Dr.J's Hempy Hydrorganic/OC+ Adventure, 2K13

Subbed w/ interest

Good luck dude

Originally Posted by Moebius

Subbed w/ interest

Good luck dude

Thanks Moe! glad to have you along...ventilation going in today, and pics tonight!

Ventilation added today: semi-rigid ducting, 6", and a huge 530 cfm tjernlund extraction fan. fairly quiet fan, though right next to it sounds like a damn jumbo-jet! Checked my temps and they're stable at the "canopy" (if you can say such a thing about seedlings) and at the base cups:: avg. 73; humidity is low at 20% but i'm going to fill up the humidifier and give that a shot in an hour or so...after dinner maybe...the first pic is rotated to the right, thats the top of my tent with the vent going up to the garage ceiling ~5-6'. Threw some other pics up too but not much going on yet...when i get the humidity right things will pick up...lights are 20/4 until they are ready for their final homes, then i'll step down to 18/6 until they're mature, and then its into bloom...I'll update next week but feel free to discuss...here's some food for thought: I want to incorporate aact into this grow, and that makes me rethink 100% perlite, should i do at least one coco hempy and compare the effects of aact on oc+ hempy buckets? i'll be looking into the ups and downs and reading "teaming with microbes" to see if I can't get a firmer handle on things
as always,
Be easy,
Dr.J


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Originally Posted by Dr.J20

Ventilation added today: semi-rigid ducting, 6", and a huge 530 cfm tjernlund extraction fan. fairly quiet fan, though right next to it sounds like a damn jumbo-jet! Checked my temps and they're stable at the "canopy" (if you can say such a thing about seedlings) and at the base cups:: avg. 73; humidity is low at 20% but i'm going to fill up the humidifier and give that a shot in an hour or so...after dinner maybe...the first pic is rotated to the right, thats the top of my tent with the vent going up to the garage ceiling ~5-6'. Threw some other pics up too but not much going on yet...when i get the humidity right things will pick up...lights are 20/4 until they are ready for their final homes, then i'll step down to 18/6 until they're mature, and then its into bloom...I'll update next week but feel free to discuss...here's some food for thought: I want to incorporate aact into this grow, and that makes me rethink 100% perlite, should i do at least one coco hempy and compare the effects of aact on oc+ hempy buckets? i'll be looking into the ups and downs and reading "teaming with microbes" to see if I can't get a firmer handle on things
as always,
Be easy,
Dr.J

Doc, I don't know of any threads or peeps running AACT in hempys here at RIU. ... If there are theyre lost in the mix. Whichever way you go AACT or OC+, perlite or coco, they'll all work but will just take a bit of intuition to dial it in.

I can see you've put some thought into this, so I'm sure this is going to be good.

Here's the starting line-up; everyone is out of the woods and I've added a fan speed controller to keep my temps between 72 and 76. I'm keeping the catch tray filled with a little water so the humidity right around the gals is as high as I can get it right now (40%). I'm also gonna try running my humidifier in the storage room so that the storage room humidity goes up and the humid air gets sucked into the tent through the passive intakes. Seems to me that with the humidifier right in the tent, the humidity gets sucked right out immediately (the sides of my tent are being sucked in a bit so i'm pretty sure i'm getting good neg. pressure). Anywho, watered with RO H2O (except one of the PK's, i was too lazy to go in the house to get more and just used the pH'd water from my res. its probably back up around 8pH right now though, oh well…i'm sure the FFOF is gonna buffer plenty at this stage in the game.
here's an introductory round of pics, each girl getting her own close up and a group photo at the end.


Next time i update, the dx and pk will be numbered because it'll be getting time to cull the weakest two for a total plant count of 5…its always a tough decision (and i may throw the other two right into 12/12 and grow em out in some 2L bottles elsewhere, or just give 'em to some friends, that's the nicest thing i could do--that's what i'll do! feel free to comment, question, constructively critique!




Pics:
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be easy,
Dr.J

Not much to report on as far as progress goes with the grow so this'll be brief. I've been manually controlling temps because my digital program of rotating 30 and 45 minute on/off intervals was doing way more up-and-down than is healthy (just 20 degree swings but fast ones from what i can tell). Anyway, since i've been monitoring things i've been able to control temp fine (avgs. between 72 and 82 lights on, 62 and 72 lights off). switching to 18/6 tomorrow (i'm still at 20/4) but growth seems alright. It is only day 10 so can't expect too much with all the temp and humidity strain but I've installed a ductstat plug in thermostat and we'll see if I can keep my range better in the 70s. I've got the girls numbered but we'll have to wait until they get a few more nodes to make any conclusive decisions about who's gonna make the final cut. (sorry about the orientation...tried fixing, can't).


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Since that side of the update is fairly straightforward, everyone doing fine getting some straight RO H2O, i'll just give my side by side by side by side run down of some hash i made with the last go 'round: iso, bubble, dry ice--pressed vs. decarb'd.


-Iso was a little harsh tasting but definitely fucks your world
-dry ice was by far the easiest to make, the fastest, but the least potent. Pressed dry ice kief is floral and delicious with a nice high, and decarb'd has a slightly different taste with a more mellow high.
-bubble was most labor intensive and messy but far and above the best. delicious taste, awesome high--i would seriously consider making one ultra trich'd out plant just to make bubble with from every grow here on out.
I am defintely a bubble lover from here on out and am going to eventually invest in some serious bubble bags--the ones i have are a bit knock off from ebay, they do the trick but obviously not as well as some others…
the 25micron, 73 micron, and 120 micron pulls are what i saved, 160 looked like shyte (only other bag i've got is a 220 work bag).
Haven't tried any 25 micron but both 73 and 120 have bubbled and taken me away to a fantastical land of wonderment and joy…but i digress


pictorial:IMG_1477 (1).jpg<---dry ice hash (pressed kief in upper left, decarb'd pressed upper right, loose in center)
IMG_1481 (1).jpg<<<< iso hash evaporating
IMG_1483 (1).jpg<<<<<<iso scraped up
IMG_1485 (1).jpg<<<<bubble
IMG_1486 (1).jpg<<<<73 micron
IMG_1488 (1).jpg<<<25 micron
IMG_1490 (1).jpg<<<120 micron

So there have been a few environmental issues. nothing major, but some seriously low humidity for veg (18% minimums with avgs. 27-33%), and we had a night of temps in the low 50s, dipping all the way down to 48 so that should explain some of the slowness of growth. Furthermore, I had to go out of town for the weekend, and rigged up an automatic watering system with my little sump (132 gph) and some 1/4 Tees, and tubes. I need to get this down pat for an upcoming business trip that will take me away from them for 8 days or so. In any case, when i checked my pump to make sure it was feeding all 5 whips, i shut it off abruptly and accidentally set up a siphon. I luckily went back in to check on my girls because I love them and like to talk to them etc. and I had drained half the 15 gal reservoir into DX-1, poor thing. The quick fix was to reorient her tubing, but if anyone has any tips on auto-watering feel free to contribute!...

Enough blathering, I transplanted right before I went out of town. These gals were surprisingly not too rootbound when I transplanted so I'm not sure if the low humidity is what's stunting their growth, but they seem to be perking up in their new homes. Their homes consist of: 100% perlite, amended with 4 Tbsp OC+; 2 Tbsp 1 inch above the hole, 2 Tbsp at transplant level, scattered about; I will be adding another 2 Tbsp top-dressed tomorrow (b/c its a 3 gal bucket). And yes, in the pictures that is a genuine WattSaver full soil cap; thanks for the tip Watt!
They got a good watering with some pH 6.8 tap that had been bubbling for 48 hrs. just after the pics were taken. They'll be under 18/6 now for a good little veg.

comments, questions, criticisms, recommendations, discussions--all welcome!
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be easy,
Dr.J

Our environs aren't totally perfect, but with the OC+ these are some green, healthy, happy gals. And, WattSaver's soil cap is an added bonus. The temp range is a little wider than would be preferable but the weather where I am has been swinging violently so nothing I can really do about it. We're seeing lows in the low 50s (avg 53), and that's the low when lights are off--absolute minimum; highs with lights on are maxing out at 86 on average, but the max and min are probably exaggerations because my fan's on a ductstat which detects air movment temps instead of just sitting ambient temps like a straight thermostat, so it has to get a little hotter when the lights come on before the fan starts controlling the temps at around 78. I wish I had my old TI-89 with thermometer probe, i'd set that up and snag 196 data points every day and really dial in my environment--alas, i'm rambling again.
Anywho, long and short of it: Temps are OK, a little wider range in the extremes than is good, but on avg, we're ok ; Humidity is generally low: now its hovering around 40%, but over dark periods its jumping up to 78-80%, and still showing lows in the 20s. again i think the max and min are exaggerated by my fan set up and I will be considering switching back to the fanspeed controller, or maybe using the fsc in tandem with the ductstat, or throwing the fan on the fsc, but put that on a timer so that it runs only during lights on...any thoughts on that would be helpful, especially if you think that i'm just fucking with something that doesn't really need to be fucked with....

Watering between pH 5.8 and 6.5--tap water gets bubbled continuously and has usually been ultraoxygenated by the time of watering; the water stays around 60 degrees so it can hold more dissolved oxygen.

All that's left now are the pictures:IMG_1516 (1).jpgIMG_1515 (1).jpgIMG_1514 (1).jpgIMG_1513 (1).jpgIMG_1512 (1).jpgIMG_1511 (1).jpgIMG_1510 (1).jpgIMG_1509 (1).jpgIMG_1508 (1).jpg

The only one whose name tag you can't see is Purple Kush 2; and there are duplicates.
Thinking about topping soon, using uncle ben's topping method. that, or lst but I'm thinking topping this time around will work with my circumstances. how long after the chop do most people veg until flowering is induced? I think i've found a research question to follow...

well any comments questions or other thoughts you'd like to share, please feel free!
be easy,
Dr.J