cannaculturalist's first hydro grow 600W RDWC ScrOG & bag seed

Hi everyone,

I am now setup to get going on my first indoor hydroponic grow. I'm currently growing a bunch of plants outdoors which are doing nicely in containers - these were grown from mixed bag seed I had kept over the years. I have selected some of the more promising females for clones and currently have them in rockwool (first batch didn't do so well, I don't think the mothers were at peak health, so took another round and sowed some seed for insurance and curiosity).

The grow space is setup as so:
1.2x1.2.2.0 (4x4x6) tent
600w MH/HPS bulbs in xtracooltube hood with dimable digital ballast
Carbon filter -> light -> fan -> silencer -> outside for ventilation
(will organise a fan for inside later, tent has ventilation from the bottom, should be ok for fresh intake)



The hydro setup is setup as so:
4x20l (5gal) buckets with 140mm (5") netpots
19mm (3/4") pipe work
2700l/hr (700gal/hr) pump
4 port air pump
4x50mm (2") air stones
35l (9gal) reservoir/control tank



Experience:
I'm a second gen outdoor grower of sorts, learning what I have from my out of date father who was stuck in the 60's. Growing well outdoors, first time trying indoor growing and hydroponics. Have spent a few months reading up and watching YouTube what I can here and around to prepare myself.

Nutrients & stuff:
General Hydroponics Flora 3 part
General Hydroponics CaliMagic

The plan:
To grow 4 plants with a ScrOG net in RDWC to yield the goal of 1 gram per watt ~1lb.
- I would like to note, that this is my Everest/Moon/Russia in Winter goal, and not what I expect to happen either on my early attempts or with setup as it currently stands. But this seems to be where most serious growers aim for, so I thought that seemed worthwhile. -

Current situation:
Clones rooting (I hope, in 40mm rockwool with Clonex gel under 250w MH on a heatmat set 25C. Tent temp range: 22-29C [71-84F) (lights off to lights on with outside temp of 40C [104F]), RH 40-60%. Have been there for 7 days. The first set of clones is rooting (have checked inside cubes) but stem and leaves all look wrecked, have ditched a few, very slow to root for most) they are 3 weeks old now). 4 clones direct into coco which are 10 days old) and 8 seedlings which are 2 weeks old and have been potted up with coco.

What's next:
Select the best clones to grow on and fire up the hydroponics rig. Veg time 4-6 weeks with 400-600w MH, flower time 8-? As I've not got a clue what strain or phenos I am working with, this will be a learning experience. I believe they are a Sativa/Indica hybrid (based on leaf shape, growth habit from others outside, but I'm no expert on that).

Comments/ideas/thoughts?

Cheers everyone

Hi guys, so I'm getting ready to transplant my clones into my RDWC setup. I've been looking around at the different recipes and concentrations people use for their hydro setups (and specifically those using General Hydro's Flora series and or DWC). Based on my reading I think I'll go with Highgrade's recipe with a slight modification (sourced from the drugs-forum FAQ). The change I propose is to swap the epsom salt for GenHydro's CaliMagic at half the label dosage, and instead of Pro-Tekt, to use another silica additive (likely Dutch Master Silica). Does this sound like a reasonable concoction? (included in the following table are the advised rates as per Highgrade's recipe, with calculation for my total water body of approx 80L). The main thing I'd appreciate feedback on is the decision to use CaliMagic over epsom salt at the suggested rate (I wasn't sure if using the full dosage of 1ml/1l was going to be too much).

Vegetative Growth Formula		Transition from Growth to Bloom Formula		Flowering / Bloom Formula
Nutrient	Nutrient per 3gal or 11.355L of Water	Nutrient per 100L of Water	Nutrient per 80L of water	Nutrient	Nutrient per 3gal or 11.355L of Water	Nutrient per 100L of Water	Nutrient per 80L of water	Nutrient	Nutrient per 3gal or 11.355L of Water	Nutrient per 100L of Water	Nutrient per 80L of water
Grow	15ml	132ml	120ml	Grow	10ml	88ml	80ml	Grow	5ml	44ml	40ml
Micro	10ml	88ml	80ml	Micro	10ml	88ml	80ml	Micro	10ml	88ml	80ml
Bloom	5ml	44ml	40ml	Bloom	10ml	88ml	80ml	Bloom	15ml	132ml	120ml
Silica	5ml	44ml	40ml	Silica	5ml	44ml	40ml	Silica	5ml	44ml	40ml
Epsom Salt	¼ tsp	2 ½ tsp (little less)	2 tsp	Epsom Salt	¼ tsp	2 ½ tsp (little less)	2 tsp	Epsom Salt	¼ tsp	2 ½ tsp (little less)	2 tsp
CaliMagic	5ml	44ml	40ml	CaliMagic	5ml	44ml	40ml	CaliMagic	5ml	44ml	40ml
Ratio	3:2:1	Target PPM	500-550	Ratio	1:1:1	Target PPM	600	Ratio	1:2:3	Target PPM	600

Click to expand...

Target pH will be 5.8 within a range of 5.5-6.2.

Other additives:

I'm also looking to use Gen Hydro's liquid Koolbloom from transition week onward. I've looked at some of the other additives (specifically sweeteners and other PK boosters) but didn't think I'll go that far on my first run - I'd like to see how the system and plants perform before investing further on additives). Other consideration was to source some SuperThrive as that seems to be quite popular (and I have found a local supplier), but am yet to be convinced - this with many of the other enzyme/hormone based additives seem a little hit and miss on effect from reports and I'd like to trawl some scientific literature prior to using them).

As a precautionary measure I'd also like to use Heisenberg's Tea recipe using what I can source locally (420 Premium Bacteria, Gen Hydro FloraBlend, EWC). I've not got the products or equipment for this yet, but will chase that down very quickly once the DWC is running.

Here's a closeup of what I'm working with. In the foreground are seedlings from seed, the back right are clones directly in coco and the back middle are clones in rockwool (the ones I'm most keen to use in this grow - as soon as I get roots showing, it's on!).

Hi yall,

As the new year dawns on us, I thought I'd wrap this one up with a few minor additions and an update. Yesterday I went outside and did some more LST and super cropping on me plants. All are looking swell today and am mighty impressed with the growth with the good run of weather we are having.

Today I had a think about the indoor setup while reflecting on more of my reading on here of others grows and looked at what I had on hand. I grabbed the reflective insulation I had stashed away from an attic extension and made some skirts for the grow buckets. Also used up some of the ducting tape I had and covered the lids. Now she's all shinny and looking more like a bunch of R2D2's or the set of an Alien film... With DWC, temp of the water seems to be a major influence on success or lack there of, so doing what I can prior to starting it up to reduce potential problems. I also grabbed one of the spare oscillating fans and put it in for later on - it's a bit too powerful to put on the seedlings. I'll position it in the middle of the buckets facing upwards on a wooden stand when the time comes.


This gives a better look at the plumbing setup too FYI. Feed line in the front from reservoir, split to first two buckets, then to two rear buckets with return line to pump back to reservoir. Initially I was going to use 4mm feed lines from the top, but couldn't find the appropriate fitting, so went with a more under current design. However I've also thought that perhaps using 13mm feeds from the top doing the waterfall effect could be a better idea. I'm going to leave that for now and see how it goes as is. If need be, I'll make changes for the next run. In hindsight I'd probably have used 2" PVC pipe work - but am not experienced with it and tools/fittings were a bit of an issue - so I stuck with what was familiar (irrigation fittings). Though what I also see as a plus is the system is modular (can remove buckets) - this seemed like a good idea if I go with my from seed seedlings (as I wont be able to sex them prior to putting them in netpots - well I could, but that'd take longer), I am hoping to still go with my clones as they are looking heaps better than my first lot.



And here's the reservoir return setup - using the bits I had - 19mm to 13mm adapter - 13mm bulkhead - 19mm grommet + 19mm hose to 19mm elbows x3. Should keep the reservoir nice an active as I don't have an extra airpump/stone for it.


I'm still keen to trial these from seed, seedlings as I'm needing to suss out what my multiple collected bags are like (when I sowed for my outdoor crop, I didn't keep a record of what was what - do'h!). If I don't use them, I'll put them up with coco+perlite and run them on the side for a bit of fun. Notice the two in the right corner - one has the first true leaves out, but is all mangled at the meristem and isn't growing, the other has strange shaped leaves, and threw out 3 at the second node.


All the best for 2014 everyone. Have fun & keep safe

Wow, nice set up. I bet you wont regret keeping those buckets movable. I have a hard time telling what leaner it is until about the 3rd or 4th new node of growth, and even then its usually after flipping to 12-12 that I am 100% with the mature mid-leaves.

I have zero experience with DWC with coco so im interested to see how things go, but everything looks nice and not half assed. Props on the work and setup.

I currently have 2 metal cabs that are about 3x4x9, each with a 600 watt digital ballasts with ducting and fans. Works perfect for 2 plants, I can get easy 200 grams with a for month cycle. I wish I had a room to dedicate like you do, having some plumbing close by must be really nice. Nice thing is the cabnets is its the kind with notches and shelves so moving plants up/down or adding extra levels for clones with a couple florous is a cynch.

Do you recall what the bag seed was claimed to be (not that any of the dealers I dealt with would have had a freaking clue, lol)?

Cheers! To be honest I may have gone a little overboard, but I don't like to do things by half. That and this is an experimental setup and learning aid, so figured it was best to setup as best I could with the resources available. That said, having done what I have thus far, I would have made changes, but that's for next time. I'll include some of those ideas in a post grow wrap or along the way if appropriate.

The clones have finally shown roots out the cubes, but I'm thinking I wont bother with them. The seedlings are looking super healthy and growing nicely, they are also a chance to test 1 of 7 different bags of seed I have on hand and will make training easier with their symmetrical stems (will mainline them for 4-8 colas, LST and supercrop into a scrog, or something like that...). They're putting on their 4th nodes now, so will throw 'em onto a 12/12 cycle in a couple of days and hopefully end up with 4 girls for putting in the DWC.

Yeah the whole coco in DWC thing is gonna be interesting - it was one of the things I stressed a bit over in my planing. I'll be using expanded clay as well in the netpots, so they wont be entirely coco mind you. I decided to use the coco to give me time to grow the seedlings on till sexing stage as mentioned above. If I had used the clones, then I wouldn't have used coco at all, instead putting the rockwool cubes in the netpots with the clay balls. I've seen many growers use a similar method as this, so felt a bit more confident to go ahead.

Is that 200g per plant or per light? I'm being ambitious in my goals, but don't think it's out of the question. From all I have seen, 4-6oz per plant seems quite doable, depending obviously on strain, training, veg cycle, supplements etc etc, so am ideally going for 4oz per plant (so 1oz per cola if mainlining for 4, or .5oz if mainlining for . If I could double that I'd be laughing, but don't think space and light is going to push it quite so far - that said, I've seen people pull 1.5lbs off two plants with 1 600w in a 4x4 using DWC, so anything is possible!

Space is kinda tight where I'm at, but I made room for the tent! I'm currently making space for a small propagation/veg cab in another corner of the room so I can hopefully run a quick turn over and have some fun with my seeds. I have no idea what these seeds are meant to be, that's the doozy. My father always kept a packet of seeds in the fridge, I recall being an ankle biter and always seeing them in the fridge door. Over the years this collection grew from various scores and now I have 7-8 bags of seeds yep, pretty crazy. I've never known a dealer to know what they were selling, it's either 'good weed', 'bush' or 'hydro'. Beyond that, I just rely on smell and effect to decide what I think of it. Even yesterday I was cleaning up a draw and found one lonely seed in the bottom - I put in aside, and marked it 'The One', because you never know if it could be something amazing... That is what I love about gardening in general, is the natural variation in genetics.

Oh and just a quick update on the grow:

So yep, rockwool clones have started to root (at least 1 has), but will probably ditch them. I'm not thrilled with the whole cloning process so far - the first 9 I tried failed, and the second 6 have taken ~3-3.5 weeks to root. I've cloned outdoors before without drama, but never in rockwool... I know it shouldn't be hard, but well, it's something to work on - that and I got seeds, so sprout away!

The other 4 clones in coco are doing much better, 2 are looking super sweet, and the 2 others are a touch behind. I'll keep the best 2 for side grows in pots.

As for the seedlings, they're looking awesome. Have been feeding them this past week with the following mix: 1 part each GMB + 1 part CalMag (.5ml of each in approx 1L of water) pH 5.8, ppm at .5 of 400ppm. I then upped this a bit to a similar mix at 600ppm. The one which was looking very odd with the deformed apex, I topped to let the two side shoots grow out - and the other which put out 3 leaves at the second node is doing well, despite the slightly odd leave shape. I'm liking the look of the 4 more squat growers, with one looking much more Indica with a broader leave (also a darker green), the remaining 2 are also rocking and are a bit taller (fellas? too early to tell, but I'm looking forward to finding out). Will change to a 12/12 cycle mid week, select fems, top, transplant to DWC and begin to mainline.

As for other preparations, I have started organising what I need for the bennie tea: have picked up some 420 Beneficial Bacteria (includes 28 unnamed species of bacteria/fungi), some MycoApply Maxx (it's got 6 species endomycorrhizae, 3 species ectomycorrhizae, 2 species Bacillus, 2 species Trichoderma + other beneficial bacteria & added organic amendments), some Mykos mycorrhizea, I already have EWC and will pickup another air pump/stone + bucket to brew.

Should get the show really rocking in a weeks time.

Nice, I got 5 vortex clones about the same age that i'm mainlining too. I just topped yesterday. That sucks about the clones, do you use rooting gel at all? I have used rockwool cubes forever, how wet have you kept the cubes? I noticed if I squeeze the cube lightly and water trickles out then its too wet. I've used just the coco by itself with seedlings and that works great too.

Oddly I have a bag of hydroton sitting around, I rarely use them alone except as mix for coco. They work great by themselves or evenly mixed with coco, but I noticed using them at the bottom only the roots pretty much stayed away. Pretty sure it affected the growth of my avalanche plants I tested them on, they were much shorter.

4-6 zips per plant should be very doable with a 1 month veg and 600 watts. 113 grams would be a low benchmark and 200 per would be the norm, at least for me, and I am nothing special.

I did 200 grams on my second grow ever, they were 5 foot monsters indoors in an old apartment closet just topped only once. My last grow I had 5 plants, 2 cheese and 3 apollo's that gave a total load of almost 680 grams total dry. Here is a pic from the largest cola I had:



I grow for personal use and its just me, so I practically give it away when people come over. Its such a wonderful problem to have.

I have stuff cured in jars at 3 years old, you really do get into this stuff like people into wine and cigars.

Yep, used clonex gel. Prior to this setup I'd used powder with very good results, or nothing at all even, also have used the glass of water method. I think the saturation of the rockwool played a part - I should have done the weighing method to keep an idea of how much was in them. I ran a few tests of using the clonex, using a very weak bloom nutrient, or plain water in the rockwool. So far, plain pH nuteral water + clonex has done the best. In future I'd like to try it with using the microbial tea. Also probably didn't do a great job with humidity etc. When and if I want to seriously do clones I'll think about this a bit more, until then it's all about the seed!

I'd be curious to see what running 100% coco in a netpot in DWC would be like - my guess is fine (though I'm not sure about particles falling into the reservoir, might need to worry about filtering). Having been reading up more on bacteria and fungi, it seems like using the coco/rockwool could prove very good for developing/retaining a good level in the rhizosphere of the inoculated stuff I'll be adding regularly (building a strong/permanent home, good for dealing with tape water which is chlorinated etc). I already have the clay so will use it as planned, might use it to enhance drainage in other potted plants I have too. Given the size of my netpots and the size of the pots my seedlings are in, there will only be a fairly shallow level of clay at the bottom anyhow, then straight into the water.

That is encouraging! Because of space limitations, veg time will be kept tight - however as I'll be mainling, it'll be a touch longer between topping - but as soon as the plants are trained I'll get onto flowering. 200g is a very sizeable return, great work - are you using additional bloom enhancers/pk boosters/carbos etc etc? I was looking at all of that, but am more sold on running with the nutrients I mentioned at the start + microbial tea. Oh man, that looks delicious! Very nice mate, I hope I can pull off something half as good! heh

My father learnt to smoke from this older Turkish guy back in the 60's. And one thing he then passed onto me about it was 'it's not how much you smoke, but how little'. That is, you only need a little of the good stuff, and it isn't about being a bong head for bragging rights. I'm only growing for myself too, but love the idea of mixing up what I have on hand - it always happened that if we scored a stash of a few oz, that after a while it just wasn't doing it for us anymore. Then we might get a taste of something else and wow it was heaven again. 3 years and they're still good? Again, as my dad used to say 'in times of no pot and money, you're sad. in times of lots of pot and no money, who cares!". I like smoking socially, it's what makes it such a great activity and substance, to share it with others and have fun, great to hear you follow a similar tradition.

Smokes great, I just sparked some just now.

Its only just now starting to get dry, there isn't much left now. It took me a month of burping before I stored it for the long haul. I usually open the jars once in a while to re-stock the daily use jar, so things stay pretty good.

See, thats cool. I have smoked with my father as well. I also have smoked with grandfather, good times, and thats what its all about.

You should be fine with space, I lst pretty heavy. I am growing one land race sativa purple neaplease that is only 3 feet tall in 6th week of flower. With the pure sativas indoors you have to do something if you're indoors pretty much, or they will completely overrun the room.

I use AN Sensi and Mother Earth tea. I honestly haven't used anything else because this has worked for me and I pretty much bought the whole lineup when I started. This is my first run with the php perfect bloom and its worked pretty good. The only complaint I will say about AN is I think you need to be all in or not use it. Using the base nutrients works fine in veg, but in bloom you need most of the additives. When I use mother earth as a base it tends to work better on strains that should be resinous, so thats when I use that.

Thats strange about the roots though, I use clonex too. Is it the gel? Thats what I have, surprised you're having problems. Usually what I do is soak the cubes in plain tap, make my cut, dip in gel, stick in the cube and water and thats it. I just make sure the cubes stay moist for two weeks. I try to make sure there are 3 nodes on the cuts but I have done ones with just 2. I never touch the fans unless they get more than half way yellow. If you have stubborn clones that don't seem to want to root right away try to foliar feed them. I have and works great.

sorry I use root tech not clonex.

I just thought as far as the filtering goes panty hose could work, make a straight cut on the holes of the net pot for the roots to be able to push out of. I have also heard of people using cotton balls to plug the holes but weak enough for roots to get through as well.

Can't wait to see how this turns out. Your setup looks great! First thought that popped into my head when I was peeking at the picture of your layout was that it looks like something that should be on the Space Shuttle Good luck with your grow! sub'd

Yep used the gel - I think I'm just not used to working with rockwool, and not confident yet with its water holding capacity. I think next time round I'll use the larger cubes as I feel these smaller 2" ones dry out a lot quicker. That or I may even experiment with an aerocloner of something - I love to tinker and experiment, so we'll see.

The pantyhose idea sounds great - I've seen people do that as a simple filter on pumps too. I think it would depend on the root mass too. In say my case with the smaller pots with coco I'm using at the moment, by the time I transplant, I would expect the rootmass to hold the coco fibre together pretty well and not have much debris. But if I were to try 100% coco your idea would probably work quite well to do the same until the roots were also well established, then remove the pantyhose once the roots are really growing out. Noted for an experiment later on! One of the goals with this whole project was to keep it as sustainable as possible - huh? Yeah well, I know using electricity etc isn't entirely doing me any favours, so using a reusable medium like the clay, or environmentally sound products like coco were in part to offset some of the other less sustainable aspects of the grow (including synthetic fertilisers). Soil or similar soiless medium would have worked, and I am more than happy to work with it, but in the interest of managing what bulky items were needed to be bought (and stored!), issues of reusability/disposal were concerns. Having gone this far, I'd be thinking coco is probably the best medium to achieve these goals - though I wasn't keen on a DTW system - I would be used ebb and flow, but went all out on DWC for something completely different from what I have done in the past. I'm all about trying new things.

Hey esinohhio, cheers for the support! Haha yep, when I was putting it all together I had the same thought - feeling like mission control putting together the lunar lander or something. Given that electricity is one of the major inputs to the system, it seemed to make sense to make the inside of the tent as reflective as possible, and to manage heat - I was going to cover all the black poly pipe too, but thought that was probably overkill (who knows, I might just get there!). I hope it works out as good as it looks - either way it's all a bit Dr Who; this large tent with all manner of goodies inside!

Update on the grow:
Seedlings are looking awesome! It's so different to grow plants under controlled conditions and see how vibrant they look. Usually I'd propagate outdoors in a green/glasshouse, but would never have such control over the environment. That said, those seedlings always looked fine and grew great, but these ones in the tent look almost Photoshoped. Even over night their growth is now noticeable, and am looking forward to forcing sex in a few days. The schedule is looking like another 3 days 18/6, then 4 days of 12/12, top, transplant and back to 18/6 for DWC madness.

Also purchased an inline activated carbon filter for my water source - my water is very clean (0ppm 7.0-7.8pH), but is chlorinated (having looked at the suppliers annual report, there is little to no use of chloromine in my city's water supply - awesome!). Also I'll be using an older outdoor house/tap, so this will help to reduce any potential for inviting gunk into the system.

Today I'm going out shopping for what I hope to be the last of my supplies (at least under blooming stage).

Thats great news! Yea, its crazy the first time you do things under the lights, things move much faster with the extra 12 hours of light. The cubes can take some getting used to, its a little location specific on just how much you need to water them to keep them in the goldie locks zone. The squeeze test has worked on every new place I have moved. I hear aerocloners work great and are pretty foolproof as long as you have power.

I would love to use solar cells to make things really sustainable, I have looked at a few kits that look interesting. I have even given thought of buying used laptop batteries to use as a battery bank, but it would be a lot of work...one day.

I hear you though, its tough to be covert and do things the way we want at the same time.

I had odor problems on a few stinky plants a while back, that really smelled up half the place. Thats one thing that sounds weird but gets old, I love the smell of bud, but smelling it every time I walked in the place got old after a while. I use a ion air cleaner and dehumidifier and it works great, a little pricey though.

You'd need a buttload of batteries! Also did look into solar setups, but don't have the capital for it - perhaps in a year or two. It's hard to match my sustainability ideals with what I can feasible do. I grew up with my house stinking like pot - from my dad smoking. Never really noticed it until I got older, and sometimes you'd come home and POW yep, smoke-alicious. Was always a bit difficult to explain to friends who'd come over - I'd blame it on the neighbours and no one ever asked twice, so go figure.

Advice needed:
So I am staring at my beautiful looking seedlings and need to make some decisions. I was going to put them through a 12/12 period to force sex, but having read around, I am a little apprehensive of doing this. Partly because I don't want to cause additional stress to the plants - even though nugbuckets does this, and reckons that by then topping once sex is determined, the hormonal change isn't a problem as growth is quickly refocused onto the new lower shoots. And the other part is that I'm not sure I'm confident enough to call sex based on very early signs - I'm used to checking plants and making the call, but with outdoor grows where time and space are very different. I could be fortunate and have them express clearly (with use of a loupe), or not get much and make a wrong call... I've whittled away my clones down to 1 rockwool clone that rooted and 3 others in coco (all fems from outdoors), so can use this as backup should things go wrong. That said, I'll pick the 4 seedlings I like the look of best (one which is looking very indica dominant, and three which are also growing well with good node spacings). That will rule out the two which are slight anomalies (the one I topped early and the one with 3 leaves at the first node and odd second leaf) and two which have bigger node spacings and are taller than the rest.

It is a complete gamble for sure, but thinking it is the best course of action. If any of the 4 turn out male later on, I can reduce the system to accommodate for it, or substitute (albeit late) one of the fem clones (which still need time to establish before veging anyhow). This is clearly one of the limitations with my setup, but can work with it (maybe a bubble tote would have suited better? - next time I shoot seed, I might use a small bubble tote to get some quick growth before transferring into the 5gal buckets...). I figure the DWC should power their growth along pretty quickly - as it is, this is now 4 weeks since I put the seeds on to germinate, so that's pretty decent. If I can get a ~4week veg cycle happening, I'll be quite happy. This after all is the first grow, so I'm not expecting everything to be dialled in just yet.

Here's a pic (with shitty phone so excuse the colour!) of where it's at. The four in the lower left corner are the ones I have nominated. The two on the right are the anomalies and the two at the back are the larger ones with extended nodes. I've bumped the lighting up from 250w to 400w, and have fed again with 1.2EC/600ppm GMB 1:1:1 + 1 calmag, they seem to be digging it.

Oh should mention, that I wont be transplanting them until next week, so still a few days to mull this all over - just undecided on if I should top them sooner, or let them go, top and DWC all in one hit (hopefully reduce stress too).

Looking good, your clones are right in step with mine. Topped and all but two shoots growing gearing up for mainline.

I have gone by pre-flowers since I started and have had 100% success detecting males, you shouldn't have any problems. I rarely bloom and re-veg, it just seems like a waste of time and usually by the time I have enough growth to make cuttings and clones its about time to switch to bloom soon anyway. At the same time, if I am starting from seed I don't typically have any females queued up at that point so nothing is getting held up.

Its takes about 2-5 days to induce flower and about the same amount of time to go back (from a mature plant, if its from seed and its not mature its going to stretch and take longer, like a full week or longer, better to just let it mature). Depending on how long you plan to veg them out is going to really dictate whether or not its worth it to you. If its only going to be a 4 week veg, IMO, its not worth it. Just take clones from everything and trash the males once you find them after starting the bloom cycle.

Its trivial as far as switching back and forth goes, I found that out by accident. I once left the clone lights off over the weekend, came back 3 days later and found...well all my clones where female. Lol. Nice surprise but completely unintended. After I turned the light back on and left on, they just stopped growing hairs and started vegging like normal.

Whether you top and transplant or top grow then transplant makes no real tangible difference as far as I can tell and I have done both many times. I would go ahead and top now if thats what you want to do. No sense wasting a weeks worth of growth.

Cheers for the reply. Yep, taken all what you said onboard and mixed it with my own thoughts - action taken was to top the lot now. The first cut always seems the hardest! I've never been so protective of my outdoor plants, but my indoor babies, oh jeeze, what a sook! Anyhow, it's done and I think it was a good move - give them a week to recover, then when I've got all my final supplies to do the DWC I'll get it happening. I'm not in any rush to do all of this, I could spend extra weeks here and there sexing, veging etc etc, but what's the point? I spent so much time (and a bit of dosh) putting together all the hydro stuff, I'm really eager to see it in action. I usually determine sex by preflowers on outdoor plants, but as they grow a bit slower and are subject to nature, there's always a bit of extra time here and there to be 100% (though I've never had any real problems). With this indoor grow, I am limited by space and how I intend to grow them on. If I were doing a coco grow it wouldn't be an issue as I could keep multiple pots for longer - again, just a limitation of what I'm trying to do.

That's pretty decent fortune with the clones! My current season grow produced a very high ratio of females, and all showed nice an early (I guess one of the benefits of germinating very early spring to catch the days/naturally force sex, before veging with the extending hours of daylight). I'm not sure I'll take clones of what I have growing now - with exception of the indica looking plant (so far all of the seeds I have used for the past couple of years have been sativa dominant). But I'll figure that out in a few weeks time when the plants start to bush out more. Part of why I was going to leave the plants to go a touch longer was to encourage more root development, but after 5 weeks (by next week when I intend to transplant) they should be fine.

This whole stage of seedling is fun, but already very familiar, and keen to get it over with and onto the more tricky bit of hydroponics - that is where the learning curve will sharply escalate, just hope I've done enough homework and preparation to deal with it (quietly confident I think). Oh and just a side note on the whole topping procedure, the plant which threw out three leaves at the first node, two at the second, has three at the third node (I thought it was just a strange leave formation at first) and haven't topped it yet as it wasn't ready. It'll be interesting to see how this one goes. Here's to going onward and upward!

Sounds good. I hear you, thats how I get once I get new gear. As much as I enjoy growing though, I like to get growing and get done as quick as I can without sacrificing quality too much. Two 3 month grows is all I have time for in a year and honestly, any more than that and I wouldn't be enjoying myself. I might try to combine it into 6 months and just do 1 monster plant, in fact I think thats my next goal. I want to see if I can get a solid half kilo from one plant...I can dream.

I forget the proper term for a 3 leafer, triploids? I think is what the mutation is called. It should grow 2 natural tops, sort of like a siamese or conjoined twin.

Famous last words, about not taking clones. I say that and almost always end up regretting it when I don't, but if its going to mess with your rotation or just don't have room what can you do? There are articles I have read that say you can refrigerate cuttings for a sort of suspended animation, but I have never tried it. Thats what males are mostly good for, testing crazy stuff like that on.

Thats one of the other things I used to do to practice cutting and pruning techniques I read about, if I had some known males or leftover male clones I used those as my guinea pigs. It made me see just how rough these plants can take things, and they can take a lot...sort of kills me why so many people have so many problems.

Are using an actual screen, or are you using tie wire for your scrog?

I'm always gardening, year round more or less - though during winter I usually let the garden crash as I hate being outside in the cold. Hopefully the tent gives me something else to work on - also thought maybe having the HID light will provide a bit of light therapy to reduce SAD symptoms (mood always bottoms out May-July). But who knows, depends on what else I get up to throughout the year - if I have enough of a harvest to last me, I wont grow until I need to, but like I said, can't help but experiment.

Yeah I think you're right about it being a triploid, should put out three tops from the third node, so when it's ready to top, I'll go ahead and see how it turns out. I saw another persons thread with a 4 header, and was jealous - natural variation is great, and like to see what happens. I'll probably take clones, just not until late in veg most likely, depending on progress. I also saw that about fridging them, and could see it working - if you leave a cutting in a glass of water for a while, it'll stay alive even if it doesn't root. So reducing the temp to slow down the plants metabolism, with appropriate humidity/moisture could work - but think that might be taking things a bit far for the moment (but like I said, experiments!).

Absolutely right about practice, that's what I've been doing with the outdoor plants. Last year I discovered LST and supercroping - I'd already effective done these things, just never bothered to read up on it formally. So have started to follow the methodology a bit closer. This year I picked up on mainlining. This is what I like about working with this plant is the ability to really play with it. Sure I could continue growing other annuals, but none that I know of allow for this kind of manipulation. Sort of allows for practice for fruit tree pruning too (something I am trying to get down). ScrOG is also a new one for me which I'm trialling in a rather adhoc manner outside. For the tent I'll construct a PVC frame with cord inner - initially I was going to do a traditional ScrOG, but if I do a 4-8 head mainline, it'll probably just help with support rather than using it to pull the tops under for total coverage - again will depend on growth of the plants.

Update:

Been a couple of weeks since I posted, so here's a bit of a taste of what's been cracking...

I was away on and off so had to delay firing up the RDWC rig. This gave me a chance to top and start mainlining the seedlings - didn't bother to sex them (though I probably could have in that time). Had been feeding them every couple of days with pH 5.8 600ppm GMB 3:2:1 + calmag (1ml/l), alternating with pH 5.8 h20. They were doing great. I also inoculated them with the MycoApply Maxx powder I picked up at a rate of 1tsp/l.

I also noted that my clones were doing awesome - they were on par if not doing better than the seedlings. Go figure! I was rather doubtful of them, but they did come good. Ye of little faith should extend the faith a little further... So all is/was well on that front.

I then set up my 5gal tea brewing rig and put on some tea: 1 cup EWC, 1tsp MycoApply Maxx, 1/4 tsp 420 Beneficial Bacteria, 1tbsp molasses to about 2gal water. Brewed for 46hrs, then added 1tsp Mykos and an extra 1tsp of MycoApply, brewed for 2 more hours. It was nice and frothy with a mild earthy aroma. Shibby. (I did put the EWC in an old stocking, but felt like it was too fine a mesh, so next time I'll let it float free and strain after the brew or find something looser to keep it in).

It was then time to get the RDWC going (finally!). It's been 2 months in the making, a lot of time, consideration, planing, building, stress, anxiety, depression, despair, joy, and a touch of triumph went into this (I didn't think I'd start getting all nuts in this journal, but what you gonna do? I like to liven things up. Just notice all the aside comments throughout, like just now! So self referential you're mind might explode/implode or just quit... how about I return you to your regularly scheduled programming?...)

*cough*... so I connected my hose, attached the carbon filter and filled up the system. To that I added 450ppm GMB 3:2:1 + .5ml/l calmag + .5ml/l silica pH adjusted to 5.8. A few adjustments were needed to the system - the pump was leaking! Fluffed around with that a bit, ended up grabbing the silicone and fixed its wagon (not ideal, but it'll do the job for a while). Then I selected 4 seedlings to transplant. This was a bit of a hard choice but went with the Indica looking plant, the best of the rest, a taller specimen and the one with three shoots at the node. Why? Well, each had its merits and I just took a punt. I then inoculated each transplant with the tea + a little extra to the res, about 1.5L worth. The rest of the plants were then potted up with 70/30 coco/perlite mix, watered in with a 1ml/l calmag pH 5.8 solution and also inoculated with tea.

Everything has been going swell since then (4 days) - water temps have been interesting. Temp was floating around the 24C mark, jumping to 25C at one point. I got my ice bottles into the res and brought the temp to 22.5 within minutes. Have been doing this each day to keep it in check. I knew this was going to be an issue, particularly during summer (and it's been relatively mild this week). I have thought of cooling options (using a cooler box, copper coil or similar and ice) but have kept it low tech with bottles of frozen water (that's ice for you people playing at home...*slap*). Using a proper cooler isn't an option for cost/power reasons. This was what motivated me to use the tea from the get go as a buffer against potential problems with doing DWC. Tempting fate? Perhaps, time will tell. So far roots have popped out really quick and are growing a couple of inches each day on all 4 plants - impressive! PPMs have dropped a little (around 420ppm), pH has been reasonably stable (fluctuating between 5.8 and 6.0).

Still need to top the three-shoot-per-node plant again, but the other 3 are already mainlined for 4 tops so far (still to see if I'll top each for 8. Maybe mix it up a little... We'll see what growth rates are like to determine over-all veg time). As for concerns about water temps in the DWC, I have 7 in coco/perlite with 4 cloned females as insurance. I'd like to run these for as long as worthwhile - to sex the seedlings and remove the males, then decide on if it's worth keeping any females. But I'll likely keep the 4 females as mother plants for the moment too (at least 1 of the 3 from the same mother and the 1 extra brother [er, sister] from another mother) - keeping up?

As an extra experiment, while I was cleaning up my outdoor plants, I took clones of my best one (which is flowering first - oddly enough it was the one I snapped twice and almost left for dead). This time I soaked the 2" rockwool cubes in pH 5.8 water with some of the tea in it, used clonex and didn't use the provided hole but forged my own which provided a more snug fit for the stems. As the outdoor plants fend for themselves - and thus cop insect attack from whatevers in the yard - I have these quarantined elsewhere in indirect light (no heat mat though). They'll need to revert back to veg and that too, so in that time I hope to make sure they are pest free. The idea is to keep one as a mother (in coco/perlite, maybe try a hempy bucket), and any extras throw them into flower with the rest when it's time and they've rooted.

So yep, a lot has happened since we last spoke. This rant has probably been enough, pics later I guess. Oh yeah, and I decorated the tent with yellow and blue sticky traps: because I love IPM and that...

peace!
[video=youtube;zm28EEeyLek]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm28EEeyLek[/video]