2'x4' 600w DWC Tent - Spring 2011 Grow

Setup: 600w air cooled HPS (will be starting under 150w HPS). 2'x4'x7' Mylar tent. 3 five-gallon DWC buckets (will be receiving and installing an 18w Air 1 Commercial Air Pump w/i the week). Botanicare: Pure Blend Pro: Bloom and CalMag+ will be used throughout veg and flower. Seeds started w/ HydroGuard innoculation. Will use Clearex 2 days before harvest.

Plants: I have 2 heirloom seeds received from my friend BeKindBud as well as 1 Snow White (Nirvana) seed (also a gift from BKB) that are currently germinating. Thanks BKB!

Pictures from today:

Its about time you got those babies going...I am really excited about the MD seedlings...you me and Billcollector are running those right now. Should be interesting to see how we all finish up those MamaDudes. Since you are doing them in hydro I am thrilled about that so I can see how they like Hydro. Billcollector is LSTing a MD and she really like LSTing from what I see. Looking good mentor!!! I hope they work out for you like they did for me. Sharing is definately caring...just wish we could smoke some Mamadude bowls together.

Here is a pic of my future monster MamaDude which I Top'D last night and didnt miss this time..LOL



I germinated on the 5th of Jan. Hope I got it right this time.

"Edit": Are you going to use the PBP Bloom all the way through??? What is Clearex?

Peace
BKB

Sub'D now!!! Always good to get a front seat of this soon to be master piece of a Spring Grow.....Good work Bro!!!

BKB

Yeah definitely have been excited about this grow brother - that's why I ended up germinating two MDs instead of trying to squeeze in one Athena this time. I'll start all three (including Athena) strains from clone next grow after this too.

The MD plant you posted and the topping job looks good. I'll be topping these three plants once I think.

I will be using PBP:Bloom and CalMag+ throughout the grow (including veg) by the way. The Clearex is to clean the resorvoir and root ball from nutrient buildup (or to remove salt buildup in soil). I'll be using it to clean the bucket/reservoirs out well mid-grow. Also want to try and use it for 2 days prior to harvest in lieu of a long flush. I'm also trying out HydroGuard this grow which contains Bacillus Subtillis and Bacillus Amyloiquefaciens (sp?). I used the HydroGuard to germinate the seeds with. The salesperson at the shop tried to get me to buy all that stuff and I declined and got offered samples to try instead. Fine with me - used the money to get a nice air commercial airpump instead that will be supplying 6 watts per bucket of air instead... can't wait to get it in action!

i wanna see pics of the finally hydro set up prior to them getting in their home buckets....LOL

The new air pump should arrive this coming week so I've held off on really setting anything up. I also need to insulate the new bucket... But I'll get pictures up when it's running for sure.

Starting to get the tent finalized. Got the 150w HPS hung underneath the 600w... Waiting for the new air pump to arrive so just have temporary fittings/tubing at the moment:






Got the seedlings transferred over into the tent and into their buckets:



Individual shots:

Just a quick picture update:



Piston air pump should be delivered tomorrow so I'll get to play with installing that tomorrow night...

Very nice and professional looking. Cant wait to see them get bigger so we can compare the MD phenos to the ones I finished. I got a ton of pics to compare too! I finally got my CPU fixed. wooohooo. Going to be busy this up coming week so I will be checking in from time to time.

Quick question about your set up...Do you have a drip ring? If not how do you feed it till the roots make it down to the Res? Just curious cause you know I want to learn and attempt DWC.

Loving the Avatar too!!!

Peace

BKB

Glad you got your computer fixed finally!

I'm not using a drip ring, just have the water level set high in the buckets: the waterline touches the bottom of the net pots/hydroton and a little moisture gets wicked up to the rockwool cubes the seedlings are in. I haven't had to touch, water, or otherwise bother the seedlings since transferring them... I just check to make sure the rockwool cube is staying a little moist and not water-logged. The Snow White seedling was the first root through the hydroton yesterday by the way, so I'll start to lower the water level a bit at this point as the roots grow down.

I added 5mL of PBP:B and 5mL of CalMag+ to each bucket when I originally transferred them over and added 5mL more of PBP:B the other day... that's all I give until the cotyledons wither.

By the way, my air pump still hasn't arrived due to winter storms delaying things... the delivery date was changed to tomorrow (Sat.). Still it's good timing considering one seedling just got a taproot into the reservoir...

Couple of random pictures from today...

"Minerva" (MD#1):



"Aphrodite" (MD#2) in the foreground, "Minerva" (MD#1) in the background:



Aphrodite is the smallest, Minerva the largest, and the Snow White is in the middle size-wise.

New air pump arrived and running:



Roots in the reservoir:



Group shot:



Individual shots:

Wanted to share a picture of an experiment I'm doing on a clone in case anyone might be interested:



This is a "mom" plant in a micro'ish DWC setup. She was topped to get 4 meristems... which I LST'ed down into and through the bucket lid at four opposite corners. I'm hoping to the tops that were put through the lid develop roots soon. If at least one does, I'm going to cut that meristem off at the original base/trunk and have an upside down plant... we'll see. Just for fun.

Just noticed this on MD #1 aka Minerva:



Just thought it was an interesting place for a branch to be coming in at 1 week of age.

Little MD#2 is growing very slowly and still hasn't gotten any roots through the hydroton while the other two have healthy root systems developing in the reservoirs and are 3-4 times as big. I'm starting to consider the possibility of replacing MD#2 with a young Athena clone... going to excavate MD2s rockwool cube in a bit and see what's going on in there. I'll give her about a week to see if she'll pull out of her funk if there are any healthy roots at all. Likely will transplant MD2 back to the cabinet if I think I can save her.

Glad I started two MDs.

looking good so far. how long are you vegging for?

RawBudzski said:

looking good so far. how long are you vegging for?

Click to expand...

Thanks for dropping in man. I'm not exactly sure right now to be honest - this is a first time with these strains and w/ having three buckets in the tent, so I'll have to play it by ear/eye some. But I'll probably switch to 12/12 when they are around 12"-16" tall, depending on how much width they take up... That's the current plan anyway.

TaoWolf said:

Wanted to share a picture of an experiment I'm doing on a clone in case anyone might be interested:

View attachment 1430830

This is a "mom" plant in a micro'ish DWC setup. She was topped to get 4 meristems... which I LST'ed down into and through the bucket lid at four opposite corners. I'm hoping to the tops that were put through the lid develop roots soon. If at least one does, I'm going to cut that meristem off at the original base/trunk and have an upside down plant... we'll see. Just for fun.

View attachment 1430911View attachment 1430912View attachment 1430910

Click to expand...

Hey Taowolf,

Definitely looks like a fun experiment.

I've seen a bonsai that was layered and then removed from the parent and I'm pretty sure that part of it was being fed from roots "above", so the life juices of the plant should be able to flow "backwards".

Not sure whether the dieing-off of the LST'd branch ends (no light) will influence whether the plant bothers to grow roots ... if roots don't grow then maybe ...

... if the LST'd branches go into the bubbler THEN out again through a second hole, the plant may have more of an incentive to throw out roots.


If it works, it will be a great way to produce large rooted clones.

Grumpy Old Dreamer said:

... if the LST'd branches go into the bubbler THEN out again through a second hole, the plant may have more of an incentive to throw out roots.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that idea right there. I'm pretty certain that would work and wish I had thought of trying that first. If the current attempt doesn't work as is I'll try that with a longer branch maybe going into a second adjacent bucket if needed. Could probably break/supercrop any branch a couple of times to get a U shape that I could easily do that with.

As far as dying back of the tips goes, one branch tip did die back a little already but the damage wasn't extensive and hasn't progressed. I removed the dead tissue and reinserted the tip through the lid. But the other three tips are/were healthy so I retreated all the tips while at it with cloning powder... But yeah, it's definitely possible all the tips will continuously die off before any roots form...

First real nutrients:
09FEB - "Aphrodite" - 6 tsp PBP:B / 10mL CalMag+ / 2 tsp pH Down/bucket
10FEB - "Minerva" - 6 tsp PBP:B / 10mL CalMag+ / 2 tsp pH Down/bucket
11FEB - "Snow White" - 6 tsp PBP:B / 10mL CalMag+ / 2 tsp pH Down/bucket