Mech's New Adventures in Vertical Aeroponics

Well, after two eaten posts and losing all the pics once, third try's the charm:

Mech's Hydro/Coco Comparison (Not Competition) grow

Some of you fine Blades and Bladies know me, but for those who don't I'm Mechanibus, and I've been here on GC for about 10 months now. After a decent first grow and a successful grow of Nirvana White Widow, I wanted to expand.

On my 2nd grow, I used a modified Bubble Bucket (BB) system, based on Rumpleforeskin's design. I really liked it, and it worked fine. But I am the ExperiMentalist, so I can never leave well enough alone.

AskEd, another grower here, has been extolling the virtues of Coco for some time, and has the results to back it up.

This time around, I was interested enough about the ease of use and near-hydro results that coco promises that I wanted to try it myself. The buckets worked great last time though, so I wanted to run some of those as well.

Out of this came the idea to run four of each, about as much as I can fit in my new 4 x 8' Sunhut XXL tent.


Equipment:

-Sunhut XXL 4x8' Silver Tent (Actually about 9.5 x 4.5') This tent is the best because of its height, more headroom.
-Lumatek 1000w dimmable ballast w/ chinese HPS bulb
-Cheap light mover from eBay (DO NOT BUY, see below.)
-RO Filter
-5 gal buckets
-Whisper 60 x4, 1 to each bucket
-Via Aqua 360 circulation pump
-Individual scrog screens

-GH Micro/Bloom at Lucas proportions.
-Cal-Mag+


The Plan:

I cut 8 clones each of Cheese and of Lime Green Skunk in the cloner, along with some others for mother replacement. Hopefully 4 of each will root well enough to use. (Author's note- the LGS rooted fast and are all bushy with roots. The Cheese has rooted but far more slowly. Getting there though.)

I have absolutely no idea as to the genetics of these strains, but I never believe what the vendors say. I really believe that very, very little of what is sold as a certain strain actually is that, if the strain has been around a while. Anyone can breed two plants and get seeds, and make up a name, and if calling it white widow would make it sell more, then why not? People that sell illegal products don't concern themselves with honesty. For that matter, the clones I had were in cups labeled "Cheese" and "Lime Green Skunk" and I really have no idea beyond that what they really are. I trust the dispensary's clone source (Which is some dude producing clones in his garage) even less than repackaged seeds.

I'm going to do 2 each in each medium. They will all be scrogged, and I will probably top each plant once or twice to promote a more even canopy than last time. I realize that growing two strains in the same system is folly, but I'm going to do it anyway- I need to see if these mums I have are worth keeping! Also, should the worst come to pass and I need to remove a failing plant (or an overachiever) I am going to use 8 separate smaller screens, about 20x24, one for each bucket. This will make it possible to move the plants around.

Between the added experience I have now and aggressive training, I believe I can keep them in check. Besides, if one strain is weaker and it fails, I've got 4 more girls and that will supply me just fine.

I think the benefits of trying two strains will outweigh the negatives, and will give me a better chance at a useful comparison.

The setup:

Well enough yakking- here's a video of the setup and some pics.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnI1bsU3BOE"]YouTube- Setup Video[/ame]

The clones at day 5:


The clones at day 12:



To help me keep track of things I'm going to maintain this timeline during the grow:

Timeline:

7-18- Clones cut
7-19- Started 400w MH
8-1 - Journal Posted
8-2 - Potted up 2 of the coco LGS
8-4 - Coco Search/Made up mix


Well, that is the story and the start of it all. My threads tend to get long fast so I'll consider posting pic updates to this first thread, but I'm not sure yet. Maybe just links.

Anyway I hope people find this interesting or useful, With all the questions about Coco out there, I figured it would be of interest to all (Me included!) to see what the hype was really about. If coco is really a lot easier, I could see adding 2 weeks to the cycle time. It'll be a close call though. . .

Thanks for looking!

 

Here is a short video look at the light mover in action. Not recommended, but I worked on mine for a while and got it to work ok.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyk-vbz9dEU"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyk-vbz9dEU[/ame]

 

Welcome, hopefully this grow will be one for the books!

 

Everyone should check out this guy's grow. He has the same tent and light and so forth. Part of what convinced me to go that way.


Welcome, Iron!

 

Thanks fellas, I appreciate it.

Here is a copy of a post where AskEd gave me some primo advice on using Coco:

Quote:

Just put it up- here is a link. I'll repost your advice there soon.
Quote:

I've used it as bedding, it's a tricky thing to use because you can keep it too wet but it dries very quickly, especially under rep lights!

As far as coco, it's probably identical to some agri coco but I would never put it past a pet supplier to use the nastiest, cheapest, most contaminated stuff. I know you'll test it.
Quote:

\t\t \t\t
Fark! Didn't notice if they had the fiber- I got two big bales of piece coir. If they have the fiber kind I can trade it but it means a 100 mile round trip. Worth doing? I'll spare no expense to do it right.

Quote:

Thank you for your detailed response!

 

Thanks man, good to see you here and I'll check you out too. Good job on getting that grow up and running.

Indeed- busy time of year at work. Got to make some amount of honest living to disguise my true nature.

According to Ed's advice, I skipped the piece coir and got a brick of fiber coir from the garden store. At $9 a block for one of these little flat ones, I can't do the whole thing this way but I can do this beginning stuff.


I followed his advice and added Cal Mag, and pH'd it to about 5.8.


It came with this sewn together plastic bag to expand it in. Whatever works.


The bag worked and it was kinda cool to watch the stuff swell up. Ended up mixing it with my hands.


I mixed in some perlite and planted two of the LGS clones that had nice roots. Cheese girls aren't ready yet.


I wanted to get some room in the cloner (3 oz. Contest FTW!) so I wanted to move some stock on down the line. Many of the clones were slated to create new mothers, and I have 7 strains, so I made up 14 peat pots with Roots Organic soil.


These little guys wouldn't have made good plants but they did root. These were an experiment for the contest.


After some potting and housekeeping the cloner was ready for contest clones.


One widow was all that was ready, and Cheese is proving to be a slow, difficult cloner. Those pots are ready, though.


Here they are- my old hags and the virgins that will replace them in my harem. I think I might have found a tiny new area of mite activity- these mums must die! I was thinking of flowering them but only if they are clean. . .


I'm worried that I won't have the cheese clones I need- The ones that haven't rooted haven't rooted at all. I don't know if they will- one or two stems have rotted- once that starts it's all over soon. I'll try scraping the stems, and I already cut some off a little higher. I need to change the water as well.

I also am thinking I'll just cut some clones of a different strain in case the cheese clones just totally fail. I have enough to do three and three, but I wanted to do eight total plants.

Anyway thanks to all you folks that are following along.