Winter 2009 White Widow Grow - Hydro/CFL/HPS

[toke and choke]

this is already obviously going to be a beautiful grow pulling up seat on this

[IMgreen]

I hope so!

nuted up the res today!

using tap water (yeah, I know) and the ppm was 238 so ((targ-cur)/targ)x8xcap gave me about 154 ML of FNB to hit 700 ppm in my 30 gallon rig

I did not even bother to verify the ppm afterwards, it'll be close enough and will let it circulate just by itself for a few days - not even checking PH until I am ready to load up the plants

still gotta cut 3 more holes into the already overloaded deck so it can run 9 plants (it has 6 spots now)



and the avalanche is curing to a nice smoke!

[BUDSLiNGER]

Originally Posted by toke and choke

this is already obviously going to be a beautiful grow pulling up seat on this

thats the only way green knows how to grow...
whats up green looking good my friend....

[T.Bug]

High green! They look to be off to a good start! Its amazing that you are able to start your seeds the way you do, without a starter plug medium of some sort. I would think they would just keep falling through...lol. But you seem to do just fine...lol. Do you ever inoculate your lava rock with like subculture and or hygrozyme?
Great job so far!
Peace, bugout

[IMgreen]

welcome aboard toke!

you should lose your location under your avatar - we don't need to know where you really hail from...



thanks budslinger, I try to keep it green!

t.bug - its "supposed" to run for about 2 weeks prior to putting plants in it so beneficial bacteria has time to cultivate within the lavarock - but you need patience for that and I dont have any

I cut the three extra holes in the deck and added all 9 plants to the system just now



and being totally hypocritical I only know that the ppm is at about 900, it's definitely too warm by a few degrees Iti dont feel chilly enough) nor did I check the ph but at that ppm in my water I should be near low 6's

batteries died in the meter and I lost one when I was taking the others outta the ppm pen!


gotta go look for the spares

and the seeds dont fall through as long as you dont fuck with them a whole lot for the first few days, it got put in when it was a sprout so it is not like a seed than can just fenagle its way down between the HT pellets (IF you moved it around a lot)



They need support for a little while early on but once enough roots drop through the baskets they hold on pretty well, not great but manageable

I should scrog them and give them something to hang on to

[White_Widow_Man]

Originally Posted by IMgreen

They need support for a little while early on but once enough roots drop through the baskets they hold on pretty well, not great but manageable

I should scrog them and give them something to hang on to

Dam, What a messy, setup. Is that better ?

Looking very nice, IMgreen

[IMgreen]

a lil bit better!

lol

found the spare batteries and got me some trinity digits!

temps are too high at 23C, turned the outlet fan up and redirected the intakes to blow directly on the res (wont do much but it's ok for now)

I really should vent the hps better with its own fan (but I wont)

ph was at 6.3 (zactly where I thought it would be) so I added a bit of ph down to the res -idk how much was added, I guessed and did a short pour (just a skoash, a bit more than a smidge)

its good to be running the rig again!

for those of you who dont know - the holy trinity is PH, ppm, and temps as far as I am concerned

[oldgrayhair]

Looking great man! I may have to try your little sprouting technique sometime....I would never have been brave enough if I hadn't seen this thread. Do you water them each day from the top before they go into your system? I just didnt think hydroton/lava wicked water well enough.

I love learning new things Best of luck with the Widows!

Peace - OGH

[IMgreen]

thanks for dropping by OGH

you should just hand water them everyday like you said but I just kept the water high enough in the bin to keep the roots in the nutes and I also kept them under a dome for the first week or so

in the rig they will need hand watering a bit more frequently until the roots drop a bit

[mattwood1011]

im pullin up a chair and hittin the bong and watching this grow

[freedom4ever]

I'm way outta my depth here. Not sure what half the things you're talking about are!! but it all looks great!

[IMgreen]

it's a hydro grow freedom so here's a little background info (it is nowhere near as complicated as you might think, imo its easier than soil because you can see actual numbers to work from in real time

A few grows back I built a homemade DWC (deep water cultivation) waterfall (it uses running water dropping into the reservoir for aeration) with a bio matrix (fancy lingo for I let bacteria grow in lavarock to combat algae and fungus)

It's just 2 bins - one smaller one on top of a bigger one with a PVC drain that lets the top reservoir (the root zone, where the plants grow) drop water back down to the reservoir using a 400 GPH pump:



The pump should cycle the water a minimum of 7 times per hour and the drop from the drain to the res should be at least 6-8 inches (its the agetation that aerates the nutes) even with an air pump its still just the surface movement that adds o2

The waterfall (or river as Mr GS liked to call it) was the simplest method to try because it doesnt need a timer or flood schedule or anything, just a pump and a pair of bins

There's three numbers that I think are all that really matters when it comes to growing hydro - ph, ppm and temps = the trinity

if you keep these in check (at about 5.8, 1250, 21C or 67F) - MJ flourishes

For nutes I use Floranova Bloom (lucas formula in a bottle) and the only "hard" part about growing like this is lucas math. Its a formula to figure out how much nutes you need to addback to a system to reach a desired ppm

((targ-cur)/targ)x8xcap is a short version of

((target - current) / target) * 8 ml per gallon * res gallons = FNB (ml)

You need to know how much water your machine holds and then you just minus the current ppm from your target ppm divided by your target ppm times 8 times res volume

a real world example is my rig (30 gallons) at 175ppm and I wanted to get it to 750ppm

750 -175 / 750 x 8 x 30 = 184 ml FNB to hit that mark

The only problem I have with my setup is it get too warm, painting it black was a bad idea because it just absorbs all the heat from the HPS. Mylar or aluminum tape would correct that and someday I might even put some on it!

I hope that helps clarify whats what in the IMgreen gorw machine setup

[mjboy]

looking good and im signed up!

[IMgreen]

and your just in time too!

roots are just starting to poke through the baskets of a couple of them so in a few days things should EXPLODE!



am regretting not upgrading the machine though cuz temps are really sucking! its WINTER so I thought I would have lots of cold air to draw in

damn global warming sucks!!!

[freedom4ever]

The pump should cycle the water a minimum of 7 times per hour and the drop from the drain to the res should be at least 6-8 inches (its the agetation that aerates the nutes) even with an air pump its still just the surface movement that adds o2

The waterfall (or river as Mr GS liked to call it) was the simplest method to try because it doesnt need a timer or flood schedule or anything, just a pump and a pair of bins

There's three numbers that I think are all that really matters when it comes to growing hydro - ph, ppm and temps = the trinity

if you keep these in check (at about 5.8, 1250, 21C or 67F) - MJ flourishes

For nutes I use Floranova Bloom (lucas formula in a bottle) and the only "hard" part about growing like this is lucas math. Its a formula to figure out how much nutes you need to addback to a system to reach a desired ppm

((targ-cur)/targ)x8xcap is a short version of

((target - current) / target) * 8 ml per gallon * res gallons = FNB (ml)

You need to know how much water your machine holds and then you just minus the current ppm from your target ppm divided by your target ppm times 8 times res volume

a real world example is my rig (30 gallons) at 175ppm and I wanted to get it to 750ppm

750 -175 / 750 x 8 x 30 = 184 ml FNB to hit that mark

The only problem I have with my setup is it get too warm, painting it black was a bad idea because it just absorbs all the heat from the HPS. Mylar or aluminum tape would correct that and someday I might even put some on it!

I hope that helps clarify whats what in the IMgreen gorw machine setup

Oh.
My.
God.

I'm gonna come back tomorrow and read all that before I have a smoke!! Do you find hydro significantly increases yield? I've not found conclusive evidence one way or t'other. I do like the idea of the challenge of hydro.

I am at the opposite extreme! Struggling to keep the grow room warm. I've got the hps and a heater and it still struggles to stay above 70 in there!