Happy New Years everyone.. Start of the new year, start of some new plants. Seeds had soaked for about 12 hours and then into moist paper towel in zip lock bags and on top of the satellite receiver box as it is a nice constant warm source. Started 12 seeds. All - Auto / Fem.. 3 Think Different from Dutch Passion. 3 White Widow from Dutch Passion. 3 Northern Lights from Sensi Seeds. 2 Critical from Female Seeds. 1 Quick One from Royal Seeds. - Freebie Hope they all fit in a 4' x 8' tent when they grow up.. Hope I train them well. Local Tap water fluctuates through out the day from 7.8 to 8.4 PH and between 185 to 225 ppm. Is this ppm to high for seedlings? I know the PH is, I have a 1 quart bottle GH PH down. There are local sources for RO water for like $1 for 5 gallons so I am good on that if I need it. As for nutes I have the General Hydroponics Flora Series 16oz FloraMicro 16oz FloraGro 16oz FloraBloom 8oz FloraBlend 8oz Liquid KoolBloom 4oz FloraKleen 1oz RapidStart 1oz Floralicious Plus I did not have enough cash on hand at the store today or I would have got some CalMag and Silicon. Got a week or two so I will have them on time. Tent arrived today so will be going up tomorrow. good thing to because I started the 12 hour soak of the seeds the morning of the 30th 3 days ago and then into the bags in towels. They have been there almost 72 hours now and 8 of the 12 look to be between half in to and inch long so I will birth them tomorrow afternoon. the other 4 either have a little sprout or just opening, hard to tell through the paper towel. I guess its a good thing as I only have 7 of the net pot lids for my buckets. The other 5 are on the way, 2 more days I hope. Might work out.. Net pots a 6", 5 gallon bucket lid. I am starting these in 3.5 gallon buckets and move them to 5 gallon size if and when needed. I figure starting in the smaller buckets to be beneficial in these two ways, Save by using less nutes with less water, and the an increase in the air to water ratio from the pumps. Got 2 Hydro Farm 70lpm air pumps. 1 70lpm pump per six buckets. Each bucket should have about 2.5 gallon or 9.45 litters of water with 11.6ish litters of air going through it per minute. I think the girls will be breathing well. These pull almost 1 amp each. I bought a bunch of T fittings and elbows to play with a few designs for my air stones. I came up with one that is working pretty good, it has 3 air stones per bucket. Will get pics of them up tomorrow. I won an auction on 48 4" normal blue aquarium air stones. Will start them all bundled together under a Mars 1200 at a distance. no smaller lights right now. When they need they're own space I will more them apart and turn on the other mars 1200. This light was pulling right about 600 watts at about 5.8 amps. When time to turn on will be using a hydrofarm 400cfm 6" fan and Phresh 6" x 16" 400 CFM carbon filter. With the speed controller. I think that pulls one more amp. When I actually find something in the house that has a AAA battery in it to steal I will know what the humidity is. Hate when things do not come with batteries. Im sure I am missing a few things but they will be added later. I plan on doing constant detailed updates so climb aboard and join the ride.
Here was a few of the designs I was playing with. The air stones are 4 inch normal aquarium air stones. I got 48 of them for like $16.. Could not pass it up. 3 stones, View attachment 150415 View attachment 150414 And 4 stones, View attachment 150413 View attachment 150412 Decided to go with he 3 stone setup. There is an elbow there to go up then another elbow going out through a hole inch down from the top of the bucket. Yes that is the harder irrigation drip line, was like $5 for 100' Giving the pump more stones to move the air through puts less pressure on the line and piston, less work less heat. Also the stones are spread out enough to have bubbles coming up around the roots not just one side. These pumps really heat up. After a half hour this pump is really hot. The manifold on the other hand is hotter, you will be burnt if touching longer than just a few seconds. Air coming out the line in the bucket is warmer than room temp. I have ideas for bringing down the line air temp.. Have to try a few things and get back to you with results.
Sounds like a great set up. The photos aren't working properly for me though, but I can see the thumbnails Are all 12 buckets individually cared for? Man that's going to be a full time job lol
All seeds are Auto/Fem except two of the freebies they are Photo/Fem. View attachment 150407 View attachment 150408 Order 7 Think Different from Dutch Passion. 3 White Widow from Dutch Passion. 3 Northern Lights from Sensi Seeds. 5 Critical from Female Seeds. Freebies 1 Quick One from Royal Queen Seeds. - Freebie 1 Special Queen #1 Royal Queen Seeds - Freebie -- Non Auto 1 Special Kush #1 Royal Queen Seeds - Freebie -- Not Auto Seeds from The Vault. I score them 4.5 out of 5 Jack was always quick to respond as we wrote back and forth many times over a few days during all hours of the day and night. Always great communication. Package arrived to the west coast US 5 days from ordering. 4 days travel time as the 1st day it was ordered after hours past shipping time, maybe 9pm his time. Packaging was perfect and discreet. Would have got a 5 out of 5 score but I feel as if I was taken by some false advertising regarding the best price on the web guarantee they advertise.. He did not price match competitors as he said he would. Was not refunded the difference & we will see if he also sends the two free WW seeds as part of the not fulfilling the price match guarantee. The competitors seeds were in stock and not on a sale, discount or promotion and were 28% less if I remember correctly. Jack only offered a 15% discount code to use at check out. I feel as if I were only really offered 5% discount as you get 10% off for 1st orders, 10% off for liking Vaults facebook page, 10% off for subscribing to his news letter, 10% off for mentioning Chefs code. Im sure you can only use one of those discount per purchase but I could automatically have 10% off my next many purchases anyway so it was as if I only received 5% off a 28% difference. Set aside my ranting on price, It appears as if jack runs a very smooth operation over there. I would still recommend your business to him. I think I will order from him again..
View attachment 150410 The Think Different seeds really took off, one was almost as long as the lighter, the other two had to be a little longer than an inch. Went into the towels like 4 days ago.. 2 of the Northern Lights sprouted, one was about 1/4 inch and the other about 3/4 inch long. The third has not germinated. 1 of the White Widows spouted and was about an inch long. The other two have yet to open. It was disappointing as I thought at least 2 of them were ready but what I thought was a sprout was just a crease in the paper towel. So there is 3TD, 2NL, 1WW in the buckets. Looks like one of the two Critical is open and ready to go and the 1 Quick One looks ready to go as well. Have not opened the bags and towel to see but looking at the light coming threw the towel I should get at least those 2 out of 3 in buckets later today. I will not be happy if 4 out of 12 seeds do not germinate. Hoping they are just late bloomers. They all soaked for about 10 hours in shot glasses, then into the paper towels for 4 days now. When they went in to the water they all floated even when being poked into the water. After the 10 hours they were all still floating and all except 1 White Widow dropped to the bottom immediately when touched. View attachment 150409 How long do you guys usually wait before giving up on a seed to open.
View attachment 150411 The baby girls keeping warm bubbling away.. Had to kill the light as the temp got to high in there. The 400cfm arrives later on today. It is mandatory right now... Bucket temps were between 68 and 72, but like I said there's no real venting/cooling just yet. I do have the 12" round vents on the bottom on both ends open and a fan on the inside of the tent right in front of one of the vents on and blowing across the tent. Few more hours girls and you can have light.
Be carful when leaving seeds in water man, I'd never recommend someone do that. They drown way too easily. They love high levels of oxygen. I put mine straight in to lightly dampened paper towels and keep them at about 25C and they are usually a few inches long in 3 days. They only need a very small amount of moisture to germinate. I'd give up on a seed if it turns black and goes soft, if not I'd give it more time
Day 2 just sat there bubbling away. Got the remaining net pot lids, more tron, some ph up, some 7.0 solution, and some pipettes from the hydro store. Got a few more buckets ready in case those other 2 WW and 2 NL decide to open for me but as for now 2nl, 2 ww, 1 critical have not opened. I did get a chance to get the 1 Critical and the Quick One into buckets now. PPM is as follows TD1 64 TD2 52 TD3 60 NL1 65 WW1 75 Q1 06 CR1 12 A few days ago I needed 17.5 gallon of RO which I got 15 gallons and used tap to level them all off so that is the difference in ppm. the Q1 and CR1 were solid RO water.
Day 3, Here are a few pics from around 9am just after killing the LEDs. Everyone is between 5.5 and 5.8 ph. Think Different 1 View attachment 150482 Think Different 2 View attachment 150483 Think Different 3 <div> View attachment 150484 White Widow 1 <div> View attachment 150485 Northern Lights 1 View attachment 150481 </div> </div>
Day 3 So every day I set the PH to 5.5 to 5.8 and after 24 hours they are between 62 and 68. Temps in the tent have been between 74 at the coldest part of the morning to about 82 at the peak of day with the light on. In 2 minutes of turning on the Mars2 1200 the room is several degrees warmer. Ive been playing with a way to cool the room, be able to test it tonight. The bucket temps are always between 72 and 75. I hope that when I am able to cool the room I can bring this down to 67 - 72.. TD1 View attachment 150609 TD2 View attachment 150610 TD3 View attachment 150611 NL1 View attachment 150608 WW1 View attachment 150612
Day 4 NL and WW Yellowing getting worse. TD1 View attachment 150615 TD2 View attachment 150616 TD3 View attachment 150617 NL1 View attachment 150613 WW1 View attachment 150619
Day 4 More pictures a few hours later. I scraped the seed shell of TD3 to help it open. And some NL and WW shots with LED off. NL View attachment 150614 WW View attachment 150620 TD3 opened. View attachment 150618
That TD3 struggled to get than membrane off lol, I have seen plants get properly crippled by that stuff, but it looked like it powered through it ok. The WW looks very yellow, or is that just light glare?
I actually scrapped it off one side to let it open. And the camera does no real color justice, with my eyes the WW leaves are pure yellow. the NL is going that way as well, it starts in the center of the leaf the whole length then works its way out. I posted pics and asked in another thread but have not been there yet to look for responces.
Day 5 TD1 View attachment 150725 TD2 View attachment 150726 TD3 View attachment 150727 NL1 View attachment 150724 WW1 View attachment 150728
DAY6 TD1 View attachment 150730 TD2 View attachment 150731 TD3 View attachment 150732 NL1 View attachment 150729 WW1 View attachment 150733
Day 6 I stopped lowering the ph back down to 5.5 - 5.8, every day it would raise to about 6.3 average across all buckets. I stopped lowering it and over day 6, 7 and 8, They lowered them selves to about 6 each and stayed. The yellowing starts to get better for the next few days.
Day 7 pics from 5pm, They are one week old now since going to the buckets. Started them on GH Rapid Start at around 10pm this day. TD1 View attachment 150735 TD2 View attachment 150736 TD3 View attachment 150737 NL1 View attachment 150734 WW1 View attachment 150738