I enjoy your dialog too. They do look in really good shape!

Extra airflow is a great idea!!

thanks everybody! I am seeing healthy new root growth...I will wait a little while for any photos as its sporadic and fresh at the moment but in a few days we should really see some results. Having to really go through and inspect every plant to make sure the bottoms are clean...with all the different size plants and different stages of root development the water surface/crown interface is pretty hard to manage but I think I've got things looking pretty good at the moment. there are a couple of things I could do but I will just be "rolling with it" unless catastrophe strikes and then I suppose I will go into crisis mode. I am keeping a close eye on things as you can tell. water is coming every 15 min now. roots are drying off pretty quick and with all the different sizes in there...I just want to make sure everyone is getting water. and so it goes...almost stoked

I lied.. this plant is showing some robust root development....this is what I want!


there may be some other sporadic stuff going on in there...




overall with table partly flooded

Wahoo, I see beautiful new white roots coming. That is a very good sign. Something we all look for when growing our semps.
VERY GOOD sign.

So I had a setback after the great root starts. I added that root zone fan, added mycorrhizae to the reservoir and some old questionable organic type nutes....plus increased the flood cycle to every 15min to compensate for the root zone fan. after a day or two of that I was seeing the beautiful new roots look damaged, not better and better, as I would have hoped.

This was the general Idea just yesterday....



so I nixed the fan, changed the nutes to fresh upping nute levels from 200 to 400 ppm and slowed the flood and drain to once every 2 hours. 24 hrs later, bingo bango back on track!

and this morning.....






These things are easier to grow if you can see the root! and its more fun to watch the roots grow than it is the plant at this point. I am loving it right now! some of the plants are looking really healthy. some are still recovering but all in all I really like this set up. in the future It might be better to use net pots with some gravel and have a spare table top ready to go for system hygiene and cleaning...
rock and roll .

I think the rootzone fan was messing with air humidity and rootzone temps too much plus shady nutes and organisms...this system shouldn't use beneficials. and maybe too much water with the 15 min cycles but its aerated so I doubt it. seems like 1-2 hour cycles really does the trick...I might mess with shorter cycles again in the future on the notion that it was the microbes and fan that got things going wrong.... I really want to see these roots keep on gong this way for a little while longer before I get creative again. peace

Wow, Warp you really caught that fast, and figured out what was needed. That is amazing how fast the new roots adapted once the conditions were changed.
It amazes me how your mind works in making adaptations to the benefit of the plants/roots.
Those new roots are beautiful.

valleylynn said:Wow, Warp you really caught that fast, and figured out what was needed. That is amazing how fast the new roots adapted once the conditions were changed.
It amazes me how your mind works in making adaptations to the benefit of the plants/roots.
Those new roots are beautiful.

I might have done this once or twice before... I really just kept track of what was added since they were doing well, and reset the conditions back to a couple days ago. of course I have been spending a good deal of time with them...that is also important.
my housemates ask me ..."what are you doing? watching the grass grow?" ... but you have to spend time with them get to know them...check on them and then you start to know and understand them...which is why being able to see the roots is really nice. other than roots I notice the stressed plants either wilt/get soft or close up and the happy plants open up wide with stiff leaves.

Sounds like you have all their stress signals figured out.

Warp also stress can cause the plant to color up! It is amazing how quickly they respond!

yeah... i am noticing that as soon as my dry roots plants send out some new roots the tops are opening up.... and the plants are getting happy


today is better than last, I wonder what they will be looking like in the am....







some examples of happy plants vs sad plants....

Helveticum...


happy


sad





Wendy slightly happy



wendy closed up tight


plants mood seems to directly correspond to the development of new roots...

also note: I have been using a grow formula for nutes... this time I dug out some 5 year old General hydro nutes and added 2ml/gal Micro nutes and 2ml/gal bloom nutes with the high phosphorus...which I think is critical in root development. total addition to the ppm was 100ppm taking me from 300 to 400, looks good. In the future I will be upping the phosphorus levels and perhaps the micro nutes even more, and then I will take a look and say better or worse or same. just like the eye doctor.... Ph meter electrodes are up from 50$ 7 years ago to 78$ presently....i don't have the flow. I guess keeping nutes under 500ppm and you shouldn't need to bother with ph...

It is amazing to see how fast the plants are responding to the new treatment. Tiny new roots coming out everywhere.
Interesting to see how the top part of the plant is responding to the new root growth.

I'm amazed at the swift "response" of the heads to your tweaking of conditions as small as they may be...

webesemps said:I'm amazed at the swift "response" of the heads to your tweaking of conditions as small as they may be...

I've had them for quite some time...but your right. Once I started the aero/flood &drain, the plants have had a very quick and noticeable response both below and above "ground" . big advantage if you can see your roots and weather they are happy or not... (a big advantage until you get a system infection that is :))

Keeping my fingers crossed that there will be no system infections. I so want to see this experiment be a huge success.

I've even got a Cop on the Beat! this jumping spider has been hanging in the garden for almost a week.






roots still look pretty good






just changed out the nutrient, same 400ppm but less nitrogen and more phosphorus and micro nutes.

here's some of the smaller plants and lagards





bouncing around with the feed schedule anywhere form every 1/2hr - 2hrs. its all about the same except some of the smaller plants don't retain moisture for long, so day time at least I shorten the cycle, but all in all still truckin

The lagards are looking good Warp, growing nice, new white roots. Very good sign.
The roots on the others have grown since the last photos.

Love your little security guard.

I could look it up but lazy...what is "lagards" ??
The plants look great! I'm surprised in a good way!

Falling behind.

Like I do some times in my gardening chores.

That is funny! I think I have never seen that word in writing, and I also thought it was "lagert"