Are you going to put the ona in the cab? Ive heard some people saying that it'll make the bud smell and taste all weird like ona if you do. Lets see the pics of the new cropping
I'll have an update by later today I hope. Averted a major disaster this weekend. Sprayers clogged Friday night/Saturday morning. Plants drooped, started to die. Looked bad. Real bad. Got fix in place by 10:00 PM Sunday. Plants coming back but a lot of damage. Regarding ONA. That stuff is amazing. I put about 1/2 a cup of the jello-ed version in a 1 pint tupperware container. Poked about 10 holes in the lid and put it back in place. Set the container on top of the cabinet. Bam! No smell what so ever. Can't smell the ONA or the weed. I'll have to be more agressive with it once the buds come out but that shit rocks!
Days 24 to 26 of Veg: Weekend from Hell Day 24 Friday 11-18-11: The Calm Before the Storm Plants looking good. Growing rapidly. To fight the odor, I purchased some ONA Gel Pro. A tiny bit leaked out in my truck and on my shirt. What a mess!!! Originally planned to build an ONA bucket. But the stuff is so strong that I just put a ½ cup in a one pint plastic container with holes punched in the lid and set it on top of the cabinet. It's been 5 days now and no odor at all. This stuff works great. I know that I'll need to up-size during flowering. But it shouldn't be a problem. Did a lot of thinning of the lower and inner leaves. Day 25 Saturday: Disaster strikes! Accidents are often a result of a sequence of events compounding the seriousness of each. Friday night, I didn't have time to properly raise the lights for the day's growth. By Saturday morning, two of the smaller lights had dropped several inches and burnt a couple of leaf groups on the Train Wreck. And during the same time, the White Russian grew into its lights and burned more than a couple of leaves. So both plants look stressed at 7:00 AM. I check on the plants at 9:30 and the TW is completely wilted and on the verge of death. By noon, the WR is also wilting and looking really bad. It turns out that the spray nozzles are choked and no longer wetting the roots. I inject solution under the neoprene collars and it seems to help. But the plants are dying. To make matters worse, my father in-law, who's a retired sheriff and undercover narc, are coming over this afternoon. So there's no time to fix the problem. But the hourly injections are acting as life support. And I've unscrewed about 200 watts of light and lifted the remainder as far away as possible. Still, I'm losing the battle. But my babies don't give up. Day 26 Sunday- Operation: EXO-AERO One of the compromises I made when designing an areoponic system for use in a medium sized cabinet was to give up easy access to the root chamber and reservoir. This was a mistake that came back to bite me. Fortunately, I foresaw this problem and had been ruminating on a solution. I've been looking for a way to replace the PVC spray bar with an external plumbing system so that the sprayers can be easily replaced when they get clogged. And they all get clogged, eventually. The breakthrough came on Friday when I was at the hydro store to buy ONA. I noticed that an E-Z Cloner spray nozzle will screw into a piece of ¼-inch OD semi-rigid vinyl tubing. And the ¼-inch tube fits snugly inside the 3/8-inch OD tube. If you cut the wings off the nozzle, it is just slightly narrower that the 3/8-inch OD tube. So when you screw the spray nozzle inside a ¼†tube, pushed into a 3/8†tube, the whole assembly will fit snuggly through a 3/8†hole in the top of the root chamber. This configuration facilitates easy inspection and replacement of the spray nozzles, which is a major breakthrough. Quick Connector fittings allow the 3/8†Tube to be routed as needed and eventually transition to the ½-inch hose connected to the solution pump. Confused? Check out the following plans I drew for building an EXO-AERO aeroponic grow system. Day 26- Sunday: Operation EXO-AERO It took most of the day and three trips to Home Depot before I finally got the system back online at 10:00 PM Sunday night. Once I had a good plan, the fix was pretty simple and easy to put together. The only problem was that two of the Quick Connect fittings leaked. So the final version is missing a couple of elbows. It was getting late so I filled the reservoir with the solution that I pumped out at the beginning of the day. By 11:00 PM, the plants were coming back to life.
Theyre looking real good. Is that day 29 from sprout? from switch to 12/12? I always like seeing others' aeroponics systems. So jealous. Someday i will try the leap from soil. Ohh they were clones. Still thats amazing work. Aeroponics really pay off.
Well, the plants took a lot of damage during the drought. I plan to go to 12/12 by the weekend and hoped to be much further along. Yes, 29 days from clone transplant. But still, the speed of growth has been amazing.
Day 27: 11-21-11 @6:00 AM Garage Temp: 66 Grow Chamber Temp: 75 Grow Chamber RH: 47% Reservoir Temp: n/m Reservoir pH: 6.3 Reservoir ppm: 1130 Reservoir volume: 6.25 Light Distance from Plants: 3-4 White Russian Plant Height: Train Wreck Plant Height: Plants starting to recover. But some lower branches are still limp. Added: 2 gallons RO Water 15 ml Micro 20 ml Bloom 2 ml pH DOWN New readings are: pH: 6.1 ppm: 990 Day 28: 11-22-11 @ 6:15 AM Garage Temp: 65 Grow Chamber Temp: 73 Grow Chamber RH: 48% Reservoir Temp: n/m Reservoir pH: 6.2 Reservoir ppm: 1010 Reservoir volume: n/m Light Distance from Plants: 4 White Russian Plant Height: Train Wreck Plant Height: Removed 3 gallons of solution. Added 2 gallons RO water 20 ml Technaflora MagiCal (Mag-Cal) 5 ml pH Down Seeing a lot of damage from the sprayer incident. Turned on the 23 watt bulbs again, so back to full strength. Did a lot of thinning in the morning and then again in the evening. Day 29: 11-23-11 @ 6:10 AM Garage Temp: 67 Grow Chamber Temp: 82 Grow Chamber RH: 41% Reservoir Temp: n/m Reservoir pH: 5.9 Reservoir ppm: 890 Reservoir volume: n/m Light Distance from Plants: 4 White Russian Plant Height: 16.5 Train Wreck Plant Height: 19 prior to trimming There is a lot of damage from the stress of the weekend. Did more thinning. Tried to add the scrog screen, but couldn't get it in place without damage to the plants. Will try again tomorrow. The following photo shows the combined damage caused by light burn and the sprayer incident.
Day 30: 11-24-11 @ 7:00 AM Garage Temp: 69 Grow Chamber Temp: 83 Grow Chamber RH: 44% Reservoir Temp: n/m Reservoir pH: 5.8 Reservoir ppm: 900 Reservoir volume: 7.2 Light Distance from Plants: 4 White Russian Plant Height: Train Wreck Plant Height: Plants recovering nicely Set Scrog Screen Lifted fan about 4â€. Moved temp/RH Probe below the canopy. It now sits on the rail. Day 31: 11-25-11 @ 6:15 AM Garage Temp: 67 Grow Chamber Temp: 68 new placement Grow Chamber RH: 61% new placement Reservoir Temp: n/m Reservoir pH: 5.8 Reservoir ppm: 920 Reservoir volume: 6.8 gal Light Distance from Plants: 4 White Russian Plant Height: Train Wreck Plant Height: Next post: Swiching to the Flowering Phase!!!
The Big Switch Day32/Bloom0: 11-26-11 @ 7:20 AM Garage Temp: 67 Grow Chamber Temp: 68 Grow Chamber RH: 61% Reservoir Temp: n/m Reservoir pH: 5.8 Reservoir ppm: 920 Reservoir volume: 6.8 gal Light Distance from Plants: 4 White Russian Plant Height: Train Wreck Plant Height: Today we're switching to the flowering phase! Removed as much solution as possible from the reservoir. Then added 4 gallons of RO water and flushed the roots for about an hour. After flushing this water was showing about 120 ppm. Removed as much of this water as possible. Calibrated the meter: pH read 0.1 low @ 7.0 reference. pH read 0.1 high at 4.01 reference. ppm read 10 high at 1500 reference. Added 8 gallons of RO water from outside Ralph's (62 degrees F) Added 32 ml Grow Added 96 ml Bloom Added 96 ml Micro This represents 80% of the dose recommended by X nutrients for the first week of bloom. Next week, Grow will be phased out and I'll add some CalMag. Readings after additions: 5.2 pH; 960 ppm Added 8 ml pH UP Readings after addition: pH: 5.9 ppm: 930 Turned Lights off at 12:11 PM Changed lights to 2700K. At 8:00 PM turned the lights on. Plan will be on at 8:00 PM and off at 8:00 AM.
ScroGin' Today is Day 5 of Bloom. The Scrog Screen's been in for about a week and is filling in nicely. Plants look great! But no signs of flowering yet. So far during bloom, the pH has been dropping quickly with these new nutrients, or because of the switch to 12/12. It's taken a lot of pH UP to keep the reservoir in the proper range. Yesterday I added 2.5 gallons of water, more Micro, Bloom, and MagiCal. D36/B5: 12-1-11 @ 6:00 AM Garage Temp: 63 Grow Chamber Temp: 65 Grow Chamber RH: 47% Reservoir Temp: n/m Reservoir pH: 5.6 Reservoir ppm: 1090 Reservoir volume: Light Distance from Plants: 3 White Russian Plant Height: Train Wreck Plant Height: Added 3 ml pH UP. After the addition: pH: 5.8 ppm: 1090-1100
I know how ya feel about the not many people responding to the journal. Just hang in there. I see mine as just as educational experience for anyone who happens to read. A lot of people just seem to cruise around and read the forums for a while before participating. Your screen looks good. Yeah the screen is used to hold any sites that might be stretching, down. Fill up as many holes as you can with budsites. Im just a little behind you, still filling up my screen now. Just trimmed up yesterday and Im really seeing results from the screen set in place. Keep up the good work w the grow. Ive been subbed.
Thanks for follin' along Budz. Next time I will make the screen differently. I'm hoping that it will be filled in a week or so.
Thanks QuickTree, I've put a lot of research and thought into the system's design. But since this is my first grow and I'm not much of a craftsman, I'm finding a few small things that I"ll change for the next grow.
How are your plants responding to the nutes? I just started mine on 1/4 strength as well, and I was able to tell a big difference already within 12 hours.
Hey bubz, The X Nutrients three-part (with a little MagiCal displacing some of the Grow) is really greening-up the plants. I have two worries though... 1. Today is Day 9 of Bloom and I see no sign of bud development. But there are a ton of tops ( not sure what you call the places where buds should start). This may be normal. Don't know. 2. pH drop is ridiculous. It's dropping at a rate of .2 per day. That means the solution falls out of the optimal pH range in just two days unless I add water and pH UP. My ScroG Screen is almost full and I've stopped tucking and weaving. There are still some branches that haven't quite reached the screen yet. Not sure if I should just let the branches above the screen continue to grow, or what. Any ideas? (tried to upload files but keep getting an upload failed error)
Just keep tucking until it is completely full. Then you just gotta let em grow. Luckily they're already on 12/12. Thats part of the fun, if you get too greedy in veg and they outgrow your cab. Right now Im still deciding when to flip, and I cant have them outgrowing my cab as well. You should be ok though, your cab looked pretty tall.
Lotta progress since I put the screen up 12 days ago. Only a couple of holes left to fill, and I have branches coming from below so I don't think there's any real tucking left to do. These photos are from yesterday morning.
Days 37 to 42 The following are the high and low lights for the last week... 37 Days Total/Day 5 of Bloom I noticed that the plants were wilting. After a few minutes of investigation I determined that the ART DNe timer malfunctioned and as a result, the nutrient solution pump wasn't being powered. A simple push of the reset button fixed the problem and the plants came back to life within an hour. Day 38 Replaced the ONA which had shrunk from 1/2 cup to about an 1/8. Odor almost gone again. Days 39-42 Added water and a lot of pH UP so that pH stays between 5.5 and 6.0 (5.8 being optimal). As of this morning, plants look great and I'm finally starting to see the begining of bud formation!!! The ONA system will need to be upgraded from passive to fan-driven. Recorded the following readings this morning: Garage Temp: 63 Grow Chamber Temp: 61 (this is at the base of the plants. It's much warmer in the canopy) Grow Chamber RH: 45% Reservoir Temp: n/m Reservoir pH: 5.9 Reservoir ppm: 1140 Reservoir volume: 7.25 Light Distance from Plants: 3
D43/B11: 12-7-11 @ 6:20 AM Garage Temp: 63 Grow Chamber Temp: 61 Grow Chamber RH: 45% Reservoir Temp: n/m Reservoir pH: 5.7 Reservoir ppm: 1170 Reservoir volume: Light Distance from Plants: 3 White Russian Plant Height: Train Wreck Plant Height: pH dropped .2 and dissolved solids rose by 30 ppm since yesterday. More and more signs of bud development. Added 1.5 gallons of RO water Readings after the addition: pH: 5.7 No Change!! ppm: 950 Volume: 8.4 gallons