This will be my 3rd attempt at growing, but first I will explain the details of my last setup. My 2nd attempt was quite successful. The setup was as follows: Strain: (2) Bubba Kush clones Hydro: (2) 3.2 GAL "bubble buckets" (non-recirculating DWC) in rockwool/hydroton Lighting: 250w MH/HPS Nutrients: CANNA Aqua Vega/Flores, Rhizotonic, Cannazym, PK13/14, BOOST Grow space: about 2' x 3' x 5'. I yielded about 118 grams dry. Not too shabby huh? PROBLEMS experienced: heat-stress / under-watering (very early on). I always gave lower dose of nutes then recommended to play it safe in fear of nute burn. Probably could have pushed the nute levels a lot higher. Now for my 3rd attempt, I will be growing the same strain and almost the same setup with few changes: (2) Bubba Kush clones again under 250w MH/HPS in 3.2 GAL buckets, but with an additional 5 GAL reservoir bucket. The system will now be recirculating 5 GAL total via DWC/DRIP as well. I will also be using a ScrOG. Attached are pics of my last grow. Next time I will post pics of my new setup for attempt 3!
Here are pics of the new setup. PROBLEM: algae Within two days I developed algae which I think was either due to the clear tubing for the main and drip lines or because my temps reached 85F. I replaced with all black tubing the following day and added a cold air intake which dropped my temps to about 78F. The next day the algae had disappeared completely. Not sure how much nutes to be giving these lil girls yet. All the Canna feeding guides I've reviewed have differing info, so I'm slowly increasing the doses to see what works. There is currently 12 TSP of Rhizotonic and 7 TSP of Vega in 5 GAL of water pumping through the system. RH is around 40% and temps are at 77F.
[DAY 8] The ladies are beginning to get big fast. There's a ton of roots already! I found a few roots growing upward poking out of the rockwool cube and out through the hydroton. I trimmed these roots off. Also added half a gallon of water to the res. Can't believe it drank half a gallon in one week! I will be adding another TSP of rhizotonic shortly. These babies are going to become monsters!
[DAY 12] Babies are doing good. Roots have grown well beyond the netpots into the bottom of the buckets. Pre-flowers began to show today! My PPM meter needs to be calibrated but it currently reads around 1050 PPM. The leaves are rapidly sprouting everywhere! There's barely any stretching going on. The leaves don't show any deficiencies but there are a few weird spots on them. What could these be (pic 1 and 2) ? PROBLEM: Algae in view tubes. Need to replace with dark colored tubes. PROBLEM: I have NEEM'd my girls with Einstein oil twice so far. Every few days, I still find at least two tiny, white, crawling insects. What are these mofos?? I will keep NEEM'ing every few days until I never see them again! I'll try to get pics of the bastards next time. I am a bit confused on how I should maintain/change the reservoir solution. Originally, I was planning on adding one gallon of water to the reservoir every time it drops one gallon until I have completely replaced the entire volume of my system (5 GAL) with plain water, then adding the amount of nutes needed to get back to the ideal PPM.. ..but now I'm thinking maybe I should completely leach out the system and replace with a fresh batch of water and nutrients every two weeks. Any advice on this? Other than this, all seems well and I can't wait til they grow taller so I can start weaving through a ScrOG!
looking good, this is similar to my grow! also about the refilling your system your probs best off just doing it all at once then there should be no complications and hopefully wont have to keep adjusting things
[DAY 18] So I decided to leach the whole system and add fresh batch of water/nutes. Seems to be handling it really well. As for the algae in view tubes, guy at my local hydro store said it's not a problem and wont get into the res because there's no light for it to survive in there. Guess I'll just leave that alone. Roots are popping out all over the bottom of the netpot but only a few reach down to the bottom of my buckets. I want to up my rhizotonic dose but I read rhizotonic works best at low PPMs. I am a bit confused on when to throw on the SCROG. I am a few days short of completing my 3rd week of veg and the babies are so bushy with short shoots. I'm thinking in about a week or two longer, they will be ready to SCROG maybe? Any advice? I'll put up a pic of my roots next time.
Im watching Nice setup - how long do you veg. for ?? I like how squat your two previous buckets turned out.
Thanks! With my last grow, I vegged for about 6 weeks. I'm not sure how long I should veg this time around. I'm thinking I should throw SCROG on soon and wait til SCROG is about 50% full before flipping to 12/12. Have you SCROG'd before?
Hey buddy, it all really depends how high your screen is going to be! If the top of the plants are aproaching the height of the screen you might want to throw it on there so you can start the training!
Today marks the end of the 4th week of veg. I threw the screen on a few days ago. Tops are starting to grow through the screen. I'm thinking maybe one more week (5th week) of veg should be good before I flip to 12/12. I'm open to any and all SCROG advice. This whole SCROG'ing business is new to me. Seems pretty cool so far.
Looking good bro. I have been meaning to make a screen for so long and now im thinking it may be to late! any advice? Cheers
Dman, I have a good feeling with your grow man, good luck with that, I already pulled a chair on this one .
I haven't scrog'd because I need to move buckets around etc. I really wish I was able to, just would have made my res.changes very frustrating haha. Check my journal and see what I mean
Oh yeah btw, I also swapped out my MH light for HPS a few hours ago. I've been wanting to test whether HPS causes more inter-node stretching during veg. So it's been 4 full weeks of veg under MH. Now I'm bout to run another week or so of veg under HPS. Smells like vegetation! I threw on a DIY carbon filter, but it needs some tweaking. I think it's restricting airflow too much and my box is starting to get a lil hot. Smell is gone though! Any ideas? Thanks bro. What stage are your plants in? Making a screen is real simple! You might be able to throw on a screen an inch or two above your canopy so there's space for them to grow through it still. Thanks! Yeah I'm not too sure how this SCROG is going to turn out. Going to get interesting when there's tons of growth and I have to start playing around with the weaving of stems! Your system is non-recirculating DWC, correct? That was effective with my old system but suuuch a pain in the ass to maintain each bucket individually! This new system is such a breeze.
Your 2nd run was a big success K+ to that , I'm loving the setup. You res should go for a very long time if maintained. Plants do not give off by-product , so what will make a res go bad is simply Nute precipitation and build-up , or dead roots etc. I have run a res for the entire cycle of the plants with no problems. With a smaller res like yours I completely agree a dump is in order every once in awhile. Instead of just adding water , why not Pre-mix nutes into that gallon to get back to the same ppms so you not letting your res run at 50% nute strength by the 2 week mark and letting the nutrient profiles get all out of wack. Or are your keeping the ppm's steady and then dumping everyone 2 weeks or 100% percent addback. Just dont dump undiluted nutes into a root zone , let it mix for awhile in your addback water. Sorry for the ramble , by the looks of it your got you res under control Your gonna drop some dank on this thread, I can tell
wow man your last grow looked great! i have a question though. i thought for a scrog during veg u keep it below the screen and let it come through during only flowering.can i get some clarification?
Hows the screen looking man , I bet your about ready to flip it and fill in the edges with your stretch?
I appreciate the compliments! I think that for SCROG, during veg, you're supposed to let branches grow through the screen a few inches then pull the branches back under the screen and reroute them to other parts of the screen to spread the growth out horizontally, rather than let it grow vertically. When about 50% of the screen is filled with vegetation at the level of the screen, then you start flowering. The other 50% of the screen will be filled by stretching of the lower branches that have yet to grow up and through screen. So by the time you are in mid-flowering I'd guess, the branches will be pretty even in height, allowing for mostly buds to grow above the screen. Someone please correct me if I am wrong or missing anything! I've seen lots of pictures of SCROGs are read a few articles, but I'm still trying to figure it out and make sense of it all. Here's some pics from 4 days ago. Do they look ready to start flowering soon? They have grown in a lot more since these pics were taken. Would appreciate any advice from an experienced SCROG'er!