hey and thanks for stopping by. this is pretty much my first grow where i have say so. my buddy has had a few grows but they were in soil i helped him a bit during those. because of certain circumstances he had to move his op and we decided to throw money together and do it big and something new. so we went hydro, bought a 8x8 tent a 3x6 flood table 40 gal res smallboy water filter 2 600w hps. everything is setup and tomorrow were putting in 72 clones Afghan Goo and away we go. but one thing we keep asking each other is what do we do with all that empty space between net pots, and the roots where do they go? granted its not much space considering 4 5 inch pots per square foot, but dude at the hydro store says itll be alright dont do anything, dont fill it up with hydroton, just let the roots go theyll be fine. ive seen pictures of this mans shit, hes knows, and i know that and we want to just believe him but we keeping wondering. one reason we dont want to fill it in with hydroton, clean up harvest will be quick, cut the plant dump the pot. so i researched and found coco mats 1/4 inch thick would allow the roots to grow nicely, wont have to worry bout the roots then. but then with that how often would i water? and theres another thing about light and nutes. something bout them not reacting well together or something? ive seen people spend a lot of time making covers, is it neccesary or just recomended? if its algae that i should be worried by not covering the nuts couldn't i also just run some hydrogen peroxide in my mix? on another note the mothers were 14 little clones we had vegged and well hacked apart for the 72, well i cut 100 but 79 survived i was real happy with that with it being my first time taking clones, and there were complications with the first batch of 50 did not think of a heating pad and stupid high guy over here assumed the starter plugs did not need to be water, at all. anyways back to the mothers they arent looking too hot at the moment. theyve had it rough tho. they started in soil. i flushed em before i cut clones and they were starting to yellow. a week after cutting clones we moved them from soil to a 2x2 flood table. so i know they are shocked. there is lots of new little growth dark green real healthy looking but the older stuff a majority of it is just drying up, some leaves look like they have dust on them. now me being new to hydro and really growing altogether thought i over nuted em but i got an ec meter yesterday and it was 1.8 thats like 900ppm on a .5 conversion 1200 something .7, even i know thats not that hot. is it? the res is a 17 or 18 gal rubber maid. im using GH micro and gro and cal mag. anyone with XP with these nutes have a recipe that they believe would be beneficial to this situation? the water temp is around 75F. room temp is high 70s RH is high 50s. the lights in the closet are 2 150w fluros. ph flucuates usually 6.3, it stayed at 5.8, but it rose steadily to 7 after i topped it off a few days back. all my notes and things are over there. i also have pictures if people show some interest oh yeah and can someone explain the Lucas formula? thanks for taking the time
well kinda need to, all the veg stuff is at his house n the flowering is somewhere else. we're more brothers than anything we used to nail each others sister so were close, known each other gion on a decade now too, man time flies. plus were going half on just about everything, ill actually make out cause i dont want a setup this big and hes going have to buy me out of it when i want to move on to my own and plus it lets us have someone to share the experience with two of my buddies who had their own ops with "friends", actually three but the third was at his baby mommas house and he was a shit dad and they broke up but all three did get ripped off, equipment taken and just plain locked out of the grow house and phone calls ignored so i understand what you mean. and im so closed mouthed that sometimes i feel i took an oath of silence at some point. but im not worried bout security its under control, thats number 1 when doing felonies. but the lucas formula... i have the floranova line, gro and bloom, which im going to use for the flowers, and on the link u posted it only talks about using the bloom. so using the lucas formula and from what else i read on that page, the bloom has enough nutes in it that 8mL a gal or whatever is all i need? no cal mag micro or gro?
Hey man, read the Lucas thread in my signature. It's the official thread from Lucas himself. He addresses the use of both Bloom/Grow. It's a long, tough read, but worth it. It's the best thing you can do for yourself, if you want to grow successfully, and avoid wasting money on extra junk you don't need. That said, I use Lucas with FloraNova Grow/Bloom. I fill the rez with grow nutes once. Every top-off after that is with bloom, even through the veg cycle. My current grow, I had to add a VERY small amount of calmag once, because the strain I'm using just seems to eat it up! Get a PH/PPM meter. This is a CRITICAL tool and your grow depends on it. You need this to grow hydroponically. After you read, come back and ask questions, we'll be glad to help.
Here's another good shot regarding the theory behind the Lucas formula. CannaStats - Nutrient Profiles for Cannabis
oh and i have ph and ppm meters. well the ppm also has read out EC CF and both conversions of ppm .7 and .5 i think its called the hydro wizard or something $70 at the hydro store automatically recalibrates when switching batteries real nice budget EC meter
hey thanks for the links guys cleared a few things up for me. the meter i have is the e.c. dipstick. there should be a pic here of our set up. didnt get the clones in today there was a bunch more to do than we thought, sealing the tent making an airbox for fresh air running the wire and duct exactly the way we want but the table is ready we flooded it timed it set our timers. just need to add nutes and clones. we had to plug in a dehumidifier the RH was mid 80's, were in a basement temps were low 60's without the lights though. but the RH dropped down to low 60s in a few hours, will probably need to put it in the tent cause its gonna get dense in there. that ducting hanging in the middle is fresh air from the window and even without a fan as an intake or the exhaust creating negative pressure there was a decent amount of air moving you could feel it and with it being winter help cool everything down. cant wait to move em
alright so everything took longer than planned. most of it was just waiting for most of the clones to root, but over the weekend a bit too much partying n cid cost us bout 30 clones, but everything worked out cause we moved some of the mothers to the tent to fill in most of the holes. day 1 was november 7th temps stay in mid 70's with a high of 81 F on the first day when we left the lights on 24 hours before we flipped em. humidity is a little high 71%, turned the dehumidifer up a notch. res temp is staying pretty cool 68.5 F, ph 6.2 and the CF was 20. a little high i was thinking but im using floranova bloom and when i first put 8mL a gal, 40 gals, the reading was high like 28 to 32, so its better than that and with the ph stable ill work with a CF of 20. also bout 5 babies in the table are wilting away ill give em a day to stand back up or get out. i was real surprised cause of the 30 that died 6 came back so but our numbers 44 babies and 8 big uns in a 3x6. all afghan goo heres some pics not the best but oh
did a few things cleaned up the big uns, all the little bull crap cut off pulled a few more of the babies filled in more space on the table with the bags o water. things are looking promising for my first run. some of the babies are really standing up.
why so many plants? Seems like it would be less work and same yeilds with like 10 plants.... just curious as to why so many? In the future, you may want to be careful. You said you took 100 cuttings. 100 cuttings plus your mother plants puts you into the federal felony territory, just saying. having that many doesnt increase your yeild either. But to each his own.
thanks for the concern dude, really. for this first batch we didnt veg at all, clones were 3 weeks old from cutting them, so we needed a lot to fill in the space available. next run i'ld like to have have them actually veg after rooting for atleast two weeks so then wouldnt need as many. yeah mandatory 5 years you dont have to remind me and the cut off last i heard read or anything was 99 plants. it is a lot of plants true and if i wanted to live safe well i wouldnt be growing marijuana. why do you say it won't increase the yeild? i have 5 times the number you suggested in the same space, even a crappy yield per plant, which im almost expecting just because it is my first run, with that many plants is going to end up being a pretty big pull, and a jungle, should make for some good bud porn tho. ild love to get 12 to 15 plants that had vegged for a while and probably super-cropped and put a SCROG over the table, but that takes time and weve had a lot of $$ just sitting in this investment and trying to get a return as quick as possible without making errors, more likely work the errors out this run and just get better.
so for the first weeks things seem pretty good the little ones are doing good, have some issues with mites dropped a bomb on them sunday night will drop another over the weekend to be sure. the Big Uns arent that good looking. Looks like a N deficiencies, the older more messed up leaves are dropping and its starting from the bottom up. I'm using just floranova bloom 4-8-7 ppm are 1400 ph 6.1 to 6.3 res temp is staying below 70 F but the room temp has been getting pretty warm near 90 F with lights on. just hooked up a 16" airking hope that helps some they do move a lot of air and the oval oscillation is pretty cool. before i moved the Big Uns they were getting flornova gro which had a bunch of N. they also had some issues stated in earlier posts and were really starting to take off vegging before the move. so could switching the nutes when they were getting acclimatized to one set create a big imbalance in the nutes? when the clones were rooting i was watering them with the same nutes out of the Veg res.
I would definitely put some sort of substrate in the table to fill in around the net pots. Once the roots exit the net pots you don't want them to be exposed to light. It could kill the roots. Secondly: To clarify what the other guy was talking about with less plants equals more yield. I hate to say it, but it is true. When you have a bunch of plants crammed together; the chances are that you are only going to have usable bud coming from the Cola. Whereas if you had a lot less plants you would have usable bud from the side branching. A single plant that is allowed to veg, can get as large as four feet wide. Compare that to 5 plants that you have crammed into the same size area. You are going to have close to thirty bud sites on the single plant, and like I said more than likely only one usable bud site on each of the five plants. If you are lucky you may end up with four per plant. And if you do get additional bud sites on those plants, they are going to be choked out and be airy buds.
yeah ill be filing in the extra space here in the next few days. there were roots coming out of the net pots before the end of the first week. next run the plants will be bigger, less numbers and hopefully a screen set up. and all those little hairy furball buds i hope to stop them before they get going by trimming the bottom crap off around the begining of the 4 week. its not like i can just up and change everything lights have been on things are on their way, i've already been to another river and drank my full. if someone had said something sooner but this is my first run. was everyones first run great?
[quote name='"BossSmogHog"']yeah ill be filing in the extra space here in the next few days. there were roots coming out of the net pots before the end of the first week. next run the plants will be bigger, less numbers and hopefully a screen set up. and all those little hairy furball buds i hope to stop them before they get going by trimming the bottom crap off around the begining of the 4 week. its not like i can just up and change everything lights have been on things are on their way, i've already been to another river and drank my full. if someone had said something sooner but this is my first run. was everyones first run great?[/quote] Most def not great BUT was very small. I think thats what the general consensus seems to be. It's not the time to do it big but you're already headlong into it. Make the best out of it and learn as much as you can.
It wasn't flawless. I had major heat problems in the beginning. But a half pound off of one auto.. I consider that successful.
just counting the babies, by harvest if i get even 7 grams a plant thats 11 ozs, then whatever the big uns produce. but i keep hearing that in sog an oz per plant is the goal. with my set up that should be within reason shouldn't it? as long as the babies keep doing what theyre doing. i checked on them today and decided not to wait on filling the empty space and dumped the rest of the hydroton in the table. the babies are blowing up, theres one or two runts but the majority are doing good. the temperature is holding steady in the low 80s F with the new fan. now i asked this in another post in the lighting but a 600w whats the footprint? 3.5'x3.5' like i read in Ed Rosenthal's handbook or 3x3?