Ok so this will be my first real grow other than some small container closet grows with CFLs. This is Fem Herijuana from sannie's. First time with hydro and using 4x5gal BB with a 27gal res in a 5x5 tent 600w MH/HPS. 400CFM 6" inline connected to air cooled hood for exhaust and passive intake. Temps in tent are 77-79 with 72-75 outside the tent. I'll probly have to use water bottles to keep the res a little cooler untill winter Just got done setting up the tent and ready to transfer the seedlings in the net pots. Seeds were started in Rapid Rooter plugs on 8/1/13. The 3 smaller plants are a about 8 days behind the 3 bigger ones ( had a cfl touch and burn one of the first 4 so started these so I wouldn't lose too much time just to be safe. As far as transplanting these into the net pots do I put them at the bottom of the net and put hydroton around it or should I put a layer of hydroton at the bottom then the plant and cover in hydroton? The water level is about 1" below the nets and water bubbles and splashing the net and making it wet so a layer to hydroton should get wet and allow the roots to grow down. Roots are already filling up the rooters and need to move on so want/need to transplant soon I think. I'll be using the lucas formula with GH Micro/Bloom trying to keep things simple for my first run. Any comments or tips are welcome I'm making this journal so I can keep track or this grow as well as to get help on this first time grow
Looks like your off to a good start. Organization is the key and it look lime you have that under control. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Planted 4 seedlings with about 1 inch hydroton on bottom of net pot. PH-5.89 PPM-300 Res Temp- 73.3F Light at 2 feet away. Tent temp- 77F Just waiting for the roots to drop down now..
Roots havn't dropped yet but the PH has drifted down to 4.76 so I PH up'd it to 5.8. This was RO water from the grocery store and nothing is is the water yet so only thing I can guess is the runoff from the hydroton pebbles is very acidic and is dropping the PH. Anyone have experience with that? Its not namebrand hydroton it was called Planit-it clay pebbles. PH-5.8 PPM-300 Res temp- 70.4F Tent temp 73F
Did you rinse the shit out of the hydroton and presoak at 5.8 before using? There's a ton of dust that comes off those things and if you don't rinse it out, it can cause a lot of grief down the road.
i rinsed it a lot but didn't soak it. I'm hoping the roots will grab the plant it and not burn from the low PH. I plan to water a couple times a day to help the roots drop. not sure if i should remove the hydroton and resoak it or not. worried the hydroton will inhibit the root growth with a low PH but we will see. I know the real worth of BB starts when the roots hit the water so I'm holding out.
Did some rearranging in the RDWC setup and got rid of the boxes they were up on but now the tent will just be unable to be zipped up at the bottom on one side and I pick up 10-12" in grow hight. Planning on scrogging this and filling up a 4x4 screen so want them bushy with lots of tops I guess. What would be the best thing to ensure this? Topping? Fimming? Here's some new pics. I took out one of the first planted seedlings as it just looked sick and all 3 of the newer seedlings look really strong and healthy. I think with the first batch of seeds I was testing out how close I could get the light on them and had a 600w aircooled hood about 10" away and though it wasn't hot I think the intensity of the light itself just fried those cus after they all went from a dark green to pale green as you can see in the photos here of the first and 2nd batch of the seeds. When I replaced the one older seedling I placed the new Rapid Rooter directly on the bottom of the net pot with no hydroton to see if roots would set faster this way or if having hydroton on the the bottom was the way to go. The 3 newer seedlings all look real dark green and healthy and 2 of the plants have very tips of roots sticking down from the net so they should be in the water soon. This is quarter strength Lucas so 2ml/4ml of GH Micro/Bloom per gallon. PH- 5.65 PPM-359 res Temp- 71F
Little update, plants have been in the hydroton for 2 weeks now, went in on 8/19 and have had roots in the water for a week now cus it took them a little while to get out of the net pot. I upped the PPM to 650ish or 1/2 lucas 2 days ago and they have been fine with no burn dont know if I should go ahead and up it again to 3/4 or full yet. Should I wait longer and go ahead and see what they can take? The PPMs havn't changed anything noticable since I upped it so should I wait till I see a PPM shift up or down to see if I should feed more or less? Anyway, I have the light at 18" away right now. Started at 2' and moved them down a little 2 days ago. Its a vented/sealed hood and I can leave my hand a couple inches away from the glass or even touch the glass without it feeling hot to me but I did that when they were smaller and it stunted their growth and killed some leaves so what would be considered a good distance to keep the light at? Last thing is as you can see in my pics I have the 6" inline pulling air thru the sealed hood and out of the tent with passive intake and I have a 6x24 phresh filter ready to go on when its needed but do you think theres a way to hook them all up with just the one intake fan or will I need to get a separate fan just for the hood exhaust with the other just for the filter? And if so what size/type of fan would be fine for just cooling a 600w light? PH- 5.84 PPM- 650 Res temp- 73F
Everything looks good! If they arent showing any signs of nute burn, I might go ahead and do the 3/4 lucas. I have no experience with MH/HPS so I cant comment on that part. Good luck!
Plants have been in for 3 weeks now but only 2 with roots touching the water so I'll consider it 2 weeks veg so far. Bumped the PPM to 800 yesterday to see how they would do and no signs or burn or anything yet.
3 weeks in the water now. Started using some EWC tea on friday to prevent any root rot and hopefully to help the roots get bigger as they just seem small to me compared to pics I see of huge roots balls. Does anyone have some pics to give me an idea of what a good size root system should look like after 3 weeks in DWC? Think I've been getting some cal/mg issues since I was only using 1/2 Lucas but have upped it to full 8ml/16ml GH micro/bloom so I hope that takes care of any issues and I dont burn them at that strength. Anyway they are getting bushy. I'm planning to veg these for another 2-3 weeks to get them as big as I can and then flower for 7-8 weeks and be done by mid Dec. at the latest since I'm not sure if I'll be living here next year. Went ahead and put the 2 little guys in a hempy bucket to try and get a little something out of them. PH- 5.8 PPM 1060
View attachment 1273136 These are my roots after 25 days in DWC since I got it as a clone. I've only had my mh lamp for 1 week tho so my roots probably wouldve been bigger if they were under mh the whole time.
yea see you have tons of individual roots coming from the net I have like 3-5 coming from the net pot and all the mass is off those only. feel like I needed to do something to promote lots of roots coming out. Did you drip feed that to get the roots to branch like that or use some kind of root hormone?
No, I didn't drip feed. When they were brand new in the system I would manually feed with a turkey baster like twice a day but I stopped that after about a week. I'm using canna so I do use a root enhancer called rhizotonic. One thing I noticed was your water level is pretty low. I have half my net lot completely submerged with bubbles all around it. Your plants look healthy so whatever changes you do, do them slowly and watch the reaction.
oh the blue bucket from the pics is just what I had them siting while I cleaned the whole system out the water in the system is kept at 1" below the net pot.
4 weeks in the water now and I put my screen in this weekend. Man what a fucking pain its been trying to train the branches to space out the tops. Probly should have done some topping early on but reading on the breeders site it looked like they just let them grow wild with no topping so I didn't touch them. I've been trying to move most of the tops closer to the center which is why the outer edges of the screen is empty but not its so crowded in there that the nodes lower on the branches aren't getting light so I dont know if I should prune some upper fan leaves to let the light down to the small branches. Do the branches need direct light to grow because I see so much debate about cutting off fan leaves to let light down lower. I'm going to let this fill up the screen this week then flip next Monday I think.
Switched to 12/12 today. Lots of tops and lots of leaves. Should I tuck these leaves? These leaves are all up near the tops but they are so bushy they cover so many tops. You can see the difference in the first 2 canopy shots vs the last 2 where the leafs are tucked under the screen.
Plantit pebbles! I had crazy PH issues with these things.. Kept getting swings down to 3.8/4.0! I then took some more pellets (same bag that was rinsed well) and soaked them overnight.. The next day they were reading at 3.5!! The guy at the store said he never saw this issue and questioned whether something was spilled on the bag... Just keep an eye on them..
Yea my PH never shifted that much but since the first time I filled up the rez and since no water is running over them anymore my PH stays right where I put it now. Think the bag even said they were pre rinsed which is BS since there was tons of run off and powder when I first opened the bag. All buisinesses cut corners to make more money and lie about their product so not that surprised.