Bubblelicious, New York Power Diesel, and Super Skunk in DWC

My pleasure, man - big day tomorrow, getting some solid veg tent work done.

Your grow's looking sick, BTW.

I think pulling the air stones might be very bad. As far as I know, the nutrients will get stagnent and will cause massive root rot. Not to mention with out constant movement all of the nutrients will settle to the bottom. If you were getting alge, the res want light tight. It cannot grow without light. H202 also kills alge, so it wont be a problem soon. You will also get much more water evaporation without the lid. Im just speaking from me personal expieriences, just cause if I did any of that mine would die without question.

Integra21 said:

I think pulling the air stones might be very bad. As far as I know, the nutrients will get stagnent and will cause massive root rot. Not to mention with out constant movement all of the nutrients will settle to the bottom. If you were getting alge, the res want light tight. It cannot grow without light. H202 also kills alge, so it wont be a problem soon. You will also get much more water evaporation without the lid. Im just speaking from me personal expieriences, just cause if I did any of that mine would die without question.

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Yeah, but you're growing in DWC - massive difference.

I have enough water movement (from flooding every two hours) that the nutrients are never stagnant and there's tons and tons of dissolved oxygen in my water.

The evaporation point is a good one and I hadn't taken that into account, but with a big enough reservoir, I think I should be fine.

cool. just about had a heart attack when i read you pulling every thing. first sign plants aren't getting enough oxygen is they will start to droop like they need to be watered. If you see this, I would put the stones back in asap. Is every 2 hours a lot for ebb&flo? I just remember reading somewhere people usually flood the table 2-3 times per day. Just asking for iinformation purposes. Cant wait to see these babys take off. Get em bob, when your wounds heal of course.

Integra21 said:

cool. just about had a heart attack when i read you pulling every thing. first sign plants aren't getting enough oxygen is they will start to droop like they need to be watered. If you see this, I would put the stones back in asap. Is every 2 hours a lot for ebb&flo? I just remember reading somewhere people usually flood the table 2-3 times per day. Just asking for iinformation purposes. Cant wait to see these babys take off. Get em bob, when your wounds heal of course.

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Yeah, every two hours is definitely on the high side for E&F, but that's because of the medium I'm using - it's virtually impossible to overwater.

Hydroton (as we all know) doesn't hold much water, which allows me to flood every two hours (could even go up to every hour if I wanted, and am considering it) - the "primo" time for growth/nute uptake by the plants is when the water has just subsided and the hydroton is still wet, allowing the roots access to all the oxygen they can handle and all the nutes they can handle.

Rockwool, on the other hand, holds a LOT of water and can't be flooded nearly as often, or your plants will be overwatered.

Also, in E&F with hydroton, the dissolved oxygen doesn't come from the reservoir - once the flood has subsided, the plant's roots are in contact with both oxygen and the water/nutes from the flooding (which is the reason that rez temps don't much matter when doing E&F with hydroton) - think of it as a "steam" being produced in the rootzone, similar to a fog machine.

All that being said, the water getting (almost) totally moved every two hours gives me as much if not more DO then I had in my bubblers, IMHO - especially the waterfall action from when the overflow valve drains back into the rez (think of an aquarium filter).

Anyways, wounds are fine, I'm a big boy

Had a good day today (some deliveries and purchases), see pics:

Got this delivered - almost scared to open it, hear that shit will burn my skin.

BEANS CAME!!!! Stoked on that, was getting kinda nervous........thinking this will be the last bean purchase for a while.

Got 4 4' long two tube fixtures, as well as 12 bulbs - T8, because T5 was dummy expensive and I didn't think it was necessary.
Doing some work on that today, but dinner tonight means I won't finish it - thinking by the end of this weekend I should have the lower level (moms and clones) setup, and then I'll just need a stand and tray for the upper level (with the 400) and I'm done.

Thanks for the info. You can never know too much. I originally wanted to do ebb&flo but couldnt with my height restrictions. But as soon as I have a better place, look out.

My pleasure man, but in all honesty, I'm really just regurtitating info from that "ask Lucas" thread on cannabis-world.com.

Anyways, have built my stand and hooked up a light to make sure they work (they do).

So, here's the plan:



This is the stand I build and the reservoir I'm planning on using. The plan right now is to attach a 5x4 piece of 1/2" plywood to the top of the stand, and rest the tent on that (the tent is 4.5x3). I'll cut a hole in the bottom of the tent (and through the plywood) and have the tray plumbing going straight through the bottom to the reservoir, which will be located right where it is in the picture. Going to have all three trays (mamas, clones, and vegging clones) running off of that same reservoir.



Here's a pic of the light on and off - planning on taking the other piece of the plywood (comes in 8x4 sheets, so I'll have a 3x4 piece leftover) and mounting four of these on the bottom of it, and possibly putting that whole "system" on a yo-yo light raiser (have a spare I'm not using).

The fluorescent mamas and cuttings section is going to be on the bottom, and the vegging 400HPS section will be at the top.

So, anyone have any input on any of this, or any recommendations of things I might be forgetting?

Thanks for reading.

EDIT: Obviously going to have to build a stand for the "upper" tray as well, but don't think that'll be too hard - some 2x4s and some nails should do it.

Doesn't make any sense to me this high and when I didn't read it. I just want to see pictures of it done. <3tmsculli

Bob is a busy boy! Looks very good.

The floro bulbs need to be two different temps, don't they? Those two bulbs look identical. Maybe those are the "grow" bulbs? I have never used those. I always went with the cheapo cool and warm bulbs and it always worked well.

You said you were going to mount the floros to some ½" plywood and suspend it all with yo-yos? It seems like that would weigh a ton. Probably okay with 4 yo-yos, but technically, you wouldn't need the full slab of plywood . . . just 2 pieces of 1x4 (whittled up plywood)spanning across the ends to tie everything together. The plywood in the middle doesn't do anything but add weight imo.

Congratulations on building the first "Veg-Majal"

2 different light rating of flourescents can be good. I use half 6500k and half 3000k in my veg. Flowering room is all 3000k. I love the look of the 6500k, way better than 3000k.....

Bob Smith said:

Yeah, I will later on, although my camera ain't that great - basically yellowing, although I found some "browning" on one of them where the new growth should be - did some research, and apparently BL is fairly susceptible to fungal infections, so I went ahead and sprayed my whole veg tent with a fungicide/insecticide/miticide that I got from Wal-Mart (shockingly enough, all organic).

When I sprayed my outdoor veggies with that they loved it, and I'm guessing my indoor veggies will as well - it really seems to be a "cure-all" for whatever ails plants.

Also still battling root rot (from the week of no light), so went ahead and added 50mL of H2O2 to each bucket.

Need to straighten up this pigsty of a house and then pics will be coming.

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i was just rereading through your journel and was wondering what the name of the spray was

pics please mr smith.

well aint that demanding? I guess he said please..... Looking forward to seeing the mother area all setup. Looks like a solid system........

Sorry for the holdup guys, had a pretty busy weekend (not productive, but busy).

Taking these in order:

Smokinggrubber - great call on the weight of the plywood, had totally not taken that into account - that being said, still going to try to use the 3x4 piece and just hang it by chains, as opposed to yo-yos (I think, only time will tell).

Wonder - as far as the lights go, I have 12 4100K bulbs - will buy more if the plants seem lacking, but for the time being probably just going to go with 8 of these. Will keep my eye out and make a change if necessary.

Goofy - here it is - works great, all organic (that being said, bought some SM-90 in case I ever have to battle a "real" pest problem), but this seems to be a good preventative measure and something like a "cure-all" for plants.



Anyhow, my new plan is as follows - going to pull the one male I've found so far (the worst Bubblelicious of the bunch, but four outta 5 ladies ain't bad), and put the four massive Super Skunks in the flowering tent, pulling out and killing the weakest clones to make room where necessary. Gonna top them all (clones and seedlings) today, veg for a couple of days (five-ish), and then flip the switch. Also going to kill my sativa mama (her clones suck, as you'll see).

So, that'll leave just the indica mom in the veg tent for now, and I'll take a few clones off of all the seedlings in a couple of days once I've gotten the cloning tray setup.

So, here's some pics from this morning:



The veg tent is just being overrun right now.



Starting to get a mini jungle feel to the flowering tent as well - the indica clones are ~12" right now, the seedlings are about 24". The sativa clones are anywhere from 1" to 8", give or take, with real weak stems.



Here's the super skunk clone I rooted in the E&F - no roots showing through the bottom of the pot or new growth (that I've realized), but it's certainly rooted and alive.



A good contrast shot (save for the blurriness, for which I apologize) between the indica and sativa clones (indica at 3 o'clock, the sativas are 12, 6, and 9) - the sativas are shorter with weaker stems, less leaves, more inter-nodal spacing - just inferior, in every sense of the word. Getting rid of as many as I can ASAP and killing their worthless mother.



Some seedling shots - they've recovered nicely from whatever it was that had their leaves curling (slightly, but any curling is too much).



Finally, some root shots - I'm honestly not sure if this is a problem or not, but it certainly doesn't appear to be - the plants seem to be doing fine, and the roots don't seem to mind being out of the pots at all.

So, that's it for now, will try to post some more pics later when I've (hopefully) transplanted the super skunks and topped all the plants in the flowering tent.

Comments, questions, criticisms always welcome - thanks for reading

Looking fantastic! I don't think the roots are too much of a problem unless you need to move the pots. They probably don't don't like getting their toes stepped on. They won't flourish out there in the light, but it won't kill the plants either.

Looks gooooood

Thanks man; like the setup work you've been doing - it's coming together quite nicely.

Somewhat curious as to what people's thoughts were regarding the topping I'm going to do today - I'm trying to get an even canopy and flower at about 12", which is going to be pretty tricky with the BL and NYPD seedlings about 2' tall and the super skunk about 2.5 - 3.

Think I might just bite the bullet, top all the seedlings down to 12", and flower immediately - anyone have any thoughts on that? Or, thinking maybe top down to 10", let them grow about two inches (a day or two), and then flip the switch, after they've recovered from the shock.

Or, just let the seedlings be taller then the clones, and have them on one side of the tent and the clones on the other (two separate canopies, in a way) - even then the seedlings need to come down to about 12 - 15" max before flower because of height restrictions.

Anyone have any suggestions? FYI, the secondary branches on many of the seedlings are fairly tall as well, so I'd most likely have to top to produce four main colas................hmmmmmmmmm...........talking myself through it via this post, I think it makes the most sense to top the seedlings a little bit, but be content with two canopies..................

Yeah I'd go with two canopies. Tall ladies on the perimeter and little girls in the middle. If you know what to expect from the strain, how tall will the colas get? If you've already got height concerns, you should top them asap. If you top them at all, you've still got to allow time for recovery before flowering right?

I'd like to, but not sure it's 100% necessary.

And I'm not very sure at all about height and things of that nature; I guess I could look on the Nirvana website.

I think I'm gonna top them all today, give them two days of healing, and then start 12/12 on the 25th.

Or maybe I won't need to top, need to take another look at the height restrictions and all that goodness.

Well, if you top them and only allow a few days recovery that will limit the size of the top colas. That will certainly help your height problem.

How much overall height do you have in your flower setup?

smokingrubber said:

Well, if you top them and only allow a few days recovery that will limit the size of the top colas. That will certainly help your height problem.

How much overall height do you have in your flower setup?

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I have about 38" from the bottom of the light to the top of the pots, so I could safely let the plants get to about 26" (even a LITTLE higher) without too much problem.

Gonna take some real deal measurements today and crunch some numbers - my issue is that I'm really only looking for top-ish colas, but I guess that just might not be an option for this run (although it certainly will be with the clones).

EDIT: I do have the Bubblelicious male to practice on, so I'm going to go violate him and see how he looks/reacts.