First Grow Ever: HSO Blue Dream in DWC

The Average White Grower said:

Thanks for subscribing... About the HSO Blue Dream... I'm having a hard time finding a sativa-dominant pheno here on RIU, other sites, and U-tube... Everything I've seen (including my own grow) looks like straight up indica... I would never guess that either plant has a super silver haze mother... I'm not complaining... Just not what I expected. Hopefully these ladies produce indica-like yields, but smoke like sativas!

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We are working the buddha's dream by sin city because it was a blue dream cross. Heard is is on par with the blue dream but we'll see.

I read on riu here that the haze is a Santa Cruz local's haze that he introduce DJ shorts blueberry genetics into mix. I also heard super silver haze as well, but the local legend is the Santa Cruz blue dream is the original and it was a haze some guy was working in santa cruz.

I don't know but I do know it is bomb smoke and you made a good choice in picking it for a first grow. Good luck man I'll be checking her out.

Ok... I had a long day and almost decided to hit the sack before checking in on the lovelies... I'm glad I didn't...

My reservoirs were a bit depleted. I probably could have went another day before changing them out, but since I was there...

I scrubbed out the buckets real good... Not taking any chances. Cleaned out the air stones real good too. I put back 3 gallons of tap water in each bucket... then added full strength nutes. I doubt you can see it in the photos, but I have some new growth with yellow tips (in the style of nitrogen deficiency)... My plants were telling me they're hungry... So I obliged them. They're ready...

So I took the measuring tape down tonight too... Almost exactly 11" for each plant... I've decided I'm going to let them get to 14" before flipping the light cycle... I figure that's probably about a week. Maybe less now that they're taking more food. We'll see...

You can't open the tent anymore without almost getting knocked down by the odor... Not a hint of it outside the tent. Kudos to phresh filters They smell very "green" right now.. Can't wait to see what the buds smell like...

Here's the pics for the night...



Ok... so assuming I get the 3" additional growth I'm looking for... I'll be flowering starting next weekend... I'm using the GH Flora-series nutrients at label-recommended levels... When I switch over to flowering... should I use an additive? If so, which one(s)? I'm also reading about adding molasses? If I'm going to flower, I'll want to pick those up from the local hydro store this week... Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

G'nite, RIU!

lookin good. How old are they?

No need for additives honestly. I've ran GH for a while now and does a fine job just as the three part. The most I add is liquid cool bloom and sometimes florablend or floralicious but I really don't see much of a difference when I do. Maybe a little better resin production but I can't say 100% that it is the additives though. Also use a little cal-mag during flower too.

My only suggestion is get a ppm tester and shoot for 800-1000 ppms. The directions on the bottle when mixed for bloom (5ml part grow,10ml part micro, 15ml parts bloom) in tap water which is 300 ppms comes out to be like 1600-1700 ppms, so the mix ends up being 1300 ppm range which is a little high. If no ppm meter(tester) then I would suggest lowering the dosage to 2.5 ml grow, 7ml micro, 10ml bloom or somewhere in that range.

You can follw the bottle direction too, I did for years but found plants to be healthier with a lower nute solution.

Looking good man, cheers.

I have the Nutradip Trimeter... I'll keep your suggestion in mind when I flip the lights... Thank you.

24 hours at full-strength... No burn. PH rose from 5.8 to 6.3 in both plants... TDS PPM readings are down, and water volume is down about 1/2 gallon per bucket... I wasn't expecting that. They way they're feeding, I'll be adding back a gallon of full-strength nutes every other day until they hit the 14" I am looking for, which shouldn't take long. I'll keep them in veg until the next weekend after they hit 14".



Things are looking good... I'll keep posting pics tho

There beautiful nice and bushy. How tall are they right now?

So I'm 48 hours into new strength (full strength) nutrients... I don't see any signs of nute burn. Like I predicted, each plant is sucking down about a half-gallon per day. I added back a gallon per bucket tonight. I also took the tape measure back in with me... See the pics posted. I have like 2" of new vertical growth today... I've done some very basic LST on either plant... They're plenty bushy anyhow... I'm excited to get the HPS bulb back in the ballast and get these bitches into flowering. I THINK I'm seeing some preflowering, but I don't know... I'm not worried about it... These ladies will give up the bud.

Before I do though... It's time to take a clipping or three because I definitely like the way these girls grow... Again... It's bonzai for the mommy

Nice the flowers are gonna be beautiful! You said that was blue dream right? For a heavy sativa its very bushy I like it. Very nicely done sir.

It looks like his two blue dreams phenos are leaning more indica. The blue dream clone only has thin sativa looking leaves from leaning heavy on its haze parent. These ones look like they're leaning more to the blueberry side.
Should be nice and fruity.

They're growing 1.5 - 2.5 inches per day. Both plants are now about 15... AFTER supercropping them again last night, lol... Without that, they're probably both almost 18" tall... I'm not going to stop them either... until Saturday night when I rez change and replace the MH bulb for the HPS one and add the 12/12 timer.

Like I said, I supercropped last night... or I should say I tried to supercrop last night. I beat the shit out of these girls... I checked them a few minutes ago and almost everything stood back up... And I mean I beat the shit out of them. I can't believe how hearty these plants are... I can see the preflower pistils now... Obviously both are female... Even the thinnest stems on this plant are thicker than a #2 pencil... When I bend them over, they crack to the point where I'm afraid I just ruined a node... But then a few hours later, they're growing like nothing happened... It's my first grow... I'm still learning... Next time, I'll bend these bitches over way earlier...

I need to start wearing gloves when I handle these plants too... They leave their scent on my hands... And it's really really strong!! My guess is that the buds will be superb.

So here's the plants before and after supercropping... You can see how rough I was... When I do my update again later tonight, I'll post more pics... You'll be able to see how fast they recover.

Be careful you have enough room height wise because those girls are going to skyrocket on you in flip. If they're 18" when you put in 12/12 those bad girls are going to be close to 36" in two weex, and finish close to 4ft tall if you let them go wild. And if you think they stink now.... Just wait till they're heavy into budding! Good growing.

Welp... there are journal entries, and then there are journal entries... This is the latter.

I was walking through the local hardware store yesterday and I saw these neat 10 gallon Brute trash cans. It made me start thinking about the 5 gallon buckets I have my girls in. I can get 3 gallons of water per bucket and the plants were taking nearly a full gallon per day. Not only was it getting to be a bear keeping the buckets full... The chemistry was getting tricky adding nutes 5-6 times per week...

So I decided to get some bigger reservoirs. I went to Lowes to with a recirculating DWC system in mind, but when I got there, I realized I hadn't done my homework well enough, lol. So instead of a RDWC upgrade, I just stuck with separate DWC reservoirs, but instead of 5 gallon buckets... Instead of the 10 gallon Brute buckets I spied with my little eye, a 14 gallon Rubbermaid tote at the modest price of $8 with lid. I grabbed two and headed off to the plumbing section where I grabbed some 1/2" tubing, a few grommets, and two 90 degree tubing elbows so I could build a level indicator on each tote. I have 6" net pots which will be a perfect fit for these totes when this grow is over, so when I cut the lids, I cut them for the new net pots... So here are my DWC reservoirs (well one anyway):



The math is

$8 tote
$1.25 6" net pot
$5 air stone
$0.50 1/4" air tubing
$1.00 1/2" tubing
$0.75 grommet
$1.00 elbo

Grand Total: $17.50... Just add water!

To keep the proper air zone between pot and water, I fill to about 6 gallons. And while I'd rather have a fitting net pot, I'll do fine with the 5 gallon net pot lid sitting down in the hole for the rest of this grow...

The other benefit these totes offer me is that they are shorter than the 5 gallon buckets. This is good for two reasons:

1. My canopy sits lower...
2. The plants still take up the nute solution at the same rate, but the water height goes down more slowly, so I don't have to add back nutes as often... I had been doing it daily to keep up with their eating habits... I should be able to go 2-3 days now.

Here's what the girls look like in their new homes



I think they look good... Oh yea... I forgot to tell you... I swapped out the MH for the HPS bulb... added my 12/12 timer, and switched to bloom nutes...

So let the countdown begin! I'm a tad nervous. First, this is my first ever flowering cycle... I've never brought a plant this far before... I'm in completely uncharted territory. Second, the GH bottles call for a transition from veg to bloom which is

2 tsp/gal FloraGrow
2 tsp/gal FloraMicro
2 tsp/gal FloraBloom

which is twice what I've been feeding them. My tap water runs at ph 8.0 and 200 ppm. Adding the nutes at the recommended transition strength brings my TDS level to 1650-1700 ppm (1450-1500 ppm excluding the 200 from the tap). That's freaking me out!

Wish me luck... Give me advice... Smite me... It doesn't matter... I love how awesome your feedback has been.

Until tomorrow night!

A few words of advice about the gloves... USE THEM... at least in late flowering or when harvesting. I got busted (arrested) on that mistake.

Your new res set up looks just like one I used for several grows. You might still have to battle ph swings and when those girls are in late flower they will be drinking 1+ gallons per day.

Start flowering. If I remember you are using a 400w? and those things are going to stretch quite a bit. The light will not be as effective too far away.

Still looks great. kepp rolling

blackstoneinstitute said:

A few words of advice about the gloves... USE THEM... at least in late flowering or when harvesting. I got busted (arrested) on that mistake.

Your new res set up looks just like one I used for several grows. You might still have to battle ph swings and when those girls are in late flower they will be drinking 1+ gallons per day.

Start flowering. If I remember you are using a 400w? and those things are going to stretch quite a bit. The light will not be as effective too far away.

Still looks great. kepp rolling

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600w of HPS, sir! And I have box of latex gloves in the tent

You might want to add your nutes up for 5 gallons at 2-2-2 and then add an extra gallon or two of plain water after that so it will drop your ppm's. The 1000-1200 range should be fine.

Nute companies always suggest to much nutes so you use them up faster and have to buy more.

Those Rubbermaid totes are going to lead to problems...

First, because of their flimsy material - they are going to bend and warp due to being exposed to light for 12 hours per day. Those totes can't compare to the material that the buckets are made of.

Also, the light is going to penetrate into your reservoir, you might want to consider wrapping the totes in mylar or some other reflective material just to be safe.

Also, you will now need to really start monitoring your water temperature - The totes aren't going to be able to keep the heat out. You want to keep your water temps below 60°f in your reservoir. If you get above 60°f then you need to worry about bacteria build up, lack of oxygen, and root rot. You might want to drop an icepack into their reservoir everyday to keep the temps down, or consider investing in a reservoir chiller.

I really hope I'm wrong about these bad things happening to you, And you're doing a great job so far - but I'll keep an eye on this journal just in case you need some advice. Best of luck to you!

Rubbermaid totes aren't the best but I think OP will be fine. And they don't need to be wrapped to block light, or at least mine have been cool in the past. Though I now use the brand Sterile which are a little bit more sturdy but I have used rubbermaids in the past and as long as you're not handling them a lot they should be fine. Though they are flimsy and they will get worse with light exposure, as above stated.

There are better containers like for tool storage at home improvement stores that are black solid and only like 20-30 dollars but are heavy duty, but I use similar containers for dwc and no issues with light in the reservoir or water temp which are optimal at 66-68 degrees f.

To address the concerns first:

I think I said Rubbermaid in the same sense as "Hey can you hand me a kleenex?", where Kleenex could be a Puffs... The brand of tote I have here is called Centrex. The 6 gallons I have in reservoir fills it about half way without any warping at all. If I see it starting to buckle or bow, I'll put some bands around it sort of like a barrel has. I've done this in the past when building live wells for keeping my fishing bait alive... It's worked well.

Second, they're constructed of light-proof plastic. I checked them in the store first, and made sure when I got home... I held the bucket up to the ceiling over a 100w light bulb. Nothing. Same with the lid.

As for the reservoir temps... I'm a bit above 60 deg... but I have no signs of bacteria or algae. I know the water temp affects the ability of the water to hold oxygen, but I've not had problems here either. In fact, I just got back from the pet store... I added a second air pump and two 5" air stone discs to my set up, so each has 2 stones now because you can't have enough bubbles in a DWC!

I'm building a RDWC for my next grow, with a sturdy control reservoir and I'll go back to the buckets I guess... I just want to get through this grow without major issues.

I'm pretty active on this journal... If I run into problems, you all will be the first to know.

Thank you so much for your help. Like you, I hope I don't run into the problems you mentioned...

Onto the daily update:

Not much to tell tonight except that I successfully set up my timer

Here's a token pic of the now-flowering plants:



And here's another pic I took tonight:



Just because some things are too beautiful to keep to yourself...

Until tomorrow!

I've used the rubbermaid and sterilite tubs with no warping issues... knock wood. Light penetration was a slight issue so I wrapped the lid with aluminum foil. Water temp was was an issue but that is the case with any DWC without good ventilation. At a certain time when I did not have good ventilation I wrapped the tubs in blanket fiberglass insulation. Looked pretty funny but helped. I also employed the frozen 2l bottles, rotating them every few hours when needed. Never had root issues...knock wood. Aquashield is a good product to help protect the roots in less than ideal conditions.