600w Gavita Grow + Ebb and Flow (drain to waste) CoCo Substrate/Rockwool cubes

Hey everyone!

I have grown a very nice lady from some bag seed before, but during a recent trip to Amsterdam I was able to procure some Barneys Vanilla Kush and a packet of Greehouse Sativa/Indy Mix.

Prior to this grow I had setup a 600w Gavita Bulb in an area in my basement. The first grow consisted of 4 bag seeds, but only 1 making it through several mess ups on my part. Finally after my experience with the baggies/soil, I decided its time to move to hydro.

I grabbed a ebb and flow system off ebay that seems pretty nice, it has a closed flood channel and came with pumps, etc... The design seems good and I have almost got everything setup for it to run on a timer.

I looked through Advanced Nutrients product line, but ultimately decided to go Canna. I was thinking of a closed system at first, and checked into the canna nute line, and discovered one retailer right around the corner from me. So I popped over there one day and asked them as many questions as I could. Thats when I discovered Coco and the Coco line of nutes from Canna.

What it amounts to is a nice balance of simplicity and less worrying about issues that might arise from recirculation of nutrients.

Anyways I started 2 seeds in rockwool and off to the races they went. I left them upstairs in a dar k place for a few days to get started, then moved them under the light with rockwool covering the small holes in the starter cubes. Within a day the Vanilla Kush had shot up, unfortunatly the Big Bang (from Greenhouse pack) did not.

Currently the Vanilla Kush grew pretty fast and unfortunatly started leaning over. I have moved the bulb down to 16inches from the plant, and have a fan blowing on it. The temp is around 90 or so, but the gavita makes it almost impossible to get it much lower than that. Even with a fan blowing right on the bulb, its a bit hot.

I have proped the little girl up so she can see the light. It seems to happen sometimes and hopefully it will sprout back to life in a day or so.

The greenhouse seed has yet to come up, so I checked it out. It has grown in a retarded U shape. So I transplanted it facing up now, hopefully she will come through. I am positive she will!

I will get some pics of my setup here soon, but I thought what I was doing might be a little different for people out there. Coco in a ebb and flow is a little different, maybe not now



Thanks for reading.

Ok, so I do have some bad news to report, and hopefully anyone else can comment and leave any information they would like. Then, a little good news

So bad news first. My first attempt Vanilla Kush fell over as above, and slowly showed signs of stem elongation. Almost but not quite equal to pictures I read about Damping Off, but not quite that bad. So, I thought up and monitored a few items from above I had yet to mention.

1) My PH out of the tap was not that great. I had used some really bad PH solution tester and got the original PH in the rockwool down, but then watered the plant with water I had not PHd. Even worse I made a mistake and watered it with water straight from the Municipal tap. Chlorinated!!!
2) The light was a bit to far from the plant. I also was using the fan to blow the hot air around, but not effectively enough to keep the temp below 90. I think when I brought the light down, I made the little girl fall over from heat stroke! I have now setup a Honeywell Table Fan I got from walmart blowing right over the bulb. Have a therm at the plant top, and it hovers at about 85ish now, usually a slight bit lower. I plan to bring this down with a simple dryer ducting setup to the outside, placed behind that fan to pull outside air into the room. I fully expect it to stay lower than 85 with that on hot hot days here.

My Big bang from above formed a tap root, but not much else. It sort of stunted with no growth out of the shell. I attribute this to the ph and chlorination toxicity it also received, and think this probably will die as well. I did however plant it in coco, and will wait a few weeks and see if something comes out. Probably lost that one too though...

But for the GOOD news!! Today I got a NEW addition, another Vanilla Kush that I started and she popped up today! With her I ditched the rockwool and put her right into the coco after sprouting in a towel. The stems look NOTHING like the first, it is strong and fat, and the first set of leaves are coming in.