Al B. FAQt

[Al B. Fuct]

So Al, this made me think of a question. When should lollipoping be done? first into flower or within the first 3weeks? I know you put rooted clones right to flower (so you may not have to lollipop?). I let mine sit a few weeks as I have smaller moms and thus smaller cuttings.

Since the plant continues a tapering vegetative habit in wk1-4 of flowering (while flowering habit waxes), it will continue to throw out branches for that period, which is why I trim off branching in wk 1 and again in wk 3.

 

[SomeGuy]

Since the plant continues a tapering vegetative habit in wk1-4 of flowering (while flowering habit waxes), it will continue to throw out branches for that period, which is why I trim off branching in wk 1 and again in wk 3.

Sweet, thanks Al.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

no worries SG

The SoG method is a little counterintuitive at first. When I was first learning the technique, it was the hardest thing for me to strip the little beggars of branching. However, when the first harvests started coming through, it was such a blessing not to have to manicure a bunch of popcorn fluff produced on thin, shaded lower branches. Avg bud size and density go way up when you take the little stuff out of the equation. Air circ is much improved absent the unnecessary branching.

 

[Al B. Fuct]

What should i do to stop my stretching then?

It just occurred to me that I have also seen stretch caused by overwatering, notably in very small seedlings. Larger plants which are overwatered don't usually do that; they tend to get root damage which prevents uptake, causing slow growth or a rather wilty appearance.

Please remind me what your media type and watering system are and what your watering schedule presently is.

 

[NorCalBlunts]

Hey Al, when i search for specific pruning i can't seem to decipher if you mean any branch longer than one inch all the way up the plant or just anything over 1 inch in the bottom 1/3? would you mind specifying?

 

[firsttimegroww]

Thanks Albf
Im using claypellets the hydrotonrocks, watering every 3 hours during lights on and once during lights off. so 4x during lights on. total of 5x a day. Hopefully the raise in ppm will stop the stretch. thanks albf!

 

[smartsoverambition]

I tend to cull 'loser' plants, but I have 23 per crop and can afford to kill a few duds. I don't like manicuring stunted plants; they have just as many bud leaves to trim as the more productive plants but may only yield a fraction of the usual weight.

No slackers allowed in the flowering space, other plants will make better use of the nutes & light. I'm ruthless. I absolutely won't tolerate a waste of food, light- and my time doing the hated manicuring task...

wow u are one cold blooded mutha fucka lol

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Hey Al, when i search for specific pruning i can't seem to decipher if you mean any branch longer than one inch all the way up the plant or just anything over 1 inch in the bottom 1/3? would you mind specifying?

anything over 1 inch in the bottom 1/3.

Thanks Albf
Im using claypellets the hydrotonrocks, watering every 3 hours during lights on and once during lights off. so 4x during lights on. total of 5x a day. Hopefully the raise in ppm will stop the stretch. thanks albf!

No worries. Eliminate the dark period watering. Transpiration stops in lights off and the water will just sit there in the rootmass. Can cause root rot probs.

wow u are one cold blooded mutha fucka lol

Y'all don't know the half of it. You don't want to be a teenager who won't mow lawns or pick up after themself anywhere near me.

 

[an11dy9]

Hey Al, i was wondering if theres a rule for how big of en exhaust fan you should use in your grow room. For example if you room is say 480 cf should you use a 480 cfm exhaust fan? Or is there a rule of say exchange your grow rooms air once every 3 minutes making a 160 cfm fan efficient for a 480 cf grow room? Also you said in a previous post the your exhaust fan should be bigger than your intake fan creating a negative pressure so that any airleaks will seep through the air leaks into your grow room instead of out. (i think i remembered that right??) So how much difference should their be in the amount of air intake and exhaust? Also is it important to keep your grow room as air tight as possible? and do you have any tips to making you grow room as air tight as possible?

 

[Al B. Fuct]

Hey Al, i was wondering if theres a rule for how big of en exhaust fan you should use in your grow room. For example if you room is say 480 cf should you use a 480 cfm exhaust fan? Or is there a rule of say exchange your grow rooms air once every 3 minutes making a 160 cfm fan efficient for a 480 cf grow room?

If you are using HPS lighting with cooltubes, a ventilation system (be that a single exhaust blower with passive intake or separate exhaust & intake fans) can move as little as 1/3 of the room volume per minute. Passive intakes should be about twice the area of the exhaust blower i.e. 2x 250mm dia inlets for a 250mm dia exhaust blower to prevent restricting the CFM rate of the exhaust blower. It is often easier to trap light on the inlet if you are using an intake blower as not so large of a hole needs to be light-trapped.

If you are not using cooltubes with your HPS lighting, 1CFM per cu ft of room volume is about right.

Also you said in a previous post the your exhaust fan should be bigger than your intake fan creating a negative pressure so that any airleaks will seep through the air leaks into your grow room instead of out. (i think i remembered that right??)

Yep, well remembered.

So how much difference should their be in the amount of air intake and exhaust?

The intake/s should be about 80-90% of the CFM rate capacity of the exhaust. You can use idential intake & exhaust blowers and can dial down the intake with a fan motor speed controller from ye localle giante hardwarrre shoppe. Intake blowers can be axials as they are pushing into a low static pressure load. Exhaust blowers can be axials if you are not using a carbon filter or a long outlet duct or one with a lot of sharp bends. If you must use a long bendy run or a filter, select a centrifugal blower.

Also is it important to keep your grow room as air tight as possible?

Only if you plan to run a CO2 system. Otherwise, a few leaks, which will leak inward if the fans are of the correct capacities, are no big deal. All air leaving the room will go via the exhaust line and into your carbon filter if using one.

and do you have any tips to making you grow room as air tight as possible?

Line it with panda film. Glue panda film joints with silicone sealant. If you want to fix panda film to wood surfaces with a staple gun, staple the film through a small piece of cardboard to prevent the staple pulling though the film.

 

[NLXSK1]

I am planning a grow trying to duplicate yours on a smaller scale. My flowering area will be approximately 2' x 4'.

I want to build a clone incubation box and I have bought a heatmat. I will find a thermostat and an 80 - 120 mm fan for the setup as well. My needs will be for up to 10 clones max incubating at one time.

I have studied your box and can probably duplicate it easily but I am wondering if it may be too large for my needs.

Do you have any suggestions?

 

[DR. VonDankenstine]

What's shaken bacon---anything new up in your neck of the woods? Hope your well.

 

[Old in the Way]

Hey Al,
Greetings from MURKA-just kidding, though I did just returned from Appalachia...got more than a comment or two from my "O'bama-Vote Irish" Bumper Sticker--I tried to explain to a couple hillbillies he is just like them..they said he was a (insert racial slur here) I said no, no he's white....then I asked them "if there mama was white?" pointed out that his is as well--they didn't see the humor or even the truth in it. HAHA I love politicing with rednecks. Its so easy to get them riled up. Dangerous but easy.

....and WTF. I thought i would catch up on FAQt but 13 pages of posts since I left town on friday.....how do you do it??

Anyway,

I am happy to report that after one month the veg room maintained itself for over 100 hrs during my absence-that will make the next long weekend far more relaxing.

Everything looks great and there are no issues to report.

Just one question.
starting week 5 (day 31 of veg).
Growth has exploded since changing to a higher quality 2 part nute 8 days back and upping the nutes the day I left to 1400ppm, now the sativa dominant hybrids I have are showing there genes and outgrowing the indicas (obviously). In some cases they grew to within 250mm of the 1kw light--I am fine on light burn with the glass lense and air-cooled reflector but I am seeing this strange rotation of the fan leaves where they are turning vertically throughout a number of the plants during the end of the lights on schedule (was happening last night but not first thing this morning-my only observation periods since getting in). This is most pronounced in the sativa dom. plants but in some of the taller more vigorous indicas as well.

Does this have anything to due my increase in the nutes? (tap water is 140ppm so my 1400ppm is a true 1260. ph drifted up from 5.7 the day i left to 6.0 last night. Back to 5.8 this a.m.)

Can or does this occur from light saturation?

Or possibly as a response to much of the red spectrum being absorbed (since it looks like a little rainforest with the dense foliage), and therefore the plant is offering more light to the lower branches.

Thanks for your input.
-OitW

 

[NLXSK1]

Hey Al,
Greetings from MURKA-just kidding, though I did just returned from Appalachia...got more than a comment or two from my "O'bama-Vote Irish" Bumper Sticker--I tried to explain to a couple hillbillies he is just like them..they said he was a (insert racial slur here) I said no, no he's white....then I asked them "if there mama was white?" pointed out that his is as well--they didn't see the humor or even the truth in it. HAHA I love politicing with rednecks. Its so easy to get them riled up. Dangerous but easy.

....and WTF. I thought i would catch up on FAQt but 13 pages of posts since I left town on friday.....how do you do it??

Anyway,

I am happy to report that after one month the veg room maintained itself for over 100 hrs during my absence-that will make the next long weekend far more relaxing.

Everything looks great and there are no issues to report.

Just one question.
starting week 5 (day 31 of veg).
Growth has exploded since changing to a higher quality 2 part nute 8 days back and upping the nutes the day I left to 1400ppm, now the sativa dominant hybrids I have are showing there genes and outgrowing the indicas (obviously). In some cases they grew to within 250mm of the 1kw light--I am fine on light burn with the glass lense and air-cooled reflector but I am seeing this strange rotation of the fan leaves where they are turning vertically throughout a number of the plants during the end of the lights on schedule (was happening last night but not first thing this morning-my only observation periods since getting in). This is most pronounced in the sativa dom. plants but in some of the taller more vigorous indicas as well.

Does this have anything to due my increase in the nutes? (tap water is 140ppm so my 1400ppm is a true 1260. ph drifted up from 5.7 the day i left to 6.0 last night. Back to 5.8 this a.m.)

Can or does this occur from light saturation?

Or possibly as a response to much of the red spectrum being absorbed (since it looks like a little rainforest with the dense foliage), and therefore the plant is offering more light to the lower branches.

Thanks for your input.
-OitW

Yeah, I think you are a little close... Here is part of a reply from Al somwhere in 200 pages of posts...

You can run a 400 in a cooltube about 150-200mm from the nearest leaves, a 600 can be 200-250mm.

A 1000 has to be a little further away....

 

[sparkafire]

Al you there?? need advice asap 11:43 am

Ah never mind 1 pm this is what happened and what i did to try to correct the problem i hope i have done the right thing.

Last night while tending my patch i watered my new plants again by unplugging the tub with my plants that have been in flower 4 32 days so could turn on the new ones. The words unplug and hydro don't work to well together.

Yes i am on a roll in regards to mistakes lately so yes i closed my room and this morning after 15 hours and driving down the freeway it blasted into my brain that i never plugged it back in... Because i have some water that sits in the tub i am sure the plants didn't start to really dry out for about 8 of the 15 hrs because when i peeked in to look i had only 1 plant that looked really bad and 2 more that were on the way to getting there. All others did not look bad or stressed at all. The roots that were in the bottom of the tub were dry to the touch so i am assuming there is root damage.

This is what i did. Knowing that they would not last another 7 plus hours i turned on the lights and the water for 15 min my question was going to be. Do i turn on the lights and run it 20 hrs or so give or take an hour or 2 or do what i did and just get everthing wet again with the small amount of time. I do have my new clones in there and they are 2 days into flower.

I am getting a string for every plug and tying it to my finger so i remmeber its unplugged. I did this with my cloner but got lucky and remembered after 2 hrs.

Fucking newbies !!! Grrrrrrr

 

[SmellsLikeLemonz]

Hey al, Long time reader, First time writer.

First id like to say thanks of course, because your advice has been nothing short of incredible/life saving, Lets just say a freind of mine had the impression that his sulfur vaporizer (same as yours) had to be on for 4 hours a day, And you saved him .


Anyway to the point,

I have many questions,

First in a similar setup like yours but with 2 gallon ebb and gro buckets would it be feasible to put 2 "zero veg" plants into the same pot on either side? split it in 2 kind of? Im just asking because i see quite a bit of room and im sure the roots would figure something out .

second, Any experience with advanced nutrients connessuier? insanely expensive superbloom that i have heard nothing but good things about.

3. Ever heard of the strain c4? If you havent you should find it, and maybe its time to think about switching strains because this strain would explode in SOG, (soon to be proven) and it < smells like lemonz

4. I also have a little soil op i just switched to loose rockwool/ grow cubes, Should loose rockwool be watered more or less often than soil? it seems the soil holds more water for longer periods of time.

5. I was also tricked into using molasses for a while, my pet fruit flies loved it but my plants didnt seem to react to it .

6. Any suggestions on once and for all getting rid of these damn fruit flies? I have used gnatrol which seems to do nothing but smell bad, H202 which makes them freak out for a second but their always there the next day, I have fogged which obviously took care of the problem, but their back now and im further into flowering and would rather not fog again (i vent to my roof which makes all the critters in my roof want to find a way out into my house when they get hit with poison gas)

7. ( i know, so many, im sorry) To keep spider mites out of my op completely (had them recently grr) what do you reccomend? Running the sulfur burner for longer? getting a UV filter etc? I just want to make sure that even if they get in they will be dead within a day. without hurting my precious babies .

8. A freind of mine had a big spot of mildew on his stalk, yet didnt listen when i told him not to harvest it, What is the possible damage that can cause? Is there any way to really tell if bud is internally "coated" in powdery mildew?

9. I am seeing, And have been seeing for a while, TINY little bugs, randomly in my flowering plants, That look like microscopic frogs, they dont seem to be doing any harm, They usually chill near the top of the plant, definitely not spider mites. any idea of what they are?

10. (im sorry to get all the way to 10 but this is like having an interview with jorge cervantes ) a freind of mine with a similar setup to you vegged half of his plants for a little over a month in rockwool slabs, The roots of the plants all grew togethor and he had to cut them apart, Now he is trying to transplant them to his ebb n grow but the slabs are huuuge and i told him that obviously the rockwool shouldnt be soaked 5x a day as this would just cause problems, The proper thing for him to do is just kind of set them on top of his hydraton and let the roots figure out where to go (down ) right??

Your helpfulness to the community restores my faith in humanity, Which usually comes and goes as it likes Its great to know that someone out there is willing to help when he can, especially to such an extreme extent. best of luck to you.

 

[snipsnip]

al,
a sulfer burner?
i saw u had one but i dont know what they do?
i fugured 3x3 tray with 15 plants or so in 8" pots would i still need a sulfer burner....holy shit thats 60 plants....maybe a 2x2 tray hahahahaa.....
tell me aboutyour burner if you could and were i might get one.
i was trying not to spend much more money i alreaddy have 2 400's so i was just gonna add 2 more, 2x2 trays be better u think for that wattage.
i got perlite yesterday and it seams to be doing better. i planted new clones in a new mix i did not repot my giants. i am debating cutting them (the giants)down and just creating more room for my new ones so they dont end up in the same boat...how much thc is created in the last few weaks i know size is but would it be smokable now. or worth it.
thanks al
snip

 

[Phinxter]

sulpher burners are used to kill / control "white powdery mildew" you usually run them like 2 times for 10 minutes during lights out every few days im thinkin.
if you do SoG the humidity of having that lush rain forest can cause white powdery mildew and a sulpher burner (it doesnt really burn the sulpher but rather vaporizes it) will control that.
as for do you need 1. you have 2 options 1 being be proactive and stop it before it starts. or wait and see if it becomes a problem and then buy the burner

 

[Old in the Way]

Yeah, I think you are a little close... Here is part of a reply from Al somwhere in 200 pages of posts...



Quote:


You can run a 400 in a cooltube about 150-200mm from the nearest leaves, a 600 can be 200-250mm.

A 1000 has to be a little further away....

Thanks NLXSK1,

I realize this is a bit closer than most and I am familiar with the parameters for the clearance required for the various wattages. I am not concerned about being too close as I can easily adjust height and have seen no signs of burn....but since you aarte willing to effort a response the questions I asked are.....

I am seeing this strange rotation of the fan leaves where they are turning vertically throughout a number of the plants during the end of the lights on schedule (was happening last night but not first thing this morning-my only observation periods since getting in).

Does this have anything to due my increase in the nutes? (tap water is 140ppm so my 1400ppm is a true 1260. ph drifted up from 5.7 the day i left to 6.0 last night. Back to 5.8 this a.m.)

Can or does this occur from light saturation?

Or possibly as a response to much of the red spectrum being absorbed? Since it looks like a little rainforest with the dense foliage, and therefore the plant is offering more light to the lower branches.

Also Al, I believe i saw a post where you stated you manage to run a 1kw light within 250-300mm thanks to a well conditioned space and a closed vent circuit for the light? I seem to recall this was after the flowering plants maxed out in height prior to stopping vert growth and fully devoting its energy to flower.
Thanks Again
OitW

 

[Phinxter]

smellslikelemonz ... when it comes to bugs the one site i always use is What's That Bug? Insect identification if you look low on the left side, there is an index of bug types. and if you dont find it, you can post up and ask them. they will answer your "whats this bug" question nearly everytime