Tbone's Alaskan LED adventure...

Discussion in 'Hydroponic Grow Journals' started by Tbone Shuffle, Jun 26, 2016.

  1. #121 Tbone Shuffle, Aug 14, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2016
    I've smoked about 1/4 or more so far and screwed up my dried final weight but I could guestimate about 2.5oz's off the first plant. I'll weigh what I have left. I have one more jar besides this from Purple Prose.
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    I weighed just the Purple Prose jars. 48grams. With what I already smoked My guess was about right. A little over 2oz's on the first plant. I think I may have let it dry too long on the stem. It's already perfectly smokeable dryness and it's only been in the jar 2 days. I'm thinking of jaring my 2nd cut up today while it's still a little moist to hopefully slow down the cure. For cutting this bud down only a week ago it's incredibly smooth. Tastes better through the bowl than my other grow buddies offerings and it doesn't have a proper cure at all. That florakleen does an amazing job cleaning it out. Even the ash is clean.
     
  2. I smoked some of my first bowls of plant #2. The smallest and saddest one that I did contemplate giving up on. I ended up topping it. A shoot came up from the bottom to join the other two and I dubbed it three headed monster. For being cut down 1 week. This bud is so smooth.

    I have to stop here and rave about GH flora kleen. I don't know how many people are using this but I paid only about $8 for a quart. In hydro the directions say add 2tsp/gallon to just water 1 to 2 days before harvest. I've been giving them all 2 days. The smoothness on the bud is amazing for the ridiculously short cure. So worth $8. I have a couple of friends doing hydro without a clean out product. I can't wait to taste this bud after a month. I did a better job getting the cure right on the second plant and I got it in the jars with just that slight amount of moisture. It's coming along nicely.

    Something funny: This whole time I was under the impression that I had at least 2 or 3 maybe 4 strains in the room. This is all bagseed that I've saved for years and years. I probably have 50 seeds left still. All of my plants are purple, probably the same strain of grand daddy purple or a cross. The only thing I can think of is the purple genetics dominated because I started 12 seeds and saved the strongest 6 with 2 dying off. The odds of all these plants coming from the same few sacks after all these years tumbling around my seed container I can't explain.

    If you look at these 2 pictures and then the pictures of the jar in the last post these all look like the same strain but they are 3 different bagseed plants randomly chosen out of 12 saved over 5+ years.
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    Just cut this down. It might be my heaviest bud, really dense.
     
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  3. If they taste as good as they look you're gonna be a happy toker for a while.


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  4. I'm already so happy. I'm a complete pothead and I spend way too much of my own hard earned money buying bud. This is the main reason for my grow. It's finally legal and I'm never buying any again. Funny thing is I have probably 1/4 of ak47 and white widow I bought before mine finished. I can't even finish it because mine is so much better. I'll have to bring it over to a friends or roll it in a big joint. It's half as stony and 1/4 as tasty.

    I made a nice batch of shatter from the good trim I haven't taken a pic of. It turned out so clean.
     
  5. Im glad you hard work paid off. I'm right there with you bro. I've been smoking the cheapest dispensary weed I can find since I got my card. I refuse to pay $250-300 an oz for weed anymore knowing I have my own growing. I hope to walk in there one day and sell them overages and maybe make a few bucks back.


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  6. Its your hit.
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  7. Look at the color of my last plant left. Some of the leaves are red. It's also foxtailing. I was thinking about letting it go longer but it's 9 1/2 weeks and already in flush for 2 days. It looks so done. I heard that once they foxtail the buds will get way bigger. It's a sativa trait.
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    This thing is in the same light as those other green plants.
     
  8. Stupid question... Clearly a noob still, but wtf is fox tailing. I've been looking it up and still can't seem to grasp it


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  9. It's a weird sativa trait some plants do. There's two type of foxtailing one that happens naturally and one that happens from stress for high temp or whatever. Later in the bud cycle the calyx start to build on top of each other and make formations that look like dreads. This is late new growth on the buds and some will continue to get big long tails if you let them go. The buds get really dense too. That foxtailed one in my pic is really solid. Apparently it can be good if it happens towards the end it helps your buds get big. If it happens from stress you usually get some strange stringy buds.

    I did some googling of it and found some cool pictures.
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    I would let mine get bigger because I have a bunch of buds doing this but my main top is already past done.
     
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  10. Ahhh gotcha. I've seen the term multiple times but never really understood. That's a great pic for example though.

    Where did you learn all of your DWC techniques? My plants are about done and I'm ditching the soil next round. I have a book my fiancé got me but it's more of a generalization into all forms of hydro instead on focusing on DWC. If you have a specific site you used to pull most of your info from let me know, you obviously did something right lol

    I'm dropping two white widows and probably one of these seeds I pulled out of that grape ape batch as soon as these buds are done their drying.


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  11. One of my good friends started growing DWC more than a year or two ago. I had never heard of it. I was going to build my own aeroponic container or ebb and flow but the more I dug into it the more I saw people using DWC instead. It seemed like nobody was using aeroponics anymore. I had the basics from my friend. I dug a little deeper with what DWC needs to succeed like low water temps, clean water, plenty of air, and beneficial organisms. DWC is the simplest form of hydro with the least amount of things that can go wrong like clogged nozzles, ect.

    All hydroponic systems work very similar. Aeroponics work exactly the same as DWC once the roots are long enough to sit in the solution. I have a bunch of videos and pdf books I've collected over the years but there is a wealth of info online. People like to put it down like the web is full of lies but it's pretty easy to sort out the good info.
    Simply Hydroponics - Replace bulb
    There's many sites like this that will go over basics. I kind of watched my friend and looked at what I thought he was doing wrong. I read a lot of grow journals and reviews of equipment to figure out what I wanted. A much bigger air pump than he had, A big exhaust fan to keep temps down, More nutrients especially root inoculants. He was using just the GH flora trio and liquid koolboom. Root rot issues almost every crop. Hydroguard has my newest generation of plants roots looking noticeably healthier than last round.
     
  12. Word thanks for the info, that's what I did when I first started but with the soil. I wish I hadn't but am glad I will know how to deal with both when I'm done. I'm curious to see the differences in soil and hydro final products.

    Back to the books for me lol I enjoy this sort of research though, so it won't be all bad.


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  13. A lot of people knock it out of the park with soil. I think the main thing hydro gives you is everything works a little faster. The plants grow and veg at least a week or more faster. They also finish in the bud room faster than soil by a week or at least a few days. They do tend to be a little more robust and thick when done right.

    I designed my whole setup around never having to buy soil or anything except nutrients. I have no rockwool in my clone machine and my orchid pellets are all washable and reusable. As long as I don't run out of nutrients I can just keep cranking bud out of the same room without buying anything else. I didn't know much about no till setups then but I have a soil growing buddy that spends a couple of hundred a year easy on soil products. My nutrients are considerably cheaper.
     
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  14. #134 Tbone Shuffle, Aug 18, 2016
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2016
    This is the bucket system I bought. 6 buckets with everything you need but nutrients and a light.
    BUBBLE BROTHERS 6-POT DEEP WATER CULTURE DWC HYDROPONIC BUCKET SYSTEM. I tried to link you to the htg supply site but figures the site is down.. lol. Anyway I got the 6 for $109. It came with an 850gph pump with a six way splitter, air line, stones, and orchid potting pellets.

    I really don't think you can build it yourself for cheaper. The tops are great shape and really high quality. The black food grade buckets let in no light. 3.5gallon buckets are better IMO. In a 5 gallon you just get roots dangling way down to the bottom. Ideally in DWC the bubbles should pop on the surface of the water and splash the medium the plant is in. In a 5 gallon you have to run way more water to get it high enough and it reduces your light distance significantly. I wouldn't have even been able to fit my plants in my tent with 5 gallon buckets. They would have been too tall.

    I would say avoid water pumps or circulating the water at all. Keep it simple. Circulating is not necessary and allows you to run a different nutrient mix in every bucket. Some plants like to be treated different or are at different stages. If you recirc your water you will be stuck with the same mix for all plants. Trying to build drains and such into the buckets just makes them less portable. Get a clean spare empty 5 gallon for changing water. Scoot the plant you want to change the water in to the edge of the tent. Lift up the top and place it on the empty 5 gallon bucket. Grab the handle of the 3.5 with the nutrients and go make a new batch. It's easy. I don't see the need for piping and drains it just limits your movement and makes things more complicated than necessary.

    Don't try to get away without supplementing beneficial organisms. Hydroguard works good but Real growers recharge is the shit and I will be switching.
    Recharge Natural Soil Conditioner

    That stuff, some basic nutrients, epsom salt and a bloom booster like liquid koolboom you'll be good. Basically all you need you can add other things later.

    Learn this lesson from me. In DWC keep the nutrients light. 1/2 recommended strength. The roots sit in it 24hrs a day. It doesn't need to be strong. They don't grow any faster. If the nutrients are there then they are there. Running them strong does nothing but put you in danger of burning them.

    What happens is when they get big they start drinking water like you wouldn't believe. Up to 1/2 gallon a day. When that happens they end up concentrating the nutrient solution. You have to add water every day or it gets too strong and burns them. Running it a little weak give you a safety barrier to burns when the plants suck down half the water when you're at work.

    Max you can go when the plants are good size without attention is 2 days. After that they've drank enough water to cause problems. You can change that if you want to circulate the water and run a big res or 5 gallons. I keep it simple. I don't mind tending my plants every night.

    That's why when I had a plant sitter on vacation he burned them. He got lazy and didn't want to stop by every day. I don't blame him. It's a bitch, but going more than one day the water got too low and nitro burned 3 out of 4 in my bud room about 1 1/2 weeks in. Purple Prose was so bad ass though it said I don't give a crap and just sucked up that strong nitro with no burn.

    I am going to highly recommend flora kleen. I got it for $8 locally. I don't know if I scored but it seems a little more than that online. My harvest is so clean smoking. I expected hydro to be harsh because that's what everyone says. This hydro is smooth. I thank flora kleen. I didn't do anything else to make it this clean.
     
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  15. The foxtailing is from some old genetics in sativa where the buds were all foxtails. That is the way these particular strains would grow buds in long strings like that. They were some of the most resinous strains so growers incorporated their genetics in many sativa strains generations ago. Some sativas bring out this foxtail trait more than others. I have seen pics where the plant had nothing but foxtails and they were crystally as hell.
     
  16. Wow man, thanks for taking the time to drop some knowledge. It's definitely cool of you, many dudes wouldn't bother.

    I actually have an HTGsupply less than 30 minutes from me... I won't be able to fit the 6piece system but was looking at their individual DWC systems. They are only 35 bucks! Once these babies are ready to be pulled I will be going and getting all my supplies to drop a few white widow and a grape ape.

    If it wasn't for grass city, I'm sure all of us would still be a little lost! Again, thanks for the info... You know I'll be back with more questions when I get this thing up and running. I'm really debating on buying a new tent so I can have a perpetual harvest. This 16-20 week stuff is for the birds lol


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  17. Hey just stumbled across your post and I wanted to throw this site out there Grow Weed Easy - Learn How to Grow Cannabis

    Im growing for my first time in hydro and learned almost everything from that site. I decided to remove the top feed system described on the site once the roots of my plant hit my resovoir water. Then I just did a bubble bucket in a 17gal storage tote. used Flora trio and hydrogaurd and I'm using the lucas formula for nutrient strength.
     

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  18. Thanks man, some healthy looking nug you have there! Mine are in their last two-3 weeks... I'm hoping I see some weight put on because while the nugs look good, they just are not that big. I did start with shitty genetics though... I wanted this to be a throw away run, didn't think I'd actually succeed and now that I did I'm mad I didn't use my better seeds. This is just from some brick weed in soil...[​IMG]

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  19. I noticed a few days ago that a couple of the buds on my smaller plant were shaped funny, but didn't think too much of it. Looking at it today, and after seeing the pic you posted, this is what my plant is doing too. I don't know what strain it is. It was a free seed from Nirvana. I'm pretty sure it's a sativa dominant hybrid. Almost every single bud is doing it, from the biggest to the smallest. It's still got a few weeks to go so hopefully they'll get bigger. [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]


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  20. I almost wished I would have let mine go just to see what it would do. Apparently when the plant goes into this foxtailing mode it keeps shooting out white hair and the dreads can get longer and longer. The bud gets bigger and harder. Some people have let the foxtailing plants go 12 or 14 weeks. It's like this 2nd stage of bud development in some plants.
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    The one I cut down still had a bunch of hairs shooting out at the foxtails. I bet they would have kept getting longer for a while. The very top was done though and I have other plants waiting to move in.
     
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