First Hydroponic Attempt! Bubbleponics.

Earlier this season I planted a couple of seeds that I had remaining from an accidental pollination and created a contained grow inside a computer tower. Once they went to flower I found that both were males. Luckily I had started some seeds in a little tray for just such a misfortune. Recently, I have gotten into hydroponic gardening and have some left over materials and decided to go hydro on these new plants. Using a bunch of stuff I had lying around I figured that a bubbleponics system would be the most efficient and space saving. What I used was a large sized wide-mouthed mason jar (I covered it with dark tape to block out light) for the reservoir, the three-inch net pots I had extra of fit perfectly into the mouth of this jar, and I screwed it on with a standard lid ring. I have run as large of an airstone as I had inside with the tubing running through the net pot. Inside I used hydroton pellets for the medium and a Foxfarm nutrient schedule at about 5.7 pH. Also, I have been foliar feeding first thing in the "morning" as well as every hour for the first three or so hours of light. In the tower I have installed a single 150w HPS lamp in a way that all of the exhaust air cools the lamp as it leaves. And the entire inside of the tower is coated with some degree of reflective covering.
When I first put the new plants in, I accidentally burnt the heads of the plants by not turning the intake air fan on. I cut the burnt tops off, effectively fimming the plants. Fortunately, this caused both to split into 6+ main colas during recovery. I have done a drastic amount of LSTing in order to keep the height of the plants far enough from the light source. The larger plant is probably within 2 in. of vertical height from the top of the jar, and I am beginning to train them downward in order to utilize the maximum space within the tower.
I put them on a strict 13-11 light schedule a couple weeks ago and two nights ago they first showed signs of flowers. As of now, the larger of the two is definitely female, and the other is very likely female, but I haven't inspected it too much. I will begin posting pictures at some point to show the remaining progress. But from my experience they look fantastic, they were beginning to yellow in the new growth, but I supplemented the magnesium and it seems to have worked. They both look great and I am hoping for a (relatively) high yield from these two. They each have 8-10 large healthy colas. As well as additional shoots beginning to fill in on the stalks where I have thinned out fan leaves and LSTed the plants into horizontal growing patterns.
I am thinking up a way LST the plants downward in a fibonacci curve in order to not stress the stalks by bending too drastic, while covering the widest surface area that is contacted by the light (so as to take in as much of the 14,400 lumens that are being output within the 2 cu. ft. of space within the reflective interior).

not bad for your attempt. keep it up.

You always learn off your mistakes the more mistakes you commit the better your next grow is gonna happen

looks ok pics are a little dark, but not bad at all.

Here are some new pics from that last couple of days.

Some updated pictures, I have been trimming the fan leaves heavily to reduce the smell and get more overall light coverage. I have transferred it into a better container for this set-up, it is just a little rubbermaid fridge container that I opened the top for two net pots and covered in foil. I put the original netpot hanging across the other to conserve space. And no more bondage for my girls, I stopped LSTing (aside from intertwining some branches to fill in space, a couple strings to hold back the front-heavy plant, and a single pesky cola that is growing exactly where I don't want it to). I tried to root some clones in the other netpot, but the water was either too full or too low and they all got soggy and died. I have since taken two more cuttings, hoping for a "monster cropping," though I prefer calling it hydra-cloning. It is pretty good into flowering and I think that the nodes have probably bunched up enough to have this effect once they root. One is already showing signs of root ends. (I am cloning in a different container and area this time.)
Otherwise they both look fantastic, very green and dense, and it seems like every node that can get a glimpse of light sprouts into a secondary/ tertiary cola. The roots pic is from when I transplanted the plant, and it has doubled in size since, but its all I got, and I know DWC people like to see the roots.

Anyways, here are some pics:

Looking awesome for a micro grow man. Keep it up.

Some close-ups of the flowers. The first is through a microscope. Next are macros of a flower. The rest are just assorted pictures of some of the dense colas under the light.

These are my most recent pictures, the plants are doing great, aside from tending to get too close to the light every day. The tops of the biggest colas have each burnt and I chose to crop the dried out bit, and they have resultantly just gotten really fat and dense. Really sticky, they smell like blueberry and a little minty. I recently switched most of the foil that I had coated the inside with, with some metallized reflective film, and now it seems twice as bright in there. I also took two clones a 7-10 days ago, and had them in a separate low light area, DWC, with rooting hormone; I had thought they weren't going to root but finally did a day or so ago. I have since transplanted them into their own net pots in a temporary incubating area, until these girls crop out. Oh, and I got another air pump, and added an additional airstone in the reservoir for the two big plants. And just prior to taking these pictures I did a bunch of LSTing to pull the big colas that were hanging into the light back a safe distance, and now everything should be good until they finish.

Quick question, this is only my second grow, and I don't really remember when to crop out. I tried to take a couple of pictures of a few different tops, but because of the HPS, they are wildly discolored. Any help would be appreciated, I have no idea what these strains are, they are seeds from my crop last year that I accidentally pollinated (and likely harvested a little early), and those were from bag seed that I planted just for the hell of it, so I have no idea what sort of time scheme I am looking at. So any information on how to gauge when to crop them would be fantastic.

Peace.

Okay, so I got a normal light on these so I can tell what they look like color-wise, and took a bunch of pictures. I somehow managed to miss three of my largest colas, two of which are more like lollipops on sticks than long nuggets, approximately 1 1/2 - 2 in. in diameter. And the plants are relatively stuck in place at this point, I could pull them out, but it was a hassle and didn't. So the pictures don't really do justice to the biggest nuggets in the back because they are all on top of each other at this point. All of which have been burnt by the light after growing into the top of the case and thus being forced to grow forward into the light (some damage shown in pics 1 + 2). The tallest ones I hacked the topmost node or two off (irreparably damaged parts). And since, they have branched out the next two nodes down, which have filled in nicely for all that I did it to. But they are all very dense and continue filling in every time I open up the case. The pictures 3-8 show various tops, if anyone can see a 'smoking gun' that looks ready, let me know, if there are multiple circles, use a point system (i.e. in p. 8; it is 8.1, 8.2, 8.3; left to right respectively).
Picture 9 is of one cola that would have gotten too close to the light if I hadn't done anything, so I figured I could experiment with the stalk since it seemed relatively mature. I chopped it just above the bottom most visible node, so there are two tiny colas that have (I'm hoping) just enough of a leaf system to keep growing. I haven't seen any obvious examples of why the plant should stop growing if it's flowers ar trimmed, if anything I feel like the immense vascular system would only make it come back faster. At least that was my theory, I will see what happens in the next days. The picture is after I manicured it, and though I know it isn't ideal, I took a little piece off and tasted it, and I am beyond satisfied! And for reference, it is on the smaller side compared to other colas, especially width wise, which was why I chose it. And the last picture (p. 10) is of two clones I took approx. 21 days into flowering, and had put rooting hormone one and left in a little DWC in a mason jar. I had thought they would just die when it was doing nothing after lik 8 days, but they didn't look dead yet, and I figured I could just leave it. And to my pleasure, a couple days later I saw signs of rooting. I transplanted them into their own, larger net pots a day later, and fashioned a crappy DWC to hold them over in veg until I can crop out the big girls. I am aiming for hydra-cloning, with multiple top colas.
Here are the pictures:


Edit:
And I just thought I may as well put this up, its the sam little nugget from 10, but after drying all night and morning, and with me rolling it with my fingers a couple times, so it is nice and tight:


Peace.

it looks like they were revenging or somthing. did you sex them on 12/12 then go back to veg for a lil longer

Not intentionally, but I think that when I switched to 12/12, the case may have had some light leaks, because it took what seemed like forever for them to show sex. And I never really fixed those leaks (and I have it on at night so no one will notice the glow coming from it), and my answer has just been covering it with a curtain each morning, but it turns off before I wake up usually and potentially could be getting messed up by that? Oh wait! I just remembered, at some point, I didn't really mark when, I noticed that the light was on in the middle of the day (their night cycle) and realized somehow my light timer was set to turn on for like a half hour or hour (I forget which) in the middle of their night. That was at least a couple weeks ago now, and I have no idea how long it went on for, but with a 150w HPS in that small of a space, I could imagine it would definitely have potential to throw it off. How bad could that little fuck up be for the plants? Hopefully nothing too absurd, I had figured the strange growth was due to the heat stress, but that makes more sense.

Oh, and how do you tell when that happens? Like, can you tell me which picture, and what about it made you think revenging? I just like to know what to look for, future reference and all.

a light leak would not have done that, it would turn it hermie though

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&...=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1024&bih=651

that link shows a bunch of revegging plants, it mainly makes the leafs come out in single blades and blades of 2 and 3 for a while.
i guess it could be the strain to, and heat is a possibility but im not sure on that one. and a hour of light in the dark cycle would not make it reveg but possibly grow funny or hermie it but from the pics i dont see any signs of a hermie, if you find seeds then they did

Yea, it definitely isn't hermie, no seed development at all that I can see. And it might be a result of my trimming off of the fan leaves/ how little space there is; maybe they are growing bigger flower leaves to get more light? Anyways, thanks for the help!

Peace

no prob. keep us updated on them

This will be my last entry with the plants still alive, unfortunately. I am moving this weekend and will not be able to bring this with me, so I have to crop them out, manicure them, and get it all more transportable. And as of right now, I am honestly not sure what I plan to do with the clones I have, I kind of want to transplant them outside somewhere, and come back in a month or so after the equinox to see what (if anything) they produce.
QUESTION: Is it possible to do a |DWC -> earth| transplant?
I am attaching some pictures I took last night, it is hard to tell the coloration in the HPS/ Flash lighting, but a lot of the colas are covered in orange hairs, but for some reason the plants seem to have revenged a little, or something, and have a lot of white hairs that stand out a lot more. I have been snipping the smaller colas that have no direct light, drying them, and tasting for a couple days now, and it seems pretty good overall, so whatever is going on it hasn't made a particularly bad impact.
Now, I need some advice/ information. What is a good procedure for cropping out DWC systems? Do I stop watering (like soil) and let the plants naturally dry out? I have switched to just water (after flushing the reservoir) for the past couple of days. Is there anything I am missing?

Thanks guys and peace.