It is absolutely critical that you run a certain type of filter on the output of your sprayer pump. The filter must be a thin single layer style, it must not take out any nutrients. It also must not consitute any significant flow restriction. I'd have a new filter at the beginning of every grow, and replace it in the middle of every grow. It would usually end up light brown with random little chunks of roots on it. Any of those little pieces of random crap would have clogged my nozzles. I had it in a whole house filter style transparent housing, so I could see the condition of it all the time.

Here's a link to the type of filter I'm talking about. I'm not 100% sure if this is it since I don't have it in my hands, but it's similar to this. http://www.walmart.com/ip/OmniFilter-Pleated-Paper-Replacement-Cartridge-Set-of-2/15691516

If you didn't run a filter like this, you didn't try my method.

Wouldn't matter one bit.. I am cleaning thoroughly.

i dont no it seems to me that a clean system would be more dependible then one thats not ..hell i no i cant even let old leafs i pull off stay in my room either ..i no i used to just let shit fall were it may ..but it only took one batch of mites to set me straight on that ..
a clean grow area and system just makes more sense to me ..but hey everyone has their own methods and we all need to respect what works best for them ..
but with all these diffrent methods it can only be a good thing in getting folks to see theres no real wrong way if it works ..ideas from old hippies are how we got here in the first place .haha

Well I will say this I'm on my way to check out those filters. That being said, I'm still gonna clean my system. There is no way that it can hurt..

thanks for the filter link Harv. I guess we can agree to disagree..

those look like the filters i use in my hottub..i am going to see if i can find the filter in my pump as well ..to be honest i never even thought about a filter on the pump..lol

Like I said in Nutogrow's cleaning thread, my point is just that you shouldn't need to put much effort into that aspect of it.

That's not going to be the challenge of growing aero/nft. The challenge is going to be getting the nutes, temp, cycle times, and plant/root size (size/spacing, length of veg time, if any at all) dialed in.

As I said before, the tiny lines going to my nozzles, the supply line/manifolds, the hose between the res, pump, filter, T lines to the manifolds, absolutely none of that was internally accessible by any type of disassembly/hand cleaning method. The only way to clean that would have been to run somewhat concentrated nitric acid through it. In the food processing industry they call that a clean in place, or cip. They run a heated caustic, then nitric, then clean water through all the equipment that touches the food. That's the best way to clean hydro equipment too. Yet nobody talks about that, but they give me shit when I say I didn't "pretend clean" my equipment. But I still think the bottom line is that shit doesn't really matter. The leftover nutrient residue is not going to suddenly go from being "good" to "bad". For me the RO water flush, changing the filter 2x a grow, and hitting the reservoirs with a shop vac was good enough. When I looked down the tubes they were always bright white clean.


And I really don't see any logical consistency in people saying clean clean clean when those same people aren't even running filters. To put it in perspective, your chance of system failure/plant damage in aero/nft without a filter is probably higher than your chance of engine failure/damage from bypassing the oil filter on your car, provided you don't let your oil go forever between changes. Yet you guys would never consider doing that, would you. With a motor, what damages the oil is blow by, which does not contain large chunks of anything that the filter would pick up. The blow by contains water, which is why the oil should be above 212 degrees, and it contains combustion byproducts that attack the oil, requiring additive packages to neutralize them. After the additives are used up and the oil has absorbed as much crap as it can, it turns brown. Again, the filter is not playing a role in this. The filter only plays a role in stopping chunks of anything from getting to the bearings. If you change the oil and your pvc system is intact, etc, you will never have chunks of anything in your oil anyway. Vs an aero/nft system, you are guaranteed to, and any little piece of a root broken off could be a problem without the filter. The way my system was, the pump inlet wasn't at the bottom of the res where it could pick up sunk crap, and it wasn't at the top, where it could pick up floating crap, but it still ended up with little root chunks, etc. I guarantee I would have had multiple clogged nozzles without that filter, and no amount of "cleaning" would have affected that in any way.


To summarize here: 1, cleaning is not going to be the challenge with aero/nft, 2, the cleaning most people do is really pretend cleaning, without doing a "cip" with nitric, and 3, you need to run a filter!


You guys know me well enough to know I'm not trying to be lazy or half assed with my recommendations or thoughts about any of this. I'm just trying to be as realistic as I can. And I do try to keep my sealed room immaculate too, I just bought another shop vac specifically for that. Lol.

Everything I run goes through a filter. Still gonna clean. HA Sorry weedmen last you'll hear from me on this. BTW it was a GH system you got your hands on correct??

yeah its the ag18 i think is what they call it ..has the 18 holes for plants and a rez that looks like it will hold like 25 gals or so and 3 gutters...

i am going to be running tap water for now and if i keep growing this way i'll look into an ro machine ..i see the local green house guy has them now ..exspensive tho ..

my hole unit seems to be able to be broken down ..i havent set it up to run yet ..i did spend a day taking what i thought was everything apart to clean but i never took the lines out of the gutters ..but from what harv said i guess i dont have to now ..but i will hook the hose up to them lines before i get started with my first run.. just because the guy i got this unit from had it a real mess ..i think its why he got rid of it so cheap ..thanks this is great info guys ..

Is that tank in the shape of a hexagon??? If so it's 17 gal. Clos t0 20 to the brim. I prefer to do biz local too. But when it comes to ro here is where I go.

http://www.purewaterclub.com/

I'm not saying you don't have to. I don't know what your system looks like!

"everything goes through a filter, still gonna clean"..nutogrow, you're kinda missing all of my points. Lol.

here's where I got my RO. http://thefilterguys.biz/