gal, 5gal pots and see if there's a difference.

I've pretty much got both tents set up for the "gen 2".build which means I can start trying some experiments and fine tuning as well as start planning the next gen for the tents, custom DIY frame work to hold the trays, ScrOG, lights is the main part as well as some system for easier draining and filling of the reservoir.

The other decision I'm still wrestling with is do I want to run a nursery in one tent or run both as I do now one in flower, one in veg. I'm leaning towards sticking to what I do now esp. if the ScrOG runs well for me and after I try running a 2 or more strain grow under it. If I can run multiple strains well under the ScrOG I can just clone from the current veg tent flip the lights to flower and start vegging the clones in the tent that just finished flowering. Fortunately I don't really need to decide right away, but I'd like to get back to not dealing with seeds every grow.

[GanjaGed]

Tent A

Seeds are cracked, hopefully be ready for rooters in a day or two


Tent B

PH went on a steady rise and PPM began up/down fluctuations so changed solution today

Total days since last change - 29

10gal RO

50ml Cal/Mag

36ml Micro

72 ml Bloom

4c H2O2

50ml Dyna-ZYME (Not part of plan but should be a good maintenance/prevention additive and since I have it on hand for Tent A )