Little LED grow experiment

ThisIsDreDay

ThisIsDreDay

Member
Hey guys.

The Blue Rhino is not doing so good. I flushed her last night, and I pierced the soil in a few places with a phillips screwdriver to aerate it a bit. I have not seen any improvements yet, if anything it's getting worse. We will see tomorrow.

On the other hand, Martha is doing great, I can't wait until she starts producing trichomes, she should start in the next few days. The bagseed Cherry Kush and the other Jock Horror I am growing are coming along quite nicely. This Jock Horror should become massive. It was the biggest seed I had. It came out about three times the size Martha was and this one has a pretty nice pot to grow in. Then again the LEDs are not as close as they were on Martha but the conditions are much better in the new room and there are 2 extra T8s that Martha didn't have.

I need to get some High Output T5s. I'm addicted to cheap lighting. I'm sure if this doesn't satisfy me I'll eventually switch to high end LEDs. I can always use those to grow my vedgies.

Ah yes, I also cloned Martha out of curiosity. I'm sure it's not going to amount to anything but I'm curious to see the results. Who knows, maybe it'll yield more than it would've if I would've let it grow at the bottom of the mother.
 
ThisIsDreDay

ThisIsDreDay

Member
Hey guys, it's day 43 - Flowering Day 17 today. Unfortunately I do not have pictures from today. I lowered the red LED panels so that they actually touch the plant, it's kind of a pain to take out to take pictures so I'll update with more pics tomorrow. I did notice today that alot of leaves are getting frosty, these are exciting times!


So here are Day 42 - Flowering Day 16 pics.

photo 1.jpgphoto 2.jpgphoto 3.jpgphoto 4.jpgphoto 5.jpg

Sorry again for the bad quality.

EDIT:

By the way is there anyone reading this that has experience with Autos?

I think I did wrong by switching to flowering nutes as soon as I saw the first pistils. I'm thinking I should've given her vedge nutes for another 2 weeks. Is this what I should do with the new Jock Horror? No nutes for 2 weeks, veg nutes for 2 weeks, small flush, then flowering nutes?

Thanks!
 
ThisIsDreDay

ThisIsDreDay

Member
Hey guys, no pictures today, I haven't taken Martha out of the room in a while.

I noticed that I'm still having an issue with fungus gnats. I've noticed some odd stunting on the Jock Horror seedling I planted. There aren't many adult gnats around (I have yet to see more than one at a time) but I'm sure the soil is teeming with larvae. I've planted a slice of potato in the soil to try and attract them and get a feel of how bad the problem is. I've spread a generous amount of neem oil in the soil but I'm not sure if it will affect them. If I see no improvement with the neem oil, I will resort to using a mixture of one part 3% hydrogen peroxide and four parts water. This should kill them, I'm just hoping not to harm the seedling in the process.

I will update with pictures very soon, possibly tonight. As of yet, Martha is growing incredibly airy. I fear she may have actually been better off in the tiny grow box but I have seen some major improvement since I've changed the layout of the lights and brought them down so low that they are bending the plant down. From one night to the other, all buds had doubled in size. This was in conjecture with a watering and I had fed her a hot mix the night before.

I fear she may be so airy because I stopped feeding her veg nutes too soon, plus at one point the lights were very far away from her when I originally switched from the grow box to the grow room. There are many things that may have gone wrong here, but then again, the plant is still young. The leaves are as vibrant as every and she is super healthy. I'm honestly not that worried about bud production because she looks so healthy. She seems to be a very happy plant and that's what matters most to me at this point.

Ah yes, I almost forgot! I built myself a DIY scrubber last night using a 6 inch duct booster fan, some semiflex ducting and and some paper bins. All in all I think it looks ok, now I need to install it and see how well it performs.
photo.jpg
 
ThisIsDreDay

ThisIsDreDay

Member
Hoooly shit guys. I used a mixture of Hydrogen Peroxide and water to kill the fungus gnats in 3 pots. Blue Rhino, Cherry Kush and Jock Horror. The leaves tripled in size in one night. I knew they were stunted somehow but I had no idea these fucking gnat larvae would do so much damage.

I honestly think this may partially explain why Martha is growing so slowly and airy. I will have to pick up some more peroxide and prepare a second solution for her. When I transplanted her into her final pot, I used the same gnat ridden MG soil.

I asked my mother for advice on this and she said you should never use cheap soil without heating it first. I wish I had more options for organic soil. I will start making my own soon but for now I'm stuck with this crap.
 
FranJan

FranJan

Well-Known Member
Hi TIDD, I'm wondering if the Hydro Perox gave your soil a blast of oxygen and cleared up some kind of anaerobic soil condition or root problem as opposed to killing a boatload of larvae that would just assume eat the chicken shit MG is made up of than the roots of your plants. To have a fungus gnat problem that's bad enough to stunt growth like your talking about you must have a fuckin cloud of fungus gnats hovering in your tent right now. I've had insane fungus gnat infections and never had growth as bad as your talking about. I think it may have been something other than larvae, they probably just aggravated the situation. So my question is what did the potato show? Was it teeming with them?
 
ThisIsDreDay

ThisIsDreDay

Member
FranJan said:
Hi TIDD, I'm wondering if the Hydro Perox gave your soil a blast of oxygen and cleared up some kind of anaerobic soil condition or root problem as opposed to killing a boatload of larvae that would just assume eat the chicken shit MG is made up of than the roots of your plants. To have a fungus gnat problem that's bad enough to stunt growth like your talking about you must have a fuckin cloud of fungus gnats hovering in your tent right now. I've had insane fungus gnat infections and never had growth as bad as your talking about. I think it may have been something other than larvae, they probably just aggravated the situation. So my question is what did the potato show? Was it teeming with them?
Click to expand...
Yup, you are absolutely right.

I actually came here today to share this exact realization. I don't know why I had not figured this earlier. I know Hydrogen Peroxyde is unstable and loses an oxygen and turns to H2O. I then realized that this must be what gave my plants such a boost. I then just did a quick google search to see what people had to say about using Hydrogen Peroxyde with plants and it seems it's somewhat widely known.

I knew I had a bit of a problem with oxygen in my soil because the MG Organic just gets so compact. I had actually took one of the seedlings out of his pot and remixed the whole thing with a ton more perlite. I'm not buying MG anymore but I really don't know what else to get as organic soil. I don't really want to go with a soil-less mix but the only other viable options I have are Pro-Mix and Sunshine Mix #4.

EDIT:

Ah yes, I'm also thinking of adding peroxyde to ever other watering. It doesn't seem to me like it could cause much harm. What do you think FJ?
 
S

SnotBoogie

Well-Known Member
Sounds and looks like you are overwatering to me dawg.

i.e droopy leaves, lack of soil aeration, you seem to be "flushing" a lot...
 
FranJan

FranJan

Well-Known Member
I've never used peroxide in my grow just because I've been taught it kills your micro-herd in organics. So with that in mind I'm a big fan of getting some positive microbes in there somehow. And bubbling your water is great for getting oxygen into the root zone. Plus I always aerate my soil before watering. That's one habit that's helped me get my watering skills down.
 
mc130p

mc130p

Well-Known Member
You can also put a thin layer of sand or perilite on the top of the soil, this will keep the gnats from laying eggs in it... I've also noticed that if you let the top dry between waterings and don't water too often, they will die off as well. It will really stink if you bake your soil...
 
ThisIsDreDay

ThisIsDreDay

Member
You guys are probably right about my watering habits not being very good at the moment. When I was using the grow box, the RH was at 0% so I watered a bit more frequently. I also used to water using a spray bottle which I think was probably much better than the way I'm watering them now which is basically just dumping water over them from a bottle with a fairly large opening. I usually put my fingers above the opening in order to control the flow but that not very good either. I'll have to get a watering can and water them less.

I've got some pictures for you guys today. I'm uploading them to imgur as we speak because these were taken with a very good camera and I don't want them to lose all quality by uploading them directly to the forums.
These pictures are from 3 days ago.

You'll notice some hairs turning orange on the tips, somehow most of them are all white again or on their way to becoming white somehow.

Ah and now I see imgur will not let me upload full sized pics without an account. Sooo.. Tiny pics it is! Oh god it's still upload after about 2 hours.. I guess it bugged. Can't wait until I get my fiber-optic internet connection this Tuesday. I might start doing video updates instead of picture updates if things pick up.










Alright, After another hour trying to work with the imgur album creator I decided to just past the images here. Sorry for the huge ass wall of pics. I just added that last one there because I thought it was pretty with the LEDs in the background.
 
Chronikool

Chronikool

Well-Known Member
Looking good and hey....A 'huge ass wall of pics' meanz less clicking for me...and my fingers could do with a rest....(non sexual) :-P
 
lovemymj

lovemymj

Active Member
I use play sand as well.. kills those little fuckers in a week or less!! I first found them eating the roots of a clone!!! I researched, diagnosed, and eliminated the problem! But!!! Now it's more difficult to tell when my girls are ready to water because the added weight throws me off at times... I beat em' round 1!
 
ThisIsDreDay

ThisIsDreDay

Member
Do you guys think I risk doing root damage if I lightly twist my as to make cracks in the soil and aerate it?

EDIT: I realize I could just poke holes in the soil but I feel like twisting it, since I have fairly soft plastic pots, is more effective.
 
P

PurpleBuz

Well-Known Member
ThisIsDreDay said:
Do you guys think I risk doing root damage if I lightly "punch" my pots and twist them as to make cracks in the soil and aerate it?
Click to expand...
you could transplate into a slightly bigger pot with a really fast draining potting mix (at least 50% sand\perlite\stones).

You could get drill a whole bunch of holes in the side of the pot, more in bottom 1/3.
 
ThisIsDreDay

ThisIsDreDay

Member
PurpleBuz said:
you could transplate into a slightly bigger pot with a really fast draining potting mix (at least 50% sand\perlite\stones).

You could get drill a whole bunch of holes in the side of the pot, more in bottom 1/3.
Click to expand...
Transplanting into larger pots is unfortunately out of the question at the moment. The 2 that I'm actually "worried" about (being that they're automatics), are already in huge 5gal pots.

Drilling holes on the sides sounds like a good idea. I might do that with my youngest JH seedling.

Thanks.
 
ThisIsDreDay

ThisIsDreDay

Member
Hey guys.

I'll have some high quality pictures either later tonight or tomorrow.

Martha is doing great. I don't know if it's coincidence or not but I've been seeing major improvements by switching from 24/0 to 20/4. It's like she hadn't actually fully started blooming before that. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be even better at 18/6 but I'll leave it at 20/4 for now. There is one thing that is concerning me though. I've noticed tiny holes on some leaves. I don't see any pests, the leaves actually seem to be growing with a small perforation. I've seen full sized leaves and baby leaves with a single hole in them. Not all of them are affected though. I've also seen one leaf that has a whole piece of it missing somehow and it looks like it also grew that way as well. I have a few leaves that have appeared out of nowhere overnight that are growing a bit deformed, it's nothing too worrying though. It doesn't look very serious and the plant is just thriving. I'll get some pictures of it later so you guys can see.

The Jock Horror seedling I have is now kicking into full gear, it triples in size every day. Unfortunately this morning, it had grown too much for its own good. It was laying down on the ground because the top got too heavy for its stem which is weird because it does have a fan slightly blowing on it at all times. It was also bent facing the wind flow so it's not like the fan was too strong for it.

The cherry kush is a bit slower, it's looking healthy though. They're all much, much happier now that I'm watering them correctly.

Martha has so many little buds growing all over the plant, I sure hope they all swell up and connect, it actually looks like it might, now that it's under 20/4. This girl still has half of her life ahead of her, she's showing no signs of slowing down. I actually now have the slightest hint of nute burn on her tips, first time I can tell I'm giving her enough. I'd heard that autos did not need nutrients as much as as regular plants do, not sure if that's bullshit or just not the case with this one.

I woke up the other morning and my whole house reeked of weed, turns out of the duct tape joints I had made on the carbon filter had failed and I was basically exhausting pure weed smell inside the walls of the house. It was even better than the smell of bacon. This tiny plant smells sooo strong and she's not even close to being done.
 
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