Hey Mick, I layered the bottom of my buckets with a some tile material to help prevent roots from clogging up the drain. I am going to buy some 'pond filter' material for next time. I used a layer of this cloth stuff... although I'm in pure hydro atm and my drain is right at the bottom, so different circumstances; just saying.
Transplant Day - The plants are 17 days from sprout. I had a hard time determining which 5 plants to keep - they all looked good. Too bad I don't personally know anyone that grows near me - I could have given them away. Oh well. As I mentioned in the first post, I am using 3 different nutrients to compare the growth. I will also be using Liquid KoolBloom and Dry KoolBloom when I get into flower for the first time. All of the plants are on their 5th node and I plan on doing my first top at the 3rd node in a couple days once the plants recover from transplanting. Pure Power Plant #1 and Cackleberry - FloraNova Bloom Pure Power Plant #2 and White Cackleberry - MaxiBloom Blue Dream - Flora Series (Micro + Bloom only) Nice root system for 17 days old. Here they are in their new permanent home under the NextLight Mega.
I didn't know you was doing hempy mick. I'm around six the week of flowering now somewhat of a rough grow but ignore the tall blue dream a freak in the back. They are all Hempys. 1BD and 3 Chemdawgs. Basically it got out of control I had to give away the other two.
Yeah - I get bored easily so I decided to do hempys again using 3 different nutes. Your plants look great. Why was it a rough grow?
Yeah. My next grow is gonna be fabric bags no hoses or airlines. Want to go simple. My Hempys are Bottom fed with hoses but although ive had good success i cant help but think i can do better with a bigger root system. The way it is now a 5 gal bucket most coco is dried out because of the bottom feeding. I want a bigger root system and no hoses or airlines. Ya i been needing to bring that cola down
Your grows are always so clean and organized. Just beautiful man!! My first attempt at a Perlite Hempy. What do you think Mick? I think I should have transplanted before flower. Vegged 4 weeks from clone and end of week 5 of flower in 3.5 qt bucket. She drinks it dry twice a day so I’m feeding 3 times a day with H&G full line of coco nutes. Took me a few days to figure it out so she got crispy, lol.
Thanks brother - looks good. I'm having some difficulties myself. When I went to transplant, the perlite didn't stay together very well after removing the plant from the solo cups and I have some serious transplant shock going on. 3 look ok but 2 of them are drooping now for three days. I'm sure they'll recover, I'm just not used to this happening at transplant - air pots and coco made it simple with no slowdown. Next grow I'm going to eliminate the solo cups and start the plants in my 3.5 gallon bucket and just feed around them until the roots reach the bottom.
Well, the plants are 3 weeks from sprout and 4 days from transplant. The two in the front are still droopy and the middle one got a bit yellow on the lower leaves, they obviously haven't recovered from the transplant. Other than the droopiness, they look healthy - I hope they recover soon. I have to wait until all the plants are growing good before I start topping. Hopefully that will be soon.
Well, I have fucked up big time - I should have stayed with coco. I thought I would be smart and put a 1-1/2" layer of hydroton in the bottom of my Hempy buckets for better drainage. I forgot that hydroton is highly alkaline and even though I rinsed the dust off of it the pH in the res changes from 5.8 going in to 7.0 within minutes. I remembered too late that when I ran DWC, RDWC and hydroton Hempys I had to soak the hydroton in a low pH solution until it stabilized. I have been running a gallon of low pH nute solution through them 3 times a day trying to stabilize the hydroton but it's not working as you can see in the pic. In addition to that problem, I was using 3 different types of nutes for experimental purposes and all that did was complicate things even more. The plant that was doing the best was being fed FloraNova Bloom so I changed all of the plants to that to eliminate any unnecessary variables. I doubt the two plants on the left will recover - the one in the middle is yellow - the lower right is halfway drooping - and the one in the upper right is the only one doing fairly well. I have planted 4 new seeds and will replace the 4 shit plants with the new ones. I plan on dumping out the existing perlite and removing the hydroton from the bottom - rinsing the perlite thoroughly - soak the perlite in a mild nute solution pH'd to 5.8 - put the rapid rooter directly into the 3-1/2 gallon bucket - feed daily and hope for the best.
i didn't know that. as far as ditching those plants, I think its a shame. Just because its not perfect doesn't mean you cannot recover them. If its just a matter of a higher pH, recycle the water, add acid, repeat. It will take a couple hours but it will come around; either that or go pick up some AN pH perfect line to control/buffer the solution at the desired pH. They look better than the dumbazz strain I am growing atm... gigantism plants or something that smell like crap... and I'm still gritting through it. imo, you should keep this project going.
Yea - I discovered it years ago when I was running Waterfarms. The good thing about those were that it's a top feed and the hydroton was constantly being rinsed, so it didn't take too long for the hydroton to stabilize. I already ditched two of them a few minutes ago - I don't think they'll recover. It's going to take more than a few hours - I've been feeding a gallon 3 times a day for the last 5 days pH'd at 5.5 or so and no change whatsoever. It goes in at 5.5 and within an hour the solution left in the res is at 7.0 or higher. I appreciate the advice but I don't think it will matter whether I use AN pH perfect or not - I doubt using that will straighten out the alkalinity in res due to the hydroton.
Hey mick, seen this post yesterday and I've been chomping at the bit to reply because I'm curious on what's going on with pH issue you're talking about and Hydroton. I have about seven very successful complete runs and 100 plants under my belt and my first was DWC then went to Coco/Perlite Hempy Bottom fed. Had Hydroton and air stone in res. Ever since my second run with no major issues or pH swings coming off of runoff. In the beginning when I am prepping the Coco I rinse the Hydroton in 6.0 RO water. I am planning on going much simpler in fabric bags on my next grow but it has nothing to do with pH. I calibrate don't have very good pH pans and watch one off consistently I'm very thorough and I've had some issues but nothing like a major pH swing from the hydroton. I'm leaving bottom fed Hempys because of when bottom feeding I don't like limiting the root system because 3/4 of the Coco dries out when bottom feeding versus top feeling when I say bottom feeding I mean I have a rocker switch and have my nutrient bucket hooked up to tubing into each bucket attached a PVC straight down to the bottom. Most people can keep the plants alive that doesn't necessarily make me a good grower although I didn't just keep them alive I do it quite damn good on most of my grows in fact many many comments of people giving me props. I have screenshots. Just trying to wonder what exactly was going on with you versus me, all of my hempy buckets have been with Hydroton on the bottom all I did in the beginning was rinse them off maybe they soaked for a few hours but that was it. Today
I don't have an explanation for it. One difference is that you are using coco and I'm using perlite/vermiculite. So, I'm in the process of a re-do. 4 of the 5 plants never looked healthy, so after a couple weeks of trying to nurse them along I decided to trash them and start over with 4 new ones - I kept one and it's healthy and topped once. I'm crossing my fingers I can delay it's progress a little for the others to catch up. I eliminated the hydroton in the 4 new ones, and started them in the 3-1/2 bucket instead of a solo cup this time. I think part of my problem on the previous 4 was from the transplanting process - the perlite fell apart when transferring and I believe the roots were damaged. Anyway, I gave them a couple weeks to show some kind of improvement and they didn't - so they're gone. I also changed the nutes which I'll go in to later. I'll post a pic in a day or so. The babies will be one week on Monday and the older one will be 5 weeks on Tuesday. Thanks for the continued interest.
I already have the hempy buckets up and running, and everything is great so far. Besides, I'm tired of coco and I wouldn't consider rockwool. I'm good now - just a small set back. Thanks.
Ok - Here's the update on the re-do if anyone is still interested. Using 3 different nutes was a pain in the ass and considering the problems I experienced it was just complicating things with too many variables. So I decided to simplify my nutes and only use FloraNova Grow and FloraNova Bloom with Liquid KB at the beginning of flower and Dry KB at the end for ripening. I also decided to go back to SM-90 instead of Hydroguard. Like I mentioned in an earlier post - I removed the hydroton from the bottom of the pots for the 4 new plants and flushed the crap out of the perlite until the pH stabilized. I also planted my Rapid Rooters directly into the 3-1/2 gallon pot to eliminate any transplanting and I feed the seedlings twice a day with a weak nute solution. The seedlings are 6 days old today and the larger plant is 2 days short of 5 weeks from sprout. All the plants are back under my T5 and will stay there through the topping process. The older plant (Pure Power Plant) has been topped once at the 5th node. Nugbuckets Mainline Tutorial specifies to top at the 3rd node but I am trying to slow it down a bit so I waited until the 5th. I removed all the growth under the 5th node but left on the attached leaves for now. The tutorial also specifies to top the 2 new mains at the first node but I think I will top at the 3rd node. I removed the grow tips and leaves on the 2nd node because they weren't needed. Let's hope it goes smooth from now on.
Man I hope your mainline goes a bit smoother than mine is. I’m on to 16 tops now but I broke so many branches and split the knuckles. I might even lose one whole quadrant of one plant. It’s taped up but not sure it will live.