TTT's Adventure Log

[dura72]

jeez tip top that looks damn fine my son, a worthy grow .......but after all the loveliness of ur plants and the effort u obviously went into settin up and maintaining a bloody good grow area ....why did u buy the cheapest thermometer outta b & q you could find, around £1.99 if i remember????

 

[tip top toker]

yeah, that's just 10 days growth! very excited to see how these behave over the next 2 months. maybe i can finally go on holiday somewhere without thinking i have to be back in the morning to water the babies it's been what? 5-6 years since i last took a holiday somewhere

 

[tip top toker]

jeez tip top that looks damn fine my son, a worthy grow .......but after all the loveliness of ur plants and the effort u obviously went into settin up and maintaining a bloody good grow area ....why did u buy the cheapest thermometer outta b & q you could find, around £1.99 if i remember????

haha, i try not to be like everyone else and get all freaked oput over the first brown spot, over whether it's too hot or cold for one day etc. so long as that red line is somewhere near 80 i couldn't give a fuck about what the conditions are

and it is CERTAINLY not well maintained! the floor is covered in dried up fan leaves and coco and dried up nutes and such. it's nothing more than a couple of plastic bags ontop of the floorboards and a few plants of wood it's been what, 9 months since i last dusted or cleaned in there

 

[dura72]

i havent read all your log before ttt but do you go into detail as to how u set ur hydro up mate? i fancy a shot myself but havent decided on a particular way yet? easiest and cheepest i suppose. but yours looks home built and damn fine buddy.

 

[tip top toker]

i didn't really go into detail, no, but i will, and after trial and error the first time around, i have learnt how silly easy it is to get running.

parts: (for a simple single grow run, add multiply for perpetual)

- 40L tote (£8 from sainbury's, just make sure it is a good thickness so that it won't change shape from the water pressure) this was the only convenient size for me, as had to fit in my cab, but a shalower tote is always a good thing so you don't use as many nutruents per filling (mine will use 120ml of nutes a week plus boosts etc)

- Roll of Silver tape. grabbed thius from my store but can be had online i guess. get a wider tape, less work

- Air pump stones and tube. i am having some great results using tetra150 air pumps. they're quiet and very cheap and easy to find. £15 each on ebay. as to stones, i just bought a pair of round stones per tote, but you can just grab a pair of 12" airstones from ebay for a coulpe of quid. tubung is 1/8" diameter black hose, again, just a quid.

- net pots, hydroton clay pebbles, tray of rockwool cubes, nutes.

- a hole cutting device

i simnply did the following:-

1. Tape up the outsidfe, underside of tote. that's that done.
2. use drill or whatnot to cut out the holes for your net pots (i've opted for 4 for my size tote, and i used a drill to cut tracer holes then just hack the fuckers out with a stanley knife
3. tape over top of lid
4. drill 2 holes in side of tote for air line to go through, attatch hose and pump and stones together.

note: make sure to wash your hose and stones just to make sure there are no contaminants

done

you then just pre-soak your rockwool, rinse your clay pebbles, fil ya pot up, shove your cutting in, and leave it. you need to moniter the water level and bubble level to make sure the rockwool is wet but not soaking etc, then once the roots hit the water i added a small dose of nutrients, albeit the wrong ones.

as i say, it's a little work on your first run, but once you've got the first done you'll realise how easy the whole system seems to be. to move 4 plants from vegging into flowering i literally took the lid off and put it ontop of a tote all ready with flowering feed. then other tote just get's emptied straight outta the window. i've still got my soil and coco and root balls from fecking 9 months ago sitting in my cu7pboard!

 

[dura72]

thats the one for me mate, im gonna give it it a go inna couple of weeks, im probably gonna have a few questions mate if u dont mind but my first ones are how deep are ur net pots and how deep is ur tote box and how deep is ur water all leadind to what is the space between water and bottom net pots ( they dont touch , that what the air stones for aint it???) like i said mate i know nothing of hydro.followed by what kinda nutes and did u say that no nutes were used in vegging?

 

[tip top toker]

i'm stiull vague with it myself.

my net pots are just small 3 inch things, i ent growing trees, just a sog almost.

the tote is roughly 1 foot tall, and i fill the water to about 3/5ths high, but as i say, it's kinda dependant on your setup. the water level generally sits around 3-4 inches below the bottom of the net pot, and while rooting clones, you have to have the water high enough (or bubble action) that bubles are splashing the surface causing droips of water to jump up and get soacked up by the rockwool. the idea then is to adjust either water level or amount of bubbles to make sure that the rockwool remains wet, or rather damp, but not soaking, that's where it is all upto your descretion and despite second guessing myself every time i looked at it, it all worked out just dandy. once roots are in the water it's not so much about the splash as simply aerating the water, so you don't need to be so cautious with levels etc.

i'll take some more pictures tomorrow of setting it up for a new batch of clones. also need to make am mothering tote, so might do a how-to for that, whoooo knows.

but any questions feel free to ask, if i don't know i'll just research it for my own benefit as well

just worked it out and for 1 flowering tote, i'll be looking at £1.80 a week on nutrients, so once i'm running i'll be looking at using 0.25L of nutes for flowering each week. hence my comment about maybe finding a shallower tote, 1 foot is a little excessive, and a 40L tote for clones is plain stupid! (but i'll veg them in same tote so it's not really that bad for me)

 

[dura72]

good good mate, cheers , iv a cpl of totes kicking around so mite just start next week.

 

[tip top toker]

ideally i wanted one that was already lightproof, but figured, with some nudging, that it would be a good move to use the silver tape, as it'll reflect light and keep the water cool in the summer (much easier to put in a heater during winter than to try cool it during summer i figure).

 

[dura72]

ive gotta couple of water pumps and heaters knocking about as well, i used to keep tropical fish, i'll just clean all the shit and see if its still working, mite save me a couple of quid. what make of nutes did u go with?

 

[tip top toker]

i'm gonna join Illegal Smiles crusade and say don't bother with a water pump. it's just not necessary. the bubbles do all the work (until the roots hit water you're simply growing with an aeroponic system. it's when the roots are in the water that it becomes hydroponics)

 

[dura72]

i actually meant air pumps but ive also got water filter pumps that i used with the fish tanks, they may have some use in as much that moving water means the surface area is of the water is larger therefore it absorbs more oxygen as well as stopping the possibility of stagnation, although the air pumps should reduce that., i'd take out the filter media though i think...or maybe not, i'll have to think about that.

 

[tip top toker]

i actually meant air pumps but ive also got water filter pumps that i used with the fish tanks, they may have some use in as much that moving water means the surface area is of the water is larger therefore it absorbs more oxygen as well as stopping the possibility of stagnation, although the air pumps should reduce that., i'd take out the filter media though i think...or maybe not, i'll have to think about that.

that's a good point, although i'd ahve thought that the sheer number of bubbles hitting the surface would be movement enough to stop stagnation over the 1-2 weeks you use that water. each bubble hitting the surface will cause displacement almost like hundreds of convection currents. maybe

 

[dura72]

so are u saying that u only keep the water in it for two weeks and then change it or what, did u say if u used nutes in veggig, what kinda time plan do u have?questions i have many....if im a pest just tell me....

 

[tip top toker]

yeah, you change the water every week, although i hear it's fine for 2 weeks.

the changing is due to a couple of things really. one one side, there's the stagnation. old water is bad water. secodnly if you replace the water, you are giving it an exacting amount of feed again. After 2 weeks you might check your EC (basically a number, low means needs more food, high means lots of food in laymans terms) and figured you needed to double it's strength so add X amount of ABC, the stuff in the tank, reading off as say 1.8 could be nothing more than the leftovers that the plant didn't really need, so it would just be counter productive to add more of it. fresh water fresh start.

i will have a total of 3 totes. all identical, meaning i can just swap lids around etc. 2 totes are in the flowering and 1 in the veg. the veg tote will get it's clones, rot them out and then have the rest of it's 4 week veg time growing. at 4 weeks it'll go into flowering, and i will also take 4 more clones that day. 4 weeks later the first batch will be halfway through and the second batch wil go in. 4 more clones. when they get to 4 weeks, first batch is harvested, and 3rd clones go in. and repeat. and repeat.

obviously my 4 week schedule will go absolutely to shit but huzah, simplicity maybe! i've yet to see the power of hydro so the clones are only about 10cm tall, i don't want to be overcome by trees and not have light for them all. not to mention larger and more plants would mean the water would be drank faster meaning you might need to replace water more often.



when you empty it, the roots also get an air bath, which apparently they apreciate.

my clones have only had about a week of growing so there's a very small amount of vegging (i say vegging it's half veg half bloom cus i'm spaz) nutes, and they're now in a new tote of water with half strength bloom, which will be increased to ful strength in a week, maybe sooner. these will then go like this until near the end where i'll try some boosters etc and then plain water for last week. hydro is supposed to be a faster turnaround so i'll have to keep my eyes open for when to change what, but i'm never really on the ball anyways so haha.

should mention. i also have 2 totes, which are filled with water the day before each change to evaporate the chlorine, but ideally i'd like to route a tap or hose into my bedroom or something, as they ent sublte and i don't trust that much weight sat ontop of my tent (the tent sits on a floor that is at a 35 degree angle, and is propped up by two thing pieces of wood )

 

[tip top toker]

so i'mbeginning to see what all this fuss over GHS might be. my two strawberry hazes are being very much a pain in the arse.

just a big round bush, a goodish amount of bud it seems, although everything on the plant is brittle and flakey, and doesn't like being fed one bit it would appear

the other strawb. completely and utterly different structure. seems very sativa, wheras the other is more indica, and this one, whether it may look it or ont has literally nooooooo buds, it's a waste of space imo, stupid ass genetics! luckily i'll have 4 more cheese done in 8 weeks

 

[dura72]

its always beewn ghs ive went for but i'm thinkin i'll give speedyseedz a go next time, at least you can have a chat with the guy and so far all ive heard is good, at least in terms of delivery, price etc, no one i know has mentioned grow probs,hermieing or yeild but i guess thats coz they havent had them long enuff to have info on this.

 

[mr west]

my mate grew 4 stawb hazes and got 4 difrent phenos. A couple of wich smelt like drains in summer, nice fruity tang to em lol. Im gonna keep away from ghs since the alaskan ices, its too hit and miss for my liking

 

[dura72]

i got 5 church from ghs and only 2 outta the five had the same phenos, and every one was under exactly the same conditions but one was mutant, one was dwarf, two were almost identical and the other was bloody enormous. guess its just the luck of the draw.

 

[mr west]

pot luck genetics mate, ghs are ok for the bread and butter strains like ww and skunk#1 but anything new is gonna be a lottery in my expirence. Ever the optermist tho ill prolly try thier fem jack herer at some point lol.