LUCAS FORMULA - Hydroponic Grow Journal

Update time:

PH: 5.6
PPM: 780
Res TEMP: 67
Air TEMP: 76
LIGHT: 1k MH

OK, my plants have taken off nicely. As reported earlier, I am using the Technaflora kit that came with my Ebb and Grow for vegetative. I refilled my reservoir two days ago and in the middle of adding back fertilizer, ran out of the 'boost' part which supplies nitrogen for vegetative. My PPM was at about 270, so what I did was bring it back up to 750 by including some of my GH flora clone micro and Bloom at 1:1 ratio. I am now running two brands at once, the plants seem to love it.

I pay 20$ a gallon for the GH clone that I get at a local hydroponic shop. I went in a couple of weeks ago to resupply and there were a bunch of strange people there sitting around. As soon as I walked in they started trying to get me to admit that I grow marijuana, and for me to sell it to them. I informed them that I am a legal medical grower and I do not sell what I grow, and if I grow over what I am allowed by law I donate it to my dispensary.

Upon hearing this they all seemed dissapointed. Obvoiusly it was some sort of sting setup. The owners of the place must have gotten busted and let the cops use their store to entrap people. I am legal, and I could still buy stuff there if I chose, but I wont be going back. Once this generic Flora clone is all used up, I start buying the real GH flora stuff.

Here are some pictures:
GH flora clone that I use, payed 15$ a gallon for years, recently they raised price to 20$, still a bargain

My plants have started growing nicely and are beginning to fill out the pots.

My retarted mutant has succumbed to the magic of hydroponics and is rapidly putting out new healthy growth.

Well, it has been two weeks since the clones went into the system. The first week all I did was idle them at low PPM. This last week I have cranked the ferts up.

PPM: 700
Solution temp: 67
PH: 5.6
Air temp: 78

My Skunk #11's are the most robust of the plants, putting out very stout side branches and they are all growing relatively even sized. The AK47s are just about the same size as the skunks but my retarded clone is among that group. My Dynamites are hands down the bushiest and will have a lot of buds on them.

The size of the plants is pretty even throughout the clones. This is attributed to letting them spread roots before turning up the nutrients. The amount of growth above ground is proportional to the size of the root system below ground.

By tomorrow many of the clones will be close to the width of the pots. Not bad considering they were an inch high and 2 inches wide a week ago. They have a very tight distance between the internodes which makes me quite pleased. I want to bend them as little as necessary. It is looking like it will be about ten more days before I can flip them. When they fill the room about 2/3 full, I will turn them over.

Since I refilled my res four days ago, the PH has not moved from 5.7. The PPM has remained just about the same every day too. This is nice, really havent had to do anything at all but check on them once a day or so. When everything is going perfect it can be almost boring, just taking their vitals every day.

I added about five gallons of water tonight and one tablespoon of micro, This knocked the PPM from about 780 down to 700. I will see how they react to that. This brought the PH up to 5.9 so I knocked it back down to 5.6.

Here are some updated pictures:

Update time. It has been six days since my last update. The clones are now growing full blast. In the last six days they have quadrupled in size.

My nutrients are a little unorthodox. I went out and bought a quart of GH flora 'Grow' and am using it with the Grow part from the BC kit. The plants seem to love this combination.

I have begun giving them one tablespoon per day of H2o2 35%. I am doing this to help oxygenate the solution a bit better. The plants really took off when I started doing this. When plants are small you really have to be careful with hydrogen peroxide because they burn very easily. It is best to err on the side of caution.

Here are some stats:

PH: 5.7
PPM: 805
Water temp: 66
Room temp: 73
Humidity: 55%
Days in system: 20

I have suffered no bumps in the road this grow, everything is going very smoothly. With the speed that the plants are growing now, It looks like I might be able to flip them in about 5 or 6 days.

I have my reservoir outside the grow room in an unheated area. This should knock my water temperature down to the 50s - low 60s come late October. That is one nice thing about this ebb and grow, the ability to have the reservoir far from the growroom.

Here are some pictures, as you can see they are growing quite agressively now.

Im going to flip them tonight. I just changed out the reservoir to Lucas formula. I took out my MH bulb and switched to HPS. I also added two more 1000 watt HPS. I will go and get some more AA batteries tonight and take some more pictures. Everything is going smooth sailing.

Heat control will be an adventure. Just in time though, starting to cool off considerabally outside.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

I am running the lucas in my SOG and so far so good!

GreenThumbSucker said:

Im going to flip them tonight. I just changed out the reservoir to Lucas formula. I took out my MH bulb and switched to HPS. I also added two more 1000 watt HPS. I will go and get some more AA batteries tonight and take some more pictures. Everything is going smooth sailing.

Heat control will be an adventure. Just in time though, starting to cool off considerabally outside.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

Click to expand...

Days flowering: 3
Room Temp: 80
Solution Temp: 60
Lighting: 3 x 1k
PPM: 1280
PH: 5.7

I am changing out my reservoir every 5-7 days. The ebb and grow has a 55 gallon reservoir that I am running at about 30 gallons. The PPM is rising very slowly, about 15 ppm per day. This tells me that the plants are using roughly the same amount of water as fertilizer. This is what I normally see when using the Lucas Formula.


I am now three days into flowering. The room is very bright with 3 x 1000w HPS.

Will take a few more pictures tomorrow then post them. The wife was smelling them upstairs at about 2 AM, so I will get some more ona blocks for smell. I have one going in the room now but will use as many as it takes to manage the odor.

I have a 465 CFM exaust fan running up in on corner with only one intake hole on the opposite bottom side of the growroom. This seems to keep the room cool enough. The room is holding at about 80 degrees. The air outside the room (where I'm drawing it from) is about 60 degrees. I have an oscillating fan with the base removed hanging upside down from the ceiling from a bungee cord. It twists and turns somewhat randomly and does a good job of keeping the air stirred up. I have two Honeywell turbo fans on the floor blowing between the plants.

My reservoir solution is getting cold. I have a floating thermometer and the solution temperature is right at 60 degrees. Once the temps get down into the 30s and 40s the temp in my res should start to hold steady in the low 50s.

I intentionally put the reservoir outside the growroom so it would get cold. Cold water holds a lot more oxygen than warmer water. The plants will love the cold solution and it will reflect this in the bud development.

Everything looks real nice cant wait to see them start packing on the weight...I do have one suggestion I think its time to step up the odor control to carbon filter or an ozone generator

This is looking great so far man, glad to hear its been so smooth.

Its cool to watch someone with the ebb and grow system because i was looking at it for myself. Was comparing that and the multi-flow. You have any probs with that system?

Keep up the good work man! If you run into more heat problems just gota upgrade to a bigger fan, 465cfm seems pretty small for that size of room and you have plenty of cool air for intake, but for now.."if it aint broken..."

wowtestdrive said:

If you run into more heat problems just gota upgrade to a bigger fan, 465cfm seems pretty small for that size of room and you have plenty of cool air for intake, but for now.."if it aint broken..."

Click to expand...

I actually have a second 265 CFM exaust fan already installed in the room. If it gets hotter than 85 degrees, which I anticipate it will once they really get huge, I will turn it on too.

PICTURE UPDATE

Ok, here are the pictures I promised. The plants are now five days into bloom and are 4 times bigger than the last pictures ten days ago. The room is almost filled completely. I will have to be clever in how I arrange the plants in the room so they don't crowd too much.

I am keeping the lamps higher than I normally do and the plants along the walls seem to respond better. Previous crops when the lights were as low as possible, the middle plants got way bigger than ones along the sides. THis time I have the lights about 20 - 24 inches over the plants and growth is a lot more even. Getting more reflected light off the mylar also which helps the plants along the sides.

These plants are growing way faster than I expected. I am adding one tablespoon of H2O2 every night for extra oxygen in the solution. Last night the solution temperature was 59 degrees which to me is awesome.

Here are some pictures from last night.

wowtestdrive said:

Its cool to watch someone with the ebb and grow system because i was looking at it for myself. Was comparing that and the multi-flow. You have any probs with that system?.

Click to expand...

The Ebb and Grow is a very forgiving system to use. With the size of the reservoir the PPM and PH move very slowly from day to day so the system doesnt have to be micromanaged as much as the system I used previously.

One thing, when you lay out the hoses going from bucket to bucket, make sure to add a lot of slack. If you measure the hoses exact length, they kink easily when you move the buckets around. This crop I have about a foot or more of extra hose between buckets and they bend a lot better without kinking. The system comes with a lot of extra hose. My friend is starting to use kink proof garden hose on his system, waiting to see what kind of results he has with that.

The barrel reservoir is connected to the controller by two 1/2 inch hoses. If you have extra hose which you can buy at any hydroponic outlet, you can have the reservoir and controller as far from the room as you want. This is awesome, they can be in a completely different area sealed off from the plants. This allows you to check PH and PPM, add nutes, clean out the system, etc. while the lights are off. You can also place the reservoir barrel in a colder area thus keeping your solution nice and cool.

The system is very easy to keep clean. I have an extra pump which I use to empty the ebb and grow. I have some clear plastic hose which I connect to the pump and run to a sink on the other end of the basement. I put the pump into the barrel and turn it on and pump it out which takes about 20 minutes.

When it gets down to the bottom, I turn the pump off and scour the sides and bottom of the barrel with a scrubber sponge and some hydrogen peroxide in water. I then fill the system up about half way and run a flood cycle to rinse out the pots and hydroton. I then pump that water out, and finally refill it and add nutes. This whole process takes about 40 minutes once a week, piece of cake!

One problem I had on the last crop was that I was filling the barrel completely and changing it out every two weeks. A couple of times, right at the last day or two, I would have nutrient deficiencies start showing up. For this reason I started changing the solution every 5-7 days instead of every couple weeks and the growth rate is much better this time.

Because I change out the solution often, I only fill the reservoir up half way. The last few days I let the level in the reservoir get somewhat low. This way when I toss the solution, I'm only tossing out 20 - 25 gallons every week.

I have a garden hose running to a faucet on the other side of the basement. I use this to fill or top off the reservoir, that way Im not carrying water across the basement.

Hope that all helps!!

Questions? Suggestions? Comments?

Wow very detailed post about the Ebb and Grow, think you sold me on it. Thanks man

Instead of keeping the lights higher up have you considered rearranging the buckets around to help keep growth even? Or is it too much of a pain when they are substantial size? Maybe you can get the wifie to help haha .

GreenThumbSucker said:

I am adding one tablespoon of H2O2 every night for extra oxygen in the solution.

Click to expand...

You just add the tbsp to the 25 gallons or so left in the rez?

Happy growing, Subscribed!

wowtestdrive said:

You just add the tbsp to the 25 gallons or so left in the rez?

Click to expand...

Yes, one tablespoon per day is enough to add extra oxygen to the solution but not enough to burn the plants. This is 35% horticultural or food grade hydrogen peroxide. The hydrogen peroxide dissipates over about 24 hours. It is best to err on the side of caution with H2O2, too much can burn them. Small plants can handle very little H2O2. I have noticed that when I use H2O2 daily, they use up to 30% - 50% more solution.

GreenThumbSucker said:

Yes, one tablespoon per day is enough to add extra oxygen to the solution but not enough to burn the plants. This is 35% horticultural or food grade hydrogen peroxide. The hydrogen peroxide dissipates over about 24 hours. It is best to err on the side of caution with H2O2, too much can burn them. Small plants can handle very little H2O2. I have noticed that when I use H2O2 daily, they use up to 30% - 50% more solution.

Click to expand...

I use H2O2 also and I have seen many benefits from it... The main thing I see is that my res stays cleaner and I have to clean it less... The plants seem to love it too... You just have to be careful and make sure to wash your hands afterward because that shit will burn you!

MonsterRobot said:

I use H2O2 also and I have seen many benefits from it... The main thing I see is that my res stays cleaner and I have to clean it less... The plants seem to love it too... You just have to be careful and make sure to wash your hands afterward because that shit will burn you!

Click to expand...

Yeah, if your not careful, you feel it about five minutes later! Handle with caution!

THE LUCAS FORMULA EXPLAINED

For those who are thinking, 'WTF is the Lucas Formula?'.

(From GrassCity)

General Hydroponics Flora Series Feeding Strategy - Lucas Formula

G-M-B (Grow-Micro-Bloom)
0-5-10 - For Vegetative cycle (18/6)
0-8-16 - For Flowering cycle (12/12)

The numbers above indicate the number of milliliters (ml) of Flora Grow, Micro or Bloom formulas that I use in one gallon (US Liquid) of nutrients.

You will notice I dont use any of the Flora “Grow” formula, do not need to, the Flora "Micro" provides plenty of Nitrogen.

There are two ways to work with this formula:

1. Top off the reservoir daily using a pH corrected water solution as required to maintain full reservoir level. After adding back an amount of water equal to the amount of your reservoir capacity you should change the reservoir and put in fresh solution.

2. Top off the reservoir daily using a pH corrected 100% strength nutrient solution as required to maintain full reservoir level. Continue to use this nutrient solution without dumping the tank unless the PPM rises above acceptable levels.

Between vegetative and flowering cycles you should dump your nutrients, then flush (possibly with Clearex) to remove salt buildups, then change to the other feeding program. Always shake your GH nutrient bottles before using them!

For young plants, just transplanted into the hydro setup, give them 50% strength nutrient mix to prevent overfeeding them while their young. Gradually bring up the mix to full strength as they grow over the next few weeks or so.

The lucas formula is normally intended for use with RO or near 0 PPM water.

NOTE: The Lucas formula eliminates the need for Epsom salts to correct (Magnesium) Mg deficiencies in most normal feeding programs recommended by manufacturers. Cannabis needs a lot of Magnesium to thrive.

The Flora Micro is providing the Nitrogen and the Magnesium in the proper balance, thus there is no need for the Grow formula and little or no room under the maximum acceptable ppm limit of 1600 @ 0.7 conversion.

Calculated EC/TDS levels:

EC microsiemen:
0-4-8: 946 µS
0-5-10: 1184 µS
0-8-16: 1894 µS

TDS @ 0.5 conversion:
0-4-8 = 473 ppm
0-5-10 = 592 ppm
0-8-16 = 947 ppm

TDS @ 0.7 conversion:
0-4-8 = 663 ppm
0-5-10 = 829 ppm
0-8-16 = 1326 ppm

Addback Calculator - (For Advanced Users)

Say you were running the 0-8-16 formula, at 0.7 conversion with a 22 gallon res. When you first fill it up, your ppm will be around 1330.

Now you have been growing for a week, and some of the water has been taken up by the plants, some has evaporated, and now your res is at 947 ppm. You need to get your ppm from 947 to 1330. Here is the equation:

((target - current) / target) * 8 ml per gallon * res gallons = Flora Micro (ml) double this figure to get Flora Bloom (ml)

Example:

((1330 - 947) / 1330) * 8 * 22
(383 / 1330) * 8 * 22
0.3 * 8 * 22 = 53 ml Flora Micro

53 ml Flora Micro, double that and you get 106 ml Flora Bloom. So 53 ml Flora Micro and 106 ml Flora Bloom to add back to your 22 gallon res to get you from 947 to 1330.

Complicated? Not really. Here is a simplification.

The Lucas Formula uses the General Hydroponics Flora series WITHOUT the Grow part of the three part formula. Only the Micro and Bloom parts are used.

The formula can be simplified as thus: If you are using HID lighting (HPS or MH) the GH micro is used at this ratio:

1:2 that is one part Micro to two parts Bloom.

This ratio is used at 1300 PPM throughout the whole grow. The PPM can drift anywhere between 1150 PPM and 1400 PPM and still be acceptable. When you top off your reservoir, always aim for about 1300 PPM. Keep zeroing in on that number.

From my experience the PPM stays remarkably stable. When I fill my reservoir, I set the PPM to be about 1250 because it usually drifts upward somewhat. Over a 3 day period it drifts to about 1325 without topping off. The Lucas also keeps your PH very stable. I tend to micromanage my PH so whenever it hits 5.8 I will knock it back down to 5.5ish. The extra Magnesium in the Micro makes it unnecessary to use CalMag during flowering. The lucas formula is cheap, simple, elegant, and it stabilizes the PPM and PH.

Here is the original 'Ask Lucas' thread which has an exhaustive question and answer session with the originator of the formula, this is a very good source of info wether you are using the Lucas Formula or not.

http://www.cannabis-world.org/cw/showthread.php?t=892

Questions, Comments, Suggestions?

Heh yeah I had to look up what that was the other day. How do you think that compares to the technaflora nutes (assuming you use all of the nutes included in their recipe for success)?

wowtestdrive said:

Heh yeah I had to look up what that was the other day. How do you think that compares to the technaflora nutes (assuming you use all of the nutes included in their recipe for success)?

Click to expand...

I used the technaflora kit that came with the ebb and grow just because I was cheap and didn't want it to go to waste. The vegetative growth I got out of the kit seemed fine to me. I ran out of the Boost part of the technaflora kit really quick but realized that it was basically the same as the Grow part of the GH flora three part, so I substituted Grow and had good results.

One difference I noticed using the GH grow with the TechnaFlora grow was that it stabilized the PH like nothing I've ever seen before. It stayed at a perfect 5.7 for four days without adding PH down.

I didn't use about 3/4 of the recipe kit, most of it is garbage, in my opinion. Many hydroponic companies want you to use 6 or 8 different products, most of which are unproven and not fertilizer.

The only supplements that I use are B1 for reducing transplant shock and Hydrogen Peroxide for cleaning and adding oxygen.

Update:

Been a few days since last update.

PPM: 1300
PH: 5.6
Solution temp: 63
Room temp: 78
Days since flower: 10

Well, I am enjoying some very even growth. My plants have pretty much tripled in size since I flipped them. The room is packed to the gills but each plant has a nice space of its own. From what I see this is going to be a huge crop.

My reservoir is cold. Solution temp has been right around 60 degrees since I flipped them. We are in a bit of a warm spell now so is in low 60s. Will be in the 50s soon and I expect hyper growth because colder water holds more oxygen. Had an extremely cold reservoir last winter on my first hydroponic crop and had some extreme results. Expecting same this time out.

Here are some pictures. The one showing the hand is the little runt that was miles behind all the others. It is now about the same height but not quite as big around, but it is still very nice. The second picture is a Dynamite, about average size for most of my plants:

Things are looking awesome! I just flipped mine into flowering and I hope to see some big growth like that too...

Do you do any kind of topping or fimming to your plants or do you just let them grow naturally?