It's all good man we all have family things that take us away from time to time. The girls are looking good in there, looks like you have gotten the hang of it now. Glad to hear that the issues you had have cleared up. Gonna be the last person to complain if you don't change the res often I try not to do it for an entire grow. Until the end when it is time to start the flush. If you start to see a come back of the old problems be ready to change it. I have a drain pump that I put in the res to drain it into a container so I can empty them easily with no work. $8 pump takes care of a lot of the problem. Can leave it in the bottom if you want to just flick a switch to drain the res.
Thanks, man. I'm loving how they're coming along as well (especially how well the NL recovered). I actually bought the water pump to drain the water. But it really isn't the draining of water that's my problem with res change as much as it is the space I have to work with. The way the sliding closet door works is that I have less than 30 inches of horizontal space where the opening of the tent is and vertical space is a problem, too (with the bottom lip of the tent and the total vertical opening being only about 44-48 inches). I simply can't do the switch out while the plants are inside the tent and getting the res out of the tent would be pure misery with the way the ladies are tied down, bent, and still way taller than the tent opening. I know I'm going to do a res change when it's time to flush, but I'd really rather not attempt one before then. At least by that point, they are basically done just waiting for the last week to finish so if I really fuck them up during the change, I can just harvest a little early. Maybe I'm being overly protective of the ladies, but if you saw what I have to work with (as one person, no one to help), you'd understand how difficult the res change is with my current set up. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to getting our own place where I can have half of a room dedicated to the grow instead of a sliding door closet
u know u can use food grade hydrogen peroxide dilute in water too safe amount and put in your res run it and then change your res out will get rid of mold algea and any othe bad bugs in the water it will kill the good bugs too but those can be replaced
Dude I completely understand I am working on limited room too, but I could see where you are having troubles was just trying to give tips to help make it a little easier on you. I am the only one that works on the room I mean yeah once I have everything out the wife will help with the trim and the drying process but it's all me and my bad back. It truely has to be a labor of love lol.
Sorry for the brief blackout, guys. Been uber busy (I know you all know what that's like). Not much to report on the grow other than the mold is under control and the ladies are blooming away. From the looks of it, I should be able to flush NL within the next week or two. This is presenting a problem because Royal Haze is clearly at least 3 weeks away from flushing. I'm not too sure what I should do at this point, but I sure learned my lesson on sharing a res between two drastically different strains. You can see a few sparse red hairs peaking out of the Royal Haze flowers. The trichromes have really started to burst out now. They are everywhere. Take a look at the pics and let me know what you think! Plus, how do you think I should resolve the problem of NL ready to flush before Royal Haze? Thanks in advance for any advice! View attachment 123966 View attachment 123964 View attachment 123965
All good man I was completely busy this week with photographing a convention to write a book. Hopefully the writing will help me to get some money to help pay for some things. As for your plants, I completely understand the predicament. This is why I try my hardest to get strains that finish around the same time together. I do use Blackwater though and it is about 3-4 weeks different than the rest of the plants. What I do, is instead of doing a complete water change and flush all together. I start to dilute the res a couple weeks before I am actually ready. This way the plants are getting used to stretching roots for the nutes and starts cleaning the res out of nutes. The weaker concentration of nutes starts to flush. Just keep adding the water and no new nutes to it. Then I split the difference between time for the 2 plants to finish. I will cut the complete flush a little short for the earlier harvesting plant than the one who needs a few more weeks. Basically last 2-3 days before harvest on the early plant I completely change the water to straight water. There are only 3 days of a complete flush. Then harvest, the diluting and then sudden change to pure water has done me right 2 times in a row now. Then I just leave it straight water for the rest of the time for the later harvesting plants. If you are really worried about the nute intake in the end of the grow for the later harvest, add light nutes back like beginning of flower level of nutes at half strength. Then dilute after that like before. Personally just the water kept my plants fine for over 3 weeks to finish but systems may vary a bit and you will need to experiment. Is my method anywho, some people do different things =D
Thanks for the tips, Kitsune. I might have to try the incremental diluting technique. If that's the case, I may have to start diluting this weekend. NL is starting to look like she'll be finishing soon. The main cola has fattened up something fierce and the white threads are starting to curl slightly. I'm wondering if she'll even need 2 more weeks. The Royal Haze has just really hit her stride. Flowers are starting to fatten up and the trichromes have burst out onto the scene all over the place. The smaller leaves that grow out of the flower seem to still be the largest part of her flowers, though, so I'm thinking at least another 2 weeks before a normal flush (ie 3 more weeks total). But I'm brandy new to this, so I really don't know for sure. I have to add in more water tomorrow. I'll take more pictures of the flowers for both plants and label them so you can see the difference in the flowers. Thanks again!
Sorry I've been away for so long everyone! I had a surprise trip that I had to go on for school and I've been away for a while. Luckily, I had someone looking after the plants. The ladies are getting very close to harvest. I think I'm going to start their flush this coming week and harvest a week from Friday. I thought they would take a bit longer but it looks like the pistils are starting to curl in (just a bit) on both plants. Let me know what you guys think. Kitsune, should I plan on harvesting this coming weekend or do you think they can make it until a week from Friday? Thanks ahead! View attachment 125278 View attachment 125277 View attachment 125276 View attachment 125275 View attachment 125274
Sorry for the late responce man I have been dealing with severe back pain and been knocked the fuck out every chance I get. Plants look good. When it comes time to find out when to harvest there are several things to look for, you want to see the hairs turning read and you need to look at the trichs close with some kind of magnifying lens. I say bare minimum a 30X jewelers loupe or something like that. You can find them for really cheap online, Amazon I got mine for like $3. You wanna see the trichs on the sugar leaves mostly amber which will make a really nice deep high. If you are wanting a lighter high harvest when they are only about 20-30% amber. Key thing here is the flush, have you been flushing at all? You need to get the nutes out to make it a nice clean smoke =)
No problem, man. I'm sorry to hear that you are in such pain. I figured you would respond whenever you had a chance! I'm actually flushing this week. Swapped out the water on Saturday and we are harvesting this coming Saturday. I might have waited another week (possibly) but the fact is we have to harvest on the weekend and the weekend of the 27th, we will be away. Waiting until October is right out of the question! It may be sacreligious to the experienced grower, but I'm not sure the % of trichs which have changed to amber! (I know, I know)!!! But the time constraints speak volumes. They may have been able to go another week, but certainly not 2 more. Harvest party on Saturday, we're bringing the scales. I really think this grow will show just how powerful the combination of Bubbleponics and LED lights can be. The royal haze has at least 3 gigantic flowers weighing down her stems and the other side of the plant has a huge cluster of medium size nugs. Near the bottom there's another cluster of small-medium nugs near the 40W CFL I put near the bottom and there are a few small nugs sparsely scattered. I really wish I could get some decent pictures but the crowded nature of the closet and my room make it difficult for wide shots that are worth anything. Wish us luck! We've got our disposal plan all laid out. I'm figuring on a 4-5 day dry out followed by a 7-8 day curing before we dive into this harvest. I'll probably continue curing the balance of the nugs for another 2 weeks but at least we can start tasting the fruits of our labor in a couple weeks! View attachment 125773 View attachment 125774 View attachment 125775 View attachment 125776 View attachment 125777 View attachment 125778
Real interested to see how the LEDs turn out. Have always been an hid man myself. Also what's your heat like, leaves look funny to me.
Things are looking good in there. I can understand a week early chop due to time constraints and its not that terrible a thing. How are the pistols looking? Mostly red? You need to get a mag lens to see the tricks eventually I can get you some links to some cheapos that work well if you would like. Gonna have some time til you need it for the next one. Speaking of the next one do you have plans for the next grow? You are going to be surprised when you smoke your own home grown the first time. It's a lot of work but it is a very nice feeling when you are smoking something you grew and put so much time into. Hydro seems to have thrown you some curveballs but it seems you are coming out on top, good job man you have had a really good first grow, I'm glad I was able to give you some good advice
The heat is great. Lights are quite close to the plants. 70-75 the whole time (barring the rare incident where we lost A/C for a day 2 months ago). What you're seeing is likely a combination of 2 events. One being a brief sort of mini-flush that happened while I was away. I had someone add pHed water but not nutrients b/c they were not a part of the whole grow process and I just didn't have the time or agreeable schedule to instruct them before I left. The other event was that one of the branches decided to grow directly into the CFL light that I have positioned between the LEDs. When I came home from work it was apparent that a bunch of the leaves and a small section of the flower had been up against the CFL all day. After tying that branch, some of the other leaves stretched up and every day I would see another hitting the light or getting too close. We also lost power for a few hours a couple of days ago and it got quite hot in the grow room. That also may have attributed to it. The flowers are amazing, though and I have no doubt that they will be tasty and potent. @Kitsune: Yeah, man, I can't really express how truly grateful I am that you have been there to help me through this first grow. It certainly has been crazy! I'm looking forward to the fruits of my labor. As for the next grow, I do have my plans laid out but I think we're going to pause on it for a little while. I want to give my wife a little breathing time. She's been having mini-anxiety attacks for the last 4 weeks during late flowering. Every time I open the tent she seems to turn beet red. lol. She's a bit paranoid, but she's the best. This grow may have provided enough to last us for a really long time. But I do have plans for the next grow. I plan on growing only one plant. Dinafem's Super Silver Haze. I'm going to put it in the center slot of the res. Going to buy another water pump for water changes. I'm going to use another medium besides the rockwool (I don't like the wild pH swings and mold issues that I was dealing with). Also going to make sure to position the hoses further away from the grow medium so it wets the hydroton and not the medium itself. Going to start training her very early to try and get a nice even canopy that doesn't grow through the ceiling! It's clear to me that the 2 LEDs supplemented by the CFL are an extremely powerful setup. I doubt I will try another 2-plants-in-one grow until we have our own place with enough space to open both sides of the tent . I might even opt to sell this tent and buy a larger one so I can walk around inside.
Don't worry about the help its what I do. I love hydro and I love these plants it has been fun to watch you learn, I have you a hell of a crash course. I think a lot of the issues you had we're due to the water being placed right on the Rockwool. Every time I have completely saturated the rock wool it had caused issue. Best results when the hydroton is the buffer between the water and the Rockwool. Rockwools main advantage is the water retention and the ability to breath, however if water is being introduced to the rock wool constantly it can't breath and can be a breeding pool for all kinds of things. Any clue what you might want to move onto after the Rockwool? For awhile I was thinking of making coco and perlite in a small net pot and the putting it in a larger net pot with the hydroton. I can understand the wife getting nervous it can be a bit nerve wracking having the plants in the house. I think once she smokes from the fruits of your labor she might chill a bit it really is worth it to grow your own and have the quality without the huge price tag. Best genetics you can get beat mids in the market all day long, and keeps the money out of criminal hands. Silver haze is a hell of a strain! I hope you enjoy it in the next grow whenever you start it make sure to let me know so I can keep an eye on it too .
Nice work really coming on well. Very interested to see what you pull im runing a northern lights and a grapefruit atm
Okay, guys. I harvested last Saturday, cut the branches and hung them to dry in the tent until Thursday. At that point, the stems were not really snapping, but the flowers were kinda crispy on the outside. So I jarred them up and am now curing them. I figure I'll let them breath and stir them up twice daily (once in the morning and once at night) for 10 minutes. Do you guys think that's good? The one concern that I have is that the Royal Haze seems to smell kinda like a regular plant. Or maybe more like hay. The NL has that classic piney dank smell but the RH just seems a bit off. We quick dried a couple of the popcorn buds and they are QUITE potent! I'm not worried about it not having enough THC, but it seems like I might have fucked something up with the taste/smell. Could it be that I pulled the RH too early and that's why it smells like hay? Perhaps I didn't flush thoroughly enough? Either way, they smoke like champs. I'm going to cure them for a few days before doing the final weigh in. I hope this crispyness in the buds softens out. All in all, I'm pleased with the first grow. The buds smoke well and have a really strong (though very pleasant) high. Next time, I'm aiming to get that great smell and taste to go along with the buzz. Weight I can't really guess but I half-filled 16 of these 7.75 oz jars and half filled 4 of the 16 oz jars. I understand that this volume will decrease as the buds condense. Any suggestions on the hay smell?
Sounds to me like you jarred a little early, I have always heard that you want to wait for the snap. It just means that you have a lot more moisture inside the buds. Giving that I would air them out a lot more than just 10 minutes 2 times a day. Week 1 - Open 4x a day for 5 minutes. Week 2 - Open once every other day. Week 3 - Open twice a week. Week 4 - Don't open for a week. Is what you normally want to follow, however with the buds more moist inside I would for the first 3 days of week 1, to open it 4 times or more for 10 or more minutes. Basically the first couple days leave them open for a while just to get out the excess moisture, After the first 3 days goto the 2x a day for 5 minutes. If you can't make it that long open really long when you get up and really long before going to bed like open for 20 minutes... Then do 3x a day for 10 minutes.. Giving you a couple options based on what kind of schedule you have that you might be able to do.. As for the plant smelling like hay, you may have done nothing wrong it could be a pheno trait causing that. Not all our seeds give us the best traits we are looking for. Every strain smells different and even different plants within a strain have several different smells which is why I'm trying to breed in the pineapple taste of one of my C99s =).
You jarred them too early, you did not give the marijuana time to convert the rest of its starches into sugars. Did you leave a lot of the leaves on while they dried to slow down the drying process? Or did you trim and then dry?
From a bunch of the videos For a bunch of the videos that I watched, people were trimming all the leaves off and then drying them so we trimmed the leaves and then hung-dried the branches. should we have just hung up the entire plant and let it dry for a week? I'm kinda confused about jarring too early. The buds are all so incredibly dry/crispy and all the smaller buds seem to be crispy throughout (not just on the outside). I was worried about having crispy buds. @Kitsune: OK, not too worried about the hay smell, then. But from what you guys are saying, I clearly jarred up too soon. I wish there was a way I could show you just how dry/crispy these buds got. It wasn't just the outside, the whole bud seemed to hyper-dry. Even after a night in the jars, they are still just as crispity crunchity dry-as-bone. I didn't want to leave them hanging for too much longer because I was worried they would never pull into that beautiful dank. Will this dry/crispyness go away? Is having bone dry buds normal? Do they still compress and soften into the nice dense buds I'm used to? I guess I just don't understand the process of what happens. All the videos I've watched were pretty vague so I didn't really know what to expect.
Ok. Followed Kitsune's direction on airing out the nugs. Thing is, they are still really really dry. Not dry enough to crumble at the touch but extremely crunchy. I read that putting a small piece of bread in each jar for like 12 hours would draw the moisture back into the bud. Should I do this or will they soften up in time? Thanks in advance.