Dyslexics Untie! Satori|Stealth/Tent|DWC|250W HPS/MH & 180W Led|CO2@1500ppm

Ok, so in the off chance that the two runts never regain their health, I'm popping two more Satori seeds. This time, using rapid rooters.

The Mandala site advises against rapid rooters, but only goes as far as to say something along the lines of "growers have also reported problems with rapid rooters". Having failed to find a reasonable explanation from any of those growers, I decided to give it a go.

There aren't too many rapid rooter germination techniques posted on the internet. So I'm going to list what I did, maybe someone can improve on this for me.

The Mandala website also advises against pre soaking seeds, but I broke that rule too. I started by pre soaking the seeds in 500ml of RO/DI water, and 3ml of 29% H2O2 for about 20 minutes. This step was only to expose the seeds to H2O2 in order to give them a good start.

While the seeds were soaking, I took a knife and cut off the top 1/3 of the rapid rooter plugs. I figured it's less distance for the roots to travel to get to the hydroton, which is where I want them. I cut the top 1/3 so that I could make my own seed-hole in the remaining 2/3 of the plug, which I did with a shish ka bob skewer. The hole I made went all the way through, from top to bottom - the rapid rooter will expand back into the hole, but hopefully will still provide ease of growth for the root. This step should make for more contact between the seed and medium - I made sure to wriggle the skewer around the top 1/4" of the hole, to make sure it was easy enough for the seed to push its way out.

Then the rapid rooters were pre soaked in 0PPM water. I squished em around gently in order to leech anything bad out, although I'm not sure if this was necessary. Then I wrung them out, and soaked them in a mild nute bath. The bath was comprised of 45PPM FloraNova Bloom, 10PPM B-52, and 5PPM of VoodooJuice, for a total of 60PPM. pH'd to 5.8. I had about a 1/2 L left over, which I reserved for watering the rapid rooters later on.

I then took the rapid rooters and dried them slightly. The seeds were then inserted on their side (as recommended on Mandala's website), about 1/4" deep. The plugs were then placed in a tray and put inside the grow tent, which is currently at 79F, and 52% RH.

The nute water that was left over was diluted to 25% of its original strength by adding RO/DI water. I'll spray the rapid rooter plugs with the lower strength solution. Because it's so diluted, it shouldn't cause the nute levels in the rapid rooter to build up too much, however it should help to keep the pH more or less stable inside the plug.

If this method works out, and if these babes are born of decent genetics, they'll catch up to the stunted ones quite quickly, in which case, I'll replace them.

Still hoping for 4 healthy plants in total for this grow. Will make some updates on the progress of the two new ones, in order to see if this germ method works well for these seeds.

Bob

how's germination going?

I have a good method, gives me 80-90% germination: I pre-soak the rockwool, and use the shishkebab stick to broaden the hole a bit, so the seed doesn't get stuck in there (happened a few times). I put the seed inside the hole (so it's about halfway inside the cube) and close it with a pot on it to keep wet. usually in 3-5 days they grow above the cube. and just stick it in my medium (I really hate handling bear roots. it's quite bad I think)

very important to give your younglings some rooting aid now, root juice/complex/excellurator/whatever

Good advice! What would you recommend for a root accelerator? I might even have something in the box of goodies I bought a few months back.

When it comes to touching roots, I'm definitely in that school of thought too - if I had an exo-stomach, I wouldn't want anyone touching it either. This latest attempt at germing was done with rapid rooter plugs just for the fun of it. Never tried it before, so it's experimentation. You got me thinking about my seeds getting stuck... I made the holes in the rapid rooter tight in order to keep good contact between the seed and the medium. It's pretty squishy stuff, so I'm hoping they'll have the strength to push out. Just peaked in on em an hour ago and they seem to be making their way to the surface ok - about half-way there. Will keep ya posted!

May 27 - Day 21
Res at 14.5gal, 230PPM, 5.7pH, 76F 56% RH

Sorry for the lack of updates, this thing is still a work in progress.

Just finished another res change. This time because of an algae problem. I didn't put enough hydroton in the baskets, so light is able to leak into the reservoir. I've rectified the problem by fitting some thick paper plates over the baskets, and wrapping some black electrical tape around the exterior of the baskets where the light was getting through. I'm a little worried some of the adhesive from the tape will leech into the water, but I'm going to keep an eye on it. It's in the driest part of the res, so we'll see.

Two days ago, I noticed that the pH would climb by about .4 over the course of the day. That was new, so when it happened again yesterday, I knew there was a problem. It was amazing how much green slime came out of the feeder tubes. Many illustrious analogies come to mind, but I'll spare you the imagery.

Earlier today, I went to buy H2O2 from the local shop and the lady 'threw in' two 1L bottles of these GH nutes I'd never heard of for free.


She told me that it was called FloraDuo, and was GH's new flagship product. Apparently they were claiming some big things. After reading up on it a bit, the gist of it is that it's a two-part nute system, designed to be used from start to finish. Part A is 5-0-6, and Part B is 1-5-4. You start out with 3 parts of A to one part B. Then when you switch to flowering, you go with 1 part of A, to 3 parts of B, but otherwise stick with the same nutes.

Also of importance is the fact that this nute is chelated, which translates to the nutes being more bio available to the plant, less reliant on accurate pH for proper absorption, and ultimately less prone to nute lock-out. Aesthetically, the nutes are virtually clear, and I love that - there's none of the sludgy mess that FloraNova Bloom presented. I'm definitely pumped about this development!

The new res is now made up of the following, all diluted to 20% of the recommended dose:
FloraDuo (3prt A/1prt B)
Pro-Silicate
B-52
It's now at just over 230PPM. I threw in 10mL of 29% H2O2, just to kill off any algae that made it past my cleaning blitz.

As for the babes, I'm now down to two plants, and two seeds in rapid rooters. One of the plants that had been removed from the rockwool didn't make it.


This one's definitely taken off - already has a few roots in the res, and the first growth spurt is in full swing.


This one is the runt, and doesn't seem to be liking the nutes too much. It doesn't help that its growth has been further stunted by the hydroton shifting every time I open the top of the res (possibly causing root damage). This little guy should definitely been in a better medium. Lesson learned!

I spritzed the rapid rooter plugs with the 25PPM nute mix + piranha/tarantula for the first two days (about ever 8 hours or so). From here on in, I'll give them pure RO/DI water until they go into the baskets.

The plan now is to keep the big plant growing on as little nutes as possible while the seeds in the rapid rooters germ/sprout. When that happens, they'll get moved into the baskets, where I'll feed them separately at first, so they have time to acclimatize to the nutes before plugging them into the feeder system.

Any suggestions are welcome!

Bob

Check out this thread I came across... the idea is to zap your roots with a small electrical current generated by a cheap pv cell beside your plants. The peer reviewed stuff on this seems to indicate there's something to it, with off the chart yields:
Boosting Growth: Electrical Stimulation w/ Pv Cells!? ^^

Has anyone tried this? I'm definitely interested to hear what other people think. It's something I'd love to try after a standard grow or two.

Bob

Bob Lawblaw said:

Good advice! What would you recommend for a root accelerator? I might even have something in the box of goodies I bought a few months back.

When it comes to touching roots, I'm definitely in that school of thought too - if I had an exo-stomach, I wouldn't want anyone touching it either. This latest attempt at germing was done with rapid rooter plugs just for the fun of it. Never tried it before, so it's experimentation. You got me thinking about my seeds getting stuck... I made the holes in the rapid rooter tight in order to keep good contact between the seed and the medium. It's pretty squishy stuff, so I'm hoping they'll have the strength to push out. Just peaked in on em an hour ago and they seem to be making their way to the surface ok - about half-way there. Will keep ya posted!

Click to expand...

hmmm can't really recommend any... they're all the same to me, and i've only tried one or two (can't say much about results. I guess root juice by bio bizz was alright)

i don't know anything about those plugs. all i know about the rockwool is that sometimes the seed can just grow into it, not good at all. then again, it's true i think that seeds need friction when growing upwards to help them lose their shell. so yeah, whatever works for. you'll figure a way that works for you, hopefully its this one. of course, it would be better for you if you could do that with less expensive seeds like bagseeds, but we do what we can

Bob Lawblaw said:

May 27 - Day 21
Res at 14.5gal, 230PPM, 5.7pH, 76F 56% RH

Sorry for the lack of updates, this thing is still a work in progress.

Just finished another res change. This time because of an algae problem. I didn't put enough hydroton in the baskets, so light is able to leak into the reservoir. I've rectified the problem by fitting some thick paper plates over the baskets, and wrapping some black electrical tape around the exterior of the baskets where the light was getting through. I'm a little worried some of the adhesive from the tape will leech into the water, but I'm going to keep an eye on it. It's in the driest part of the res, so we'll see.

Two days ago, I noticed that the pH would climb by about .4 over the course of the day. That was new, so when it happened again yesterday, I knew there was a problem. It was amazing how much green slime came out of the feeder tubes. Many illustrious analogies come to mind, but I'll spare you the imagery.

Earlier today, I went to buy H2O2 from the local shop and the lady 'threw in' two 1L bottles of these GH nutes I'd never heard of for free.

She told me that it was called FloraDuo, and was GH's new flagship product. Apparently they were claiming some big things. After reading up on it a bit, the gist of it is that it's a two-part nute system, designed to be used from start to finish. Part A is 5-0-6, and Part B is 1-5-4. You start out with 3 parts of A to one part B. Then when you switch to flowering, you go with 1 part of A, to 3 parts of B, but otherwise stick with the same nutes.

Also of importance is the fact that this nute is chelated, which translates to the nutes being more bio available to the plant, less reliant on accurate pH for proper absorption, and ultimately less prone to nute lock-out. Aesthetically, the nutes are virtually clear, and I love that - there's none of the sludgy mess that FloraNova Bloom presented. I'm definitely pumped about this development!

The new res is now made up of the following, all diluted to 20% of the recommended dose:
FloraDuo (3prt A/1prt B)
Pro-Silicate
B-52
It's now at just over 230PPM. I threw in 10mL of 29% H2O2, just to kill off any algae that made it past my cleaning blitz.

As for the babes, I'm now down to two plants, and two seeds in rapid rooters. One of the plants that had been removed from the rockwool didn't make it.


This one's definitely taken off - already has a few roots in the res, and the first growth spurt is in full swing.


This one is the runt, and doesn't seem to be liking the nutes too much. It doesn't help that its growth has been further stunted by the hydroton shifting every time I open the top of the res (possibly causing root damage). This little guy should definitely been in a better medium. Lesson learned!

I spritzed the rapid rooter plugs with the 25PPM nute mix + piranha/tarantula for the first two days (about ever 8 hours or so). From here on in, I'll give them pure RO/DI water until they go into the baskets.

The plan now is to keep the big plant growing on as little nutes as possible while the seeds in the rapid rooters germ/sprout. When that happens, they'll get moved into the baskets, where I'll feed them separately at first, so they have time to acclimatize to the nutes before plugging them into the feeder system.

Any suggestions are welcome!

Bob

Click to expand...

i've started to really dislike this company. they seem to be making way too many bottles and some people claim they deliberately make their nutes lacking, to make you buy more types. i can't validate this of course, could be just a vicious rumor.

your healthy plant looks great! the other one well, perhaps some foliar feed, i don't know. it sure is tough starting plants in DWC ain't it. If you were to buy another fertilizer, i would suggest alg-a-mic or any other seaweed based, they should help your plant get well in foliar feed.

the electric current idea seems very interesting. i'd really like to try that some time!

Hey Asaph, have definitely heard that idea spoken before. It's hard for me to weigh in on GH because I am a first time grower. A lot of people speak pretty highly of them though, especially using FNB for the Lucas method. What I liked about FloraDuo was that it seemed to be the next step in the Lucas Method, using chelated nutes, and some kind of proprietary root stimulators. Hard to say if that's just propaganda or not, but so far the one plant I have on FloraDuo LOVES it. Another perk is that you virtually don't even know the nutes are in the water - they're so clear.

Tomorrow I'll be taking your advice and introducing some root stimulator into the nutes (VoodooJuice). Had to do some work on light proofing the res, so I wanted to run one more 24 hour course of H2O2 before adding it. I'll also throw in some Piranha and Tarantula. Will keep ya posted.

What's your first language? You do a good job with english!

May 30 - Day 24
Res at 238PPM, 5.8pH (dwn from 6.2), Tent at 76F 58% RH

The last few days were a bit tough to say the least. The extent of my light leak situation became clear, and I knew there was a bit of work cut out for me in order to make the res truly light proof. Then, while moving things around, the final runt from the first batch sustained root damage from shifting hydroton, and later succumbed (RIP). This left me with one plant, second guessing whether or not I should get back to full-time 'cannagraculture' research instead of playing around with toys I didn't yet know how to use.

Well, there's something organic about staying the course - things usually get better when you do. So it's nice to be able to post some positive twists in this never-beginning saga! It turns out mother nature left me a couple presents to wake up to this morning. They had already started to unravel last night, so I was expecting to see something today, I just wasn't sure what.


Booya! I was pretty pumped when I saw their rich color, and firm stature. There was not a bit of yellow on them, and these babes had nice looking stems (I'm a sucker for nice stems on a lady, but who isn't?)

So I went to the park to throw the frisbee around with my gf, and then goofed around for a bit, thinking I had all kinds of time to transplant the little ones. When I finally got around to starting the transplant, I was surprised see 4-5 white tips sticking out of each plug (the furthest by about 1/4"). Not a moment too soon... these guys were tenacious!

My first impression on rapid rooters is that they kick major rockwool ass, especially if you cut one third of the length of the plug off the top. There's just no competition between them, from what I've seen. Could it be that people love rockwool because it's so cheap? Let me know what you think.

So the babes are now in the recently improved DWC bucket. 'Was having major problems with light leaks and algae - the reflective insulation I have on top of my dwc bucket was distributing light throughout the res. It's been rectified by strategic usage of electrical tape, as well as new lids for the two little ones.

The big plant will hopefully make due with 240PPM for another week or so. Until then, I will start by feeding the two little ones nothing but fresh water, and an odd sip from the original diluted nute spray to keep em keen. In a couple of days, I will take some res water and dilute it to 50% with RODI water, and then use it to feed the little ones for a couple days. If they continue to grow ok, I'll plug them into the feeder lines and they'll be synced with the older plant. I'm really hoping they can catch up to it when the big lights and CO2 go on.


So here's Lulu and Fifi. Hopefully no one is confused about their gender. No?? Ok good.. with any luck they will get the hint and turn out to be girls.


What's cool about this batch of Satori seeds is the shape the sprout makes with its cotyledons. Each of my satori sprouts have done this - it's like a check-mark. Or a thurmbs-up from mother nature (I knew she was a stoner!)


My other surprise this morning was to see this little thing (né: Pépé - see above) bounding with enthusiasm. The way the first set of fan leaves are pointing up makes it look like it's stretching its arms. Looks ok under the hood too!

There's no question that my previous mistakes have given me a bit more confidence for this next round. Still, I'm relying on other people's experience to keep this show on the road, so don't hold back if you've got some advice.

Cheers
Bob

hey bob

nice going!! those rapid roosters seem to be really doing the job. this is how seeds look when they sprout in soil - the best method i've known so far

your more mature plant (in a matter of days - no longer a seedling but a plant in veg!) looks awesome - 100% health.

keep up the good work

p.s - i speak the holy language of god. well, the modern version of it

Shalom Asaph.. I should have been able to figure that out on my own, haha. I spend quite a bit of time in Israel with work, and love it - very beautiful country! Always wondered what the sabra thought of weed. Never breached the subject with anyone there, as it's not the kind of thing I talk about at work haha.

Thanks for the vote of confidence man, the older plant is taking off rapidly. Do you think the little ones will be able to catch up? I'll be scrogging later on, so hopefully this will give them a chance to even out.

Cheers!
Bob

Bob Lawblaw said:

Shalom Asaph.. I should have been able to figure that out on my own, haha. I spend quite a bit of time in Israel with work, and love it - very beautiful country! Always wondered what the sabra thought of weed. Never breached the subject with anyone there, as it's not the kind of thing I talk about at work haha.

Thanks for the vote of confidence man, the older plant is taking off rapidly. Do you think the little ones will be able to catch up? I'll be scrogging later on, so hopefully this will give them a chance to even out.

Cheers!
Bob

Click to expand...

well we all love weed my friend. and one thing's for sure, if it was legal to smoke here, things would be much more relaxed in many ways... but alas there's the mobsters and dirty politicians to take care of, can't go pleasing everyone. we are however doing some fine progress on MMJ with thousands of patients now. but still not as easy as cali :\

so yeah, the gap between them will "cost" you an extra week or two in veg, but of course that's not really an issue i'm sure. you'll just have one plant bigger than the others. since you don't use pots or soil it's really no trouble at all, beside the ppm thing - might be a bit tough to dial it in as different plant sizes have different needs - but I guess you can manage that somehow too. actually most of the time my plants have been getting 1.5EC throughout late veg and flowering. i like things steady, and really don't see any reason to change what works

Haha.. it really surprised me how chill things were in Tel Aviv. Airport security is tight at Ben Gurion, but other than that, it easily compares to any hip European city that I've been to. Great night life! And, the good herb has been smoked on that soil for millenia, so it's cool to know the finer things have stayed the same. Too bad things are so complicated politically, cause there's a lot of beauty in the culture on both sides of the wall. Either way, it always says good things about a culture that observe 4:20.

These two little sprouts got TALL. They don't seem to be stretched too bad, as they're growing substantially and holding their own fine. Plus, the 24W T5 was less than an inch away from it, and I'd be reluctant to put it any closer. So I've been flicking them a few times a day, hoping to help their stalks get stronger. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I'm chalking a bit of their height up to the vigorous start they've had. These babes are much healthier than any of my previous attempts, by a substantial margin.

The big one has a small, pin-head sized yellow spot on it. It's not a vivid yellow, but somewhat noticeable. Wondering if it's a sign that the plant is looking for more nutes. Part of the strategy for helping the little ones catch up is to intentionally stunt it's growth by keeping it on a T5, while feeding it at low nute levels. I don't want to starve it though.

Will have pics later tonight!

from the last pic it looked like it could do perhaps with a just a bit more. is the spot on the tip?

May 31 - Day 25
Res at 230PPM (pH meter re calibrated) - 25% dosage of VoodooJuice, + 100% dose of Tarantula and Piranha added. pH 6.0. Tent at 75F, 59% RH

Things are still looking pretty decent today. That yellow spot on Pépé's lower fan leaf hasn't grown or changed, so I'm not too worried just yet. Still growing, and the roots in particular are looking tasty.


Hoping that yellow spot on the lower left is just an early sign of a nute deficiency. Will start feeding the two sprouts with 50% res water tomorrow, so if I can keep this plant happy on the nutes that it has for another week or so, the little ones should catch up.


Here's Lulu - definitely the goody goody of the two. You can see the 'light skirt' I made around the edge of the basket. There's about one inch of overlap between the basket covers and the light skirt to keep any stray rays from making into the res.


Here's Fifi - she's the sassy one. Look at her showing off... not sure what caused her to bend like that, but it may have had something to do with its proximity to the fan. I relocated it just to be sure. She also stretched more than the other, so the light is less than an inch from it now.

In case anyone is wondering, the plants are still in their rapid rooters, I just buried them under a layer of hydroton to help keep algae from growing on the plugs.

Still chuggin!
Bob

June 3 - Day 28
Res at 14gal (topped up from 13), 67F, 230PPM, pH 5.9. CO2 turned on as of today, tent at 86F, 48% RH. Lights are now two 24W T5s and the MH set to 175W, 15" from the tops.

Hey fellow stoners!

Gotta start this one by re-iterating my praise for rapid rooters. They have worked flawlessly so far, and are substantially easier to use than rockwool. Let me just put it this way - I've made a total of 25 attempts with rockwool, and got one viable plant (aka Pépé). On the flip side, I've made two attempts with rapid rooters, and wound up with these two:

These were both taken on day 9 from seed. Compare that to where the big plant was at on day 9 from seed. In fairness, I may have planted it too shallow in the rockwool, which got it off to a bad start. But either way, the difference is clear.




The only hick-up so far with the sprouts was driver induced motion sickness... I over-watered them yesterday and they both drooped a little. Recovery time was several hours tops, and they were back on track as of today. I'm starting to pay more attention to the little cues the plants are sending me.

The big plant just taught me a pretty valuable lesson, and drove this point home . The lesson was pretty clear - forget theory and pay attention to what the plant is trying to tell you. Today it was educating me about light.

When I checked up on it earlier, it was starting to look pretty sad.

I've been keeping it going on one 24W T5, and now it's starving for more. The two sprouts seem to be doing well enough, so I thought why not oblige it.

At first, I gave it 125W of MH, 15 inches above the plants, assisted by the two T5s, placed about 10 inches above and to the sides of the plants. The big plant responded by sprucing up right away. So I increased the MH to 175W with good results, and finally all the way to 250W.

After about an hour, here's what I had:

If you look closely, you'll see that the leaves are starting to "taco" - a first sign that the plant is protecting itself from too much light.

After rolling the MH back to 175W, the plant looked more like this:

The leaves aren't as perky, but they're not curling up in a taco shape either, so I'm interpreting this as the sweet spot for now. Does anyone else have any other good rules of thumb for "reading your plant"? This concept appeals to my right-brained self way more than following charts.

In the mean time, the CO2 is now on, so the tent is no longer being vented. Hoping for some vigorous development from here on in!


Bob

Just a thought - I've never seen this said, because I think the advanced growers just understand this concept intuitively. For us newbs, it's important to understand the importance of optimizing the growing environment when you're germinating and raising small seedlings, because it has a strong role in determining how your seedling grows. It seems that sprouts are quite sensitive little things, and the slightest environmental/nutritional stress can stunt growth in the most insidious way. In other words, your seedlings may look healthy, but they grow at a snails pace if things are out of whack (see: first part of this never-beginning saga).

So, for optimized growth in seedlings, keep your growing environment clean and properly dialed in while they're young - minimizing stress (and genetics) are key to vigorous growth. There are some strategic exceptions though - for example, I'm flicking these seedlings on occasion to encourage stem development. This technique came out of an excerpt from an advanced cultivation guide that I read a few weeks ago, which strongly advocated this approach. Good enough for this toker!

an even better way to strengthen them is to have a fan blowing at them from afar (an oscillating fan so it's not constant). but of course it's not really mandatory.

and i kinda disagree - I had my coco seedlings in bad shape at first because I was starving them and they wouldn't grow, but once I started giving them food after about two weeks of stagnation, they caught up really quick with their brothers in soil.

nice going btw. looking great there.

Shalom asaph (and anyone else who's reading),
It's been a while since an update - was in the midst of breaking up with my long-term gf, so I wasn't paying the babes as much attention as they should have been getting. They're still going strong though.

The stronger of the two sprouts became slightly nutrient burned once the roots made it to the hydroton that was moistened by the reservoir water, so I flushed it for a few days and it rebounded fine. It's just a few days behind its bigger sister in terms of growth. All three plants are now drinking the same water and loving it. The biggest plant is a complete bush. I'm going to have to do something soon, as it's crowding its siblings. The plan was to wait to sex it before fimming or starting LST, and unfortunately, it's looking more and more like a dude.


Wondering what you think.. there are no long hairs growing out of any of the 4-5 pear-shaped balls growing on this thing. What's confusing me is that I thought male preflowers were perfectly spherical, and that female preflowers were pear-shaped. These are pear-shaped for sure.

Let me know what you think!

Bob

Bob Lawblaw said:

Shalom asaph (and anyone else who's reading),
It's been a while since an update - was in the midst of breaking up with my long-term gf, so I wasn't paying the babes as much attention as they should have been getting. They're still going strong though.

The stronger of the two sprouts became slightly nutrient burned once the roots made it to the hydroton that was moistened by the reservoir water, so I flushed it for a few days and it rebounded fine. It's just a few days behind its bigger sister in terms of growth. All three plants are now drinking the same water and loving it. The biggest plant is a complete bush. I'm going to have to do something soon, as it's crowding its siblings. The plan was to wait to sex it before fimming or starting LST, and unfortunately, it's looking more and more like a dude.


Wondering what you think.. there are no long hairs growing out of any of the 4-5 pear-shaped balls growing on this thing. What's confusing me is that I thought male preflowers were perfectly spherical, and that female preflowers were pear-shaped. These are pear-shaped for sure.

Let me know what you think!

Bob

Click to expand...

well it looks like it will soon reveal its sex indeed. The best way i can guess the sex is in that the male sacks are usually hanging, like on a thread from the node, while the female parts will be more "built" on the surface of the node.