cob | sip | scrog

Thorhax said:

is your grow area vented? like fresh air exchange?

Click to expand...

My tent is vented into the room (just a small bedroom in the house that is my office and grow spaces) with a 6" inline fan, rated at 225 CFM (venting 52 cubic feet of tent space).

I live in Oregon, mold and mildew are everywhere. My previous grows all had heat issues and I ran them with ridiculous amounts of airflow just to try and keep them in the low to mid 80's. Apparently it wasn't ridiculous, and I should try to recreate that environment. The one I grew prior to this I ran the dehumidifier the whole time. The weather has gotten warmer and that seemed like it was getting too hot, so I stopped running it. Then I saw the RH get up to 60% in the tent, then the trouble began.

SomeGuy said:

I've never used it but I believe that is what a lot of folks have done for PM. I've never actually had to fight pm. I do keep air moving in my grow spaces. Probably to excess so that may be why. Plus humidity is almost always between 20-50% depending. I do live in a somewhat ideal weed growing area tbh.

Click to expand...

That is fortunate. Lots, and LOTs of people are growing here in Oregon, I think I just need to change my style of growing.

I have to deal with PM here all the time, it's everywhere outside. There is no simple cure, just on-going checks/maintenance, some preventive things you can do is spray them in veg and just before going into flowering (I use ~1/2 tspn baking soda, few drops of vegetable oil, a couple of drops of soap). Problem with that spray is it'll burn the hairs on flowering plants, but if your choice is losing a crop or spraying them every couple of weeks, you have to make one. Pre-spraying in veg and just before flipping them works well if you can keep your RH (including lights-off when it spikes) below 50% and lots of airflow. I tried the milk, messy, smelly, and didn't do much to kill the PM. The baking soda works by increasing the pH to the point that spores cannot grow. It wears off somewhere around 10-14 days and they need to be sprayed again.

Besides the above, my first culling is in a veg cabinet where I keep RH high, like 65%+, seedlings get culled if they show any signs of PM (you'll learn to spot it). Seedlings that show any PM don't get to run again if they weren't already culled early on. Phenos within strains can be really bad or almost immune to it, that's the best management technique, grow/breed/cull for strains that are resistant. Indica's or indica-dom strains seem to be the most susceptible, not all they just seem to have a higher rate than sativa or sativa-dom. Strains with high limonene seem to resist it better than others. My JTR pheno is essentially immune to it.

GroErr said:

I have to deal with PM here all the time, it's everywhere outside. There is no simple cure, just on-going checks/maintenance, some preventive things you can do is spray them in veg and just before going into flowering (I use ~1/2 tspn baking soda, few drops of vegetable oil, a couple of drops of soap). Problem with that spray is it'll burn the hairs on flowering plants, but if your choice is losing a crop or spraying them every couple of weeks, you have to make one. Pre-spraying in veg and just before flipping them works well if you can keep your RH (including lights-off when it spikes) below 50% and lots of airflow. I tried the milk, messy, smelly, and didn't do much to kill the PM. The baking soda works by increasing the pH to the point that spores cannot grow. It wears off somewhere around 10-14 days and they need to be sprayed again.

Besides the above, my first culling is in a veg cabinet where I keep RH high, like 65%+, seedlings get culled if they show any signs of PM (you'll learn to spot it). Seedlings that show any PM don't get to run again if they weren't already culled early on. Phenos within strains can be really bad or almost immune to it, that's the best management technique, grow/breed/cull for strains that are resistant. Indica's or indica-dom strains seem to be the most susceptible, not all they just seem to have a higher rate than sativa or sativa-dom. Strains with high limonene seem to resist it better than others. My JTR pheno is essentially immune to it.

Click to expand...

That is some great information. I had to really shift my whole way of looking at growing, because I didn't realize that my first few grows were a mix of luck and heat issues that turned out to be beneficial. I'm not breeding, so it can get expensive to buy $15-$25 clones and throw out the ones that are weak, but that's still cheaper than buying bud, so that's what I've been doing. I had taken clones of my Bruce Banner #3 for the outdoor, but since the indoor showed signs of weakness, those will get composted.

Someone working at a dispensary (where I just picked up a Jillybean and a GG#4 clone) was telling me that one of the keys to healthy resilient plants is a healthy root system. I hope the SIPs support that. He also mentioned that radical temperature fluctuations are a bad thing in terms of PM, and that's my biggest problem. This space I'm growing in is an unstable environment. But I have plans to switch to another room in the house that is on the north side and has a more consistent climate. Hopefully (after this grow) that will help.

Humanrob said:

That is some great information. I had to really shift my whole way of looking at growing, because I didn't realize that my first few grows were a mix of luck and heat issues that turned out to be beneficial. I'm not breeding, so it can get expensive to buy $15-$25 clones and throw out the ones that are weak, but that's still cheaper than buying bud, so that's what I've been doing. I had taken clones of my Bruce Banner #3 for the outdoor, but since the indoor showed signs of weakness, those will get composted.

Someone working at a dispensary (where I just picked up a Jillybean and a GG#4 clone) was telling me that one of the keys to healthy resilient plants is a healthy root system. I hope the SIPs support that. He also mentioned that radical temperature fluctuations are a bad thing in terms of PM, and that's my biggest problem. This space I'm growing in is an unstable environment. But I have plans to switch to another room in the house that is on the north side and has a more consistent climate. Hopefully (after this grow) that will help.

Click to expand...

Yeah the culling can get slightly expensive but once you find the right strains/phenos you're good to go. It's a little more expensive up-front when you're pheno hunting but well worth the selection of the best phenos. I wouldn't keep a pheno that gets PM easily as I wouldn't consider it the best pheno anyhow, and I regularly cull phenos for other reasons like how vigorous they are, smell, potency. So overall I don't really consider it any different than normal selection of the best overall phenos to be considered keepers. PM resistance is just another trait I look for.

I guess I'm confusing things a bit splitting info between this and the SIP thread, but I'm trying to keep my personal stuff here, and the general information there. In the other thread I brought up the subject of res water maintenance and cleanliness, still hoping to get some good information on that.

At this point in my grow, my water level indicator tubes have gotten so dirty I can't see the water level. Because of the nature of my build, I can't even look at my water, let alone drain or replace it. The plants seem fine, but I'm thinking this is something I need to figure out how to deal with.

Next res refill will be in a day or two... unless I let it dry out more this time? The two girls are drinking at an uneven rate, but I think I can compensate and guesstimate when each would only have an inch of water left in the bottom. This refill is a good opportunity to maybe add some H202? Or Hygrozyme? It's all a big experiment, I can add one to the BB and the other to the OG, and see what happens. Luckily I've got enough meds on the shelf from my last grow to take us through until the summer outdoor is done, so even if this goes south I'm covered.

Humanrob said:

I guess I'm confusing things a bit splitting info between this and the SIP thread, but I'm trying to keep my personal stuff here, and the general information there. I brought up the subject of res water maintenance and cleanliness, still hoping to get some good information on that.

At this point in my grow, my water level indicator tubes have gotten so dirty I can't see the water level. Because of the nature of my build, I can't even look at my water, let alone drain or replace it. The plants seem fine, but I'm thinking this is something I need to figure out how to deal with.

Next res refill will be in a day or two... unless I let it dry out more this time? The two girls are drinking at an uneven rate, but I think I can compensate and guesstimate when each would only have an inch of water left in the bottom. This refill is a good opportunity to maybe add some H202? Or Hygrozyme? It's all a big experiment, I can add one to the BB and the other to the OG, and see what happens. Luckily I've got enough meds on the shelf from my last grow to take us through until the summer outdoor is done, so even if this goes south I'm covered.

Click to expand...

Maybe in your next SIP build you can incorporate sucker fish or a water filter?

I know I'm going to build a charcoal filter recycler into the sips I'm designing. Do you have a bubbler in your sip?

Thorhax said:

Maybe in your next SIP build you can incorporate sucker fish or a water filter?

I know I'm going to build a charcoal filter recycler into the sips I'm designing. Do you have a bubbler in your sip?

Click to expand...

I do have a bubbler... and a (fish tank?) charcoal filter -- that's a very interesting idea! I look forward to seeing how you incorporate that.

Humanrob said:

I guess I'm confusing things a bit splitting info between this and the SIP thread, but I'm trying to keep my personal stuff here, and the general information there. In the other thread I brought up the subject of res water maintenance and cleanliness, still hoping to get some good information on that.

At this point in my grow, my water level indicator tubes have gotten so dirty I can't see the water level. Because of the nature of my build, I can't even look at my water, let alone drain or replace it. The plants seem fine, but I'm thinking this is something I need to figure out how to deal with.

Next res refill will be in a day or two... unless I let it dry out more this time? The two girls are drinking at an uneven rate, but I think I can compensate and guesstimate when each would only have an inch of water left in the bottom. This refill is a good opportunity to maybe add some H202? Or Hygrozyme? It's all a big experiment, I can add one to the BB and the other to the OG, and see what happens. Luckily I've got enough meds on the shelf from my last grow to take us through until the summer outdoor is done, so even if this goes south I'm covered.

Click to expand...

You likely have some soil seeping through into the water which I don't think would be much to worry about. The filter could work to clean it up a bit. You can safely use up to 150 ppm of H2O2 if you're concerned about nasty's in the water. When I researched it I read that 100 ppm of 3% solution would be a minimum to be effective. I've used it to clean up pythium by adding it to my water in soil/pro-mix grows, worked well. Cheers.

GroErr said:

You likely have some soil seeping through into the water which I don't think would be much to worry about. The filter could work to clean it up a bit. You can safely use up to 150 ppm of H2O2 if you're concerned about nasty's in the water. When I researched it I read that 100 ppm of 3% solution would be a minimum to be effective. I've used it to clean up pythium by adding it to my water in soil/pro-mix grows, worked well. Cheers.

Click to expand...

I suspect that is the situation, I probably over-watered when I transplanted and had a lot of seepage or run-off from the soil section into the res. Now I'm reading up on the two main schools of thought: go with beneficial microbes to keep the water living, or just go for clean water by basically killing everything in there (H2O2). Since my system has no option for draining or flushing, as I understand it whatever I add to the res stays in there for the remainder of the run (not sure if any of the methods break down or become inert over time?) So, once I put H2O2 in I'm committed to that, I think. It's possible I can try beneficial microbes and if things get too cloudy or stinky or something, then go ahead and use H2O2.

Although it may or may not apply to the issue at hand, I'm still also considering Hygrozyme, since for reasons I can't recall, I actually have a small bottle of it. My space got way too hot for a while, so with my water warming up I might have encouraged microbe populations living off of roots and any slime in the lower wick, and Hygrozyme might break that down and take away their food source?

I'm going to keep reading... I have at least 24 hours before I need to refill a res, so I have some time to work on this.

Humanrob said:

I suspect that is the situation, I probably over-watered when I transplanted and had a lot of seepage or run-off from the soil section into the res. Now I'm reading up on the two main schools of thought: go with beneficial microbes to keep the water living, or just go for clean water by basically killing everything in there (H2O2). Since my system has no option for draining or flushing, as I understand it whatever I add to the res stays in there for the remainder of the run (not sure if any of the methods break down or become inert over time?) So, once I put H2O2 in I'm committed to that, I think. It's possible I can try beneficial microbes and if things get too cloudy or stinky or something, then go ahead and use H2O2.

Although it may or may not apply to the issue at hand, I'm still also considering Hygrozyme, since for reasons I can't recall, I actually have a small bottle of it. My space got way too hot for a while, so with my water warming up I might have encouraged microbe populations living off of roots and any slime in the lower wick, and Hygrozyme might break that down and take away their food source?

I'm going to keep reading... I have at least 24 hours before I need to refill a res, so I have some time to work on this.

Click to expand...

I've seen a hydroponic grow that uses fish and green slime to feed the roots. He only poured more water in and didn't clean his res for the whole crop.

Using microbes to keep the water alive sounds like a really good idea.

the plants looks beautiful, so maybe they are happy with your living res?

Tim Fox said:

the plants looks beautiful, so maybe they are happy with your living res?

Click to expand...

My tendency is definitely to go with nature first, and if I can't replicate that in a healthy way and there is an alternative, then I'll try that. So first thing would be to wait and see, check for plant health and water smell, and see what happens. Second line would be go out and buy some beneficial life and add it. Last would be move towards a sterile environment (which in complete form is apparently not obtainable or desirable).

The reading I'm doing on Hygrozyme is making me think that's worth a try. It seems like lots of people have had very good success with it, some say it did nothing, very few say it had a negative effect. With internet experience/opinion research, that's often as good as it gets. So I might use some of that since I already have it. It should not negatively effect beneficial or good microbes, if I'm understanding it correctly (and if what I've read is accurate).

Thorhax said:

I've seen a hydroponic grow that uses fish and green slime to feed the roots. He only poured more water in and didn't clean his res for the whole crop.

Using microbes to keep the water alive sounds like a really good idea.

Click to expand...

Are you referring to an Aquaponic set up? Or something else? In aquaponics they try to avoid algae and green slime because those will compete with your plants roots for oxygen and nutrients, but I suppose if you have enough fish they'll make so much added nutes that it can feed them all.

Maybe my next res will be a 20 gallon fish tank...

Some shots of day 13 of flower. With doing two Mother's Day's tomorrow it might wait until Monday, but soon I'll need to string up the second level.

One of my res level indicator tubes was much cloudier than the other, so cloudy in fact that I misread the water level. A little digging around and found that I have two different types of those thin little air delivery tubes, and one is much softer than the other. The softer one had a kink in it, so the cloudy water res was not getting air. See that, I did a little experiment and I didn't even mean to.

Now that I know the impact of air pumps, I went ahead and upgraded to a bigger one. I wish I had bought bigger air stones when I started, but from what I was reading there was mixed advice about using air at all. Since they are inaccessible at this point -- can't even peak in to look at them -- there's no upgrading those until the next run. And speaking of that, in my research I came across people posting or complaining (in pet fish forums) that their air stones were floating... if mine are floating I have no way of knowing, and no way of fixing it.

I'm learning a lot from this. First, creating a closed system that there is no access to... not my brightest moment. Especially when its an untested system. I think for my next run with SIPs I'm going to use the tomato cages with wire fence across the top as my screen instead of a stationary separate unit. That way, if I need to lift the plant/pot off of the res, nothing is preventing me.

Sunday Update

The Rugburn OG x Chemdawg OG is stretching like crazy. I've just passed the 3 week mark of flower, and it hasn't slowed down yet. The Bruce Banner #3 stayed short and wide. You can see in the pics the OGx2 has long passed the second screen and the BB#3 has developed a mostly flat even canopy, only sending a couple of buds up above the second screen. Between the screens the BB buds are stacking really nicely, much tighter than the OG.

I also found a solution for my foggy fill level indicator tubes -- I was digging around and found an unused/clean nylon .45 barrel brush, its a perfect fit and cleans them right up. I've added some Hygrozyme to both res's, not sure what the ultimate effect was/is, but I still don't smell anything at the fill tubes, and the plants are as healthy as any I've ever grown. No signs of PM, but I have been throwing everything at stopping that -- dehumidifier, extra fans running on higher than I normally would speeds (some running 24/7), GreenCure, and lots of trimming. That all might be my new normal.

Here's the BB#3 top and side view

...and the OGx2 top and side view


As a side note, I've set up and started several of my outdoor SIPs. I'll probably start another thread for those in the outdoor section, but I don't think I'll fight nature on those (meaning I won't try to kill the water with H2O2 etc.) -- I've ordered a bunch of fish pond/fountain water maintenance products, like beneficial microbes, enzymes, and things to keep mosquitos down. There will be a gap between the end of the summer grow and the following indoor grow, so when I pull the outdoor apart after harvest, based on what I see I can think about if I want to try any of the pond products on my next indoor res. I'm sure the experimenting won't stop for a while.

Looks good brother keep it up, glad everything is under control. We are all fighting something but that's just the way it goes right, adapt and overcome.

Cheers

Evil-Mobo said:

Looks good brother keep it up, glad everything is under control. We are all fighting something but that's just the way it goes right, adapt and overcome.

Cheers

Click to expand...

Thanks Evil-Mobo, you're right about adaptation, its the key to survival.

Have you guys ever noted the actual distance your plants grow per day during stretch?

My lights go on at 10pm, and off at 10am. Every night when they come on I check on the girls, and every morning after breakfast I look in again. It seemed like every time I looked in they were taller, but you know how that is. Then one day I ran out of rope on the pulleys and had to take them off and attach the light directly to the bar at the top of the tent. That was last Friday morning. The tallest bud on the OGx2 had gotten 9" from the lowest light (long story, I have one light that hangs from another). When I removed the pulley system, that moved the light up about 7".

Last night, 3.5 days later, the tallest bud was 9" from the light again, and this morning its 8". That's 2" of growth every 24 hours. I'm 23 days into flower. I can't raise the light anymore, so now the plant will decide its own fate. But I'm wondering if anyone else has noted their rate of growth during stretch? This is the first time I've run out of vertical room.

And ironically, the BB#3 on the other side of the tent grew short and wide and was so far from the light that I decided to mount an Optic 120 I'm not currently using as side/angled lighting to get some light closer to it.

Humanrob said:

Have you guys ever noted the actual distance your plants grow per day during stretch?

My lights go on at 10pm, and off at 10am. Every night when they come on I check on the girls, and every morning after breakfast I look in again. It seemed like every time I looked in they were taller, but you know how that is. Then one day I ran out of rope on the pulleys and had to take them off and attach the light directly to the bar at the top of the tent. That was last Friday morning. The tallest bud on the OGx2 had gotten 9" from the lowest light (long story, I have one light that hangs from another). When I removed the pulley system, that moved the light up about 7".

Last night, 3.5 days later, the tallest bud was 9" from the light again, and this morning its 8". That's 2" of growth every 24 hours. I'm 23 days into flower. I can't raise the light anymore, so now the plant will decide its own fate. But I'm wondering if anyone else has noted their rate of growth during stretch? This is the first time I've run out of vertical room.

And ironically, the BB#3 on the other side of the tent grew short and wide and was so far from the light that I decided to mount an Optic 120 I'm not currently using as side/angled lighting to get some light closer to it.

Click to expand...

just bend the tall branches over, they will be perfectly fine growing sideways

Thorhax said:

just bend the tall branches over, they will be perfectly fine growing sideways

Click to expand...

Not to push my luck, but do you (or anyone else) by any chance have a picture of a plant that you bent when it got too tall? I can imagine how that might be done or might look, but before I tweak what could be some awesome colas, I want to make sure I'm understanding you. Thanks --