Bongsauce's micro cabs and stuff. (help thread)

Hey thanks guys, sorry I haven't updated..I was gonna do a little tutorial on how I clones but I can't find a satisfactory way to post the pics. (I'm picky!) ..but at least by the time I do post it I'll have updated pics of the progress

anyone know how to post linkable thumbnails that get big when ya click em, that you can put in the middle of a post? I'll just post huge pics if I can't figure it out in a few.

 

Well I was about to do a few clones and decided to do a short tutorial on how I do my clones. Over the years I've tried cloning in many ways..from soil to aero..all sorts of complicated setups. I finally decided that coco was the easiest and most reliable method...once I got my techniques down of course I've killed quite a few in the process.

I use cocotek red mixed brick, I also sometimes use the larger bricks of cocotek in the white plastic. I presoak it in a mix of 5ml calmag to the gallon and ph'd to 5.8 You can just use plain tap water but I also grow all my plants in coco so I pretreat it all this way for best results.


Here's a mother plant that's about 2 weeks in. She was topped once right after transplant, I've marked in red where the 4 cuts for the clones are going to take place:



Usually I use a fresh razor blade to cut them, but I couldn't find them so I used a nice sharp pair of scissors, heat sterilized with my lighter. I do an angle cut to create more surface area for the roots to develop. Many people at this point will lightly scrape or "scar" the last 1/2 inch or so of the stem encouraging even more surface area for the roots to form, also some use cloning gels and other things. Although both these things help a bit, I don't find them necessary. I like to keep it as simple as possible. I also chop the leaftips off of the larger leaves to reduce transpiration..meaning that the clones will hold more water or something if you cuts the tips off the larger leaves...ok I'll be honest I think it's bullshit I just still do it because they're easier to organize in the cup (shhh!)

chopping clone #2:



As I said with the cuttings I do nothing extra just a nice clean diagonal cut and stick them into a hole in the coco. I try to get them down to the bottom, but not mash the tip against the bottom of the cup. I really like these little half sized solo cups. They're easy to handle and I get great results..the fact that they're clear eliminates all the guess work of "have they popped roots yet?". The cutting is placed in the prepoked hole and I gently pack the coco down around the stem, just enough so that the coco is in contact with the stem to keep it moist:


Occasionally a cutting will need to have a node snipped off. Make sure to get the cut nice and clean against the stem, again with clean, sharp, sterile scissors or blade:



These areas where the node has been cut off also offer more of the "surface area" that we want for the roots to pop out of:


The cutting is placed in the prepoked hole and I gently pack the coco down around the stem, just enough so that the coco is in contact with the stem to keep it moist:



Next is a picture of roughly how much moisture I keep in the cups. I use 2 cups. I have (now have) holes on the inner cup to drain excess water, and I place that cup inside a second cup to catch the drips. I just try to give these a little ph'd (5.8) water each day and let it drain, then I put it in the extra cup so it won't make a mess(not pictured). You do not want these cups to dry out. They can get a little bit dry on the surface, but must remain moist inside, and not too wet. It's a fine balance and you quickly get used to how much moisture is in the cups by the weight of them when you pick them up each day.:



This is exactly how you want it! If the cup is allowed to dry out too much the cuttings wilt, and won't recover. More water then this and you'll have to top them off less, but it will add weeks to your cloning time (think cloning in a cup of water) I usually do 5 -7 cuttings/clones per cup. I give them nothing but ph'd tap water (5.8/240ppm) until I see some roots starting to circle, then it's time for transplant. It's actually really easy to separate them out of the cup with little stress. I simply pop out the "cake" of coco into a bowl of water and gently massage the roots till they separate. I simply do this to save room, you can do 1 clone per cup of course

here's the mom and her babies afterwards:


Here's the finished results usually about 1-3 weeks later depending on how difficult the strain is to clone:


I keep my cups of clones under pretty low wattage light, they really don't need much at all. In fact too much light will make your clones fail or take much longer. They're also kept in a slightly higher humidity then my mother plants in small speakerbox with a single clf and pc fan (these are old pics, I use a double cup method now):


..kept at about 60%, though I don't feel humidity is very important, I've cloned in 20% humidity with great success. I sometimes put the cups of clones into a small vented food container underneath my motherplants. I prefer not to let the clones start in 100% humidity like some people do, that way I don't have to "ween" them off of it later.

Also I'm sure many will argue that the clear containers are bad for the roots, yeh I've heard that too lol. I've been doing it this way for over 10 years and the advantages outweigh any negatives. I've never noticed any ill effects or longer cloning times. They do just fine.

Enjoy. and please if you have any additional questions please ask them! I'll also update this later with some pics of the rooted clones and how the mother plant looks a week later, and how many more clones it produces etc...hope I didn't forget anything!

Edit from the future! Here's a quick link to the future post showing me planting the clones.

 

hi.

thanks chilipepper

rond33y: intake to exhaust ratio is generally 2:1 meaning your passive intake "hole" should be 2x the area of the exhaust. Make sure to take into account anything restricting the airflow of the intake such as light traps or angles. Certain types of light-traps/louvers can restrict far more airflow, effectively reducing the overall size of your intake. The light-trap I use for example (the scrubninja one) restricts probably 10-20% of the airflow at most, that's a total guess by the way..but other "professional" style louvers usually restrict closer to 60% of the airflow. This restriction of your airflow is equally important on both intake and exhaust, ie carbon filters, and is the key to getting a cool running system vs creating an easybake oven. I know we're not talking light-traps but I'm just using it as an example.

 

8 degrees cooler inside the box then outside? sounds like you built an air conditioner!

 

yeh vektah it's a trip to realize how dangerous cfls/fluorescents are...I remember so many times when I was younger breaking the big t-12 4" bulbs...standing right in that nasty cloud that comes out when ya break em! !! It's really amazing to me how much these cfls are pushed on consumers in this "green" movement...and maybe 1 out of 50 knows how dangerous they are...can't go putting warnings like that on the box or they'd never sell. I mean how many people reading this know that it's illegal to throw out a cfl? anyone? cuz when they go to the landfill they break open and release mercury and other nasties into the ground. Homedepot's have free cfl recycling right at the door btw...

anyways! .. went campin a few days and had some roots popping when I got back (yesterday)..so let's call it 10 days on roots I'll wait a few more days till the roots start to get a lil longer to insure that the other cuttings also have roots...I like to plant em all at once, if one doesn't have roots yet I'll toss it when I transplant. I figure it's the weakest of them anyways so I have no problem culling it. I usually continue with tap water (ph'd is better!) until transplant, at which point they'll start getting about 1/4 - 1/2 str nutes (6x9)

 

Welp people seem interested in my coco "guide" so here it is; some more edits need to be made...refrenced removed, updated etc...but it's 99% complete. Please PM me if you have any questions regarding it...I'd rather not start a coco discussion here...I'd prefer to talk to people directly via PM, thanks!

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Phase 1: ingredients

Ok here the list of stuff I use with my current hydro prices.

GH micro - 16$
GH bloom - 12$
calmag+ - 17$
HGdripclean - 25$ (optional)
PH down -11$
Coco brick -2.35$ I use cocotek red mixed brick
or the bigger gh bricks in the white plastic - 12$

PH meter -here's the one I use.(yellow milwaukee meter).it was about 30$ you will also need a small bottle of the green "7.0" calibration fluid...about 8$

...It's very important to keep you meter calibrated! The way I do it is take the lid of the meter, the little black piece and fill it halfway with the 7.0 fluid..put the cap on and it will displace and submerge the end in 7.0 stuffs. Adjust the little screw on the back to make it hit 7.0 if it's not there already. If my meter is at like 6.9 or 7.1 i usually don't mess with it...close enough for me I mix alot of nutes though and if one batch is .1 off it's no big deal. Always let your meter sit in your nute solution for at least 10 seconds..I often wiggle mine around in the solution too.

Keep your meter clean! I store mine in a little dixie cup of tapwater..replacing with fresh water every few days so that mold or bacterias doesn't grow on the meter...if it does I clean it off gently with tapwater and a papertowel or Q-tip.

Coco will show deficiencies much faster then soil but it can also be fixed alot quicker and easier. Usually the first deficiencies you'll see will be due to ph problems. Such as typical magnesium deficiencies from having too high of PH. You must calibrate your meter often or there is no point in using it...and fuck ph drops, get a meter...dip it in and check it..no bullshit mixing and wasting time. I find it ridiculous that people can grow thousands of dollars worth of weed but they're willing to skimp 20$ on a meter that works better and will save them time....time IS money, alot of people don't get that and don't realise time management is the key to being efficient.

When keeping my meter calibrated properly and giving the right str of nutes I've never had a problem. A few strains will of course need slightly lighter nutes. like my lemon haze gets a little leaf curl with 100% mix so I usually water with 100% and then dump a cup of 50% over it so that I don't have to make up 75% heh.

ok! there's meter info..next order of business coco! Cocotek red mixed brick, I use this stuff for the most part..I've picked up a few large bricks of the stuff wraped in white plastic..it's ok but not quite as consistant of texture as the smaller red bricks. The hydroguys always try to sell me other shit but I've had stellar results with this stuff and why change? It's cheap and ez to take home in little bricks. Also it is mixed brick..a mix of different sized chunks...at the hydro store next the the red brick is "green brick"cocotek(more popular btw), this is almost all pith which is the superfine coco that holds too much water for normal use...might be decent for cloning or added water retention though..I haven't needed it..but I could imagine it would help in smaller containers so that you can water less often. I recommend adding perlite for anything over a few gallons so that the coco doesn't compact under it's weight. Many people add perlite 50/50, I only find it necessary on larger grows.

A brick about takes about 2 gallons of water to expand..(you want it a little soupy)for a single brick I use a 3 gallon bucket with 2 gallons of water in it. I add about 2ml to the gallon of calmag+ and I add about 1.5 ml of ph down per gallon to get it to 5.9 or so. (your results with ph down vs. your tapwater will vary) so! in 2 gallons of tapwater..4ml calmag+ and 3ml ph down..mixed well first, then throw the brick in. I let it sit an hour or 2 then reach in a make sure it's totally broken up..then I let it sit for another day or 2 (hot water makes it expand much quicker!). Letting it sit in the solution will help the coco exchange all the excess potassium it has for some of the cal and mag and also will help rinse out salts (if there's any) Some people say it's not necessary to rinse/soak the bricks ..but I figure I have to expand it anyways why not just throw some calmag in there too and let it sit... after 1-3 days I used to rinse the coco lightly in the shower in a big smartpot..rinsing that stuff is a real pain and messy too. The last month or 2 I've just been wringing the coco out and putting it straight into pots with no rinse...I figure I water everyday and there's the rinse **I've been doing this several cycles now and I find a full rinse isn't necessary.

ok I think that covers the soak and preparation, hopefully I covered everything!

Coco is cool stuff it doesn't compact like soil does and get overwatered...unless you are using several gallons. When I fill my containers I just dump it in there and lightly tuck it down..it tends to sink a little like soil the first time ya water it, so adjust for that.

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Phase 3: profit.


ok so I think I've gone over all the basics of preparation and equipment. At this point I want to be very clear that there are TONS of different brands of coco and nutes out there! I'm by no means saying that h3ad's 6/9 or cocotek redbrick is the best stuff in all the world, I'm just telling you what has already worked for me. I'm not one to advise using something that I haven't personally used.

Also before starting I'd recommend you read through h3ad's posts in his h3ad goes coco thread @ IC...just filter his posts and read only his, the canna stats calculator, for instance is F'ing awesome when you learn how to use it..if I ever switch up nutes I'll use the calculator to figure out how to modify any brand of nutes for use in coco. another thread I'd recommend breezing through is the basic water chemistry one .. it think it's important to understand how all the ph'ing and buffering work with tap water n stuff
..oh! and that reminds me...water!

This is all just my understanding of stuff and I could be wrong on alot of points!

You probably know the ph of your tap?...how bout the ppm? I didn't test my tap's ppm for a long time...but it ended up being around 230-250..which is pretty good imo..decent amounts of calmag already...which helps a little to "buffer" the ph..that stuffs all hard to explain ;v/ but basically if you use like reverse osmosis water with a ppm of like 10 then it has no buffering capabilities or whatever...meaning that since it's so pure it won't "hold" a balanced ph for very long. If there's a little more cal/mag or w/e in there and ppm is around 200...then the ph of those dissolved solids is also around whatever the ph of your tapwater is...mine's about 7.4...so the ppm's (the cal/mag/iron etc..) also have a ph of 7.4 and help to keep the ph of the water/nutes around 7.4 . If you use RO on the other hand, a much smaller amount of ph down would be needed, so it becomes harder to adjust and keep stable as the plants use the nutes, if that makes sense.

..well that's my understanding of it at least. I dunno though. on with the ..the info!


I use h3ad's 6/9 formula, it's a modified lucas formula.

measurements to the gallon:

6ml GH micro
9ml GH bloom
2ml botanicare calmag+
few drops of HG dripclean
~1.5 ml GH ph down to get to 5.9.

Important to note that with a 50% strength batch of nutes you will need a little more PH down to get to 5.9 then normal..for me, about 1.8ml Also always mix your nutes into water and never together, then into water...mixing micro directly together with bloom causes a weird reaction and screws up some of the nutrients...it actually turns a different color too.

On the bottle you'll see there's like 50 different ratios that they want you to use at different stages of growth...add to that all the different phenos we grow and that's alot of different formulas! H3ad's formula is actually a modified lucas formula for coco..this lucas dude figured out (arguably) that if you just mix micro and bloom at 1:2 (8/16ml)ratio that you get a great nutrient profile for canna! the similar recipe on the bottle would be 1:2:3 (5/10/15ml)of micro/grow/bloom respectively. Using this formula instead of the bottle's formula saves us from buying that green bottle of grow/flora, and saves alot of mixing!!Also this mix is good all the way through from seed to harvest...adjusting only the strength of the mixture and not the ratios. The lucas ratio 8:16 is for hydro the h3ad ratio 6:9 is for coco..adjusted for coco's cation exchange and natural abundance of K or something..

For example I use the 6m/9b +2cm @5.9 all the way through...for the seedlings I give ph'd water till they sprout, then on to 50% until about the 3rd-4th node, and then they start on 100% mix. I was surprised to find out my seedlings can handle 50% mix right from the start and switch to 100% after just a few sets of leaves.

I also use that same mix for my plants in flower under my 2K's of hps..big plants in a few gallons of coco..but still getting the same mix! It probably seems weird..seemed weird to me to be feeding the same thing all the time...but honestly all my plants look awesome using the 100% mix...sure I can give them a pk boost in flower n stuff...and I occasionally do, but I have great results with no added supplements and just the 6/9...like crazy results..where ppl are like wtf? that plant's how old?!?

...some people modify the formula for veg reversing the ratios for more N. I recently started switching to 5/10 mix in flowering for a little less N and more P K. I did fine for years though using 6/9/2 straight through flower.... just something to look into if you're curious.

It's important to always measure your nutes carefully, I use and recommend a medicine syringe, 3$ at walmart..also don't cross contaminate your nutes or especially your 7.0 solution..I rinse my syringe and ph meter after every "dip" and try to gently flick off excess water.

Actual waterings:

Coco like soil will stay wet and kinda soggy if your roots are not developed or you've just transplanted into a much bigger container. With my seedlings, I start with the coco moist..basically wrung out as hard as I could by hand..planted into and given small amounts of ph'd water right at the stem until I saw roots at the bottom of the cup (just a few days) then they got full waterings. same concept when transplanting...I water directly at the stem trying to saturate just the old coco/rootmass..until I see roots again at the bottom and on to full drench waterings again. I personally water everyday..with at least 20% runoff everytime I've learned that with this much watering the dripclean isn't necessary. I personally water this much because I feel I get better results and it's a nice steady regimen that keeps me going...I like to have a schedule of watering like that to keep me from getting lazy and saying "bah they'll be ok till tomorrow" but that's just me. I water excessively, it's just part of my day and have the routine down so I get it done quick. I think you'd be fine just watering to the point where there always moist. If they dry out so much that you have to water them everyday then you either overvegged them or need to add more coco...or you could add some of the green brick to make it hold more water too, though I haven't gone that route. I just try to plant to the right sized container so it isn't bone dry everyday.

Don't let it get super dry..like how with soil you can let it get pretty much bone dry before the plants wilt...when the coco gets that dry it will destroy some of the roots and stuff. Sometimes I just put a tray under the plant and leave and extra inch of water in it and let the plant drink it till next watering...I don't recommend letting the plant sit in nutes/water all the time...but giving it a little extra when you water is fine as long as she actually drinks it all by the next day.

hmm..what else. Feel like I'm writing a book.

ok, also I feel that I use more calmag+ then necessary. I could probably get away with just adding 2ml to a gallon every few waterings. I also have a small plant in flower has no holes in the bottom of the container so she's gonna go no flush/runoff till harvest and I'll see how that goes..so far she's 5weeks into 12/12 and looks perfectly healthy. Hopefully I'll be able to cut down on nutes on the future

well shit that's alot of info, all I can think of atm. hope I didn't overwhelm you! just take everything one step at a time

everything new seems difficult at first until you learn how easy it is
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enjoy.

 

of course!

 

I plan on doing some tutorials in the future of converting pc boxes and speakers...I just haven't had the time to build one lately...I have all the spare parts on hand already. I also really need to do an electrical tutorial and show you guys how to hardwire up plugins and inwall timers and stuff instead of electrical strips and the big bulky timers...which are easy to set up but they take up too much room in a micro box

here's a quick update of how that cup 'o' clones is looking 5 days later. I normally would have transplanted a few days ago but I'm out of containers. I'll get some tonite probably and take pics of how the clones' roots will easily separate in water. I'll also flower out those 4 right away in a small cfl box and log their progress till harvest.

 

Thanks bud.

I don't really have a current journal in progress...so I figured I'd do one up...I just picked up my 9 containers, I'll get the transplanting done a little later tonite...

I'm not quite sure where I'll flower them out yet..I'm sure I have a spare box around here somewhere I'll probably be firing up a dual 150w hps cab in a week or 2 also.