Get a Harvest Every 2 Weeks

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Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Wick cloners would seem not to be able to use heat mats, n'est ce pas?

A heat mat really speeds things along.

The upside to a wick cloner is that the moisture is somewhat automatically managed- but if it's too wet, there's not much you can do about it.

I'd rather water my clones by hand and use RW cubes. Cubes sit flat on a heat mat and thus heat is easily transferred into them and you water them one at a time and can feel the amount of water in them by heft. You can measure 10-15ml of water by syringe into RW cubes, 2x/day at 12h intervals, but I've learned to water by feel after all these years doing 30 cuttings every 2 weeks.



I just dip one corner of the cube in a bucket of pH 5.5-5.8 water for about 1/2 to 1 second, if it only needs a small amt of water. If too light (dry), I put the lower 1/3 of the cube in the watering soln and leave it for about 3 sec. Excess water is easily removed with a flick of the wrist. Cubes must always only be damp, never wet or saturated. Overwet media causes slow rooting every time and stem rot usually comes with it.
 
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sportsguy1598

Well-Known Member
Haha thanks for the Aussie lesson Al I'll be sure to try it out next time I go "down under"...but more importantly thanks for the info...I may just go ahead and go with the 400 just so there is enough bud to go around:wink: screw the electricity cause as far as I know you can't get stoned off of that! :peace:
 
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sportsguy1598

Well-Known Member
Also, Do you think that SoG will maximize my small area or would just letting the plants grow outright work well too? What if I decide not to do the continuous harvest (because i may be away from time to time and do not trust my substitute caretaker to harvest for me) Do you think I could still get a sizable yield out of just a normal grow such as the one in GK's book (which I just got in the mail and finished reading) so that it will not be too complicated for my substitute) but in a cabinet instead of an open space like he does or would it be worth it to stick to your continuous harvest?:peace:

PS sorry if I rambled a bit I keep getting carried away with my questions
 
Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
cmak40 said:
quik ? bout ur res. they are 125 l or they are 125l of liquid in say a 150l res?
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125L in a 125L tank.

sportsguy1598 said:
Haha thanks for the Aussie lesson Al I'll be sure to try it out next time I go "down under"...but more importantly thanks for the info...I may just go ahead and go with the 400 just so there is enough bud to go around:wink: screw the electricity cause as far as I know you can't get stoned off of that! :peace:
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Dope will get you through times of no electricity better than electricity will get you through times of no dope. :D (with apologies to Freewheelin' Franklin)
 
Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
sportsguy1598 said:
Also, Do you think that SoG will maximize my small area
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yep

sportsguy1598 said:
or would just letting the plants grow outright work well too?
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nope. Plants will crowd, you'll get powdery mildew and other probs from poor air circ. You'll get less than if the plants are properly pruned.

Sorry, but growing weed is something which requires daily attention. I haven't had a holiday in about 7 years.
 
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SaRaNaC

Active Member
Al can you do me a favor and take a picture of the bottom of your pots i wanna see if I need to make bigger holes before i switch to pots from RW. Also how wide are those pots in cm?
 
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sportsguy1598

Well-Known Member
Yeah i know it requires constant attention but I have no way to explain to my family why I'm skipping coming home for holidays...i figure its better to work with what i have then not grow at all...I might just start off really small until i get a better hang on my schedule and such
 
Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
SaRaNaC said:
Al can you do me a favor and take a picture of the bottom of your pots i wanna see if I need to make bigger holes before i switch to pots from RW. Also how wide are those pots in cm?
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Pots have "175mm" moulded on the bottom. Each pot has about half a dozen 8-10mm holes in the bottom. These are ultra-common, dirt cheap, black plastic pots as found in discount shops everywhere. Nothing fancy here. About 20-50c each depending where you shop. Chinese dollar shops are a likely candidate for the very cheapest.

Your local garden shop probably has a stack of plastic pots they want to get rid of. Ask, you might get a few dozen for free. Rinse off any loose soil, wash them with a bristle brush in soapy water with 10% bleach and the plants won't know them from new.

sportsguy1598 said:
Yeah i know it requires constant attention but I have no way to explain to my family why I'm skipping coming home for holidays...i figure its better to work with what i have then not grow at all...I might just start off really small until i get a better hang on my schedule and such
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You can't do a grow if you are going to have multi-week gaps in the care of the system, sorry. May not be the time of life for you to grow just now.
 
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infamouse21

Well-Known Member
question for u.
we were thinking of building a drip system for some plants. we have some experience with drip system.
what we did is a round ring with 5 holes in it so it doesnt really drip but pour out. to each pot
now what we found with this is,
1 we used hydrotone only so water runs right out. & made roots just grow right out the bottom of buckets as if they were looking for water. & 2ft tall only
2 doesnt seem to cover the whole bucket area with water like our flood system does.5 ft monsters with the flood & only little tips poked out bottom of buckets.

now wondering about this flytocell u are using. does it hold some water in so it would help with the water distribution & slow down the roots from shooting out the bottom. thinking of mixing it with hydrotone cause we want to reuse some of the media. & its safer
i would assume the roots grow right through the flytocell being if it takes in water. so we only have to change out the flytocell & the hydrotone will be reused.
say 30-40% flytocell & the rest hydrotone.
what would your poinion be & advice.
 
Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Hydroton (no 'e') branded clay pellets are lovely things, until you try to re-use them. They're damn near impossible to clean completely free of old root matter and crusted nutrient salts. Drop a handful and you will chase them around the room and crunch them underfoot.

As you found, pellets don't hold much (if any) water, requiring frequent (hourly or more) flooding or a constant drip, as you used. Your roots escaped your pots because they had a constant flow of nutrient solution to follow.

Pellets will not be good for mixing with Fytocell. One wants watering near constantly, one wants watering only a couple of times per day. If you flood often enough to keep pellets wet enough to encourage root formation, the Fytocell will be kept too wet. Pellets won't keep crumbs of Fytocell escaping the pots, either.

If you want to use Fytocell, pack about 25-50mm of RW floc in the bottoms of your pots, just enough to block up all the pot drain holes (don't worry, water will get right through). This will keep the Fytocell in the pots and also add enough water weight (due to the absorbency of the small amt of floc in the bottom of the pots) to keep them from floating, as the high air content of Fytocell makes it buoyant.

Any constantly irrigated system will encourage roots to escape pots because there's always a flow of nute soln to follow. If you use an absorbent medium like Fytocell or floc, the roots will stay in the pots as you will only be watering 2x a day at best, meaning there's plenty of moisture inside the pots but extended periods of dryness outside them. This will 'air prune' the roots, keeping them mostly within the pots. As the roots encounter conditions too dry for them, they will stop reaching out of the pots.

I don't like drip systems because drippers clog with nute salts and need cleaning at least every other day (if not daily) and watering from the top keeps the media tops nearly constantly wet, encouraging icky (but mostly harmless) algae growth. Flooding the pots from the bottom keeps the top of the media dryer- you will note very little if any algae on my plants' pots of media due to watering from the bottom by flood.
 
southfloridasean

southfloridasean

Well-Known Member
Al B. Fuct said:
Cooltubes sorted. Mostly. :D The stuff is up but duct taped. I need to go buy some big honkin' hoseclamps to suit all the 150mm connections. Works, tho, for now.

Testing in mockup on the garage floor with 21C ambient intake air indicated that exhaust temp from the first lamp is 28.8C, a 7.7C rise. This is an optimal figure, with only one lamp in line and no bends. I expect more rise in practise when installed. Some bends and squishing of the duct are necessary to make it fit.



If 29C air is then series fed into another cooltube, the exhaust air temp is about 34C.



The tube sockets are ceramic, so at those temps, I didn't feel too bad about running the tubes in much mechanically simpler series instead of parallel, nor be terribly pedantic about orienting the tube socket towards the airflow. Works.



I did opt for a closed loop, drawing cooling air for the tubes from outside the room's airmass and also dumping outside. Since it's closed, no scent control is needed on the cooltube air circuit. Got an Allvent 150mm axial pushing it for now (in upper left of above pic), but I think there's a 150mm centrif in the future if but for lower noise. The axial will do the job for moving air through this system, but there's lots of bends and obstructions, noticeably reducing flow rate compared to other Allvent 150mm fans I have in use around here.



Input air during tests after installation was 22C. Output from cooltube 1 was 28C, output from #2 was 34C, rising about 6C for each 1000. I only tested it for about 15 mins as it's sposed to be nighttime in there now, but I'll get a look in later on when everything has properly started as usual and has been running for a couple of hours. I put a remote sensing thermo probe in the output duct to monitor the 'EGT' (Exhaust Gas Temperature for you non-jet jockeys :) ), as it were.

These cooltubes came with a built-in semicircular reflector which would have interfered with the batwings' even distribution pattern. Out came the tin snips and the built-in refs are gone.

The cooltubes' blower is on a timer, set to start at lights on but keep running for about 30 mins past lights off, assuring the lamps and sockets are dead cold before shutting down.

Of course, I expect my peak temps to be lower, but I'm especially looking forward to seeing what the RH does. If the main exhaust blower has to run less often because it's not solely responsible for removing heat from the lights, I bet I'm better able to control humidity. My dehumidifier is presently on a timer, set to run on lights-off only, but it may now be useful during lights-on. Without the cooltubes, the nicely dried air is blown right out because the heat from the lights triggers the main exhaust blower. Quite often recently, the intake air has been over 70% RH, and if the exhaust blower is running all the time, that's the RH in the grow room, too. I really want it to stay between 30-50%.

We'll see how we go! :)
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Hey Al how did you attach the cool tubes to the adjust a wing reflectors? :peace:
 
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infamouse21

Well-Known Member
well unforunatly we will have to use a drip system of some sort cause the plants will be on a stadium setup. i would luv 2 due a flood system that way cause we luv it but cant figure a way how 2 due it.. due u, lol
was thinking this..
if i put less drain holes in the bottom of the top bucket & put rw floc a the bottom as well that might allow the water level 2 build up as long as i can put water in faster than it will drain out. will have 2 due test runs so i know it doesn't overflow before the pump system shuts off, what u think?
we dont use actual drip nosles we have 1/8in id line that we just run straight water out of & we water 4 times a day 30min as of right now but still trying to figure out details.

also we will have some plants so we will need something that doesnt waist alot of medium so using the hydrtone seems the best reusable part. ive reused it twice already. what ever doesnt fall out off the roots with a few good shakes gets tossed then we clean it real good. its a little process but it works & is low key this way
 
Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
southfloridasean said:
Hey Al how did you attach the cool tubes to the adjust a wing reflectors? :peace:
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The cooltubes each have two heavy-duty screweyes (probably M3) for hanging. I removed the existing slipper mount sockets from the batwings, drilled two holes through the reflectors to suit the holes in the cooltubes and used the provided screweyes to fix the tubes to the refs. Spacing of the lamp tube to the reflector is similar to how I had the previous slipper mount set up.
 
Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
infamouse21 said:
well unforunatly we will have to use a drip system of some sort cause the plants will be on a stadium setup.

mmm, ok

i would luv 2 due a flood system that way cause we luv it but cant figure a way how 2 due it.. due u, lol
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Not without some very fancy custom made flood trays.

was thinking this..
if i put less drain holes in the bottom of the top bucket & put rw floc a the bottom as well that might allow the water level 2 build up as long as i can put water in faster than it will drain out. will have 2 due test runs so i know it doesn't overflow before the pump system shuts off, what u think?
we dont use actual drip nosles we have 1/8in id line that we just run straight water out of & we water 4 times a day 30min as of right now but still trying to figure out details.
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Sorry, I'm having trouble picturing what you want to do from your description. What top bucket?

also we will have some plants so we will need something that doesnt waist alot of medium so using the hydrtone seems the best reusable part. ive reused it twice already. what ever doesnt fall out off the roots with a few good shakes gets tossed then we clean it real good. its a little process but it works & is low key this way
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I prefer to use new media with every crop. No possibility of root diseases and pests being transferred from crop to crop, no cleaning of media. If old media is bagged up just like other common rubbish, it just blends in. I double bag old media and remove any leaf material just in case a bag is torn open. Leaf waste is eaten by my crack team of trained assault worms stationed out in Fort Compost. :lol:

infamouse21 said:
aslo we got 2 gal buckets right now just a few, for a sog system isnt 1gal buckets enought
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At their most active, each flowering plant in my SoG system will take about 200ml of water per day out of the reservoir. If a reservoir is very small compared to the daily uptake of water, you will note that nute strength will have a tendency to bump up rather quickly over the days following mixing up a new tank. You'll need to top tanks frequently to keep the nute ppm close to what you intend. Tanks which are comparatively larger, while they require more nutes to mix up a fresh tank, tend to keep nute strength more stable for more days.

I found out really rather accidentally that there is an optimal size for tanks, at least in a flood system.

In the last incarnation of this system, I had 100L tanks, each serving 23 plants. By day 7 of the life of a tank of nutes, about half the water was gone, but nute strength had bumped up to about 1600-1700. The plants were using 50% of the water but not 50% of the nutes, perhaps using only 30% of the nutes.

When I rebuilt the system about a year ago, I used 125L tanks. The 125L tanks are still each serving 23 plants, but the extra 25L makes a good bit of difference. 7 days after mixing up new tanks, there's about 1/3 of the water remaining. The plants are still using about 30% of the nutes in the tank but now also are using about 30% of the water, too. The ppm remains almost exactly on 1400ppm from day 1 to day 7 with no intervention from me.

Seems to me that the way to go is to work out how much your plants use per day and make the reservoir about 2 weeks' worth + another 2 weeks' worth for stability.
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southfloridasean

southfloridasean

Well-Known Member
Al B. Fuct said:
The cooltubes each have two heavy-duty screweyes (probably M3) for hanging. I removed the existing slipper mount sockets from the batwings, drilled two holes through the reflectors to suit the holes in the cooltubes and used the provided screweyes to fix the tubes to the refs. Spacing of the lamp tube to the reflector is similar to how I had the previous slipper mount set up.
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Thanks Al.
 
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Chucksince1988

Active Member
Hey guys, .... I got a plant about 5 inches tall .... all that I used was sunlight and water .... is this going to be enough to produce bud ? If soo .... how many hours of sunlight and daylight should I give it. I already applied top quality osmocote to my bud it's time released and will not burn it like other fertilizers may. I't started w/curiousity .... then a couple of my buddies that have grown a couple of plants said that mine is growing very rapid .... that If it's a female which I do not know yet .... then he said I can get it to bud in about 2 more months .... it's this true? Or better yet even possible to get a harvest that quick .... I dont sell I just wanna smoke :D
 
Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Chuck, you need to hit the GrowFAQ and learn about the life cycle of cannabis.

Osmocote is a definite no-no for cannabis. Because it is time-released, if you have overfertilised (and it's just as easy to overfertilise with Osmocote as anything else), it is nearly impossible to leach (rinse) it out of the soil. Moreover, if the plant will be vegged and later flowered, the fertiliser type will change when flowering, requiring leaching of the veg ferts from the soil at changeover time. If you have put Osmocote in your soil, the only way to get all of it out is to drop the pot into a bucket of water, gently pull the rootmass out of the pot and work all the soil out into the water. Repot in fresh potting soil, water well with no ferts given for about 14 days. Resume regular fertilising, once a week, with a water soluble high N fert for veg and high P for flowering.

Keep in mind that this is the hydroponics section of the RIU board; I won't spend much time discussing soil grows here.

If you don't know the light cycles which induce flowering vs vegging and the meaning of terms like "NPK," go to the FAQ. You need to know all that stuff before you start any grow.
 
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