Waterfarm Closet Grow [PICS]

Shackleford.R

Shackleford.R

Well-Known Member
i saw friday afternoon a few spots on a leaf.. i wanted to ignore it, so i did.

then saturday (water change friday) i checked in the morning the leaves had begun cupping under.

then sunday morning, bro calls.. leaves are now splotchy all over AND cupped more. (more leaves cupped than day before)

i'm going to post to the problems/cures forum tomorrow with some pics, i'll share the link.

if i can't get a cure and back together in a couple weeks, i'm going to chop and harvest what measly bits i can. :( not happy about this.

but, the bright side, all else fails, AG grow will get a space/light upgrade.. so that's a plus i guess.

not happy really... gonna hit a bowl, smoke a square, and get to bed.

:peace:
Shack
 
GypsyBush

GypsyBush

Well-Known Member
Good Luck Bro...:razz:

I'm cheering for her...:clap:

It sounds like a pH problem to me man...

You use good nutes... way more than I do...

I have never seen a deficiency per se in hydro...

Most of the ones we see are caused by pH problems locking out stuff...

Flush... get your pH in check and maybe back off just a hair on the nutes while she adjusts..

That's what I would do...
 
Shackleford.R

Shackleford.R

Well-Known Member
when you say flush, you mean run pure water for a bit, then add a batch of nutrient solution?
or
when you say flush, you mean dump the res, wipe it down, rinse it, and add solution?

my guess is pH as well, flora nova has pH buffers, so when i mix it, its very hard to get that 5.9, always 5.3-5, then i add pH UP, to counter the buffers, but they are really strong so i added a shitload, and usually balances out after a day... i think it just was TOO much this time and threw everything out of whack!!

:peace:
Shack
 
GypsyBush

GypsyBush

Well-Known Member
Shackleford.R said:
when you say flush, you mean run pure water for a bit, then add a batch of nutrient solution?
or
when you say flush, you mean dump the res, wipe it down, rinse it, and add solution?
Click to expand...
If I was gonna empty the res and add fresh water, I would personally clean it.. but I am not sure how big a pain in the ass that would be in your setup...

What I mean is...

drain it.. fill it with fresh water... no nutes..

let it do it's thing for 10 minutes or so... go smoke a bowl...

then empty and repeat....

In a small res like yours, I would do it 3 or 4 times... making sure the roots get to soak in for about 10 minutes...

Then I would add my nutes minus 150ppm/pH 5.8 and see how she does for a few days...

my guess is pH as well, flora nova has pH buffers, so when i mix it, its very hard to get that 5.9, always 5.3-5, then i add pH UP, to counter the buffers, but they are really strong so i added a shitload, and usually balances out after a day... i think it just was TOO much this time and threw everything out of whack!!

:peace:
Shack
Click to expand...
I am going to quote Al B. Fuct here...

The whole thing is worth it... but the BOLD part is what I am referring you to...;-)






Al B. Fuct said:
If I had to offer general suggestions to a noob, these would be the most significant:

* Build your room so it presents consistently correct conditions; 24-26C @ 30-50%RH with frequent ventilation.

* All locations for grow rooms are different but proper ventilation and thus keeping temps down is the hardest thing to accomplish in the spaces folx usually have available to use as grow ops. Cooltubes are an amazing helpmeet toward that end. There's some light intensity loss through the tube glass but you lose more yield through overtemp than through the 3-5% reduction in light intensity through the Pyrex. Also, when the vast majority of heat from lights is removed by the constant operation of cooltube fans during lights-on, you can significantly derate how much fan power you need for the room's main exhaust blower. Before I used cooltubes, my ~500cu ft flowering room struggled to stay under 26-27C (in summer in particular) even with a monster 250mm, 200W 650CFM exhaust blower assisted by 2x 150mm intake blowers. Could probably get by these days with a single 150mm or 200mm on exhaust and a 150mm on the intake.

* Shoot nutrient strength low rather than high. You will probably find that you get by just fine on half or less of the mfr's recommendations. You lose less yield from slight underfert than you do from nute burning.

* More is not always (in fact, usually not) better with growing plants. There's a bell curve to this- there's 'not enough,' 'just right' and 'dead.' The only exception is lighting, where there's no such thing as too much light, as long as you can maintain room air temps in the 24-26C range.

* Avoid magic sauces. They're mostly water and rarely justify their cost. If there's no solid botanical evidence supporting the use of an additive, skip it. If the mfr doesn't tell you what's in a magic sauce (which is common), you can't establish the scientific evidence necessary to justify the use of any given magic sauce. If you do want to mess with these things, the only way to establish efficacy is to run comparison grows; that means (at least) two crops side by side under the same lighting in the same room. Most grow rooms' conditions are not totally and perfectly climate controlled year-round. They usually vary significantly from crop to crop. Comparisons based on serial crops can be coloured by variations in room conditions. Only side-by-side comparisons eliminate the variations in conditions and give you a clear indication of the merit of any additive. As a rule, find out what works for you and keep doing it the same way. Don't change anything without being strongly convinced that the change is helpful.

* 'Organic' doesn't mean 'good' or even 'better.' In the case of reliable, repeatable, constant rotating harvest ops, inorganic nutes are superior as you can use H2O2 with them. Can't count the number of new growers who get sucked into organics and then have root rot problems they can't solve with 'organic' enzyme-based pathogen controls. Organic nutrients are composed of complex biomatters (e.g. bat guano, worm castings, etc) which the plants can't assimilate directly. You depend upon organic nutrients to break down into N, P & K in the rootzone (at not always well-known rates) before the plants can eat them. May as well use inorganic nutes which are already in that state and also have a solid idea of nutrient strength and bioavailability, as well as have the ability to use (regularly applied) H2O2, which is a sure-fire, every single time solution to root probs.
Click to expand...
 
Shackleford.R

Shackleford.R

Well-Known Member
i still have non organics lying around... could i do a H2O2 wash/rinse as you described above.. after H2O2 dips switch to the non organics??
(that question isn't just for gypsy, it's for everybody)

:peace:
Shack
 
Shackleford.R

Shackleford.R

Well-Known Member
few things going on right now..

1-took the drip tub (top half holding plant) out of main res and soaked, rain drip pump in 5.9 pH water in fresh res

2-trimmed back RIDICULOUS amount of stem and leaf to encourage larger bud growth on remaining stems, figure CFL didn't have enough "umph" to flower the whole plant
looks like it will produce larger buds on remaining stem.. pics of haircut later

3-rinsed the main res 3 times and wiped down all surfaces inside res with a sponge to remove excess salt/nute/fert residue

4-topped off res with 5.9 pH tap water, plant is back in main res with air stone fizzing and drip pump dripping

plan to continue step 4 for a hour or so till i feel certain roots are rinsed well. also realized she had become root bound, the rinsing and gentle agitation i gave her loosened up the roots and looks much less like a bundle sitting in the res.

i'm considering once she goes back in the flowering area that i'm going to go with ripening strength nutrient solution so she can start fattening up and i can harvest in a few weeks hopefully.
any tips for ripening/bulking the buds??

final note, i've been using flora nova, and the roots look "dirty" after the few rinses they look a little "cleaner". can i switch back to the flora series (non-organic) to finish??

:peace:
Shack
 
Shackleford.R

Shackleford.R

Well-Known Member
alright, i figured it would be safe to switch back. i noticed when i dumped the res it was much fuller than i expected, she usually needs a top off by tomorrow on the average. res change friday, top off wednesday. she had drank as much.. pH lockout is my guess what caused the problem. that and i may have dosed a little heavily with the liquid koolbloom.

i want this grow to be over with, so i can start planning a better grow, with better genetics using some of my ordered seeds. i have all indica seed lying around and no place to grow it.

what is "ripening" all about??

:peace:
Shack
 
Shackleford.R

Shackleford.R

Well-Known Member
not sure about ripening just yet.. today is 6 weeks flowering, since the date of pre-flower. so what say you growers of sativa?? give it a couple more weeks? go for a solid 8 weeks of flower, then ripen for two weeks??
 
Shackleford.R

Shackleford.R

Well-Known Member
Laura is back on Flora Series.. she did an overnight "soak" in pure pH water. No nutes, just a little a pH down to get around 5.9. (my tap water comes out at 9.6 pH and 140 ppm) drained the res after mixing up the solution. The overnight soak took the pH to 6.6 pH and 440 ppm. So the roots then leeched some nutrients out into the water AND in the process jumped the pH.

rescuing Laura turned into an interesting inadvertent science experiment.

how much does your root zone affect your pH and ppm??

apparently in 24 hours it can raise pH 0.7 and ppm 300!

interesting info to have i'd say.

Moving right along!! She was on an aggressive nutrient schedule, 1500 ppm refreshed every 7 days. I backed her down to something a LITTLE weaker, 1300 ppm, and little FloraGro for some N since her leaves had taken some spot and damage. I might just finish her off on the calmer "bloom" strength as opposed to "aggressive bloom" strength. She has the FloraGro/Bloom/Micro, as well as Floralicious Bloom, FloraNectar, and Liquid KoolBloom. I think that should be an alright cocktail for the time being. Will update tomorrow with pics, too ashamed to show her all beaten up, maybe she will look a little better tomorrow after she has a nice meal!! :hump:

:peace:
Shack
 
GypsyBush

GypsyBush

Well-Known Member
Shackleford.R said:
Not as much as yours cause of the difference in res size...

That is why, especially in small res... the water should be changed a few times during the flush...



She has the FloraGro/Bloom/Micro, as well as Floralicious Bloom, FloraNectar, and Liquid KoolBloom. I think that should be an alright cocktail for the time being.

:peace:
Shack
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That is amazing Shack...:razz:

I use 1 nute and hydrogen peroxide...

how much money is all that stuff?
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Shackleford.R

Shackleford.R

Well-Known Member
well the flora series was free with the waterfarm. additives were about 30 a bottle..

i'd LOVE to have a 1 part nutrient and hydrogen peroxide.

what line do you use? might give it a go, next grow.. it's ridiculous measuring each nutrient and additive.

:peace:
Shack
 
Shackleford.R

Shackleford.R

Well-Known Member
also gypsy, how do you flush? pure water? or do you use a "flushing" additive, carb load, clearex, florakleen? i'm thinking fresh water is the way to go, with a hint of something for carb loading.

:peace:
Shack
 
GypsyBush

GypsyBush

Well-Known Member
Shackleford.R said:
well the flora series was free with the waterfarm. additives were about 30 a bottle..
Click to expand...
That's not too bad I guess...

I pay $30 for a bottle of BLOOM JUICE that will last me a month in the SOG...

And I paid $110 for 15 GAL of 50% h2o2, and that will last longer than I care to calculate...

i'd LOVE to have a 1 part nutrient and hydrogen peroxide.
Click to expand...
It sure is simple... even if the organic folks laugh at you...;-)

what line do you use? might give it a go, next grow.. it's ridiculous measuring each nutrient and additive.

:peace:
Shack
Click to expand...
I tried a bunch of shit when I couldn't get h2o2...

Right now I am back to the very first nute I ever used... the one recommended by the old hippie...

I ran it by AL B. Fuct and he said that as long as it worked for me, it was totally compatible with his system and with h2o2...

I use the GROW JUICE for veg... Bloom Juice for flower...

They also have a boost juice, that I used for a while but dropped without noticing a difference...

Here is what goes in my res other than water...



Shackleford.R said:
also gypsy, how do you flush?
Click to expand...
I only flush for a day when I change my res...

I do this to remove salt build up from the hydroton... to clean my medium...

As the water dissolves the salts, it absorbs them... hence the change in pH and ppm...

But I do not flush for weeks at the end...


pure water? or do you use a "flushing" additive, carb load, clearex, florakleen?
Click to expand...
straight tap water...

i'm thinking fresh water is the way to go,
Click to expand...
That is what I use... LOTS of fresh water...

with a hint of something for carb loading.

:peace:
Shack
Click to expand...
So... NOT just fresh water...:lol:

and Uh... what's with the carb loading? your plant on a diet?:lol:

Sorry... I just never messed with any of that stuff...

I am still a newb... and carbs... and calories... and subatoms... are just beyond me...:lol:

Cheers bro... and post some pics...

:joint::peace:
 
Shackleford.R

Shackleford.R

Well-Known Member
alright gypsy! i'd rep you if i could!

might be awhile before the WaterFarm goes into use.. maybe not till late winter.
it will be a MUCH smaller indica, so i anticipate a MUCH better yield with my CFL hood.
i probably will go with a 1 part and H2O2, local hydro store has a house brand 2-part system..

i'm growing CFL, i figure whatever it takes to bulk the buds.. hence carb loading.
the sugars encourage metabolism and accelerate the weight gain of the buds.

i'll get pictures tomorrow when the lights come on.. it MIGHT frighten you.. she had a thorough haircut!

:peace:
Shack
 
Shackleford.R

Shackleford.R

Well-Known Member
other threads.. people talk!! haha.. i've never grown, i'd like to learn things first hand.

haha i'm ready for these to be done. my next grow is going to be soil!! 8 oz for less than 100$ from seed to harvest in 65 days..
i picked up a book from a member on RIU (at my bookstore, hes been published!! a RIU member.. PUBLISHED!!)
anyhow, its basically a daily journal in print of his grow... i plan to closely mimic his conditions.. using similar genetics..
only i'll be growing 2X the plants he grows.. hopefully a pound?? thats a ways off though... high and like to talk..

:peace:
Shack
 
Shackleford.R

Shackleford.R

Well-Known Member
Seemore Buds i believe... he grows 8 oz using multiple CFL in a DIY fixture (clever design, saw it here first somewhere) 2 mango clones, one strain from seed, all indica, topped around 3rd node i believe.. 8 oz from that...



The book at amazon.com
 
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