$15,000 Mistake Learn from mine. Epic Fail!

[Drr]

Also noticed the bottom of the cubes are greeny... fugus?? another possible culprit and sign of over watering??

 

[tom__420]

Also noticed the bottom of the cubes are greeny... fugus?? another possible culprit and sign of over watering??

no that is a sign that his tray isn't light proof from the top
If you have a wet area with nutrients and sunlight algae will grow, it is not a sign of overwatering

 

[FileError404]

The PH flux might have come from water temps. I try to keep my water below 68F at all times. 72F might be optimal for uptake but also increases the risk of root disease. If you have the res right under the lights, the temperature will fluctuate heavily day/night which will throw off your PH.

 

[LionsRoor]

This is my first attempt at Hyro, I switched from soil because people said it was faster and easier. This is what I went with

2 4x4 ebb and flow tables with 2 40gl res.
AN 2 part A,B, carbo load, big bud, bud blood, sensi szym, and bud factor X

Your hardware setup is good, but you didn't setup the media well... You learned about PHing your rockwool for 24 hrs prior to use with 5.5 - 5.8 water. Once rooted in 4" cubes - you then need to give the roots something to grow into. Most commonly, for an ebb and flow, you would take your rooted 4" rockwool cube and place it on top of a pot filled with hydroton. Alternatives to this would be to use some type of slab, such as rockwool, or use a bigger rocwool cube, use a coco mat on the bottom of your tray - or my personal favorite would be to use a canna coco slab. Others have mentioned over watering, that is what I say too. If you insist on growing to term in 4" cubes you must provide better drainage. The trays have too many flat areas for such small cubes - water can still pool under a cube. A rocwool cube will wick water from what seems to be a dry tray. This excess water is oftem semi-evaporated nute water that is extremely saline. Use light crate in the bottom of your trays to avoid this problem. Again, hydroton or a standard 3m slab is the ebb and flow standard.

As with all methods, irrigation is of paramount importance - really the whole game after you get the basics in line. With ebb and flow, the variables are irrigation duration and frequency. Setting the height of your overflow is also important as that too will have a direct effect on overall moisture levels. Understand, this is a moving target throughout the grow cycle. Irrigation cycle times should be adjusted weekly at a minimum.

Now, ill start with the nutes prices, I spent around $800 for an 8 week flower nutes. So each res change will cost me around $90. I am fucking pissed about the bud blood. If anyone used this product will tell you it’s like adding cool aid dye to your nice white res. It stained everything. And when I added the carbo load the first time it clumped together like semen in hot water! This does not make for an easy res change. As you will see from the pics im not working with a lot of space.

I followed AN nute chart found on the AN web site, moderate to heavy feeding chart. There is a lot of speculation on how to add and ideal water temperature, im still confused of what is ideal.

You're not doing your math right - the $800 bucks of nutes will last longer than one harvest. The base nutes may run out - but you will not be able to go through the addatives. Be sure you are dosing correctly... In general, you want to nute your soup as follows:

Fill your res with RO.

Take note of starting PPM.

Add your addatives at half the manufacturers recommended strength - being sure not to have the total of all your addatives use more than 35% of your total desired final PPM strength.

Add your base nutrient (1, 2 or 3 part) to final desired PPM.

PH to 5.8 - 6.0

Example: Your starting RO is 50ppm. You want to make a nute soup of 1000ppm. Add your desired addatives at half strength, keeping the total to 367.5ppm or less (1000ppm + 50ppm * 35% = 367.5ppm). Next, add your base nutrient (part a, and b) to 1050ppm. (1000ppm + 50ppm)

1st mistake was not PH balancing the Rockwool. I had 40 clones from 4 different strains which im transplanting from root riot cubs into the Rockwool. The clones have been under 24hrs of light for 60 days.

As another mentioned, you are starting from heavily flowered plant material... this takes some major work to revert to veg. How rooted were they before you began your nutrient feeds? Plants should be well rooted before getting to 1000ppms. When dealing with clones - you can often jump right up to high ppms, dependent upon the feed level the mom enjoyed.

Im not sure if they sat too long which may have weakened them please comment on this issue. But due to the clone height I was told I would only need to veg then for a week then put them right into flower. "I veg under a 400w MH light"

SO that’s what I did. The first week called for 1000 ppm of nutes. I added the amounts indicated on the AN chart but my ppms were only 650, so I added more A and B to get the 1000ppm< Is this the correct way to bring up the ppms.
Week one the plants blew up all is well! Im a pot rock star and then some start to show signs of stress in week 2 and im getting crazy ph imbalance everyday. From 5.5 to 6.8 in like 20 hrs. I then pulled water from a Rockwool cube and test it ph was like 7.2 and ppms were like 1300. So I ended up nute burning them in week 2.
Then I come home to find out my lights never turned on all day due to a faulty power strip!!!!!! Not sure how bad this could have fucked them up so please comment. So now im in week for and you can see from the pics that they all look like hell so out of 40 5 are the most unbelievable plants I have ever seen. But they have stopped their vertical growth.

I was trying to revive the dying plants by using AN revive, and nothing helps I want to trash them but until the next batch is germinated im going to try to learn as much as possible so please comment so we all can learn from my stupid ass!

Now the pics i have posted also show the 5 plants that recieved all the same nutes and they are beautiful! This is were my confusion sets in. This loss had to be due to the clone process and how long they sat under 24hrs light, and not vegging them long enough prior to shocking them with the high level flower nutes. What do you guys think?

Thanks for posting this. Your post will certainly help more folks than you know!

 

[horribleherk]

hey c-c im new at this too i did a bubbleponic grow that wasnt up to my expectations too much of this & too much of that now using g-h flora series nutes grow, micro & bloom nothing more just the main 3 & of course ph. down &ph. up g-h nutes seem to be the ''small block chevy'' of the nute world no matter what you may think of it people are having a high success rate . i use it because its user friendly & simple i fight back the urge to buy something fancy every time i go to the store & i know i'll set myself up for failure with all those fancy additives so i'm gonna roll with what ive got [which so far is cool] & i think if i run into a problem hopefully it will be simple & easy to isolate & yeah i'll probably have me a little fuck up somewhere down the line it aint the end of the world best of luck to you h.h.

 

[squarepush3r]

dont be so hard on yourself man, everyone makes mistakes. get up and learn!

 

[chief greenleaf]

I'd say not Ph'ing those cubes fucked you.. coupled with the overdose...
the light off might have stressed them a bit but they should recover as long as the light cycle returns to normal.

if your run off from the cube was 7.2 from 5.5, this tells me your medium is over 7.2 more like 7.5-8 maybe higher at worst case 8.5-9

since the Ph of the blocks have to be higher then 7.2 to bring from 5.5. Feel me? thats how ph works in my mind..
I don't know for sure if its like a mirror exact opposite affect.. (ex, it raised by PH of 1.7 so your medium is 8.9.) But I would say its between 7.8-8.5

Does anyone know the starting PH of a rockwool??

Also if your nutes are more alkaline/casutic... it didn't help with the overdose...

it hurts me to see it also... but trial and error is the best learning tool there is..
Knowing is doing...

Drr Im glad somebody finally said it, Ive been reading thru this thread like all these problems are nothing compared to the fact that your medium has a PH of 9+! I also agree that the genetics seem poor, Ive had Some rooted clones in little rockwool starter plugs for like 10 days now and theyve tripled in size! If I left em in there for 60 days regardless of the medium theyd be tall as hell, they probably look like shit and not have much foliage but they def wouldnt have stayed so small!
Cannibus Im far from a hydro pro as you know (HA! I made a rhyme!) but I know for a fact that at a PH of 8-9 or higher your nutrient uptake is pretty much gonna be non existent. Yea there mighta been a few other small probs but if your girls cant get any nutes they aint gon give ya any fruits!
I dont know how far into flower you are but if you can find a way to adjust the ph of your rockwool Im sure your girls will start ta look way better pretty quick. You wont be able ta get anywhere near as good of a harvest as you couldve but if you can fix that ph you should be able ta pull off somethin ya know.
Oh yea I was wonderin when you say you took a 15 grand lost did you mean you had 15K invested in your set up or that your crop woulda been woth 15K if everything hadve gone right???

 

[Drr]

no that is a sign that his tray isn't light proof from the top
If you have a wet area with nutrients and sunlight algae will grow, it is not a sign of overwatering

makes sense..

I had a bit starting on my small cubes.. had to trim the top of them a bit..
I figured it was water, food, light = algea.. but i also figured I was over watering was causing the algea.. (too much standing water in the cube)

which in my case I guess it would be more so, since the tops were saturated.. (I was hand watering from the top... I read you should let the tops stay almost dry???) and his being at the bottom you can't really get away from the standing water.. going to be atleast some.. a nice thin layer of clay pellets would do nicely to prevent that correct???
just for my future knowledge..

 

[Drr]

Drr Im glad somebody finally said it, Ive been reading thru this thread like all these problems are nothing compared to the fact that your medium has a PH of 9+! I also agree that the genetics seem poor, Ive had Some rooted clones in little rockwool starter plugs for like 10 days now and theyve tripled in size! If I left em in there for 60 days regardless of the medium theyd be tall as hell, they probably look like shit and not have much foliage but they def wouldnt have stayed so small!
Cannibus Im far from a hydro pro as you know (HA! I made a rhyme!) but I know for a fact that at a PH of 8-9 or higher your nutrient uptake is pretty much gonna be non existent. Yea there mighta been a few other small probs but if your girls cant get any nutes they aint gon give ya any fruits!
I dont know how far into flower you are but if you can find a way to adjust the ph of your rockwool Im sure your girls will start ta look way better pretty quick. You wont be able ta get anywhere near as good of a harvest as you couldve but if you can fix that ph you should be able ta pull off somethin ya know.
Oh yea I was wonderin when you say you took a 15 grand lost did you mean you had 15K invested in your set up or that your crop woulda been woth 15K if everything hadve gone right???

I would also wondering the same thing?? 15 invested or the crop woulda been worth 15 g?

 

[chief greenleaf]

Your hardware setup is good, but you didn't setup the media well... You learned about PHing your rockwool for 24 hrs prior to use with 5.5 - 5.8 water. Once rooted in 4" cubes - you then need to give the roots something to grow into. Most commonly, for an ebb and flow, you would take your rooted 4" rockwool cube and place it on top of a pot filled with hydroton. Alternatives to this would be to use some type of slab, such as rockwool, or use a bigger rocwool cube, use a coco mat on the bottom of your tray - or my personal favorite would be to use a canna coco slab. Others have mentioned over watering, that is what I say too. If you insist on growing to term in 4" cubes you must provide better drainage. The trays have too many flat areas for such small cubes - water can still pool under a cube. A rocwool cube will wick water from what seems to be a dry tray. This excess water is oftem semi-evaporated nute water that is extremely saline. Use light crate in the bottom of your trays to avoid this problem. Again, hydroton or a standard 3m slab is the ebb and flow standard.

Yo LionsRoar can you tell me what "light crate" is? Im switchin over to hydro for the first time and Im tryin ta get familiar with good shit ta use in my flood table ya know.
Im gonna be runnin 4 inch cubes too man, what you think is the best thing ta use under em? Im lookin at either a coco mat with hydroton under it or just the mat by itself, or the coco slabs your talkin about sound good too. Im just tryin ta stay away from RW slabs, they seem ta hold way too much water and I love coco great water to air ratio.
Sorry Cannibus not tryin ta take over ur thread just cant PM yet! Hope ya dont mind.

 

[cannibus corps]

The 15k loss is from lost product. I am a caregiver co-op. I have been enjoying much success with my soil grows and producing great plants. I was talked into running a cycle in hydro because of its rapid growth and suppose to cut down on the vegging time table by using SOG method. Mainly I was told that hydro is easier than soil. Bullshit I say, soil is much easier! Much more forgiving. The one thing many people over look through out this thread was the 5 plants that are doing amazing! All got the same treatment why did the 5 blow up. It’s Master Kush. Yeah I think I did get a little ripped on the nutes. If used properly those nutes would have been their weight in gold tho. The problem is that I learned to grow from talking to you assholes

 

[Drr]

My master kush are nute hogs.. so maybe it was an over dose???

that does throw off the PH theory a bit.. unless master kush love alkiline soil.. or those cubes were different?? you didn't do anything different to those cubes??

only master kush thrived?? were they along the edge??

What was the other strain(s)??

 

[Ole Budheavy]

So whats up for your next grow? Are you gonna try hydro again with the same setup or try pots with hydroton? Maybe you don't have to change the res every week. Another big concern is how do you keep those reservoirs cool? If I was gonna do hydro, I'd read that hydro sticky and also monitor the EC, PPM, PH, and maybe even TDS.

 

[Dr. VonDank]

Sorry to hear that. Hope your next runs makes up for it. Different methods take time to dial in. I always do testing on small scales before big runs just to make sure all the kinks are worked out. I would have the person(s) that talked you into the set-up do a walk-throu with you before the next round. As someone said in a previous post start with a lower nute concentration and work your way up slowly. Best of luck in your next run--I hope those trays are full of massive sticky dank!!!... VonDank

 

[jeebuscheebus]

The problem is that I learned to grow from talking to you assholes

Where did this come from?

You clearly have made several mistakes with this grow. The small grow medium and not ph'ing your rockwool were total rookie mistakes.
Man up and take responsibility.

From the replies in this thread, I would say these assholes are showing how to grow after YOU messed up.

 

[tom__420]

Small amounts of grow medium is not a rookie mistake, root space does not matter when growing hydroponically
You just have to flood more often in this case, I have seen plenty of growers have the same type setup and it worked great

 

[dr.skunkfunk]

lets have a look .....I will answer what i can point by piont

you wrote...

2 4x4 ebb and flow tables with 2 40gl res. answer ........ excellent me too except have 8 4x4
AN 2 part A,B, carbo load, big bud, bud blood, sensi szym, and bud factor X answer ........ good nutrients

Now, ill start with the nutes prices, I spent around $800 for an 8 week flower nutes. answer .........thats insane , your spending way too much here .I use cutting edge solutions .......just the 3 step basic line.... micro grow and bloom up rest will cause nutrient lock out and do exactly what has happened to you... everyone is trying to sell you shit you dont need..... MORE in hydro is not better... start with the basic line up of whatver then add your improvements as a test and then build up to where you wanna be ......my nutrient line up is this.

cutting edge solutions ..micro grow and bloom. molasses from earth juice liquid karma SPECIAL additive gravity purple maxx bushmaster .. CAUTION these three shits are dangerous to your crop use very little and use no nutrents for the days you add these thriple troubles .. but results are insane ...if you fuck it up and follow there exact directions frybaby for sure ... tust me on this one .. better skip it if your a thickheaded ass.

here it is start to finish.

change res every2 weeks
ph 5.5- 6. 2 leave it the fuck alone if its in this range.
res temp 68-70 ish.
3 cfi bulbs in homemade rig over ez cloner
2 t5 8 bulb lights fixtures on veg and rooted clones
1000 hps on movers over each 4x8 area
suplemented with 16 cfi on rails along light mover over each 4x8 area

clones in a ez cloner plain water 2 weeks
use hydro guard in everything..except ez cloner all the way to flush except the gravity purple maxx bushmaster 3 stress days
rotted clones in table 1. 200ppm 2 weeks
babies in tables 2. 1000 ppm 2weeks
flower in bud tables 3-8 1200 ppm 4-weeks
move light as high as possible or turn off then gravity purple maxx bush master lowest strength on label for 3 days with nothing but frsh water.then flush .. turn light back
flower last 3 weeks back to normal nutrents 1200 ppm
clerex last 5 days .
then flush with water .
last 24 hours turn off all water and lights

harvest..

cost ...

cutting edge is cheap like 20 -25 bucks for each micro grow and bloom... last for about 4 water/res changes or more so 75 bucks or so for 2 months
earth juice molasses is 20 bucks for a gallon a double shot glass treats a 70 gallon res. 20 bucks for a six months

budswell cheap 25 bucks laqst a long time ..

gravity is expensive 35 bucks but you only use a little bit so it last for 6 months
purple maxx is real expensive 80 bucks but again only the least bit used last 6 months
bush master again real expensive 30 bucks last 6 months

hydro guard in everything

so my whole cost starting with nothing is 300 but it last for several months ....

i hardly ever have to buy the additives like twice a year .
i buy the main nutrients like every 2- 3 months ..

moving on

So each res change will cost me around $90. I am fucking pissed about the bud blood. If anyone used this product will tell you it’s like adding cool aid dye to your nice white res. It stained everything. And when I added the carbo load the first time it clumped together like semen in hot water! This does not make for an easy res change. As you will see from the pics im not working with a lot of space.

answer.......... 1. cut your cost on nutrients 2.stop changing res every week ..every 2 weeks is better because it gives a change for beneficial bacteria to take hold..
answer ... bud blood stains...... everything is going to stain your shit thats just the way it is dont worry about that ..... when you change your res... dont scrub it down just drain it flush it and refill it...you want that benifical slim to grow not over grow but grow.... its gonna get a little grimmy and thats a good thing....only sterilize it if you have problems or something but if things are going good.. leave it alone .... maybe a good break down and though clean twice a year if you must..
answer............. when i first started doing hydro i tried carbo load and opted for earth juice molasses for carbs instead .... cheap and better.

DONT LOVE IT TO DEATH!!!!!



I followed AN nute chart found on the AN web site, moderate to heavy feeding chart. There is a lot of speculation on how to add and ideal water temperature, im still confused of what is ideal.


answer...... scrap those nutrients if you are confused.... check out cutting edge you will thank me.. then just use the three micro grow and bloom follow the instructions on the bottle ..then add molasses bud swell and liquid karma to get your ppm exactly where you want them ..forget about their other shit it will fuck up marijuana... trust me

1st mistake was not PH balancing the Rockwool. I had 40 clones from 4 different strains which im transplanting from root riot cubs into the Rockwool. The clones have been under 24hrs of light for 60 days. Im not sure if they sat too long which may have weakened them please comment on this issue. But due to the clone height I was told I would only need to veg then for a week then put them right into flower. "I veg under a 400w MH light"


answer .....I HATE ROCKWOOL.. i use hydroton .... its easy to use you cant fuck it up and you can reuse it with a simple washing its good as new so you never have to buy it again ....but too each their own

SO that’s what I did. The first week called for 1000 ppm of nutes. I added the amounts indicated on the AN chart but my ppms were only 650, so I added more A and B to get the 1000ppm< Is this the correct way to bring up the ppms.

answer ...... NO .. if you add certain nutrients out of order you will cause nutrient lock out...this one is tough because you have to account for the parts per million of your water and a multitude of other factors ..AND did ya make a measuring mistake .. measuring mistake is a critical fuck up... if my ppms are way off i just start over ... and pay closer attention .. to bring up ppm if its in range use other goodies like molasses and budswell and liquid karma ... you know stuff that will not fry you plants..

to find the way to get ppm for your water take a gallon of the water you use and mix up a test gallon and record your results .. then adjust up or down according to your waters needs ..record the ammounts it took to get your water to the proper ppm and that is the ml per gallon your water needs to get in range...it waste a few ml of nutrents but then you know....leave 200 ppms off to add goodies like molasses budswell and whatever else they sell ya..lol..
or you can fuck around with complicated math ratios and hopefully not fuckit up....

how is ypour water???

my water is well water so i filter it through a tall boy andkeep a close check on the ppms of my plain water .... my water runs at 250ppm filtered so i have to correct for this...or get nutrent lock out ..


Week one the plants blew up all is well! Im a pot rock star and then some start to show signs of stress in week 2 and im getting crazy ph imbalance everyday. From 5.5 to 6.8 in like 20 hrs. I then pulled water from a Rockwool cube and test it ph was like 7.2 and ppms were like 1300. So I ended up nute burning them in week 2.


answer .... classic example of nutrient lock up..


Then I come home to find out my lights never turned on all day due to a faulty power strip!!!!!! Not sure how bad this could have fucked them up so please comment. So now im in week for and you can see from the pics that they all look like hell so out of 40 5 are the most unbelievable plants I have ever seen. But they have stopped their vertical growth.


answer the light stay off is no big deal for 1 day forget about it..first 2-4 weeks or so is called the streach where they get taller then they stop or slow way down and start to really fill out and pout on wieght... one week of flowering then stop you probably have nutrient lock up and have shocked the plants ..stunted ..they may recover but they will never be as good as they could have been..


I was trying to revive the dying plants by using AN revive, and nothing helps I want to trash them but until the next batch is germinated im going to try to learn as much as possible so please comment so we all can learn from my stupid ass!

NOT a bad idea but stop spending so much on them .. but get this grow behind you and learn form it

Now the pics i have posted also show the 5 plants that recieved all the same nutes and they are beautiful! This is were my confusion sets in. This loss had to be due to the clone process and how long they sat under 24hrs light, and not vegging them long enough prior to shocking them with the high level flower nutes. What do you guys think?

Answer....... NO each strain takes different nutrient stress and tolerate fuck ups differently .... thats why growing is so tricky.. what works for one strain will fry another...thats why ts best to have one or two strains in a system and twick that system to that strain..


anyway good luck and i hope any of this helps you










Attached Thumbnails

 

[dr.skunkfunk]

I was taking a close look at your set up if you have only a forty gallon res and are trying to fill up 2 tables at the same time ...that is a mistake as well .. with that small res. you will have to alternate pumps so one table fill then drains before the other table floods..or your not going to get the depth you want in your flood ..

there is no way you have put 800 through a forty gallon res... in a month..
youi are for sure doing something way wrong .. or someone is raping you at the hydro store ..in a forty gallon res ... you are gonna use like 1000 -1500 ml of nutrients in 40 gallons of water every res change max...

your plant pics look like a classic example of nutrient stress..

flush them with clearex start over on your res ..

get a reading of your water if its high adjust your nutrient ppm like i explained earlier if not .. check all your measuring skills and all that..

mix on the lowest nutrient level high to aggressive charts are trouble ... mix it weak then slowly build up each res change until you find what works for you..

also when you ad shit loads up or down that will cause nutrient lock out as well...

if your using phosphoric acid by advanced as a ph down .....well you dumping phosphoric acid in you water which is a nutrient in itself. or citric acid.. the huge fluctuations are a problem and also a indication you have nutrient lock out developing or in full swing..

I ph my water then let that stabilize then add nutrients.... most nutrients are ph stable so i have very litle issues with ph after that .. then i top off in one week and ph again then the next week drian and flush and start all over .. very consistant very effective 1.5 -2 lb plus each light every time

 

[cannibus corps]

Wow great post's everyone. Some of you should read and try to comprehend what im saying before you react. The title of the post was learning from my mistake. This was a post describing hydro rookie mistakes. There are many different ways to grow and many different opinions on how to, what nutrients ect. I had nute burn, not because my ppms were too high but because of ph imbalance and poor root development. Prior to transplanting the clones were already stressed and were being stored improperly. I love soil grows but hydro is a little more challenging and is fun, next is areoponics. I&#8217;m gonna try all methods.

For my next grow I am running 20 plants in hydro and 20 in soil. I&#8217;m going to use sure to grow 4.75x4.50 inserts and yes AN. Strains are AK48, aurora, papaya. They are germinating now. and ill be sure to post any mistakes!

 

[Drr]

Do you have a journal??