3 x 750WHPS + 24 site Ebb & Grow + basement = happy hiker

Roomie said:

I haven't slept in weeks.

I'm excited for this grow, your youngins' remind me of my own. Good luck!

Click to expand...

Thanks! Go take a nap!

doubletake said:

Cool thanks for the detailed reply perpetual means yea have a sedate vegging are but like more then just that like under those 3 lots put 3 batches of plants under each light 3 weeks behind so u harvest every 3 weeks but it is easier to just harvest all at once and it's kinda nice getting all that bud at once hah, and also for the topping thing have u heard of supper cropping or lst where u pinch the stem till it falls over in a couple daysit heals itself and it works the same as topping with out hurting it by cutting the main shoot off mabey try it on a couple and c how u like it I have found I like it a lot more than topping cause u still end up with the main shoot

Click to expand...

OK. That's what I thought you meant. No. I will not be doing perpetual. I think you need a separate reservoir for each group (by age) of plants, ie assuming 9 week flower and rotation every 3 weeks, you would need 3 reservoirs. I only have one large 55G reservoir for all the buckets, so harvesting the entire space will work better for my situation. It also allows me to do my veg growth in this space since I have not YET built a separate area for vegetative growth. I thought I would be able to start construction of the other parts of the basement once I got the plants into this first room, but I've been pretty busy just trying to dial things in. I've also been trying to spend a little more time with my wife since I've lived in the basement for the last couple months

I have experience with several methods of training plants. I've tied them down, semi-broken stems, topped, pinched, you name it, I probably tried it. When I was using trays, I came up with the idea of putting a net above the trays to hold up the plants and to use to train them. I would weave the branches through the screen to get a nice even canopy. I'm not saying it was an original idea, but I came up with it on my own. At the time, none of the other growers I knew were doing it. A couple started using it when they saw mine. Eventually I switched to a bucket system, so I went back to tieing them down. I'm using string for this run, but I think I might switch to some sort of twist tie/wire material for the next run.

Since the primary goal of this run is mother selection, I'm planning to cut the apical meristem (main branch) on each plant as a clone. I'll be doing that in the next week or so, once the side branches start developing better. I'd like to have about 8 branches on each plant, after taking clones. If any of those clones don't make it, I'll take another from that plant around the time I flip. I want to make sure I get at least one rooted clone for each plant since I don't yet know which are males (20 of the 23 plants are regular seeds). I had entertained the idea of flowering out the males to collect pollen, but I've decided against that for now.

Here are some new pics. These are actually from last year hehe ie Monday night
I tied down a few of larger babies and took a pics right after. Last night I tied down the rest of them, except for the 4-5 smallest runts that I may or may not do any training just to see what happens with them.



You may have noticed some have 2 strings, and others have 3. My plan is to make these into corkscrew bushes, so I'll be adding more strings as the main top continues to grow. I usually end up tieing down the secondary branches as well. I'm unsure how long I will veg, but likely I'll wait until they make one complete 'lap' around the bucket, and then take the clones. I'll give them a little time (a few days to a week?) to recover from that, then flip. The downside to all this training is, I'll probably need to tie them up at the end of the bud phase. I'll just shove some bamboo sticks into the rock at that point, and tie them to that. Eventually, once I get everything settled and have a veg area, the room will be filled with 4 cola plants for a sorta-sog.

That's cool dude the screen netting over the top people are calling that scrog now a days but thats supper cool u came up with that on your own and about the pollen thing I just kept one little male and it gave me a good little bit of pollen that I sprinkled on a couple branches of my platinum bubba so maney yank most the males and just keep one or two in the corner barley alive just to get some good pollen. Also thats cool the corkscrew idea your all into trying new methods of training should be interesting

I made significant progress on my ventilation/temp issue last night. I increased my intake opening about 100%. I may even open it a little more. When I move a wall panel to create a ~12" opening, I am no longer seeing a huge temp difference. With all the wall panels in place, and the exhaust fan on it's lowest setting, it was maintaining ~83F. Barely too warm, so it's real close. With the fan on it's highest setting (via speed controller), it was able to hold ~79-80F. In addition to increasing the intake size, I also made the rest of the basement cooler, so it would be pulling in colder air. On it's own, the basement sits at ~56F. Since I spend so much time down there, I had closed up all the drafts to get it warmer. It worked, but it made it harder to cool the grow room. I made the basement drafty again to cool it off. It seems to be helping. This is only a temporary measure though. I'll have to setup some sort of formal ventilation for the basement I think. I'm not sure yet how I will handle this.

I also learned how to glue things to the Styrofoam. I already had a can of 3M's '77' spray adhesive, but when I had tested it, it appeared to melt the foam. What I learned is that it's the propellant doing that, not the adhesive. By holding the can 12" away from the foam, it worked fine. While testing the light tightness of the flowering room, I realized the foam panels do not block the light completely, so I glued some of my panda plastic to the panels. I'm attaching a picture of one of them after gluing on the plastic. I'm pretty happy with the result.

If anyone else wants to do this as well, I have some advice. Glue on the plastic in sections. I wanted some over hang around the edges to help with the seal. First, layout the plastic on top of the foam panel. Then tape one end in place temporarily. You are just trying to keep it lined up correctly. Only tape on one end, and don't go too far down the side, ie not all the way to the center. I just used 3 small pieces of duct tape, one at the end and another on each side at around 40% of the length of the panel. Now that you know the plastic won't shift while you apply the glue, fold the plastic back over itself, so that you can see half the panel and the back (black side if using panda) of half the plastic. Spray the glue onto both the panel and the plastic and let it sit for a minute. After a minute, maybe two, starting in the center, smooth the plastic onto the foam panel with your hand. I lifted up the plastic by the center of the end edge letting the corners fold over towards me. This technique worked out pretty well for me. If anyone does this and wants more info I can try to give more details.

I also came up with another way to hold the panels against the wall. I have some light leaking along the top edges, so I will attach a 2x4 along the ceiling that forces the foam up against the wall framing. I may use that idea in combination with velcro in some key spots. I'll be trying it this weekend.

The plants are doing well. They are responding quickly when I tie them down, ie turning towards the lights within a few hours usually. I will need to adjust them frequently, like every other day, for awhile. They are growing pretty fast.

The reservoir still has a weird funky smell, but it's not as bad as the previous reservoir and does not seem to be getting any worse. It might even be diminishing slightly. It takes a few days for the smell to start after each res change (2 so far). I'm going to wait for the RO water to do the next change. Since it seems stable, I think I'm OK waiting another couple of days (I changed the reservoir exactly 7 days ago today) until I can get the RO system installed (tonight) and it has time to fill the barrel. The nutrient solution is still clear. I can see the bottom of the reservoir just fine. Last time it got cloudy when the smell started. I don't have roots coming out of the buckets yet, so I can't say how the roots look yet. I'll be putting blocks under all the buckets this weekend. This will make them drain completely, and raise the rockwool cubes above the water line.

Anyway... here are 2 pics showing the babies.


Here is a shot of one of the foam panels with the plastic glued on. You can actually make out the Dow Styrofoam logos printed on the panel (the diamond shapes). This is the first panel I did. For the other 2, I made larger overhang around the edges.

The babies are lookin happy man reaching for that light

doubletake said:

The babies are lookin happy man reaching for that light

Click to expand...

Thanks DT. You might be the only one still watching. I suspect this journal will get more interest once I get some bud porn posted.

I am calling the temp issue resolved. Cooling off the basement is what did the trick. I should be fine for awhile, but I'll have to make changes before August

Last night, I worked on installing RO system. For now, the RO will be setup in a temporary location until I finish the rest of the construction in the basement. I got the supply line run into the basement. I used some extra PEX I had from replumbing the entire house (yes, I redid this entire house by myself. Be wary buying foreclosed homes hehe). That is the temporary part. I'm using some Sharkbite fittings so I can move it all later. I glued together the PVC manifold that will provide the supply for the RO and a hose bib. Each has it's own valve. Don't let the description as "temporary" make you think "ghetto". It is still a solid installation. I just did it in a way that will make it easy to move when I start building in that part of the basement. I'm pretty excited that I won't have to use buckets to fill the reservoir now! Only had to mix 2 batches that way. Will do the second res change on Saturday with RO water!

I'll post a picture of the whole thing once it's making RO water. In fact, maybe I should go down there and hook it up so it can start making water!

The reservoir still has that weird funk. The water is still clear though. It looks like weak tea from the nutes. The plants really aren't using a lot of the water yet. The ppm doesn't really change though, so I take that to mean they are using the nutes at the same rate. The smell is starting to remind me of how a lake shore, or sometimes the ocean, smells. That sort of odor of decaying living matter. I'm continuing to apply H2O2, but I am not sure it's really doing anything. I seem to recall my reservoirs smelled when I grew before, but I can't convince myself this smell is OK to ignore. I'll wait to see if the RO water makes a difference with this next res change. I'll be flushing the system this weekend when I do the res change. I'm also going to get the buckets on blocks, so that may help as well by reducing the amount of stagnant water sitting in the buckets and tubing.

Other than that, everything is progressing nicely. I need to also put more time this weekend into tieing them down some more. You almost can't tell they have been trained at all. The wife came down and looked at them last night. She kept saying "ooo that one is pretty", then look at another one and say it again. Damn this is so much fun!

I'm still watching.

Question for question sake. What's your res temp? I know not every system is the same, but my res smells like a clean fish tank. Never a bad scent.

Roomie said:

I'm still watching.

Question for question sake. What's your res temp? I know not every system is the same, but my res smells like a clean fish tank. Never a bad scent.

Click to expand...

Very cold. I think it's gotten up to ~65F at it's highest. Now that the basement is much cooler, the res temp has dropped into the 50s. I may need a res heater!

So jealous of the space you have to work with. I have big ideas of crossing new strains and cool stuff like that. Kinda hard to do in my 5x3 closet lol.. Either way I'm subbed up

Mechanical said:

So jealous of the space you have to work with. I have big ideas of crossing new strains and cool stuff like that. Kinda hard to do in my 5x3 closet lol.. Either way I'm subbed up

Click to expand...

Thanks for taking a look. I do like my basement.

I'm very interested in doing some breeding as well, but I'm pretty focused on just getting the whole basement up and running smoothly as fast as I can. I have changed my mind about trying to collect pollen from any males in this first batch of seeds. Right now, I don't think I'm going to collect from the second either. I have too much to do right now without adding that complication.

I got my RO system running tonight! I also picked up the ingredients for some bennie tea.

Long day, time to sleep.

I think if I had a whole basement I'd turn into a hermit and never leave.

Still watching Man!
Gonna be a great grow.
My reservoir smells like a fish tank. A Healthy fish tank, but a fish tank none the less.
With the temps you're running, you should be just fine.

Hiker said:

Thanks DT. You might be the only one still watching. I suspect this journal will get more interest once I get some bud porn posted.

I am calling the temp issue resolved. Cooling off the basement is what did the trick. I should be fine for awhile, but I'll have to make changes before August

Last night, I worked on installing RO system. For now, the RO will be setup in a temporary location until I finish the rest of the construction in the basement. I got the supply line run into the basement. I used some extra PEX I had from replumbing the entire house (yes, I redid this entire house by myself. Be wary buying foreclosed homes hehe). That is the temporary part. I'm using some Sharkbite fittings so I can move it all later. I glued together the PVC manifold that will provide the supply for the RO and a hose bib. Each has it's own valve. Don't let the description as "temporary" make you think "ghetto". It is still a solid installation. I just did it in a way that will make it easy to move when I start building in that part of the basement. I'm pretty excited that I won't have to use buckets to fill the reservoir now! Only had to mix 2 batches that way. Will do the second res change on Saturday with RO water!

I'll post a picture of the whole thing once it's making RO water. In fact, maybe I should go down there and hook it up so it can start making water!

The reservoir still has that weird funk. The water is still clear though. It looks like weak tea from the nutes. The plants really aren't using a lot of the water yet. The ppm doesn't really change though, so I take that to mean they are using the nutes at the same rate. The smell is starting to remind me of how a lake shore, or sometimes the ocean, smells. That sort of odor of decaying living matter. I'm continuing to apply H2O2, but I am not sure it's really doing anything. I seem to recall my reservoirs smelled when I grew before, but I can't convince myself this smell is OK to ignore. I'll wait to see if the RO water makes a difference with this next res change. I'll be flushing the system this weekend when I do the res change. I'm also going to get the buckets on blocks, so that may help as well by reducing the amount of stagnant water sitting in the buckets and tubing.

Other than that, everything is progressing nicely. I need to also put more time this weekend into tieing them down some more. You almost can't tell they have been trained at all. The wife came down and looked at them last night. She kept saying "ooo that one is pretty", then look at another one and say it again. Damn this is so much fun!

Click to expand...

I don't think you have much to worry about with that res smell just keep a eye out for anything growing inthere I have one of those 5 gallon buckets with a airstone and a top drip feed thing and that bucket kinda smells if it's sittin for a while mabey add a air stone or 2 to the res to add more ,movement and air so it's not getting stagnant and seems like a lot of people are watching the thread now ha

Mechanical said:

I think if I had a whole basement I'd turn into a hermit and never leave.

Click to expand...

Funny you should mention the basement. This weekend I came to the conclusion I will never buy another house that doesn't have a basement.

Taviddude said:

Still watching Man!
Gonna be a great grow.
My reservoir smells like a fish tank. A Healthy fish tank, but a fish tank none the less.
With the temps you're running, you should be just fine.

Click to expand...

That's a great description. After reading this, I went and took another sniff.... I guess that is what it smells like. I may have had something starting in that first reservoir since it was cloudy. The second res stayed clear, with the light brown tint from nutes, but still had some odor. It did still smell "clean" though.

Do you think there is a problem with a res being too cold?

doubletake said:

I don't think you have much to worry about with that res smell just keep a eye out for anything growing inthere I have one of those 5 gallon buckets with a airstone and a top drip feed thing and that bucket kinda smells if it's sittin for a while mabey add a air stone or 2 to the res to add more ,movement and air so it's not getting stagnant and seems like a lot of people are watching the thread now ha

Click to expand...

I have 2 big "air curtain" type airstones in the reservoir already. I start brewing bennie tea this weekend and bought another air pump and stone. The tea finished last night, so I added that airstone to the reservoir as well since I won't need it again for 5 days. The original pump and stones are just cheapies from Walmart. The new pump isn't a lot more powerful, but I can still tell a difference. I think I will get a big pump and more of these airstones from the hydro shop.

Hopefully the low temps and the bennie tea will keep the roots happy.

-------------------

So if anyone was debating the need for an RO system, just stop now and go buy one!!

My tap water is ~7.2ph and 360ppm! I finally got my RO system running Friday night, so I did a res change Saturday. When I make a nute soup, I add the nutes first as they have ph buffers. The nutes were never able to move the ph very much with my tap water. I had to add a couple cups of ph down to get ph where it was supposed to be. It would also drift pretty quickly. I know ph drifts up normally as the plants use up the nutrients, but this isn't why mine was drifting. I suspect my city is putting ph buffers into the water, perhaps to combat the hard water(?).

Saturday evening I drained the res and started making a new batch using RO water. I put 50g into the res. It measured ~20ppm and 7.1ph. The RO does not affect ph at all AFAICT. So I mixed up my nutes in a 5g bucket and poured it into the res. I have a mixing pump in the res, so I let it stir up for awhile. The reservoir ended up at, EXACTLY, 5.5ph! Awesome!!! Fuck tap water! The ph is still drifting up, but slower I think. I'm very very happy that I added the RO system!

I also picked up a spool of twist tie wire and redid all the plant bondage this weekend. The duct tape holding the string was coming undone. I drilled 8 small holes at the top edge of all my buckets. Now I'm able to attach the wire to the buckets. Wire works sooooooOOOOoooo much better than string!

--------------------------

I have a couple questions if anyone reading this knows the answer or can provide a link to a discussion...

I know the ideal res temp is 65F, but how cold is too cold? I started adding beneficial bacteria tea, but part of me wonders if they are really breeding at the temps in my environment. My reservoir/water is very cold. It comes out of the tap in the 30s and the reservoir gets up to the 50s eventually. Eventually I will add more/bigger air pumps and mixing pumps, but I have to make due with what I have for at least one harvest.

The other question is about the tea... The recommendation is to let it brew at "room temperature". My basement is very cold, so I put the bucket into the grow room. Is that OK? At first I was worried I might be introducing something into the room, but I'm putting this stuff into the reservoir, so how can it hurt right? The concoction was still pretty cold, even in the grow room. What temp is too cold for bennies? Am I wasting my tea supplies brewing it at low temps? Will they still help a reservoir that is only ~55F? With the Ebb & Gro, there is always some stagnant water that sits in the lines and buckets between feedings, so I thought the temps there might be high enough that the bennies would kick in there.

I've never used the tea before, so this is probably the biggest unknown for me in this grow. I may not even need it. I might be a little too paranoid about getting this grow to be perfect.



No new pictures today. I probably won't post more pics until the day I take some clones. They don't look too impressive as of last night anyway. I removed a lot of the sucker leaves when I was re-tieing them down last night. Some of them are looking a little spindly now.

Ooo I see yeah seems you got everything down then haha
good think at Ro Sytem is helping outso much does the res water always drift up a little? It seems mine usually goes down then up is that bad or something
as for the res temp thing I do not know I was kind of wondering the same thing about what is too cold because I know my water is getting pretty chilly too

The internet has made it clear that a res temp below 65f might slow plant growth, but I don't see anything on bennies and/or res health. If it were me, I'd definitely work on raising the temp 10 degrees, and hopefully not spend any money doing it.

doubletake said:

Ooo I see yeah seems you got everything down then haha
good think at Ro Sytem is helping outso much does the res water always drift up a little? It seems mine usually goes down then up is that bad or something
as for the res temp thing I do not know I was kind of wondering the same thing about what is too cold because I know my water is getting pretty chilly too

Click to expand...

The ph in your res is drifting down then up? Weird. Mine has never done that. My RO water starts ~ ph7. After adding nutes (GH Flora), it's ph was at 5.5. It slowly drifts up from there. I changed the res on Saturday, and the ph was just hitting 6.0 last night (Monday night). I'll probably adjust it back down to ~5.5 when they wake up this evening.

Roomie said:

The internet has made it clear that a res temp below 65f might slow plant growth, but I don't see anything on bennies and/or res health. If it were me, I'd definitely work on raising the temp 10 degrees, and hopefully not spend any money doing it.

Click to expand...

I figured that my cold res would, at worst, just slow growth.

Do you have any ideas how to warm the res for little or no $$? I am doing one thing that might help... In the Ebb & Gro, there is always some water left in the bottom of the buckets. I had planned to raise the buckets to minimize this. I was going to just put a piece of 2x4 under them as it is the perfect amount of lift. I decided against it though. My hope is the stagnant water in the black buckets and lines will heat up being in the grow room. Each time the buckets flood, it should be warming up the res a little. This appears to be happening. The res has warmed up to 50something degrees from the 30-40something it started at. I am also running a mix pump and 2 air pumps, so those should also be adding a small amount of warmth to the reservoir. I may never be able to get it to 65 without a heater though. I intentionally made my basement colder. I had sealed it up real well when I started working down there. I was cold and made it more comfortable. I had a problem with controlling temps with the lights on though. The solution was to let the basement return to being cold (a pretty steady 54F) so the exhaust pulled in colder air. My temps now sit around 78-81F. Still a few degrees higher than I wanted, but I may be able to further improve ventilation later. Maybe the slightly higher temps will help offset the coldish roots? My other concern is, will the warmer res raise the temp of the basement? Water has a high specific heat. 50 gallons is a pretty big thermal mass. It's probably nothing compared to the concrete floor and walls, so maybe I'm over-analyzing. Me over-analyze!??! never!!


I had a couple issues with airlocked pumps since my res change. Sunday I realized the fill pump was airlocked, so I suspect the plants missed a couple flood cycles. Yesterday (Monday) I went to check on them and the drain pump was airlocked. I think they had been flooded since Sunday. They didn't look terrible, but they were a little droopy. It reminded me of a soil plant that needed water. It's weird that an over wet hydro plant looks like a dry soil plant. Later the same day, I noticed the drain pump still airlocked. It's working fine now, but I think they may have been flooded for well over 24 hours!

And when you adjust your ph do you just ph some water and top off that's usually what I do. and change the whole res and put new nutes in every week mabey every other week when they are a little smaller and not sucking all the nutes out of the res

Do the ph pens really help a lot I'm using one of those test kits where u put some drops in the water so it's just getting me to a close range of 5.5 to 6.5 I'm thinking of getting a pen so I can see the ppm as well as the ph

My res temps are about 68F and I know it's slowing the growth down a bit, but I have yet to figure out a way to warm the water without making the room too hot. My room temps are ~82F, but since you have a reservoir in a seperate little area, I'd recommend just putting a few appliances that run hot in there and leave em' on. I'll bet they could heat that room up enough to get the water temp up 5-10 degrees.

Hiker said:

Do you have any ideas how to warm the res for little or no $$? I am doing one thing that might help... In the Ebb & Gro, there is always some water left in the bottom of the buckets. I had planned to raise the buckets to minimize this. I was going to just put a piece of 2x4 under them as it is the perfect amount of lift. I decided against it though. My hope is the stagnant water in the black buckets and lines will heat up being in the grow room. Each time the buckets flood, it should be warming up the res a little. This appears to be happening. The res has warmed up to 50something degrees from the 30-40something it started at. I am also running a mix pump and 2 air pumps, so those should also be adding a small amount of warmth to the reservoir. I may never be able to get it to 65 without a heater though. I intentionally made my basement colder. I had sealed it up real well when I started working down there. I was cold and made it more comfortable. I had a problem with controlling temps with the lights on though. The solution was to let the basement return to being cold (a pretty steady 54F) so the exhaust pulled in colder air. My temps now sit around 78-81F. Still a few degrees higher than I wanted, but I may be able to further improve ventilation later. Maybe the slightly higher temps will help offset the coldish roots? My other concern is, will the warmer res raise the temp of the basement? Water has a high specific heat. 50 gallons is a pretty big thermal mass. It's probably nothing compared to the concrete floor and walls, so maybe I'm over-analyzing. Me over-analyze!??! never!!

Click to expand...

I can't tell if your res is separated from the plants/lights or not. What's the room temp directly around the res? Is it sitting on a cold floor? If so, I would put something underneath it. Also, if you added 5-10 gallons of warm water, would the new temp hold or drop back to 55f? If the temp dropped, I would probably trying adding insulation around the res, or possibly stealing a small space heater from work. But you know me, I'm no expert.

I had a couple issues with airlocked pumps since my res change. Sunday I realized the fill pump was airlocked, so I suspect the plants missed a couple flood cycles. Yesterday (Monday) I went to check on them and the drain pump was airlocked. I think they had been flooded since Sunday. They didn't look terrible, but they were a little droopy. It reminded me of a soil plant that needed water. It's weird that an over wet hydro plant looks like a dry soil plant. Later the same day, I noticed the drain pump still airlocked. It's working fine now, but I think they may have been flooded for well over 24 hours!

Click to expand...

At least the plants are okay. They're okay, right?

55 is definitely pretty cold.
Buy an aquarium heater, and throw it in your reservoir on the lowest setting.
Start running H2o2. If your Reservoir temp is that cold, and you are still getting stank tank you may have a problem that will grow with warmer temps.
55 is definitely too cold though.

Peace.
Tav.