Multi-strain grow, RDWC

Hello everybody, this is my first "official" journal as I finally have decent strains to show off. I've been supplying myself for awhile from the same mother from some good mids. Along the way I've been tweaking and changing my system and I think this is it for me.

At the moment they're under a 400w MH and I'm using GH Micro/Bloom, 8 recirculating bubble buckets along with drip irrigation.

2 DP Blueberry, 1 Dinafem WW, 1 BF Red Cherry Berry, 1 BF LSD, 1 Blueberry Gum, 1 Blue Hash
I also have 2 reserve privada sour kush I might put on their own system if they set out some more roots soon.

These are the survivor clones that I took right before I left for vacation just in case my caretaker neglected his duties, which he did and I had to baby these cuttings back to health to provide new mothers (i'm doing bonsai mums) as I came home to 8 shriveled and dried out pots. I lost one strain, Blackjack but I still have 2 more seeds for later.

So check it out, lemme know what you think. Week 1 pics (veg)

 

Hey thanks for stopping by. I'm in the process of building a chiller. Should be done by tonight and I'll get some pics of that up.

 

Ha! Had an electrical problem with my chiller idea, can't get my amperage right it kept overheating my DC power supply. Gotta go plan B and buy a mini-fridge with a regular 110v plug. I'll go ahead and show a pic of the idea, then just sub the fridge for the cooler. The cooler is an old Igloo Koolmate that I lost the cord for. I was trying to power it using a lab DC power supply but I didn't want to risk a fire.

Imagine the black tray is the res. The water is pumped out, into the fridge, through the copper coils submerged in water then back out to the res. It's basic, but cheap and if I can lose 6-10f then I'll be happy with that.

The lighting for flower is a 600w hps and I have an additional 400w hps if they get really spread out. Heat becomes an issue when I add that extra light so we'll see what happens, looking at getting a cooltube for the 600.

As far as nutes/lucas formula I guess you could say it's loosely based on that. I use 3-1 Micro/bloom(800-1000ppm) for veg then 1-3 (1200-1500ppm) for flower. I've also been adding Beastie Bloomz mid-flower. Myco-madness too

 

Let me add that the formula that I'm using now is the same one I dialed in on my last year of grows that all came from the same mother. I don't know how these strains are going to behave. I have up to 8 more buckets if I have to separate a few of them.

 

Alright, here's my DIY chiller. I repurposed an old mini-fridge. The pump I'm using is too weak so tomorrow I'll be picking up a bigger one. Meanwhile I'll just let this one trickle and see what happens. The water is ice cold coming out, just not much.
Inital res temp reading 75f.

Bonus treat pic: Canna-Blondies

 

Ok, I've upgraded the chiller. The previous version was entirely too weak and really did nothing. I used 1/2" copper to make a coil to be submerged in water. I put a 185 gph pump in the main reservoir and it pumps the soup through the chilled coils and back into the res. Temp is staying closer to 70f and should be more efficient now that I'm switching to 18/6 tomorrow.

The white balls are a floating cover to reduce evaporation and the ice buildup in the freezer section.

 

I made an interesting discovery that will help with the res temp issues. The eco185 comes with extra attachments and one of them is to make the pump an inline pump so I won't have to put them (i have 3) in the res at all.
I was reading some back-and-forth about them being switchable so I took one apart and sure enough, behind the filter is a spot for the adapter. Got one changed for now, going to completely rebuild a res to accomodate the pumps below the waterline so I won't have to prime them to get them started.

 

I was putting together my new res last night and thought about that. Trying to figure out a solution before I put the res on. I might not worry about it because when I change my soup I'll just take the pumps off and see what I can do about cleaning them.

One pump I am leaving in the res because it only runs 3 times a day for 15 mins so I'm not worried about heat. The other two are going to be external as they run 24/7. Still working out the kinks in the chiller, it keeps the temp lower but the mini fridge doesn't seem to get as cold as it used to. The freezer works and I keep water bottles in there to put on the coils, I switch them out whenever I check on things.

I insulated the new res using foam boards and Great Stuff. The pic is the res almost completed. Just need to buy 2 more bulkhead fittings then drain my system for the switch.

 

Things have just been vegging along nicely. Taking cuttings whenever they present themselves during strategic pruning. Trying to get 32-40 clones to do a 8 bucket RDWC SOG for the next cycle.

White widow and Blueberry Gum are weak plants, might just flower them out and forget about establishing mums since I'll still have 5 strains (mums) and still have 4 diff seeds in reserve.

The chiller I made is working great, then only change is I'm going to do is use a crock as my cooling bath as the plastic pail is horrible at holding cooler temps.

The system itself is diy with 4 gal square buckets, 3/4" fittings on drainage and 2 external eco 185 pumps, one for cooling and one for recirculating.

 

Update: Been out for a bit, just letting things grow. Switched to flower on 9-7-11 and already have a ton of mini buds, it's almost like they were begging to let be flowered.

Had a bit of a pH problem, I wasn't able to tend things for a couple of days and the pH dropped to 4.8 and the plants showed it. It's been fixed for about 4 hours and already see a difference.

The black buckets, clockwise from lower left are LSD, Red Cherry Berry, Blueberry, Blueberry, Sour Kush, Sour Kush, Blue Hash, and another Red Cherry Berry. the three on the left are individual bubble buckets top to bottom Blueberry Gum, White Widow and LSD. All of them were fem seed and that's the way they turned out, all girls! I was a skeptic but now I'm convinced.

I've set up my veg/clone room with 2 shelves and cfls. I'm working on setting up my 400w MH but I really don't like using it very much as I plan on setting up a SOG in this setup on the next grow, don't want plants getting too big. You can see how I'm doing this with the nets with 4 clones in each one. I'll be training them away from the middle so they space evenly, one cola each. Ideally I'll have 4 in each for a total of 32 colas.

My chiller is working great now that I put a stoneware crock in the fridge, it's much better at holding the cold temps and keeping my reservoir around 70f. The insulated res helps a lot too with the pumps now being external.

Ehhh...for some reason it won't let me upload my pics. I'll post this now and try to get pics up later.

 

Here's the pics. I also root-pruned my mums and gave them some Ocean Forest soil to replace the loose and spent starter soil.

 

being the first couple of weeks of flower, it's a 400w hps. Next week on payday i'm going to replace a burned out 600w on a different ballast. I try to run both but heat becomes an issue, my local shop sells used gear and they have 2 air cooled reflectors w/glass for $70 each so I think I'm going to get one for the 600 watter and let the 400w provide heat since I'm heading into winter here and the basement gets cold.

The flower room is 5' x 12', the veg/clones room is 40" x 40" approx.