1800w Big Bang 2/ Lavender Grow DWC/Soil

Hi guys, thought i would share my grow with you this time around. Been looking for any grow reports for big bang 2 and there seems to be very few about, so i will try to keep my journal updated for anyone interested.

Setup:
2.4/1.2/2m Grow tent
3x 600w 8" coolshade HPS
8" Acoustic fan / carbon filter
4x DWC 21litre pots
Vitalink Nutes
Biobizz mix soil pots


Strains:
3x Big Bang 2
3x Lavender - Soma Seeds (1 hydro, other 2 soil)
3x Easy Ryder Autos - Joint Dr
1x Afgan Kush Ryder Auto
1x Sweet Black Angel Auto - samsara Seeds

Originally planned a complete bb2 grow, but due to poor germ results (only 3 of 10 sprouted) i started some Lavender a friend had and ordered in some Autos to fill the space

Will have to flower the autos on 12/12 so will be interesting seeing how they perform. Thinking of switching to 14/10 light cycle to give them a better chance, but never tried this before, worried it will extend the flowering period for my non-auto strains. Anyone have any experience with this?

I will upload some pics shortly...

Air cooled 1800w HPS 8"extractor, only using 1 of the 600w and a veg light for now.

Bottom left is lavender, only 2 weeks old. Others are bigbang2 at 3 weeks.
Transplanted from soil a few days ago and topped bb's today, starting to recover nicely
1 of the big bangs is super healthy, but other 2 are mutated with slower growth. Possibly due to using cheap potting soil early on.

2 top girls are lavender's, the rest are autoflowering strains, just over a week old.


Not sure if nute deficient or just bad genetics but hopefully they will pull through.
Want to switch to flower soon, but will give them another week's veg to bush out.

subbed. looks interesting right now. how many cfm's for that fan? do you have an intake too?

Looks good man ,yeah 14/10 sounds good, more light ! i seen people do 16 for autos

subbed. looks interesting right now. how many cfm's for that fan? do you have an intake too?

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Hi, youknowthekid!
my extractor pulls around 450cfm off the top of my head, with passive intake from outside(still cold out). With 1 of 3 lights running, its major overkill, taking temps down to 16C. So i have it going on/off with timer, keeping temps closer to 25C. In need of a fan controller really, this will save a lot of messing about with timers!! Anyone know if its worth paying extra for a decent quality controller/thermostat? Seen budget ones, but am i right in thinking these just click from off to full power rather than regulate fan speed???

Looks good man ,yeah 14/10 sounds good, more light ! i seen people do 16 for autos

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Hey STLbudz!
Thanks mate, any more info on yeild/bud density for shorter light periods with these autos? Could move them to the mother room with 24hrs under my T5 cfl for a couple more weeks, might give them a fighting chance or maybe better to go 14hrs under the big HPS lights.
Anyone know if 14/10 will prolong flowering for my normal girls???
Thanks for the input guys, my dwc plants are showing some serious root growth now, sure they will explode in the next week or 2.
Will be sure to upload some more pics soon.

ramblingman88 said:

Seen budget ones, but am i right in thinking these just click from off to full power rather than regulate fan speed???

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Youre indeed correct. The fan itself only has one speed. Your best bet is to grab the analog timers with the 48 tabs, thatll give you a lot of variability for now. Sounds like your problem will be the heat, not the cold soon!

Looking good ramblingman
Excited to see how those big bangs and Lavenders come out.

Been looking at these fan controllers http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251147678825, little on the pricey side, but they have a idle setting that ensures negative pressure consistently.

I would have thought that 14/10 light schedule may cause some issues with your regular strains during flower. Anyone else care to comment?

MD

mdman said:

Looking good ramblingman
Excited to see how those big bangs and Lavenders come out.

Been looking at these fan controllers http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251147678825, little on the pricey side, but they have a idle setting that ensures negative pressure consistently.

I would have thought that 14/10 light schedule may cause some issues with your regular strains during flower. Anyone else care to comment?

MD

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some sativas do better flowering at 14 hrs, and he has autos wich are strains that flower automatically regardless of light schedule

I feel like the autos would do best in a declining light schedule 20-18-16-14-12 declining 2 hours every weeks or so. Just my educated guess.

I have just switched to 12/12 from today, was well worth the extra week of veg to get these ladies nice and mature. Slight issues with regulating room temperatures (bit of a nightmare without using a thermostat, but i do have one on order as we speak), which has caused some heat stress, temps ranging from 16-30C! But they are bulking out fast!

Got a few pics to upload...
3 big bang2 in dwc buckets. Top left is the Lavender (double the size of both soil lavenders!)
The 2 mutant BB's are struggling still unfortunately, wont be expecting much but they could still pull through.

2 soil lavenders are waiting for a re-pot, topped 1 already, other i'm taking a cutting from soon.
Found out the 'sweet black angel' from samsara seeds isn't an auto! So basically flowering from seed as it's only 10 days in veg!

Thanks mdman cant wait to try these amazing strains already! Maybe we can swap some cuts when i get my mothers big enough.
Appreciate the help and input guys, will keep u updated.
Ramblingman

They're looking awesome. If you yield enough this time I'm telling you go H&G for the rdwc, that shit creates monsters and it's noob proof! I ran it once and had to chop down 2 of the 8 I had going in my 5x8 space because they got too crazy!!

Regardless it looks like you're getting some great growth. Did you build the rdwc?

Hey ramblingman they look great, amazing how much faster growth is in the hydro compared to soil.
Can't wait to see how they progress in the next month

Hydro has some amazing growth speed, i think the lavender seems to love the soil-less because she is half the age of the other 3 and twice as big! Will be a tall strain i think with well spaced branching, roots are already reaching bottom of the bucket so could be dealing with a monster plant.

youknowthekid!

They're looking awesome. If you yield enough this time I'm telling you go H&G for the rdwc, that shit creates monsters and it's noob proof! I ran it once and had to chop down 2 of the 8 I had going in my 5x8 space because they got too crazy!!

Regardless it looks like you're getting some great growth. Did you build the rdwc?​

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I'm hoping for a total yield of 20-30oz but still kind of early to be guessing yields. I didn't actually design mine (came in a kit) but it would be easy to make yourself or add buckets on. Whats this H&G stuff? After using my dwc system i would recommend a re-circulating water system also, it can be tricky keeping the buckets at similar e/c and ph levels. Not really an option for me as i have to keep the noise down! unless i can find a silent water pump somewhere, but in my experience they can be loud.
I have an sms smart fan controller at last, and it's doing a great job keeping my temps at 26c daylight and just idles the fan at night keeping 20c

The rdwc is the way to go for sure, but honestly with a good nute line you can get away with just dwc buckets that you clean out every 2-3 weeks once build ups are serious. As far as the water pumps go there's two types, both could potentially be loud, not sure, but there's the inline pump and submerged pumps. I'm thinking the inline is probably decently noisy, but you could get a low-mid powered submerged for your smaller scale and just throw it in its own bucket (to avoid roots clogging). Just link a chain of bucket and have the pump buck at the end sending all the water back to the first bucket, this way a nice under current will be created flowing towards the last container where the pump is. That's just what I've been plotting out anyhow. Alternatively you could just have individual buckets that you install a closeable elbow onto the bottom of. That would give you the option of flushing with a nice load of fresh H20 each time your current soup gets low. Either way it'll just take drilling a few holes and installing grommets, but will ultimately make keeping your soup fresh hella easy.

The House & Garden line I was talking about showed me some unreal results. It's an investment no doubt, but if you're like me and follow their recipe (at reduced strength) you'll be rewarded with literally perfect dank and at least 50% more yield!

Hi guys, just a quick update... starting the big stretch now and lookin nice

Word of warning to hydro growers out there, don't mix citric acid and phosphoric ph downs! i tried some organic citric to ph (which is basically useless). When i added standard phosphoric to correct, a day later it had reacted, forming a nasty sludge that coated buckets/roots/airstones! After flushing twice and scraping the goo out the plants seem unaffected thank god.

Also decided to start moving 2 of my easyryder autos into the veg room for the dark period, that way they can get 24 hr lights. This backfired when my dog decided to chew half the greenery from them both! Not happy! They are pretty stunted from the experience as you can see in the pics...





Afgan Kush Ryder budding already


Lavenders..



Sweet black angel in middle pot

now youre getting that hydro growth! nice man

weekly update at 2 weeks in flower, stretching out fast now and filling the tent space.
Just turned the last 600w on, so running on full power till the end now, starting to up the nutrients aswell. Decided to give the autos a big flush yesterday, as they were showing slight over fert signs. Only been giving them pure water from seed, so i suppose the biobizz allmix is a little rich for them, i'v heard they are sensitive with feeding.







AKR...



Biggest Easyryder of the 3..

Looking great! In a week or so you could probably start with a little defoliation on some of those.

The flowering growth stretch is slowing now as buds are forming on most the crop. The lavender in dwc is only just showing bud development at 3 weeks in, towering over the other plants, im hoping she hurrys up because im planning on a week 9 harvest, possibly stretching to 10. My auto's are in week 5 from seed now and starting to pack some weight on, esspecially the Afgan Kush Ryder looking very developed already. Been having some problems diagnosing a possible deficiency with the soils, first thought it could be nitrogen toxicity/over fert with very dark green leaves. I flushed the pots through but a few days later and no real improvment. Since i have noticed definate yellowing of lower leaves/reddening stems/purple colouring to leaves. So i am 90% sure it's a phosphorus deficiency. I have just given the photoperiods 1/2 strength and auto's 1/4 strength feeds, i will have to check there progress in the next week to see how they react. Although it's only the start of deficiency, i want to catch it early and keep them nice and green. Not sure if you can diagnose from my pics but let me know if you can give me any pointers. They are all in biobizz allmix with only ph 6.0-6.5 water, no nutrients untill last week. Thanks for following along youknowthekid, i do need to start trimmimg back from now before they get to bushy. Im allways reluclant to take to much off though! I will do some LST with the big lavender soon, that way i can keep the lights lower for the other shorter plants. Last pic is a couple of clones i managed to take before i flowered, the larger one is bigbang2, taken 1 week earlier than the other lavender cut. Not sure if i will use these strains for my next grow, but could be worth hanging on to if the smoke is sweet