2-24-2014 Well, fuck! Turns out the CO2 tank really WAS lighter. Turned up MT this morning. That's only two weeks on this fill. Yeah, I went in and out a lot, but shit, that's only 2 weeks. Clearly I need to get a grip on the humidity in that tent. I'll refill it today or tomorrow, but only put the gas on for a few hours once a day until I convert. I do want to add some CO2 when I flip, And speaking of converting (To DWC) I've been looking around and thinking on it, along with my available space and minimal tolerance for extra work. The tubs, while good for a big area, still limit your net pot size. Also, fuck me if 10 or 18 gallons of liquid aren't heavy to fuck with, especially in confined spaces. Last thing I want to do is throw my back out. Only did it once before in the 80's, with an ultra light BBQ grill. Just was bent over a bit in one of those storage sheds, and lifted up and "Pop!" - incapacitated for a week. So I decided to go with buckets. Then it was down to standalone type, with just an air line, or build an aeroponics type of bucket system, with a water pump spraying the roots every other 15 minutes from a sprayer or drip ring, and have to deal with semi-fixed 1/2" return lines. Decided on the standalone type, and went to the hydro store yesterday for stuff, since I'm currently fed up with ordering online. Sometimes ya just want to go to a store, ya know? Ended up with 10 5-gallon buckets, 8" net pot lids, and the appropriate grommets, tubing, and elbows to make the fill indicators, clay balls and air stones. Plus a couple of odds and ends at the hardware store. Managed to get cost down to around 20 bucks a piece. Tolerable, especially if it helps with the humidity in the small tent. It'll be messing with a lot of water initially, but after that, it's mostly just topping up and keeping an eye on things. Using buckets would make switching plants from one to the other tent easier. I'll document my fabrication for anyone interested, but that isn't going to happen for several days yet, since I'm not ready for them. Hell, most of the big stuff is still in the trunk. I did consider setting up just 4 conventional buckets for the small tent, and then a 5 bucket aeroponic setup for the 2x4. Then it would have been a matter of just swapping the lid and connecting water. One of the problems along with the difficulty with moving plants. the bigger issue was wondering how well a plant that just began or ready to begin flowering would handle a different feeding system. I expect that's probably asking for trouble. I do like the aeroponic idea, since there's enough liquid there in the reservoir that I could fuck off for 3-5 days if I wanted to. I can still probably do that with a bucket system after I monitor it for a while. I really do need a mini-getaway. So basically I'll build 10 of these, only with 8" lids in lieu of the 6" ones: And here's today's pic. Getting very green in there. The B-Bery in the upper left has passed the other one in height. All the sativas are really growing vertically, compared to the mostly indica F35's. Everyone has new leaf sets. So, no complaints other than the humidity and CO2 issues.
2-24-2014 Well, this looks suspiciously like a calcium deficiency in that Blackberry. I've been adding the cal-mag stuff. The ph is showing high with the soil meter, so I'm gonna check the runoff, probably flush, and just water with some cal-mag. I expect it's deficient mostly because I'm only going half strength on the nutes, and the way I do it, the cal gets cut 50% as well. Fook. A little while later... After pouring through a buncha known ph water, the runoff ph was just fine. I did flush it with a gallon more water, checked the runoff again, and then hit it with plain water and a good dosage of the cal-mag. Seems as if this is the only plant in the pots that's this sensitive to that mineral. I'll watch closer. Happy to report my cheap-ish ph meter is spot on for the moment.. My main back-of-my-mind concern is now when to flip. I read these threads where guys flip after two weeks of vegging(!), and others 8 weeks. Both seem extreme to me. Heights after essentially 3 weeks of growth: SOIL Blackberry 10" White Widow 9" F35's 6-8" HYDRO Blackberry 9", 10" White Widow 9", 8", 6" I think I'd like them to be at least a couple feet tall before flipping them. I could use the other tent, since I know the indicas are going to be shorter and take longer. I might have bought too many buckets. I'm feeling that 6 plants in the 2x4 tent may be a couple too many, especially when I start FIMing or LST. I think 4 is okay in the 32x32 tent, since they're smaller plants. This may impact my two plants a month paradigm. <span style="font-family:'times new roman', times, serif;"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);"> </span></span>
2-26-2014 Nothing much new. Couldn't resist doing a little FIMing last night on the tall sativas, just to slow 'em down a little and hopefully get more of a yield. I'll be happier when I get switched over to the buckets. Looking back, I believe those F35's about doubled in size when they went into flowering in spite of my screw ups, but I'd like them closer to the big plants before I flip. They did handle FIMing okay last time, so I might hit them once or twice before then. I suppose I need to start thinking about cloning the 35's at least. but I need to do all of the others initially, since I don't know which of the regulars are females. Still lotsa time. NOTE: I know I wrote that I wasn't going to do any FIMing or LST, but since I cut off the CO2 for the moment, I hoped I could improve yields by doing a little FIMing. I have a good supply of seeds at the moment, with a few new strains on the way. I'll save them for later on, after I do a full grow with the buckets. Sort of have it in my mind to keep one real 35's going, and start one of the Auroras for the DWC. Not sure if I'll keep the Berries or the Widows going. The Aurora Indica seems to be very much like the WW. I also have those feminized random freebies, and the freebie regulars as well. Plus the new order I have on the way has a couple of something in there as well: Pineapple Chunk Blue Cheese Sage 'n' Sour Identified Freebies I doubt I'll order anything else for quite a while. Once I get a couple of DWC grows under my belt and know I can actually grow something decent and tasty, I'll try a couple of the really potent medical strains out. Today's pics:
2-27-2014 Coming up on a month for everyone. Some of the plants seem okay, height-wise, but the 35's are generally small. I don't even know if these are a good size or not for a month - 18 days under LED. I have to pay closer attention to watering. The hydros were real low, even though I topped them up Monday. The coco was ready for liquid as well. Running 1/2 strength nutes, and double dose cal-mag for the pots. These are just random pics. You can see that the wires are going to be a puzzle regardless of what I do. CO2 disabled. Plants shuffled around. Still looking ahead. I'm guessing that setting up 3-4 DWC pots, and then 4-5 more, I'm going to burn through my FloraSeries nute supply pretty soon. I won't buy the intro pack again, but I'm wondering if there isn't something better. Will start working on getting the buckets ready next week. Mostly just random pics, since I had them out. A FIM attempt
Hey jerry! I think you're doing good and it shows in the plants. How tall is your tallest and shortest and average plant height? Of my organic girls which are doing amazing so far my tallest is 9" and my shortest is 4.5". On the coco plants you're getting the finicky coco issues that I was I'm pretty sure. I get cal def and mag def sometimes but other times plants are just doing great when I don't change anything.. I never could and still can't figure out how to correct it other than flushing. That's why I went organic but full on hydro gives you amazing control as well. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
Thanks! The tallest are the Berries, both the soil and the hydro, at 12". Keeping it in the low 70's in there. The Widows aren't far behind. The 35's are anywhere from 5-8" or so. They were all fed last night, and they took it in overnight, and are nice and perky this morning. As much cal-mag as I added, thet issue should go away, hopefully. I'm going to up the watering and keep the cal-mag at full strength fro a while. Honestly, I'm not going to sweat some wonky old bottom leaves very much. Looking forward to the move to hydro. I think I'll do more vegging in the armoire, using a progression of those GroDan things in a tray. I'm going to see it there's anything else interesting out there. That way, I'll be putting in clones or plants in the buckets which are much further along, like about where they are now. As always, the details will end up here, warts and all.
3-1-2014 - March already!! Woke up and looked in - Everyone was looking nice and perky this morning! I swear that Berry in the lower right has grown a couple of inches in two days. Not complaining. Even the droopier by nature 35's are looking happy this morning. So - Handy gardening tip: Watering helps! And just for the light snobs out there: You CAN grow a plant under LED lighting - at least to this extent
3-2-2014 Getting annoyed at all the yellowing leaves on the low tier of that coco Blackberry. I did hit it with plenty of cal-mag, and the ph is fine, so I dunno WTF to do. The top growth looks great. I have yellowing bottom leaves on a couple of the 35's that were planted a little deep, but this BB is really getting yellowed up. Still looks like a cal deficiency to me. As manky as this plant is becoming, it's gotta be a female.
3-3-2014 So worried about overwatering the plants I've been seriously underwatering, and messing them up. <span style="font-family:'times new roman', times, serif;"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);"> So I need to keep on top of that every couple of days. I forgot as they get bigger they burn through the fluids. </span></span> Measured everyone accurately: Hydro White Widows - 6" 8" 11" Blackberries - 11" 14 1/2" SOIL BB - 12" Buncha yellowed leaves WW - 8" F35 1 - 5 1/2" F35 2 - 7" F35 V - 8" F35 B - 10" Flipped itself and has started to flower WHITE WIDOWS HYDRO BLACKBERRY SOIL F35's
3-4-2014 Just FYI, some seed place called The Original Seed Center has this daily giveaway on FB. All you gotta do is "Like" their daily banner for the 420 giveaway, and post some sort of comment. I got a reply comment from them saying I hit it yesterday, and when one does hit, they're supposed to send them a PM for further info. Not too many participating as of yet, either, so the odds are still decent. I've been playing about a week, and I almost never win shit. Seems they're a little slow on the actual shipping, but WTF, for some good free stuff, who cares? I believe they send seeds out, as well as t-shirts and other crap. I don't know what I'm getting, but I'll be sure to keep playing, and I'll post when whatever it is I scored arrives.
3-4-2014 Everyone watered with 500ml water+cal-mag+humic acid. The hydros got more, as they're burning through a liter a day each. Took the ppm for them way up (1100) yesterday, since I deprived them for so long. Also, nudged the ph up to around 6.2, since I believe I read somewhere that it needs to be around there versus 5.8 to make sure the calcium gets taken in. Almost to the point where I completely trust the ph meter. Remember I did order some calibration stuff in two different ph. The thing was spot on. Still cross-checking with the kit, but they always match. Fixin' to set up one of those buckets. Considered fabricating a cloner, but the space just isn't that conducive to a fancy cloner, and I've gotten good results with the gro cubes. So I got a tray setup where I can have some liquid below the cubes and get a stone in there to circulate. Still evolving. Very nearly considered going with General Organics for the buckets, but can't find anyone doing hydro that actually likes that better than the flora series.
3-5-2014 Looking nice and bushy in the tent lately. Watered everyone with light nutes to a good runoff. Since I'm not really fighting the humidity with the tent open most of the day, things are fine. No additional yellowing leaves. Hydro at about 90 ppm. Had a check valve installed backwards, and that was restricting airflow to the BB's. Replaced it with a 4" stone anyhow. Pics not corrected. No purple plants as of yet. As we all knew, building a hydro bucket is easy as falling off a log. Rudimentary cloner
3-6-2014 Brief update: Seeds from the Single Seed Center arrived. That was fairly fast. Ordered on the 23rd. The feminized freebies included a CH9 Super Haze and a CH9 Climax Auto. Not crazy about auto's, but I guess I can learn to grow them as well. That should hold me for a while. I might catch the next huge sale from that original sensible cannabis center since they're generous with the freebies, and they have a high resin strain fem package that's reasonable. Peculiar packaging. Seeds were sandwiched between two of what seem like very thin mouse pads. However, they arrived just fine. Wouldn't hesitate to buy from them again. Was going to show the envelope but didn't want to put their method out there. It was different last time. Watering definitely helps! Wish I hadn't fucked it up worrying over the tent humidity, they'd all be a lot taller by now. Dramatic results since the 3/3 feeding on Monday. The tallest hydro BB that was 14 1/2" on the night of 3/3 is 17 1/2" this morning! That's like slightly over an inch a day. In general, they've all put on some height. The F35B is starting to stretch noticeably since it flipped. I've ordered a fan speed controller for the big tent setup, but I expect I'll end up with a cheap inline fan and controller (No filter) on the veg tent when I go to the buckets, so I can keep it buttoned up and the humidity reasonable. I won't have the watering issues with the buckets, and I need to begin thinking of cloning those hydro plants very soon. Would love it if that big BB was female. Same with the big WW hydro. Random pics Even the bag seed is hanging tough!
3-7-2014 Was out early today all morning. I'd left the closet door open and the tent unzipped. When I walked in, I could definitely smell "Plants" growing, just starting to get a hint of cannabis in the mix. So it's a good thing I ordered another entire fan/filter/controller setup like I have for the big tent yesterday. This will let me button up both tents, hopefully better control the humidity, and maybe even get an extended nitrous period in there once a day for several hours when I like. I was going to move the now-installed fan setup to the small tent to see just how long it takes to clear out the excess humidity when it's first turned on, but moving it looked like a pain in the ass, so I'll just wait until Monday for the new one to get here. I anticipate I'll need at least 30 minutes to an hour to get all that moisture out unless I run every couple of hours through the night. After that, I would think a good 6-8+ hour co2 run should be possible depending on temps, which should stay managable. Have to monitor this, 'cause I do want to gas them for at least a week when they start the flip. At the rate they're vegging now, I'm happy enough. I know I said I wasn't going to screw with LST and stuff, but there are three things bugging me. I'd like more height uniformity, since I'd like to flower them the first week or so in the small tent and run some co2 then. Also, I'd like to know the sex of the regulars I have going. So, today I'm going to top the regulars and get them into the clone cab under 12/12 2700k straight away. That way, I should know their sex almost before they show roots. I wouldn't much mind one male of each of the BB and WW so I can collect some regular pollen. Also, I don't have any more F35 seeds. After I sex these unknowns I'll start a replacement set of clones for any females and clone the real F35 to try the spray trick to get male pollen and then make up a couple of buds as seeds. Going to try Tiresias Mist this time, even though I can make coloidal silver. Might even attempt making up some fem BB and WW seeds while I'm at it. So that's the afternoon project along with watering. The tent is looking very bushy. Not doing much else in there today that I can think of.
3-8-2014 Did everything I scheduled yesterday. Cloned 6 plants, and they're in the armoire. When I hit the store tomorrow, I'll grab a box of zip locks to cover them. <span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);">Left the lights on since last night, and they'll go into 12/12 today. Made a typo earlier. Using the 6500k lights. Easy to see that I have way too many plants in that tent, even after topping them. Have to empty it out once more so I can reinstall the floor and lay it over to open up that floor level vent. Looking forward to having just buckets. Things are a little more level between plants, but nowhere near perfect.</span></span> Ordered some stakes, just in case, decent trimmers, a BHO tube and screens, wax carvers, and tie-tags, and a buncha other crap. About all that's left is a nail for the bong. Used salt and alcohol to clean it yesterday, since it was pretty nasty. Worked great. Not absolutely sure, but I think the last pieces of the perpetual grow setup have almost fallen into place. That last fan/filter and controller will drop Monday. Decided to keep the unit outside the tent since it's so short, and just suck the air out through the top vent. BEFORE: AFTER: CLONES:
3-9-2014 These photos show what a pain in the ass growing cannabis can be: There are two plants in this tub. Both are from the same seed package, received identical germination, nutes, light, etc. Yet the plant on the left grew much taller than the right-hand pant, and is showing some sort of deficiency, and I'm thinking it's phorphorus. The plant on the right is fully green and not showing any sort of stress. I'll get in there and verify the ph, too. Weird. So I'll hit them with full nutes today, since I topped a few of them a couple of days ago. Might get in there and open that floor vent today as well.
3-9-2014 So all the extra chores finished this evening. Emptied the tent so I could get at the bottom vent in the back and open it up. Mission accomplished. Reinstalleed the floor, and since I had the plants pulled, I did some measuring and replaced the nutes in the hydro tubs to as close to 5.9 as I could get, with a ppm of about 700 in both tanks. Coco nutes went in at 6.5 ph. Ordered a micro SD card so I can go back to using the camera, and maybe even do a video. HYDRO WW - 11" 7" 7" BB - 16" 11" Soil BB - 11" WW - 10" F35B - 15" F35V - 10" F351 - 8" F352 - 10" Cleaned the suckers off the hydro big BB - It's looking pretty thin now after that and topping. Got some of the dead leaves out of there, and moved the F35B in flower to the cloning cab, as it's now on 12/12. FIM'd everywhere I could. Since I went to the slightly slower sexing method a bit late, I have time for it and it will hopefully pay off down the road. WIDOWS BLACKBERRIES F35B You can see the variation on those two hydro BB's. They respond like two different strains, but are out of the same package. COCO F351 F352 F35V Seems I forgot the WW and BB. Since I had an empty tent, I wondered what a hydro bucket looked like in there And as I thought, 5 buckets are possible Even an aeroponic system could go in!! Bagseed Everyone back but the early bloomer Looking forward to getting that exhaust fan on the 32" tent. Need a swing by the hardware store for a piece of duct. A bit annoyed that the floor vents for the 2x4 tent are on the sides. Only other way in is a cable access port in the back, or a short duct section with a baffle in the big sock. I'll probably open that cable sock up for starters. So I'm content for the moment. Stay tuned.
3-10-2014 Here's a pic I forgot to upload yesterday. Not much clearance left for the F35B in there. I expect it'll be all up in the fixture in a day or two. Both fan controllers dropped this morning. Tested both, hooked one up in the big tent, and as expected, I don't get the full range of "Variable," since it's really not a high-speed fan. There's enough control to get the roar throttled down to something more acceptable, which is what I wanted. Even fully cranked, those 195 cfm inlines only pull like 65w. Running it full tilt at the moment in the big tent to try to get some of that not especially pleasant "New Tent" smell out of there. Funky enough to make one of the smoke detectors chirp for a few minutes. Guess I need to finalize that 4x2 tent tonight, since I'll need it for that 35B in a minute. Now check this out. I mentioned I ordered some trimming equipment. Now my ex sewed professionally, so I kind of know what some of their gear is like. I saw these "Trimmers" when I was hunting for the Fiskars I ordered. This thing is also called a thread nipper. Looked HUGE on the online ad of course. We had a much larger version of one of these when I was a kid we used for detailing shrubbery. Kept the Knights of Ni happy. But not so big, really It's the size I expected, and this little fucker cuts great! Very well made for the money. Not expensive, and I bet you can do some fairly fast bud trimming with this. Made for that kind of work. Only downside is that like any trimmer, it'll get coated in resin fast. There are cheap enough to order a 6-pack if you have a lot of bud to trim, and don't want to stop and clean them every 15 minutes. I might order a few extras. The el-cheapo BHO maker arrived. Can't see that it's much better than the one I made out of a metal turkey baster last year, except for the screens and the translucence of the material. Probably holds the same or slightly more plant matter. I'll make it work, tho. Looking forward to some edibles. Haven't had any Space Cake since Amsterdam. And that's that until the parcel services get here
3-10-2014 All done*!! Both tents completely set up. All I need to do is observe how the humidity vents out of the small tent so I can try and shoot some CO2 in there for a long enough time to do some good while they're recovering from topping, etc.. I see that at the moment, I don't have any new signs of nute deficiency or other stress - everyone looking good! I glanced at one of the hydros and thought I saw pistils coming in, but it was just leaves where I FIMed, so that's like unbelievably fast - Or I missed. Clones are okay, as well as my one flowering F35. I'm on an every other day watering schedule, and 1/2 nutes about every third watering. Watering liquid carries cal-mag, a drop of rapidstart and little humics. The flowering 35 gets the GH flower schedule plus extra carboload stuff. Tubs currently at 650 ppm. I had an order in for a crazy-cheap case of that Tiresias Mist through a Sears storefront, but it was cancelled, and the seller doesn't stock it any more. Since I have a TDS meter, I googled to see what ppm I'd need to use colloidal silver for the same thing. They say "50 ppm," so I'm trying to make some up. I used part of that batch from last year to jump start this batch. I'm close to 20 now. I don't know if I can get to 50ppm with my setup. But the ppm was probably way low last year, and that's why it didn't work for me. I've almost run out of bits and pieces to order, unless I just want to start throwing money away. I did order a bottle of reference solution for the TDS meter and a few more of those mini-trimmers, but I think I am done buying shit except for some nutes probably next month, and I'll just order them online. The 6" Fiskars are super nice and cut paper beautifully. I'll probably reserve them for pruning and the bonsai ones for trimming. Noticed the 10-band lights like mine are back on the bay for about a buck-forty a pop with free shipping. Prices are trending down nicely while quality is rising on LED's. A good market to be in when the whole pot thing goes legal everywhere in the U.S. * As far as you can ever be "Done" - It's a momentary state of being.
2-14-2014 Everyone doing well. The 63" tent was getting crowded with all those plants: So I finished up the 84" tent. Moved the hydro plants and the bagseed sprout in there. Both tents running are pulling about 260 watts each. That's with 4" inline fans and a couple of clip-on 6" fans for circulation. Replaced the stock hangers with the ratching ones. Both exhaust fans running about 75%. Used my Fuji camera for these, and the pics just don't correct as well as the ones taken with my phone, and I'm too lazy to go reshoot. It IS nice to see plants in both tents. Even five small plants look like a lot in the 32x32 footprint. Knock on wood, but the nute schedule and ph seems to be dialed in okay. No new signs of stress anywhere except bits where a leaf might have been against the wall. The clones are under bags, and the F35 in flower is trying like hell to get in the T5. Probably move it to the big tent on Saturday.