600W Dwc Discrete Cabinet Scrog - 2nd Run

I'll have as many bd clones as you want in a week. I left the bd alone for a week and when I came back it was too big to flower.

Roots from the cabinet res. These aren't quite as white as last time, but they are making a mch denser mat across the res. One thing is for sure, no more molasses. Joz, you and I are both fools for even considering putting carbs into a DWC res, non-circulating, running 70-72f. If anything, use a carefully applied synthetic carb supplement. Dump in from the top of the pots and try not to leave too much in the res. Every bit of carb left in there is a dice roll on root rot at these temperatures.


A few shots of the work in progress.
1000W sun master in a 6" yieldmaster II.
The PVC is 4" drain pipe all around, 1" holes drilled to accomodate 1" drain hoses. Each arm is suspended from the tent frame by a nylong strap, letting me adjust the angles and height without having to redo all the PVC connections. Connections which are primered and glued properly, nice and tight, because the elbow and T will leak if you don't.
Res is 45gal totes doubled up, with a cutout for the drain pipe so that the res is effectively 13" tall, same as a standard hydro shop res.
Three 550gph pumps in the res, each one pumping out 1/2", T'd off into two buckets per pump. Bucket fills from about 8", then empties out into 1" drains at about 7.5", two drains per bucket.
Another 1/2" line at the very bottom on the drain side is attached to a valve for flushing the system. One drain per bucket.

Still lots to do but it's running. Better than expected even, two of the SFVs already have substantial roots out of the 10" net pots, hanging in the drink, which I think is compromised mostly of insecticide.

will be adding basic drippers, just one per pot for now. eventually either a drip ring or maybe experiment with 1/4" soaker line. Not engaging this until the bugs are under control.

needs aeration too. no airstones or anything in there yet. there is a hole in each bucket ready to accomodate an air line or whatever. looking to do something other than air stones if i can. saw some "diffuser tubing" that really looked interesting but can't find a retailer.

needs a fan and filter stat. and we're gonna need a chiller, period.

needs the 1/2" flush valves piped to a central drain so i don't have to fuck with each bucket other than the valve.

needs a fucking stage riser built underneath so the res can slide under it and give me 12"+ of vertical space back. hate wasting space sitting the grow buckets on 16" pedestals. i want tall plants in here.

eventually it needs a magnum XXXL and a cooltube in each corner muahah!

HA!

here's a clue that you've got too many plants in a cabinet - two of them have been mostly dead for weeks and nobody noticed!

Two in the back just never grew, looks like they were just squeezed out and finally gave up. Roots don't look bad but I bet they get bad now that I've yanked them. Don't know if I should go ahead and rootectomy cut away the whole area around the now missing plants, or just wait and see? I proactively dumped in a bunch of hygrozyme while I think about it and get input from you bunch of geniuses.

So max capacity of my cabinet is 4 plants, period.

You can't tell one bit whatsoever that there are two plants now gone. Big hole in the lower area in the back, but no difference at all in the canopy or yield. These plants never got anywhere and were taking up more root space than anything else. pretty damn funny.

Also aphids all fucking over the croutons in the pots! and some crawling caterpiller looking shit burrowing into one .. like an insect exhibit down there. Luckily everything up top looks good, but all bets are off now. Flower these and sterilize the whole lab nuclear style.

azamax = useless against aphids in dwc coco.

id sure be pissed off if the crop up top didn't look fantastic.

Damn, man! You must live in the country or something to have all these insects.

Seriously, this is BS. You'd think I was growing outdoors in Tijuana or something.

Wondering now if these aren't gnats I've been fighting. Could they be whatever the fuck these aphids turn into as adults? I've heard they grow wings but I can't find a decent pic. Black with clear wings is the description, and that fits what I've seen flying around. I've got (or had, the sns 203 seems to really keep the fliers away at least temporarily) black with clear wings and pudgy brown ones with clear wings. The brown ones have the behavior of fungus gnats where they often run rather than fly.

One little victory though - as predicted, the PH is stable today right about where we want it. I will ph up from 5.7 to 6.0 later today and it should stick until next flush in a few days.

Going to flower the BD out with whatever the hell might be growing in there. Debating about yanking the tent and starting fresh. I probably should. Maybe I will let them go long enough to take some (hopefully clean) clones before nuking the place.

There is direct outside access in this room, so it may just be that I'll have to live with it. I don't think I can keep the bugs away for good here.

What I really need is a room on the third level or higher .. probably still catch these fuckers or bring them with me.

Really wonder if these fuckers were in the coco last cycle and I never saw them.

THIS

http://www.hydrocanna.com/infirmary/7127-fungus-gnats-aphids-how-can-you-tell-2.html

is good root aphid knowledge. Required reading for any indoor gardener.
Yes, required. Do it or suffer my fate as well.

Seriously. There is no better source of info on root aphids, at least not that I can find.

Based on this info, the bulk of the fliers i have seen in the grow room are indeed aphids, not fungus gnats, although both certainly exist here. My plan of attack is Bayer tree and shrub for the tent and any other plants not flowering in the next 40ish days. The cabinet has around 30 days left so I will stick with SNS 203 there. It has already had an effect on the fliers so maybe it will keep things under control.

Also need to start putting Tanglefoot at the base of each stem from now on, no matter where the plant is going. This should be standard practice for everyone at all times.

I will not be able to eradicate these things. They will always find a way into this room. Once we have this infestation under control, now that i know more about what i'm really dealing with, we'll need to establish a "preventative" regimen to keep major outbreaks from happening again. If I can keep them under control enough to not see any fliers in the tent or cabinet, no mysterious deficiencies etc, and I only see them if I really dig through the coco, then that's about the best we can hope for in this environment. That being said, those little fuckers swarming my fingers by the hundreds is absolutely unacceptable and will always trigger a close to nuclear option.

Please do yourself a favor .. if you are a novice grower like me, read the entire thread above and save yourself some headache.
The only piece of info I'm really missing now is: what exact species of nematode will kill these aphids?

About the end of week 6.

Despite the drama down below, the canopy is looking great. Really putting on weight, starting to lean to the side. Much, much more dense than last time. CO2 for the win.





dig those trichomes!

They grow wings huh? Well I am up in my new pad and I spotted a flying insect that was a little more agile than my typical dopey Fungus Gnat, and the fucker looked like a black aphid, but with wings. So this concerns me, I've heard nematodes are a great way to get rid of them quickly, and you can breed your own. Time to transplant, Azatrol drench, SNS203 spray, and DE dust, and Doctor Doom bomb, no survivors. I saw spider mite scars on a clone, I don't know if it has mites at the moment or if those are old, but I'm probably going to throw it away tomorrow, and use this new mite oil.

Mite Oil, can we term this for products that don't work worth a shit, like Snake Oil, because these mite products almost never work worth a shit, and cost an arm and a fucking leg.

Roots look great btw. I don't know what to do about the two straggler's roots, but they answer more questions than they bring up. Try and separate them out, but the roots on your flowering plants are far to important at the moment for you to cut out. Molasses is kind of dumb at those temps. What was I thinking? You can always try Sweet Raw, by Botanicare. I'll give you a sample some time. Or Sugar Daddy by Technaflora, because that is a step in the right direction for you, haha. But you should consider possibly dangling a light and doing vertical in the middle, instead of using reflectors on the sides of a grow. I'm about to go vertical. But for this grow, at the moment, I have 2 6" XXXL Magnum hoods, so I'm pretty stoked about that. And I get to play with Phantom ballasts this go around, but my NexGen's will get plenty of use still... until I have to replace them again. I'm hoping to use one to dangle vertically between my 2 hoods, and the other one I am going to use to try and flower out 1 or both of those BD's.

Nugs look great, I bet they smell extra tasty!

Time to smoke some SFV OG. I swear, the shit these guys grow compared to the shit I grow smells and tastes so different. Mine really has a sweet gummy bear smell with a really musky bite to it. This stuff they grew smells like rice pudding, if it were served out of a vagina. Sorry if that ruins SFV OG/rice pudding/vagina for you.

They definitely grow wings. Check that link a few posts ago. Can't stress how much you will learn about those pests in that thread.

so far so good on the bugs. fliers have been all but non-existant. flushing today, didn't see a single bug. they are there though, no doubt. sns 203 keeping them under pressure hopefully. and maybe i need to take back what i said about azamax seeing as how no adults seem to be flying around anymore.

root area where the two plants were pulled looks fine, surprisingly. go zyme.

150ml cal mag
120ml protekt silicate (fucked up, twice as much as it should be. ah well!)
120ml liquid karma
120ml overdrive
240ml sensizyme (lots, because i know we've got a decent chunk of dead roots with no plants attached)
120ml each sensi a & b

down to the bottom of my ph down (GH) so not even going to bother.

ph 6.2, 1300ppm, 68f res (icing it now)

the blue dream seems to like 1300ppm, maybe a touch higher. we'll see but i think 1400-1500 was more than it wanted.

I'm about to throw my Hanna meter out the fucking window. I know this shit isn't even a little bit accurate, and I'm to tired to calibrate it, and my plants are thirsty.. Fucking a'. I'm just going to clean the fucker, calibrate it, and bite the bullet. Good to hear you have no flyers at the moment. This garden is over ran by them. I'm getting anxiety from all the shit that has to be done here before it's even close to my standards.

Heh I checked the PH of the tent yesterday, it's at 7. Plants still look fantastic, better every day. Probably ought to nudge that down a bit though ..

How often do you calibrate your Hanna? Try that 203 in a drench and let's see how it works for you.

Also exchanged the Sentinel CO2 reg yesterday, back to the ActiveAqua one. The sentinel is a way better piece of equipment, much more solid, you cen feel the difference. However, it was putting out way too much CO2 at minimum flow. It's built for 1cfm+, to be used with a ppm controller, not a timer or to be run on a vent cycle. No choice but to go back to the one that is for a much smaller area, .2cfm minimum. I find I can get it to around .5 minimum, fucks up if trying to set it under that. Still better though. Room had been thick like a fucking jungle, CO2 filling everywhere I'm sure since no vent to outside in the room. Drained a 20lb bottle in 4 days .. just say no.

So lesson learned. Entering garden, if you have to cut your way through the air as you walk through the room, if the temp is just high and not coming down, check your CO2 and be sure it's not filling the whole fucking room up much faster than you think.

bugs are still everywhere, zero difference than when i first found the infestation. there's no way any of this stuff is doing any bit of good.

here's an interesting observation though - in the tent, there is one plant using all hydroton. the rest have coco for at least the top layer. i can't find bugs on the hydroton one.
the blue dream in there is potted in all coco. it seems to have the worst infestation by far.

so howabout this hypothesis.. these aren't root aphids. these are something else that just likes the coco.

since i can take them out to see, i checked all the roots in the tent buckets today. zero sign of any sort of parasites. if these were root aphids id guess i should see some on the roots. nothing. these pots have hydroton at the bottom with a layer of coco up top. i find bugs up top, none on the roots, none on the bottom.

the experiment then becomes clear - get rid of all the coco and see if the bugs go away.

still haven't seen them back on the leaves or stems, but have to keep in mind thats where i originally found them. not many, but they were there.

interesting too that googling "coco bugs" immediately gets me the first pic that looks like my bug:
http://www.thcfarmer.com/forums/f30/tiny-fast-moving-bugs-coming-coco-help-31675/index3.html
that's him.

these articles also show lots of "harmless to plants" type info, which fits with what i've seen. no plant damage at all, everything looking great.
this would also mean the flying bugs were probably not root aphids, were indeed fungus gnats, and the azamax/sns 203 took care of them for the most part.

random notes format yes!

So on top of my previous theories on why the hydroton doesn't carry bugs (I have no idea if that text sent, fucking mountains) but the hydroton provide large open gaps between the pellets with lots of air flow, as well as the porous clay holding on to oil, I don't think the wide open spaces is a great environment for them to thrive in. They fan really dig in and colonize Coco. I've also learned that sand kills fungus gnats and the liking. They can't get through it, or suffocate, or some shit. Either way, it is by far the cheapest and easiest solution I have heard of, and I cross referenced it and even read it in some of my literature on growing cannabis.

This month's issue of CANNAtalk (Issue 11) is all about coco growing and it's issues and plus'. Mainly it is just CANNA advertising their products, but it is full of EXCELLENT information. As I read more I will share more information. One thing that it covers is pH fluctuation. It could be too much, or too little ca/mg. ca/mg may initially lower your pH, but in the long run it keeps it stable. And I know sometimes you poor it in for the sheer pleasure of it. lol.

Either way, I still don't have any pH problems. And I currently running 3 separate and complete nutrient line ups, well, the Flora Nova series isn't using GH booster, but Fox Farm boosters, but whatever. I am about to take on a 4th product as well. Can I please just give you something to try out? Lol.

Well, i went for it and just fucking shop vacced the coco out of the pots. This actually worked much, much better than trying to do it by hand. Got alot more out without nearly as much root damage. Replaced all of the coco with hydroton, and we'll see if those bugs are still around in a couple of days.

the blue dream was the worst infested, as it was in all coco. I pulled the rockwool (again) and sucked all the coco off, every last bit. I took clones from it last night (did the SFV as well) so if it dies, oh well. all in the name of science.

note: I did not see one single parasite looking anything on any root of any plant. If these were really root aphids, then why aren't they hanging around on the roots?

i DID see lots of them in the blue dream pot, after i removed all the roots and plant. They were most heavily populated in the bottom of the container, the moist part, no roots whatsoever down there yet. not even close. found all sorts of shit in that pot, little red worm looking things .. all gone now. no coco left in this lab except for the cabinet, and nothing we can do about that for another 3 weeks.

also experimenting with leaving a pot of moist coco out to see what shows up. wonder if we get the bugs even with no plants in the coco.

but hey this should all be in another thread, because the cabinet is kicking ass. two days into the overdrive regimen and you can definitely tell they are overdriving.
opened the doors today and the stalks fell out with weight, so we've hit that last two weeks of putting on the heaviness. also starting to see the first hairs turning orange.

ph still dropping but that's expected after the flush. It should be stable in about 48 hours. No plans to flush again this week, going to try to carry this sauce through the next few weeks, the entire overdrive period. will flush if ph goes totally whack ass crazy, which it may after the first week. we'll see.

Have you ever considered going full DWC stop to finish and using neoprene inserts? That way you have 0 medium the entire time. They make 3" and 4" neoprene inserts for adult plants as well. No medium, not bugs, no worms. I have a feeling the worms were helping more than anything, if they were actually worms.

that sounds like a great idea. heard of it but never followed up to research it. no medium sounds fantastic right now.

repotting and removal of coco was useless. not 30 minutes after i finished, found bugs all over the all-hydroton pot. these bugs are not coco specific.

i'm still not sure wtf these things are. if i had root aphids, i'd see aphids on the roots, right? I've yet to see one single bug on a root, one single bit of root damage, plant damage, anything. pics from people with root aphid infestations are really obvious, bugs all over the roots, bugs turning up in the res, can't miss em. i've got nothing like that.

if these do turn into fliers then i'd give credit to azamax for disrupting the cycle, as i haven't seen but a few fliers, nothing at all like before the azamax.

so as usual after i declare a hopeful hypothesis, all bets are off again, square one trying to again indentify these things.

otherwise, ph stable as anticipated, everything fantastic.

oh the worms im sure were just larvae of something or another. looked like tiny bloodworms or something. they were in the bottom of a foil pan that was collecting the runoff from the blue dream's small self-watering pot. i've seen similar dug into a coco crouton when i did the azamax hottub, but not very many. im going to guess these turn into fliers at some point. they are 10x+ the size of the white aphids so i don't think the two are related.

next guess -

bulb mites.

from user 420goat @ 420magazine.com:


"Ok! I'm finally back! So sorry for all of those who have waited so patiently. I can be reached at ** from here on out for any immediate questions regaurding plant issues. I have learned tremendous amounts since my last post ladies and gentlemen and I'm happy to report 100% success!

My findings were from the plant lab located in Anaheim California for the $112 was well worth the dinero bc they informed me that pythium had infected the system along w/a "Bulb Mite", my "white dots". The mites were contracted from a dispensery via the infamous peat moss cups you read, or should read more about, as to how they can carrier many bugs and diseases and should never be purchased from clubs, especially in Whittier, Ca. HA! fyi- All their clones are either diseased or have bugs. It was learned by the specialists at the Lab that the "bulb mite" is not only a predator mite but also a pest mite as well. While it benificicially eats the decaying dead roots around it, it also has to travel over healthy roots to get to other decaying roots it wishes to continue to feed on, thus spreading the pythium. Pythium is a nemisis to any hydro garden and since pythium is a spore that can be easily transported and is also said to be able to live dormant for 3 years and still spring back to life; it's spores can easily infect the healthy roots the mite travels over to get to the other decaying roots it continues to feed on. While there is really nothing to kill the bulb mite w/o killing your plants, they can be eradicated thru cloning."

so mites that eat dead roots, but can spread pythium. this could fit. damn i need a photo of these fucking things! "bulb" really nails the description.

(hopefully unrelated random idea)

a biosand filter would be a really cheap and effective way to prevent pythium in recirculating systems. google it and act like you know.

here's the best i can do so far. this is on the lip of a bucket. didn't realise they were so dusty..

this is a much larger adult one. you can kinda see the size from the bucket edge there, which is around an inch or so wide. i've not seen many of these, got lucky with this guy crawling around when the camera was on.



some of the tiny ones. these are what i've seen by the hundreds at times.



and some roots in the cabinet.



on the bug pics, im looking for dual tailpipes on that bug to indicate that it is indeed a root aphid. I can't see them though. might just be the pic quality. if i see another big one i will try to skewer it on a pin. exhibit A motherfucker..

If you get pythium you will know it. Pythium reeks like throw up at Disneyland. You also get brown and slimy roots, the slime is more like snot. If you are using VermiT it will be nearly impossible for pythium to take hold of your plants, worm casting tea is like, the #1 nemesis of pythium. And I am already familiar with biosand filters... grow bible, yo.

You should try posting these pictures in the plant problems section, hopefully somebody will see it that knows what they are talking about. I hear some of the ridiculous shit of my life in that part of the forum.