Variety Grow - Perpetual, "Mini" ScrOG's, DWC in a Cabinet (First Timer)

[gumball]

Your girls are probably to old to give a paint brush and a bunch of different colors of paint and let them paint all over the outside, like for fun, huh? When I seen the full outside cab shot it reminded me of when my daughter was young, and she would have loved for me to let her go crazy with paint and artistic creativity on something of mine like that. And of course I would have loved to always have that to remind me of those days! They grow up so fast, but they do always come back to daddy, just a different woman when they do.

The plants look great, glad to see so much progress being made, and even upgrades!! YIPPEE

 

[jsgamber]

Your girls are probably to old to give a paint brush and a bunch of different colors of paint and let them paint all over the outside, like for fun, huh? When I seen the full outside cab shot it reminded me of when my daughter was young, and she would have loved for me to let her go crazy with paint and artistic creativity on something of mine like that. And of course I would have loved to always have that to remind me of those days! They grow up so fast, but they do always come back to daddy, just a different woman when they do.

The plants look great, glad to see so much progress being made, and even upgrades!! YIPPEE

I'd let them do it in a heart beat!!! But sadly my girls are teenagers and they find every reason to avoid me. Conversations usually go:

Me: Hi sweetie, how was your day?
Them: Good

Me: Anything fun happen today?
Them: Not really

Me: So do you want to do something fun?
Them: Not really

Me: Can I help you with anything? Homework?
Them: "I don't know." or "No" or "Not really" or the worst response....none.

At least I have my coffee mug that she made me at Color Me Mine for fathers day 10 years ago that's painted all up just like you describe. It's my reminder of good days past.

I guess I'll be painting the cabinet boring old white.

 

[gumball]

Its these times you will cherish most when they have teenagers of their own doing the same to them But moms always get a little more (good and bad) from teenage daughters than dads!

Boring old white will do, cause at least its in production

 

[Serapis]

You are not providing enough space between the root stock and the screen. When auxin is released, all nodes below the bend that caused the stress to the top are instructed to branch out and seek the light, become the main stem. The problem here is, that you have no nodes lower than the branching, they are all right there on the same level. Your branching will be minimal, stems thin.

If height in space is an issue (I haven't read your entire journal), consider making a Mom box and take cuttings and once rooted and vegged a week or two, flower them. You'll only have to worry about 12" plants that way, can set up a perpetual harvest, whatever. Those cuttings look like they came from a flowering plant and they aren't doing so well.... I can take a look and read up on your journal if ya want, no promises, might find something to help out.

Keep trying, it does get easier if you remember the lessons.

 

[jsgamber]

You are not providing enough space between the root stock and the screen. When auxin is released, all nodes below the bend that caused the stress to the top are instructed to branch out and seek the light, become the main stem. The problem here is, that you have no nodes lower than the branching, they are all right there on the same level. Your branching will be minimal, stems thin.

If height in space is an issue (I haven't read your entire journal), consider making a Mom box and take cuttings and once rooted and vegged a week or two, flower them. You'll only have to worry about 12" plants that way, can set up a perpetual harvest, whatever. Those cuttings look like they came from a flowering plant and they aren't doing so well.... I can take a look and read up on your journal if ya want, no promises, might find something to help out.

Keep trying, it does get easier if you remember the lessons.

Ignored....please leave.

 

[gumball]

How are the new clones roots doing, they showing through the net pot yet?

 

[jsgamber]

How are the new clones roots doing, they showing through the net pot yet?

F-13#2 has two roots in water. I can see the roots up in the clay pellets on the other 3 but they just haven't dropped down out of the netpots yet. At least as of this morning.

 

[gumball]

Just curious cause I can't remember, have you verified one cabinet won't leak light into another cabinet? Just a thought since your about to flip. I have used the video camera and wrapped a thick towel around the camera lights so it don't interfere with the test to see if there are any major light leaks. I know light leaks aren't as major of a problem as everyone states cause I don't think daniels has a light filter 1 on any of his setups and his always turn out fine. But seeing that it would be tough to get into one of the cabs and sit there and watch, I thought I would suggest it if it hasn't already crossed your mind

 

[jsgamber]

Just curious cause I can't remember, have you verified one cabinet won't leak light into another cabinet? Just a thought since your about to flip. I have used the video camera and wrapped a thick towel around the camera lights so it don't interfere with the test to see if there are any major light leaks. I know light leaks aren't as major of a problem as everyone states cause I don't think daniels has a light filter 1 on any of his setups and his always turn out fine. But seeing that it would be tough to get into one of the cabs and sit there and watch, I thought I would suggest it if it hasn't already crossed your mind

I do it completely opposite from you! I leave the light on in the cabinet and close it all up. Then turn the lights off in the garage to make it pitch dark and let my eyes adjust. It makes it really easy to see where the light leaks are as well as air leaks.

My only issues are in the back with the vent tubing. However Panda film wrapped around the ends of the exhaust tubes, black side inward, should do the trick. And if not, I still have about 20' of left over 4" PVC and fittings that I can work with as well!

 

[gumball]

I do it completely opposite from you! I leave the light on in the cabinet and close it all up. Then turn the lights off in the garage to make it pitch dark and let my eyes adjust. It makes it really easy to see where the light leaks are as well as air leaks.

My only issues are in the back with the vent tubing. However Panda film wrapped around the ends of the exhaust tubes, black side inward, should do the trick. And if not, I still have about 20' of left over 4" PVC and fittings that I can work with as well!

good idea but I'm a bit to impatient to wait for my eyes to adjust plus it gives me reasons to tinker with shit.

 

[oOBe RyeOo]

I do it completely opposite from you! I leave the light on in the cabinet and close it all up. Then turn the lights off in the garage to make it pitch dark and let my eyes adjust. It makes it really easy to see where the light leaks are as well as air leaks.

My only issues are in the back with the vent tubing. However Panda film wrapped around the ends of the exhaust tubes, black side inward, should do the trick. And if not, I still have about 20' of left over 4" PVC and fittings that I can work with as well!

This is how I've found all my light leaks. I think it works well.


Appreciate all the kind words and wisdom from both you, Gamber and Gumball.

 

[Danielsgb]

This is where I learned what I believe now from 2 Guru's

I read this in another thread and wanted to copy it here as this is really good info from our friend Iam5toned as it relates to light leaks causing hermies (if you have read my threads you know how I feel about this)

here it is,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Thank you Iam5toned for putting it in an easy to understand post, good stuff

let me decide it for you man, not trying to be a smart ass about it either...

look out your window at night. is it pitch black? no.
lets pretend you can blame the fact its not pitch black on artificial light pollution (streetlamps, etc etc)
so lets head out into the wilderness... far far into the wilderness. is it pitch black at night? no.
lets head south to some of the tropical latitudes... you'll find that the closer you get to the equator, the brighter the night sky gets. this is really noticeable at sea. not like you'd be growing on a ship, but just for examples sake. you will find that in most of cannabis' natural habitat, the starlight combined with the moonlight is bright enough to read by.
hmmmmmm..... makes you wonder why you don't have hermies in nature occurring on a more regular basis, doesn't it....

hermies caused by light leaks is kind of a myth. but it does happen.
let me explain a little further... bear with me on my layman's terms as well, its just easier for me to explain things in laymans terms to avoid confusion or misinterpretation.
if your growing indoors, its not natural. the normal limiting factors that are present in nature are simply not there in your indoor op. weaker plants that would normally die off in the wild thrive, because you do your best to provide the perfect environment. more often than not, the 'perfect environment' is too much for the plants, its not natural. there's no times of drought or shitty light or extreme temp swings to harden them up. you could compare it to raising a retarded pig and a normal pig, side by side in a closet. both will thrive, because you provide everything for them. however in the wild, its obvious the retarded pig wouldn't make it very far at all... for various reasons.
what this means, is that your prize plant that looks so nice and smells so nice might have the weakest genetics in your entire crop... but you would never know, until something affects your 'perfect environment'... like a light leak... then, and only then, do the weaker genetics become apparent.

its not rocket science folks... its Jr high level botany.

I know light leaks aren't as major of a problem as everyone states cause I don't think Daniels has a light filter 1 on any of his setups and his always turn out fine.

You're right I don't worry too much about it. Other stresses are as likely for it's cause.
This is a great explanation.
Daniels

 

[jsgamber]

This is where I learned what I believe now from 2 Guru's





You're right I don't worry too much about it. Other stresses are as likely for it's cause.
This is a great explanation.
Daniels

That makes common sense to me! I'll make sure there are no beacons but I also won't be so anal that I spend hours going from 98% to 99% lightproof!

Thanks Daniels!!

 

[gumball]

only reason i focus on it so much is A. I need to be stealth, and B. It's right by my head when I sleep, and I dont like a beacon of light to guide me away from sleep!! I think I read that IAM5toned post too daniels!!

 

[jsgamber]

only reason i focus on it so much is A. I need to be stealth, and B. It's right by my head when I sleep, and I dont like a beacon of light to guide me away from sleep!! I think I read that IAM5toned post too daniels!!

So yesterday began my gut, reorg and cleanup of the garage. I started washing and scrubbing the walls with a solution of TSP and bleach....and then I discovered, after living here for 11 years, that what I thought was white paint was only drywall mud texture!! The original owners never fucking painted the garage! I was scrubbing a stain before I realized I hit drywall! Well you know how us stoner's react..."Now I fucking have to paint the garage!!" After 15 minutes of sorting through spare cans of paint, I came to my senses!! Fuck it! I'm just disinfecting anyways. I put the paint away, got out my nice fluffy window brush on a stick and lightly painted the walls with the bleach and TSP solution; fuck the stains! This worked great as it also cleaned away all of the spider webs in the cracks and corners.

I'm only 1/3 of the way through the cleaning, but I've dusted and washed down all of the storage shelves as well as the outside of all of our storage and camping containers using bleach and detergent. In addition I went out to Ace Hardware and picked up two sets of refrigerator wheels to place under my storage shelving so now I can move them away from the walls and keep things clean on a regular basis!

Enough about the boring stuff! PLANTS!!

SOG#1 is becoming an unruly bitch and she is fighting the screen like mad!! I've got 7 more squares to fill on one end but the other end is just going fucking crazy and it's not going to wait. I only have one end tied down and you can see how it's pushing the other end up! They are now T-minus 13.5 hours until their first 12 hours of darkness I get a tear in my eye when I think about it!!

And then reality hits. Bugs on the roots. Not so bad and it doesn't look like a super infestation. They just had a does of SM-90 two days ago and I'm afraid of over doing it. When I discovered them this morning I was just running out the door, so I did a stoner panic, and grabbed my spray bottle with the 5:1 mix, turned the spray into a bit of a stream and then fired a few well aimed shots at the 4 bugs I could see then turned the spray onto the bottoms of the netpots. I haven't looked in on them in several hours so I'm not sure what the result is yet.

Here's the pic I shot this morning before running out the door.

 

[krane]

this is looking good, i might test out a system like this...

 

[jsgamber]

I've decided to delay 12/12 for a couple of days. I just went through another "de-bug-ification" again. The bad news, some munched roots. The good news, it doesn't appear to be affecting the growth of the Skywalker girls except for what hydroponics gives back. I would classify the infestation levels on a scale of 1-10: SOG#1 2; SOG#2 3; SOG#3 8; BD 6.

Blue Dream is plain stunted but her root development continues to slowly progress. She looks like a little bonsai. All leaves are healthy but she's just not growing. I'm actually curious to see what happens during flowering...we'll say she's a little experiment.

So let's talk bugs for a bit. One thing for sure is even though they like moisture, they can't stand water. And they LOVE those little feather roots! You'll notice that all of the munched roots are in the root zone and not in the water. These buggers are all hidden in the netpots.

SOG#1's root ball

Now let's do something about it. At this point there is nothing wrong with the water. It's stable at pH 5.9 and the plant is accustomed to it. I'll use it to flush, actually, drown the plant.

I emptied out the tank into a 5 gallon bucket then took the plant and gently but firmly plunged the pot up and down in the water for a good minute.

After the dunk I poured the water from the bucket back into the tank. Here's what was left on the bottom of the bucket.

And this is what the water looked like and this is infestation level 2.

While all of this is going on, SOG#1 is enjoying a quick air bath.

The process continues by draining the tank back into the bucket while filtering the water through a clean wash rag to catch all the crap.

This is Blue Dreams water on the second flush. The water dramatically clears up with each filter! I flushed and filtered 4 times! Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the tank water for SOG#3 who had the worst issues and had to be flushed 8 times.

 

[jsgamber]

Now that the bugs are diminished (I'm not claiming victory yet) I've got to get these girls back under a screen and doing it turns out not to be an easy task and leads to several heart attack moments trying to weave a crazed plant back into confinement without breaking every stem and branch in the process. I needed a serious break to calm down and catch up on RIU.

Here's the beast SOG#1

I was reading through Stelthy's grow and realized that there is a fair amount of trimming going on under the screen. Now I've read all of the pros and cons of cutting leaves and not cutting leaves. But this is ScrOG and it is common practice to remove any extra growth under the screen.

I started in by setting the screen over the plant and going for any fan leaves that were pushed down on the top of the tank. Then I realized that everything is "color coded." Branches and stems are bright green and fan leaves have purple stems. As long as I stuck to purple stems all was good. Once the plant was "lightened" up a bit, the screen easily went back over the plant allowing me to secure it using zip ties. This top down shot shows the "shape" of the plant as a result of all my "toppings".

Here's the pile of leaves and my only collateral damage on the right.

My little Blue Dream bonsai - obviously nothing to trim here.

SOG #3 - Before and After

SOG #2 - Before and After

After all of this, I think I gave myself some breathing room as well as the plants. I know I did a lot to them but I figured if I had to do harm, I might as well get it all done in one move and then let the plants recover from stress only once. Now that SOG#1 is under control I should easily be able let her fill out the last remaining holes in the screen. Now I can go into 12/12 under my terms and not the terms of the plant!

 

[jsgamber]

this is looking good, i might test out a system like this...

Hey Krane. Almost missed your introduction among my morning posts! Welcome to the thread! You know where to come if you have any questions. If I can't answer them, there are plenty of smart people hanging out here who would also love to jump in and help!

 

[gumball]

Well what a weekend for you probably a smart call holding on 12/12, despite how badly you want to flower they do look good, especially Sog1

But I have an idea for you. You have 12 plant positions, granted your bottom cabinet is cleared and close to ready to grow in. So you could switch it to 12/12 and get that SOG1 flowering before she outgrows your space while the others recover from the bugs. And as the others are ready you can throw them into 12/12. Plus it will be easier to deal with the larger flowering plants on the bottom level.

Just something for you to chew on while you clean up the remnants of the bug mess.