Dozer's First Hydro - Purple Urke - Medical Marijuana - Page 2

hugetom80s · #11 05-10-2008, 06:58 AM

Man, that looks like a very nice set-up. That shelf could almost hide your grow from a raid.

I say almost cause those bastards would probably tip it over just to be asses, and then find the door. Course it's not for the cops I'm sure - just to keep prying eyes from seeing the op and dropping a dime, right?

Are you planning some LST? How's the AN nutes working for ya?

d0z3r · #12 05-12-2008, 09:10 AM

My girls are recovering from topping nicely. I was a bit nervous about topping this early, but I wanted to create lateral growth early in the veg stage. I am very happy with the progress they've made so far.

I added nutes on Saturday. I'm still running 3/8th strength from the recommended recipe on the AN calculator. EC is reading 1.0, PH is stable at 6.0 The PPM is dropping a lot more rapidly now, so if my EC is too low when I get home, I'll probably add nutes up to 1/2 recommended strength and see if they last me all week. So far, I've just been adding nutes weekly, then topping off with R/O to keep the fill line steady. This is one place where most guides I've read have been a little in-precise. Do you guys add nutes all week, or once a week, and top off with water as necessary?

These pics are from Monday (day21)
Enjoy!

d0z3r · #13 05-12-2008, 09:22 AM

Hey Tom,

The bookshelf is just there to avoid any uncomfortable questions from friends and guests. I'm a medical cannabis patient, and nobody I know IRL knows what I'm up to, so law enforcement isn't really an issue for me. on LST: I've been tossing that idea around in my head for a while now. Right now, I'm trying to prune them in such a way as to allow all the branches to reach a parallel before letting them grow up. Once parallel, I will have to decide whether to LST/trellis/SCRoG, or to try FIM'ing all of the parallel colas-to-be and seeing if I cant make something sick happen. I've found pruning cannabis to be very similar to pruning bonsai, only I get to do it every few days.

Thanks for the feedback!

Dan

d0z3r · #14 05-12-2008, 09:31 AM

So, there's green stuff growing on my hygroton. At first, I thought it was my nutes staining the ricks green, but alas, I now believe it to be algae.
(see the pics)
I'm sure those of you who use hydro have seen this before.

Should I worry about it, and if so, how do I kill it? I've heard about people covering their rocks with white styro-foam plates to block out the light.

hmm... Guess I'll call the hydro shop and see what they think.

hugetom80s · #15 05-12-2008, 10:57 AM

Yeah, that is 99.99% sure to be algae. Looks like your Hydroton is getting too wet too high.

Keep the top layer either dark or dry (or both) and you won't grow algae. Obviously, with a top-feed system like yours the dry part can be tough. I'm pretty sure one of the beneficial bacteria type of products would kill it - start eating the algae (turning into food for your plants) and since it's alive it multiplies and keeps going.

Assuming I'm right on that... I haven't tried it on algae myself.

The plates sound like a good idea. Just cut to the center, round out a hole for your stem, then slip it over the top of the pot. You might want to go with a thicker plate or several plates - if memory serves they're not exactly light-proof.

d0z3r · #16 05-12-2008, 11:37 AM

I've got a bit of the poly film I used to doll up the grow room left over.
I think I'll be making some film 'skirts' for the girls after work today.

Thanks Tom!

hugetom80s · #17 05-12-2008, 01:16 PM

No problem, glad to help!

d0z3r · #18 05-13-2008, 11:14 AM

Everything looks to be coming along nicely,

I've got some algae issues that I intend to address this weekend, but otherwise everything looks pretty good. I'm pleased with the results of topping the girls, and plan on FIM'ing them pretty soon. I added some beneficial Bacteria and Fungus today(1/4 AN's suggested concentration) Bringing the EC up to 1.2-1.4 PH is fairly stable at 6.0 with a slight drift toward 6.1. I've been adding four to six drops of PH-Down to bring the controller PH down to 5.0 in an attempt to bring the overall PH down to 5.6-5.8, but so far, I've had little success overcoming the system's natural bias.

Here are four pics of the girls from today.
How do they look?

d0z3r · #19 05-13-2008, 11:18 AM

Hey all.

One of my plants has some strange behavior in a few of the fan leaves. The tips of the leaves are turning yellow and the whole leaf is 'clawing' downward.
It seems to be mild at this point, but I want to address it early if it's something problematic.

Thanks in advance guys and gals,

d0z3r

d0z3r · #20 05-14-2008, 11:40 AM

It's day 24 of this little project of mine, and things are getting interesting. I now have 3-4 tops on most of my girls, with 5-6 additional branches rising to the surface. Just before snapping these pictures, I gently bent the tops apart to show the development at this stage. I'm going to give them a few more days, and if they continue this rate of growth, I'm going to need to start training the branches down to keep the growth horizontal. I've noticed a lot of people in this forum use run of the mill garden trellis netting to keep the jungle at bay. Maybe I'll give that a go.

Pics from today: