My first try at hydroponics..

[bongzilla610]

First let me say I've been trolling the roll it up forums for awhile and decided it was the best community out there to start my grow journal.



So a few weeks back I picked up an older style BCNL Producer grow box off Craigslist for $500 delivered. Its the SUPER old model with Aube style timers. It came with a bunch of stuff (most of which I threw away due to lack of cleanliness and improper storage)


I went out and picked up some misc stuff..
Air pump and 2 8" air stones
new 100gph water pump
Aquarium heater
PH test it
ppm tester
Advanced nutrients - micro-grow-blooom
Advances nutrients- bud candy
misc measures (needles/cups)
some seeds from attitude
grow pots
rockwool
starter plugs
ducting
new scrubber
and a bunch of other stuff

So far I have close to 1,000 invested but around 750-800 of it is "re-usable expenses"

I've done a few gorilla outdoor grows over the years but now I live in an area that allows me to legally grow my own medicine so I figured i'd try my hand at hydroponics.....


Please feel free to comment on my journal as I go- good and bad criticism is welcome.


I'm workin in a non-climate controlled location so i ran ductwork to controlled intake (into home ducts- we keep house between 68-73 yearround)

 

[bongzilla610]

I hit-up attitude and got some feminized seeds sent, I believe i made a pretty big error in getting multiple strains.... I should have thought more into since different strains have different needs/grow rates.. I'm hoping it won't be a huge issue until it come time to crop- at that point I will need to balance my "flush period" carefully to try get the fine line of some plants being close to overdone and some not quite fully ready.... we'll see how it goes.. i know next time I will be getting a full crop of same plant (or at least VERY simillar strains)

aaanyhow I used some super starter plugs I wet with ph balanced tap water and 1ml of micro/grow per pint I put the plugs into small paper cups and sewed my seeds about 1/8-1/4" below surface and coverd holes with a small tear-off of the plug. I then cut about 20 holes in a plastic bin and put all my cups on the upside-down lid- this allowed me to fill the rim of the lid with ph balanced water to allow it to evaporate causing a super high humidy "clone dome"

I also made a "cheat sheet" so i wouldn't lose track of which seeds were which.

 

[bongzilla610]

I found a good place for germination in the cabinet above my stove's light/fan, i found that when i leave the light on and fan off the cabinet will maintain around 86-89 degrees, so i left my homeade dome in there in darkness for 3 or 4 days- i used ph balanced water with a tad nutes to keep them damp. i basically used a teaspoon or so a day of liquid and it kept them perfect- i beleive the paper cups helped soak up and dissipate excess fluid but that might just be in my head

after 3 days I had majority sprouted and moved them into my box. I left them in dome on 24hr light with about an hour a day without dome- when dome was off i kept an oscillating fan on them to help strengthen stems.

 

[bongzilla610]

I checked plugs and on allmost of the ones that sprouted the roots were outgrowing them so i dropped them into the rockwool and got my machine going. It was kind of a pain in the ass to program the lights/fans due to its age but i got it all going and filled with a mild nute solution. I installed my new 100gph water pump, my airpump and airstones, set my thermometer in corner until i decide how i'm gonna run everything. I havn't put my heater in since i'm maintaining a 69 degree water temp with lights on and about 64-66 lights off.

I put the plants onto a 18/6 light cycle- I know its pretty early but with my box i worry about stretch and end result overall length... i'm not gonna let them veg to long, prolly when my average is 3.5 leaf clusters i will switch over... but for now i'm gonna sit back and see what they do height wise between now and then..

heres some shots just after they got put into their wool and got setup in booth- after putting everything down i thought about it and i should of painted the tray flat white but oh well- next time.

also i forgot to mention- i picked what got planted based on strain and overal health of seedlings, i kept 2 or 3 extras that were healthy to replace any that die from transplant.

 

[bongzilla610]

after 24 hours in booth it appeared if the growth slowed considerably- could be from transplant- slight raise in nutes- being to far from light-not sure but they appear overall pretty healthy

 

[bongzilla610]

I checked my babies this morning (making this journal current)
i mis-programmed 2 of my fan/water timer schedules so they apparently ran for a 2 hr window today and yesterday I'm glad i caught my mistake before i drowned them. (i'm not sure i'm in the clear yet but if tomorrow they arn't shriveled and yellow i know i'm good)
heres some pictures i took this morning and overall they appear to be in pretty good shape...

on the thermometer the 69 is the air temp outside in room i keep box, my intake air is 71-72 degrees and box internal is 74.



Thanks for lookin at my journal and please tell me if you see room for improvement... or got any overall advice...

 

[crazymanny00]

nice setup i like the amount of plants you've chosen to grow. i would try hydro but it seems like a bigger investment i dont really have at the mo. plus paranoid about things breaking.

hope all works out well for you.. will check back in soon

 

[bongzilla610]

hope all works out well for you.. will check back in soon

thanks man- i saved for a little while and stalked craigslist for a cheap setup.. since i moved to my new house i can't grow in sunlight so i had to do something.

 

[ewiggin]

Subbed man. Even for being an older unit, I think you're going to have a blast with this grow.

 

[bongzilla610]

Subbed man. Even for being an older unit, I think you're going to have a blast with this grow.

thanks, so far its been fun as hell.

 

[bongzilla610]

So its been a few days since I put up any updates..

These things are growing like... well.. weeds

tomarrow morning I'm gonna be emptying my reservoir and refilling with a much stronger nute solution- maybe 50%-75% of full strength. Still gotta do a little more research on it.

I'm also gonna get my water heater setup to bring my temp up slightly, water has been cooling a little more then I want it to.

I'm looking for an opinion or two, I wanna top my plants but I need to wait a little bit since they are to small, my main concern is I'm at least a week from topping but your supposed to wait a week or two after topping to hit the 12/12.. I'm afraid mine will be to tall at that point and end up running outta room... thoughts??


aaanyhow heres some shots I take every morning. first ones are 3 or 4 days ago and the last four being the ones I took today.

 

[bongzilla610]

so i noticed two of my ladies were leaning pretty hard so i propped them with some clear tubing a picked up an oscillating fan to help strengthen the trunks a bit. I also changed out my water last night and started running 3ml per liter of the advanced micro/grow/bloom nutes. this morning they look pretty happy with the upped nutrient levels.

heres my right and left shots



heres the closest picture i can pretty much get with my crappy camera. it shows how i split the tubing also to support the stem.
bubba 76 @ 18 days since i started germination- looking healthy, hopefully another week or two and i can flip cycles and let the fun really begin. I'm gonna fim one of the northern soul plans just to see how it turns out but i really wanna watch the natural cycle since its my first legitimate grow, i'll save the tricks and everything for another time.. who knows, next time i'll try for 4 bigas kolas on each one.... tough in a tight box though unless you want them small and uniform


I never went over it, but i'm growing..
4x seedsman's - northern soul
2x greenhouse seed company- white widow
2x dutch passion - purple #1
1x reserva privada - OG kush
1x world of seeds - skunk 47
1x emerald triangle - bubba 76
1x samsara seeds - holygrail 69
1x dinafem - original amnesia auto

and since i didn't keep track of the seedlings i didn't pick for box i have 3 unknown growin that could be any of the above... all plants are feminized seeds...

 

[crazymanny00]

greeeeen and pretty

 

[bongzilla610]

things are going great, i'm headed outta town for the weekend but upon my return monday morning i'll prolly switch to flowering.. we'll see though.

important note- Run an oscillating fan on low from the beginning next time, for the last few days i've run the fan twice a day for 2 hours per. its made these little guys tough as nails compared to not using a fan, hopefully they strengthen up even more to hold some killer fruit down the line

on to this morning's pictures.

 

[bongzilla610]

so things are looking good, my box dipped down to 69 degrees last night due to it being so cold outside and my grow being in a garage, my intake draws from my house so it was getting 71 degree air all night but just the metal box being in the cold brought my temp down farther then i'd like. i'm headed outta town this weekend so i'm gonna put the house on like 73 or 74 to keep my babies warm while i'm gone. i will be home sunday night and i'm gonna cut my lights off for 36hrs before i turn on the big boys for my 12/12.
hopefully two 400 watt hps bulbs heat up the box enough to compensate for the cold weather.

right now the plants range in height from 4.75" to 6.5" i expect about .5" of growth over the next two-three days so i should hit flower phase at 5-7" some of these plants (since it wasn't to well thought out) are predominantly sativa strains so i might need to run some netting to keep them off the glass in their final days of stretch but we'll see..\

Oh yeah, I never wrote my goal of the grow down. I'm going to be optimistic and say I wanna see 12 oz's of dried/trimmed... guys are putting up larger numbers (with more experience and a better nute regiment) but we'll see....

here's this mornings photos regular side by side shot followed with a height shot of the biggest on in there.

 

[bongzilla610]

just got back into town last night and plants are looking pretty healthy. in a fear of overgrowing the box i cut off the lights last night at 9pm to do 24hrs of darkness before i switch to my 12/12.
pictures from right before i cut the lights out.

 

[bongzilla610]

so I went 24 hrs in the dark to kickstart, then switched to 12/12 and ran my florescent the first day then switched to the big boys yesterday. plants are looking super healthy. I did notice a little bit of white mold/mildew on some of my rockwool but it may be residual salts so i'm going to flush my rockwool with ph balanced water and then apply a 3in1 spray to the rockwool and keep an eye on it over the next few days. I'm hoping it takes care of it so I don't need to spray my actual plants cause i'm allways weary spraying chems on them....

I also threw 1.5 oz of bud candy into my reservoir this morning to help get the plant acclimated before using at full strength next week

no pictures because my batteries died and I havn't gotten to the store yet.

happy smoking

 

[bongzilla610]

the girls seem to be doing good on the flowering cycle. yesterday just as my 12hr darkness started I sprayed a 3 in 1 pesticide/fungicide/mitacide on my rockwool and misted the plants and by this morning the slight mold on my rock wool was gone so i'm pretty stoked on it. I pulled up my lid to look at roots and it seems weird. two plants have a pretty good root or two hanging into the water but the rest are just past the rock wool but not outta the cage yet. I ordered 2 more 8" air stones this morning.

I'm not sure if anybody reads this but I've got 2 questions
1. Is the variation in roots regular on a multi strain grow? is it something to worry about?


2. how much air are you guys putting in your reservoir? i've currently got a ecoplus 2 outlet pump plumbed to 2x 8" air stones but i will be adding two more tomorrow...

I appreciate any help

heres the pictures

 

[bongzilla610]

So mixed reviews since my last post. a few of my girls are having some issues that i'm unsure how to fix. i posted in the help forum to hopefully find a solution

https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-plant-problems/574464-please-help-ive-searched-ive.html

but the plants that are unaffected are doing great, the addition of the two more air stones has helped my root growth considerably.

any help with my issues are greatly appreciated.

heres two pictures of my issues and also a 40x photo of one of the healthy ones.

 

[crazymanny00]

growth looks good sorry to ehar about your problems. hope they have stopped now...

i think you should add some more air stones if you only have 1 for that many plants