First grow ever!! Indoor hydro continous drip, Serious AK-47 & Sensi NL#1

Okay finally, so finally delay after delay I have finally got this project off the ground and running! You may have remembered from the construction thread that I'd purchased two grow cabs in quick succession a couple off months back. Well I ended up selecting the Power Grow dual flouro cab as the one I was ultimately going to keep and grow in. The BCNL Producer is currently undergoing modification to add an additional pair of 4.5'' Dayton axial fans among some various other input/outputs as well. It's a project and it will probably be put off for a while once the winter hits as it resides in the garage right now. The garage is super clean and organized like that of a fairly serious amateur workshop, but it's unheated and these winters up here tend to get really cold, so that cabinet is going to be touch and go for the time being at least.

So enough of the background info - It's time to get down to bizznass!



^^That bottom spaghetti line was a beeotch to get wired up btw!!

very nice cabinet, I am subbed to see the goodness that fills it!

Looking nice pal!

Here are all of the nutrients and various pH solutions I've got to work with. I'd say around 90% of this stuff was freebies thrown in with the cabs and other various hydro stuff scored off my local CL site.

If anyone has any ideas of what sort of ratios, mixes, and whatnot that I can use with all of this, then by all means please feel free to chime in with your suggestions!

Planted the seeds Saturday night(11/29/2011). Eleven Serious Seeds AK-47 and ten Sensi Seeds Northern Lights #1, both strains being regular non-feminized versions.



Heat mat or the temp controller or both seem to be defective right out of the box. Got a reading of only 70 degrees according to the Fluke with the probe inserted into a spare Rapid Rooter plug, and that was after around six hours with the controller set to 85. So I cranked it all the way up to 100, put the humidity dome on and finally after a couple more hours a stable reading of 78 flat had been achieved which was kept until I'd taken the dome off earlier this evening to inspect the seeds.

So it's been roughly 48 hours from the start and I've pulled the tray out to inspect the progress. Used a pick to pull out the small pieces of RR I'd used to cover the holes up and had a very big surprise indeed - all eleven of the Serious AK-47 had germed successfully, yet absolutely not one of the Sensi NL #1's appear to have popped. Talk about a night and day difference WTF!

Well anyways, the humidity dome is now off, tray's still on the heat mat, and lights have been switched to 24 hours on...

So I'm a full week in at this point. The AK's are doing wonderfully, however the NL's ain't doing so hot. Of the ten only four seem to have made it, and they are lagging at that. Gotta say I'm not too impressed with Sensi's NL #1 offering at this point.



After seven days the lighting has now been switched to 18/6 from the full 24 on during germination. Heat mat is still in place although a drip collection tray is now underneath due to noticeable roots protruding out of the bottom.

Finally got the hydro system 100% hooked up and it is now running! Had to make a last minute change by swapping out all of the poly tube with heater hose. Lesson learned: Poly tube friggin' sucks. It might have it's use outdoors or I don't know where, but I find the stuff to be a complete PITA. Only poly tube that I continue to use are for the spaghetti lines, and that's it.
Anyways, I had to throw out 50% of the NL #1's as half of them failed to germinate. The rest are doing pretty well now though. AK's are still kicking ass...

I'm using General Hydroponics Flora series nutrients btw... Ten gallons of tap water in the reservoir mixed with 30ml each of Micro, Gro, and Bloom. Had to use around 8ml of pH down to lower on down to 5.8 from 6.5. Bluelab combo meter is being used to test. Also, I'm at 560ppm(brought up from 480) with a rez temp of 64 degrees.

Whew! Got the system rigged up last week and the following morning had to take a trip out of town for vacation(date was planned way earlier, so no getting out of that commitment). Needless to say I was a little bit worried about getting the system up and running, mixing the nutes, and adjusting all of the levels correctly in under 24 hours time(especially given the dact that I have never done any of this before). Well I returned back last night and was happily able to breath big a sigh of relief:



pH rose from 5.8 to 5.9, with ppm increasing as well from 550 to 650. Reservoir temp was at a low 54 degrees, but that was due to the heat being turned down to 52 while I was away. Water level in the rez looked like it had decreased only about a half an inch at most. Slightly adjusted water pump timing down to 15 minutes on/30 minutes off from its original setting of 15 min on/45 min off.

First res water changeout occurred this afternoon. Two of the AK's are showing some signs of nutrient deficiency and sluggish growth, so I'll now be going along with OldGrower's recommended numbers which I had found posted up somewhere on a similar site. 50ml of Flora Micro, 100ml of Flora Gro, 50ml of Flora Bloom, and 6ml of pH Down mixed together in ten gallons of water netted a pH level of 5.9 with a nutrient level of 900ppm. Reservoir temperature is still a little on the cooler side at 64 degrees, although this should hopefully increase just a bit once pump #2 and the flowering chamber eventually go online.

Nice set up man, im sure you will find somewhere new to move them once they grow to big. I wish i could do a Hydro set up but its just too much stuff to handle and clean and consistently change. i like the organic way

xgiovanni03x said:

Nice set up man, im sure you will find somewhere new to move them once they grow to big.

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Thanks man! I've already got the extra space in the works:



Bought the two extra axial fans(Dayton) and billet aluminum black anodized two-piece mesh grill covers(7 in total, $$ was spent), so I've just gotta put them all in and wire it up. The Supernatural Fearless Gardener Air Table I had placed an order for a couple of weeks back arrived yesterday at my local LHS, but I'm running short on available funds atm(got laid off from my job two weeks ago). Gonna have do a sales blitz over on BM and CL so I can go purchase that very soon. But I'm still very far away from flower so it's not bonkers over here like last week trying to get everything set up in time.

xgiovanni03x said:

I wish i could do a Hydro set up but its just too much stuff to handle and clean and consistently change. i like the organic way

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You know I was thinking that too and fretting over it for quite a while back when I was refurbishing the cab. So many threads here and elsewhere on the whole soil vs. hydro topic didn't make things any easier. I went with hydro in the end and am not looking back! It is a LOT easier than it seems, and way waaaaay cleaner too. Plus I like to tweak shit, so I feel that it's much better suited for me than soil.

Just saw your grow mate. Subbed and looking forward

You might want to drop the ppms a bit, I think you're pushing it. Less is more

Bluezdude said:

Just saw your grow mate. Subbed and looking forward

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Thanks Bluezdude! Just checked the levels again this afternoon, a good 12 hours since yesterday's reservoir change, and the ppms have dropped to 840(which is exactly the target I was shooting for). pH has remained the same at 5.9 and the res temp climbed two degrees to 66 F. Upped the drip timing to a more aggressive 45 minutes on/15 minutes off from 15 on/30 off. Not sure if this may have accounted for the two degree increase in the res? Anyways 68 is the target so I'm very happy where that and everything else is at right now.

Btw I was checking out your new grow thread(RDWC) earlier. You did a nice job on the Waterfarm design. Looked into what SCOTTYBALLS did with one of those and I must say damn, those little units can pack quite a punch! Someone needs to modify a few of those things and make a small Waterfarm/Undercurrent hybrid system...

JJFOURTWENTY said:

Someone needs to modify a few of those things and make a small Waterfarm/Undercurrent hybrid system...

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I plan on making various models on the greenhouse I'm planning to build on my roof next week (legal grows obviously). There are so many design/ideas that go around the net that it's a pity not to make your own custom build system that will suit your needs, especially when there's plenty of space to play around with various ideas. Also the cost is waaayyy cheaper to make one than to buy one. Obviously a couple of attempts will go wrong, but worse to worst you've lost some pieces of plastic and you've learned something on the way

Regarding the hydro vs soil issue that xgiovanni03x wrote about, well, hydro was more or less forced upon me. You see, where I live the soil outside is shite. Not polluted or contaminated in any way, but it's just that in this are things don't really grow well for geographical/geological reasons. On the other hand my water comes from a 100+ metre drill. I just need an RO system at some point and it'll be a breeze.

Also with hydro i find that it requires paying more attention to the plant(s), but then again you got immediate control over things. At least that's how I feel about it. I got some new plants in soil, trying to build some stash for the summer in case I won't be able to grow due to the high temperatures, but after them, it's hydro all the way.

Bluezdude said:

Regarding the hydro vs soil issue that xgiovanni03x wrote about, well, hydro was more or less forced upon me.

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I was in a similar dilemna as well. Thing that drove the nail in the coffin for me was timing. I was going on a trip soon had to think fast. I'd spent over three bills on seeds and they were already two weeks along and I wasn't about to fuck that up. Still, hydro is why I had embarked upon the project in the first place and simply growing in soil never really appealed a whole lot to me.

Things are starting to take off now. The new nutrient regimen seems to be working out well and the plants seem happy. Been playing around with the drip timing and have once again changed it up this time to 25 minutes on/5 minutes off. This should allow the roots to get a slightly shorter, more periodical break while retaining the almost continuous flow of water which I feel is ideal for Rapid Rooter plugs set into Hydroton.

Hey man, thats cool that your using the fearless garden, ive had 4 of those tables for years now... They fucking last forever, haha. Its a brillant idea, i don't really see many people using them though... such a shame, cause their so easy to use.

I'm looking forward to seeing your grow. Take er easy!

Thanks projectmayham! Yes the Fearless Garden air table is sweet. So much so that I'd went back to my lhs and bought another one for the Power Grow cab to replace the flowering cabinet's larger 8-site tray. I think I'd really prefer an SOG grow over a perpetual which the system is initially set up for. So it's going to be drip during the veg or flower stage with ebb and flow for the other(still haven't quite figured that out yet)... hell, I may just end up snagging the last air table at the hydro shop and going all ebb and flow all the way around. Set up would definitely look more inconspicuous and a lot simpler!