Al B. FAQt

Ya i understand chum... just that i didnt see any advice on miracle grow for ph control... sometimes being patient is much better than lobbing one in there..lol good luck

Al-- Thanks,for the input. The downward line is the cool air intake from under the house.

Al B. Fuct said:

yep, you may have to get in & do some cleaning. There's apparently enough buildup that it's not getting removed just by flooding & draining and may need some light scrubbing to get it all out.

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I thought so...

Drain the tank, mix up 1/4 of your tank vol with 5ml/L H2O2, set pH to 5.8 and use that soln to clean all the water contact surfaces, using a bristle brush to loosen anything stuck. Pump that soln up into the trays to soak the rootmasses for a few mins & drain it back to the tank. When it drains out, dump it and mix up a new tank of regular strength nutes, again with 5ml/L 50% grade H2O2.

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So I am still having a hell of a time finding 50% H2O2 - can readily find 35% H2O2, so I just ordered a bunch of HyOx (35% H2O2 from Advanced Nutrients) at $20.00 per gallon, $28.00 after shipping.

This morning I put 35% H2O2 into my tank at a rate of 8.5ml/L. I corrected the pH back to 5.8. Then I partially filled the e&f pots BELOW the level of the RW cubes...I hope! I let that set for about 20 minutes, then pumped it back out. I let the system e&f 1 complete time after that to try and get the H2O2 mixed in good throughout the system.

The pH seems to be stabilized again at 5.8. BUT...just to be sure I dosed the tank again and let it sit for a couple hours. The water is clearing up and the smell is going away.

I seriously don't know what I would have done if you had not turned me on to the wonders of H2O2. Thanks again Al!!! I'll get to cleaning and let you know how it goes.

Light, Air, Water, Nutrients, pH & Pathogen Control. Is that all I need?

Sounds simple.... Boy do I feel about like a doofus!!! I hope I get my shit together by the 2nd or 3rd time around....

Oh Yeah - I ordered calibration/cleaning solutions for my pH & ec pens!!! I Gotta know what the pH is at ALL times!!! (I got ec vs ppm because Ionic nutes use ec instead of ppm for target ranges)

Thanks again Al!!!

Al B. Fuct said:

Max development isn't your concern at this time. You need to raise your seedlings (usually) for about 6-8wks under veg cycle light before they will show preflowers. No sense in doing any cuttings or sexing the plants until you have preflowers at the nodes.

Yep, 4 weeks is unrealistic. 6-8 weeks is more like it. You may on occasion get some precocious plants that show preflowers earlier- if so, call yourself lucky. 6-8 weeks is more usual.

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do you have to wait until you see preflowers before you can put a plant into flower. i thought if you started the plant on 12 hours of darkness it will flower.

Yea agree but my plants were looking so sad now there proably goin to die, and if they do I'll just start over again. This time I want run out of ph down, but Im thing about switching over to inorganic fert were I can use h2o2. What do you think about dutchmaster, and dutchmaster gold you, Al, are anybody else?

Chumlie said:

Im thing about switching over to inorganic fert were I can use h2o2. What do you think about dutchmaster, and dutchmaster gold you, Al, are anybody else?

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I am using Ionic nutrients. They seem good...but I need to do better pathogen/temperature control!!!

DAMN!!! Getting close to that 100 page mark!!!

hmmm u have pics chumlie of ur sick plants from maybe ph over 7.0? maybe im having the same prob? my ph meter reads my water at like 9.0.... then i add grow big and it lowers it to 6.2.-6.6 with cal-mag.... i have used ph down once, but is it necessary? is 9.0 crazy ph or what? if i fed my plants with 9.0 ph what would they look like?

Worse than mine. I had only 7.0 and mine were all droping some had burnt marks some zinc dif. and other dif. Some had both. How the fuck do you fix that.

Chumlie said:

Yea man I Know it was a bad Idea. I was in a desperate situation, I had to do it. So you think if I change back to foxfarms hopfully by Tuesday it will harm it a lot?

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Fox Farm is organic, isn't it? Not compatible with H2O2. Get on a program of std nutes with regularly applied H2O2, correct pHDown sauce as needed- and stick with it.

toast master said:

Chumlie.. I dont want to sound off on you my friend .. but i have followed your questions between you and al , and he has given you some really good advice.. if you go off and do something like this i think you are not takeing some elses time seriousley.... come on ... be realistic.. if your going to use hand grenades for cultivating you dont get to ask " do you think this will hurt "

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yeh, wot 'e said.

Only 1970s Doonesbury tragics will know WTF I'm talking about, but your comment reminds me of when Zonker Harris was making up his mind whether to harvest his organic wheat patch with a lawnmower or explosives.

Chumlie said:

Dude, you need understand I'm following his advice as best as I can right now, and believe me I know It is The Shit of the advice given on here.

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xxtoadxx said:

first of all.. all i gotta say is HOLY SHIT, al b... ur the shit.

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Only on a cannabis board would getting called 'the shit' be very high praise (and thanks for that ).

Most people just call me 'A shit.'

English is a turd of a language, innt?

thank you for all your advice... ok so now we got that settled... should i just run all 30 plants veg - flower all in the garage? nothing in the closet? or.... whats ur opinion? ive seen that picture before browsing thru ur pics, i thought it was amazing... they were beautiful.... well im trying to get max yield pretty much, doesnt matter how often.. just max yield. if i do 30 plants veg-flower all in the garage im just going with 4 x 600's... that way i have space for them to grow, and of course the digital ballast mh/hps. thoughts?

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Well, if you have to work with small plant counts, your plants to be flowered will require some vegging and you'll need to do that somewhere.

If you keep only one main growing area, it needs veg lighting for a cpl weeks before flowering, meaning you can only grow a single, whole room crop at a time. You'd fill the whole room at once with plants and harvest the lot at once. This has a number of drawbacks, notably at harvest time, where you have to clear the room at once and fill it again with plants which need a cpl wks of veg. You'll still need a very small area (2-3 sq ft) to maintain mums and also a clonebox.

If you want a continuous harvest op, you must have a separate, dedicated 12/12 flowering room which you feed plants into periodically, say, every 2 weeks. For that flowering room, you will need an 18/6 (or more) veg area big enough to suit your plants where they'll veg a couple wks under strong lights after having the mainstem lopped to get them ready for flowering. The veg area can be smaller than the flowering area, but it'll be larger than that needed for a SoG op's mum plant area. The advantage of continuous harvest is that it breaks up the manicuring job. You may feed in 1/4 of the room's capacity every 2 weeks and take the same number of finished plants out. It's a lot faster to manicure a 1/4 of a room in one go than the whole shebang. Your grow room will have temp & RH control. It's better to have a little space (even if just the floor between trays) to hold plants to be harvested in queue rather than taking them out of the room to an area without such tight environmental controls while they are waiting for the chop. Big buds can go to mould fast without lots of air motion and RH control.

have i already said i love u al b?

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maybe.. but will you share with me the CFL French Tickler of Luv? Then I'll know u r my [FONT=&quot]♥[/FONT] of [FONT=&quot]♥[/FONT]s.

xxtoadxx said:

hmmm u have pics chumlie of ur sick plants from maybe ph over 7.0? maybe im having the same prob? my ph meter reads my water at like 9.0.... then i add grow big and it lowers it to 6.2.-6.6 with cal-mag.... i have used ph down once, but is it necessary? is 9.0 crazy ph or what? if i fed my plants with 9.0 ph what would they look like?

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What caused your pH to spike up? Pathogens?

When I hit mine at like 7.2 the edges of the leaves curled up, the leaf tips curled under, chlorosis appeared on the leaves, what looked like chemical burns appeared on the 2nd & 3rd day after the hit, there was a general yellowing of the larger fan leaves, and there almost appeared to be a zinc deficiency - color banding, on some of the upper & middle leaves. Just totally screwed up!!!

They really don't like it when the pH gets over like 6.3. Avoid the high pH numbers!!!

Get that pH down man!!! are you doing the H2O2 treatments???

Once I got my pH down the plant seemed to recover from the bottom up & from the veins out. It took a good 3 days before I saw any significant improvement.

I did not learn and I let the pathogens get me again. I am again recovering from a pH spike. Dammit! Al has taught me so much!!!

corral hollow kid how long did the water stay like that befor you fix it?

That thought makes me think of .... oohhhhhh never mind

Chumlie ... dont worry... just chalk it to experience belive me i have done worse... but not before asking ....lol youll come out on top

Maybe i should have said lob cfls, but then al would hvae been picking them up for later use....lol

Chumlie said:

corral hollow kid how long did the water stay like that befor you fix it?

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When it happened the first time it took me about 3 days before I figured out what the hell was happening.

The reservoir began smelling foul...kinda like a stagnant fish pond. The water got cloudy and the pH just kept rising, no matter how much pH down I put in.

Finally...I posted here and Al saved my ass.

This time I recognized the signs/symptoms. I should have put the H2O2 in yesterday. But it was due for treatment today so I waited. I should have done it yesterday, like my gut told me to!

After the first time I went into panic mode. I had allowed my system to e&f several times with high pH. I flushed each pot with about 2.5 gallons of water pH adjusted to 5.8. The run off after I was done was 6.0. Then I mixed up a batch of nutes with H2O2 and watched the pH. Everything was good for about 2 days, then I smelled that odor again, and WHAM! The pH went AWOL overnight and went from 5.8 to 7.8 between 11pm and 5:30am. This time I may have to flush and clean the entire hydro system!!!

Get some H2O2 ASAP!!!

toast master said:

Maybe i should have said lob cfls,

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Free CFLs???

Hey it,s only my 400,786 grow. Ill get on that damn horse again
JK...It's only second.

Chumlie said:

Yea agree but my plants were looking so sad now there proably goin to die, and if they do I'll just start over again. This time I want run out of ph down, but Im thing about switching over to inorganic fert were I can use h2o2. What do you think about dutchmaster, and dutchmaster gold you, Al, are anybody else?

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Hey CHum!! I too have watched you fumble fuck around here on ABF's thread now for quite awhile. My suggestion and its only a suggestion is to STOP STOP doing hydro and move to dirt!!!! Your killing us with your endless questions and very basic and common sense ones to boot!! He is not here to build and grow your garden. HE is a reference.

Here is some more advise READ RESEARCH AND YOU WILL BE REWARDED!!! Go back start from scratch IN DIRT!! and do your home work on hydro.


OK i am done!

Finally AL has found a use for cfls... and there they were all the time, you just had to learn to loooove them. lol