Ebb and Gro First Timer... Northern Lights and Purple God Bud

The other day I picked up 2 of the 12 bucket Ebb and Gro systems... This will be my first hydro grow... I have grown in soil before with some pretty good results and I just got tired of hauling water around and decided to give something new a try...

I picked up 3 Purple God Bud clones from the dispensary here about 2 weeks ago and dropped them into the buckets that I filled with Hydroton and got things rolling... about a week later, once the 3 Northern Lights clones that I took from my now flowering plants rooted I dropped them into buckets as well... I have another 12 Purple God Bud clones on the way and they should be ready within the next few days...

I am using Humboldt Nutrients Oneness program and I have been adding a bit of Hygrozyme to the 55 gallon reservoir as well... I have an RO filter that takes forever to fill up 55 gallons so I have been using the "waste water" from the filter in there also to make it fill up quicker... The waste water is still filtered through a sediment filter and a carbon filter and after it is filtered my water has about 80ppm...

As of right now the plants are in my DR240W under an 8 bulb T5... I am planning on throwing my 1000 watt metal halide in the tent once i get more plants in there so that should be in the next few days...

So far things have been going well and I haven't had too many problems except for keeping my PH stable... I have read that Hygrozyme can cause PH spikes and I have had problems keeping my PH down once i add nutrients and Hygrozyme, but only for the first few days and after that the PH stays constant right around 6.... Next res change I am going to try it without Hygrozyme and see what happens...

Because of the PH spikes, which would take my res from around 6 way up to almost 8, some of my babies got some leaf twisting... I am assuming that it was a PH problem because I have been using pretty low strength nutes... Other than the PH problem there isn't much else that is wrong yet but we will see what happens...

I left my camera at a friends house so I will post pictures tonight if I get around to it otherwise they will be up tomorrow... Feel free to follow this grow and put in any advice that you want... I am mostly doing this grow journal as a way for me to keep track of what is going on and I figured that there are people on here that might have some good advice along the way....

Thanks,

MonsterRobot

so here are some pictures... I picked up 6 new clones today and popped them into my buckets... They were going to be more of the Purple God Bud clones but I decided to go with some Lemon Skunk instead because I like variety... the 3 bigger plants are the PGB and the smaller ones are the LS and NL...

The close up pictures are of the PGB... There is some leaf twisting that I think came from my earlier PH problems but let me know if you think it is something else...

So I finally fixed my PH problem... I think that it had something to do with the hydroton because the it would spike after every feeding... Maybe it needed to be soaked in the correct PHed water? who knows...

Did a res change and upped the nutes last night and the plants are really exploding with growth...

Will post pics in the next few days... should be getting a few more clones of something new sometime soon...

I have a few clones lined up but most of the dispensaries are really backed up so it is kind of difficult to get more anytime soon... anyone know of any good places to go in northern Colorado?

MonsterRobot said:

So I finally fixed my PH problem... I think that it had something to do with the hydroton because the it would spike after every feeding... Maybe it needed to be soaked in the correct PHed water? who knows...

Did a res change and upped the nutes last night and the plants are really exploding with growth...

Will post pics in the next few days... should be getting a few more clones of something new sometime soon...

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Awesome, looks very much like mine (see my journal in tagline).

Yes, if your PH goes mid sixes and up for any length of time you get some really weird growth. It is very important to stay on top of PH and check it every day.
After i refill my reservoir, I check the PH at least twice a day and knock it down to around 5.5 or 5.6. After a few days of continually knocking it down, it stabilizes. You want to keep your PH below 6.

When you have unexpected problems I would suggest you post questions in the hydroponics forum here, or at cannabisculture.com . You will get quick answers, that is how I learned to do hydroponics.

My last grow was my first with an ebb and grow and I got 2 lb from 7 plants.

What PPM are you running them at?

Your system should stablize after some time. Most Hydroton setups have this happen. Also, I just started using the Hygrozyme and even in my setup needing ( read NEEDING) it, mine is climbing about 0.8 ph in 24 hours, but I expect that to stabilize after a bit.

You sound like you have got your setup down, and some goods strains on the way. Best of luck.

Thanks for the advice and input! I am really excited about this grow and to see what I can do with my new setup...

GreenThumb,
I am using Humboldt Oneness @ 5ml/gal right now and I threw in some CalMag to the res this time too @ 3ml/gal along with the Hygrozyme @ 4 ml/gal... I think my PPM was around 600 something when I checked yesterday but I don't quite recall off the top of my head right now... I have it written down and I will check and let you know when I run over there today as well as take some more pics... How do you like the Ebb and Gro bucket system? It seems like you got some impressive yield out of your first grow with it... You said you used 2 1000w HPS to flower last time?

StreetRider,
I have heard a lot of people talk about how Hygrozyme can cause your PH to rise and many people have different opinions on the stuff... I picked it up because one of my friends swears by it and the people at the grow shops say it is great... I guess we will see...

Thanks again and more pics will come soon,
MonsterRobot

So today I picked up 2 Purple Urkel and 2 Jack Flash clones... They aren't quite rooted enough yet but they have some tiny roots... They should be fine in the next few days and I will put them in buckets...

When I checked my PH today it was up to 7.7! not good... So I adjusted it down to 5.7 and I am going to check it again tonight...

Found out that some of the Lemon Skunk clones that I have came with spider mites... Sprayed them with Zero Tolerance when put them in the garden a few days ago and I sprayed with AzaMax today... Good thing I found them early... Probably use my sulfur burner in the next few days just to give them another kick in the nuts and make sure that they are dead...

PH 5.7
PPM 730

MonsterRobot said:

So today I picked up 2 Purple Urkel and 2 Jack Flash clones... They aren't quite rooted enough yet but they have some tiny roots... They should be fine in the next few days and I will put them in buckets...

When I checked my PH today it was up to 7.7! not good... So I adjusted it down to 5.7 and I am going to check it again tonight...

Found out that some of the Lemon Skunk clones that I have came with spider mites... Sprayed them with Zero Tolerance when put them in the garden a few days ago and I sprayed with AzaMax today... Good thing I found them early... Probably use my sulfur burner in the next few days just to give them another kick in the nuts and make sure that they are dead...

PH 5.7
PPM 730

Click to expand...

You must stay on top of the PH. If you let it rise that high for a day or more, you will get severely weird growth. Trust me, been there done that. I would suggest checking it at least once per day as a general rule of thumb, and twice a day while your PH is stabilizing.

When you first put cuttings into a hydroponic system, you must let them spread roots before cranking the nutrients up. I wait til I see a root or two coming out of the bottom of a couple pots, then crank the nutes. I think the general rule is to let them idle at 250-350 PPM for a week, then crank up to 500 - 600 PPM, a few days later turn it up a bit higher.

If you let them spread roots before you turn up the nutrients, your plants will be more evenly sized when they get big.

The real key in the early stages of a hydroponic grow is patience.

You need to go with a scorched earth policy with mites. If you have any house plants, treat them also. Wash any clothes you were wearing when handling mite infested plants. Get some bleach water in a spray bottle and spray down the room. Get some safers insecticidal soap (100% natural) and spray the underside of the clones every three days for about two weeks. Insecticidal soap clogs up their bodies so they cant breath and suffocates them.

A thorough mite policy now will save you a lot of headache later.

Good job!!

Update time...

It has been a while since my last update because I was in the process of harvesting my last soil crop! No more hauling around buckets of water every day and killing my back!

Plants are looking great for the most part... I had a few issues with heat stress since I put my 1000 watt metal halide in the tent but once I realized that it was too hot I switched my hood to a cool tube and the temp is right around 72-74 degrees F and hopefully I see some improvement in the next day or so...

PH has been constantly around 5.7-5.9 and I knock it down to 5.7 when needed... I made a stupid mistake and didn't top off my res for a while and wondered why my PPM was rising everyday and I might have stunted some of my clones by feeding them too much but once I realized that I topped off the res and I won't let that happen again...

I added a few more clones the other day and now I also have Bruce Banner, Pot of Gold (if it survives, the clone looks kind of shitty) and JFK (Juicy Friut x AK)...

The Purple God Bud plants are really blowing up and the root system on them is poking through the bottom everywhere... After spraying with AzaMax and Ed Rosenthals Zero Tolerance and waiting a few days I released a ton of lady bugs in my tent because I noticed a few spider mites on one of the clones (seems like you can't get a clone from any dispensary around here without having mites)... Hopefully that takes care of my mite problem since I caught it really early...

Did a res change again yesterday after flushing the whole system for a while with some Clearex cleaning solution that is designed to get all of the residual salt buildup off of the Hydroton... In a few days I am going to bust out my other Ebb and Gro system and put the strongest plants in to flowering (not before taking cuttings from them of course) and then move the others in to the flowering room once they are ready... I am really excited to see what some of these plants will produce... Hopefully I can keep them healthy through flowering...

The picture of all of the plants is a few days old and since then I have added the clones that I listed above... Will post updated pictures sometime soon...

The close-up pictures are of my Lemon Skunk and Jack Flash clones... I think that it was heat stress that was causing the leafs to curl up like that and hopefully the cool tube will fix things... We will see...

Thanks,
MonsterRobot

lookin good and healthy, looks like its about to get crowded in there!

Things are looking great with the girls! I put the strongest 9 into my flowering room that recently had the additions of a co2 burner, an atmospheric controller, and a 1000 watt MH also...

Still using the same nutrients and supplements as before only I have added Ginormous to the mix and have started using h2o2 in my reservoir...

So far things are looking good for the plants and I trimmed and fimmed them the other day, some of them have been fimmed before...

Bigger plants are Purple God Bud, the funky looking short wide plant is Northern Lights that I cloned from a weird branch so it looks funky, the ones are Lemon Skunk, and the last close up is Purple Urkel...

I know this thread was started a few months ago but the plants look great! How did the ebb & gro work for ya? Are you still using it? Did you take pics of your beautiful ladies while they were flowering? I'd love to hear more about your grow. I'm getting an ebb & gro system here soon. Thanks dude and +rep!

Dahmer8afew said:

I know this thread was started a few months ago but the plants look great! How did the ebb & gro work for ya? Are you still using it? Did you take pics of your beautiful ladies while they were flowering? I'd love to hear more about your grow. I'm getting an ebb & gro system here soon. Thanks dude and +rep!

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I love the system... and yeah things turned out great... had a few problems in the beginning just figuring things out but once i got everything dialed in shit just blew up... i even had to start shortening my veg time because they get so big in the flower room... I actually picked up a few more of the ebb and gro systems so that I could have more of a perpetual harvest... But I do love it... Best of luck and if you have any questions feel free to ask... I don't know much but I have learned a few things that would have saved me some trouble in the beginning...