Ocelaris

Ok, this one is a little bit more on topic... as to the question of starting water quality. My answer has been to build myself a Deionization system. You can see the left chamber is just a carbon filter, the middle one is the cation? and the right is the anion chamber? I get the two mixed up, haven't taken chem in a while. Anyways, I got a bunch of used "tap water purifier" cartridges from aquarium people when they were finished with them, and made the system from that. The tap water purifier is nothing more than a mixed bed deion chamber with a little carbon at one end. So anyways, the water makes me about 20 gallons of 20ppm water per recharge, and probably 40 gallons of 50ppm water per recharge. To me that 20ppm is a sufficient starting point. Thoughts on water? I'd really like to hear some of y'alls plans for making your nutrient soup. Ocelaris

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sputnick

heh. i was just abusing europa. orchids and potajuana are completely different. doesnt mean i cant pick on him. the water at our house is pretty nice. cant remember exactly what we have in it, have to wait for europa on that one. I'm not looking forward to replacing the pipes that its eating though. on a similar note, i have never tasted water as yummy as ours. although it did taste a little better before the pump was replaced. and as for nutes. he based his brew on the makeup of a tomato leaf standard. he is currently testing it on a male maricheeba plant i believe. we will see. were you asking a specific question about the nutes? its fairly well documented in this thread. (i think its this thread)

__________________
Environmental chamber design and construction
Super Silver Haze Hydro Grow
SSH grow v2.0 "Full Auto"

Europa

Hey Ocelaris,
That’s quite a collection you have there. When I first saw the mister I wondered where the runoff was going. That’s always been my problem. But then I see you’re working over a sink! Great idea. I gave up on misting years ago due to crown rot. After that I just kept the humidity at 70+%, which worked fine unless I damaged the roots during transplanting. How long do your plants stay wet after misting?

That tiger on the bottom right looks a lot like a Beallara “Mar-Fitch”(sp.) I haven’t been able to bloom. You’ve done well. One more question, the mottled leaf, is it a phrag, has it bloomed for you? I haven’t yet tried that genus.

Our well puts out water at ~50uS/cm (est. 25ppm) so I’ve never had to deal with RO or DI. As Sput noted, our water is so pure it’s eaten through three water heaters in the last 12 years. For the first go-round I’ll be using my TNS #1.1 = 150/50/200 N/P2O5/K2O (ppm) solution at weekly increasing strengths during vegetative stage then migrate to a not as yet calculated formula as the flower stretch progresses then eventually to a zero N formula for the last few weeks. In addition to the formula I’ll be adding ore extracts to provide those crazy elements like silicon, samarium, and gadolinium. I decided to make my own nutes just because I can. I have no expectations that they’ll be any better than the commercial stuff, it just allows me to play.

Sput, you festering nut sack, what do you mean, ugly leaves? They just have a lot of character, that’s all.

sputnick

Character, sure do. Its the sort of character that makes you want to pour bleach on them to save them from themselves. j/k. So where are we?

__________________
Environmental chamber design and construction
Super Silver Haze Hydro Grow
SSH grow v2.0 "Full Auto"

Europa

We could use a detailed set of plans to start getting a materials list together. I think you should start with the bifolds and design the rest around them.

Ocelaris

Europa,
That Tiger, if it is the purple one I think, is just a miltassia, miltonia, pansy, vs. brassia, hence the spikey petals... none of my plants are really that difficult, I had Odontoglossum Wyattianum (my personal favorite) if I could grow the odontoglossums, I would, but their temprement is not conducive for my growing... some day I'll get an entire wet bench apparatus and chiller to mimic their mountainous peruvian home ;-)

Your water seems amazingly pure, to me a gift nonetheless... I think apalacian water the notheast is a benefactor of our little mountains... the old mountains, hence high organics in the soil to break down the carbonate rocks... Is that statement correct chemically? To me our better quality water makes up for my uncle from colorado who makes fun of our "itty bitty" apalacian mountains. Though unfortunately I am on city water which is rather polluted with phosphates off the charts, and chlorine... haven't tested yet for chloramine, but assume the worst.

Europa, How do you get your humidity to 70%? I'm extremely interested in your balancing of humidity and air exchange/ medium composition. Like I try and keep humidity up, but probably never get more than 50% at best with all my air leaks. That's the reason I went to misting, to attempt to get some more humidity from my watering... Next time around I'll get a big pump and start with DI + nutes and small ethelyene tubing, and small misters, and only mist for 15 seconds, and use only isolite, not those gro-rocks... (sorry, I'm real tired, and that sums up my goals for my orchids)... Have you ever heard of Isolite? I got a sample one time, and the miltassia "Darth Vader" the purple one is in it and loves it... I find it better than the gro-rocks (fired clay) which seem to me VERY dry... like don't hold any water... anyways, the link is here:
http://65.108.148.58/isolite/index.htm

Keep me uptodate on your chamber! Ocelaris

Europa

Hi Ocelaris,
Growing orchids as well as you obviously are shows quite a bit of skill. You may think none of your's are difficult but how many people could manage what you have?

I'm at 900ft elevation, with no farms upstream, and the well is 500ft deep, so there is very little surface water contamination. The soil is glacial sand with almost no clay and only a 6inch biomat so I suppose any soluble rock must have eroded millenia ago.

Regarding RH, I have 1gal/day ultrasonic humidifier that runs only during exhaust-off (<85F) and the plants are sitting on trays filled with gravel and runoff. Since I use only fluorescents and the case is in my basement (~60F), the exhaust comes on for about 1 minute every 5 min. At the end of the exhaust it takes about 30 sec. for the RH to get back to 70%. I have 2 RH meters, the human hair meteer gives me instantaneous readings, the cheapo that came with the humidifier is slow and reads a constant 65%.

How big are the particles of Isolite? I couldn't find any pics on the web.

Europa

Using this thread for the purpose of design is a bit cumbersome so Sput and I have bee working mostly on ICQ and NetMeeting. We came up with a partial list of materials, hope you can read it!

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Europa

I must have been good this year, Santa and the elves out did themselves.

Thanks Honey, XXX.

Sput and I have our work cut out for us. How am I gonna get the lumber home

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Europa

I love putting stuff together, especially when it works as planned!

Last night I cut all the holes in the tubs, attached the fittings and assembled the hydro rig. It worked great. The difference in the water pressure between the two grow tubs is about 1 inch. With 10 ft of 1-1/4 inch ID hose there is a 6inch differential between the controller and the first tub. I should be able to reduce that to 4 inches after trimming the hose to the correct length. After the grow tubs go into the chamber, all levels should be within an inch or two of each other. Buy turning off the pump, I measured the rate of rise and figure the system circulates completely once every nine minutes.

The water coming into the first tub through the 3/4 inch tube creates quite a bit of turbulence but only mild turbulence from the 1-1/4 inch fitting in the second tub. I'm considering adding a deflector in the first tub to prevent root damage.

Next stop, HD for lumber and fasteners.