Garage grow

The inspection went well. I decided to do things a little different this time.
Its gone from this.

To this

To this

To this

And last but not least, fully set up.

Damn, you can really see the blue spectrum of the 400W MH on the right.
It doesn't look like that normally of course.

I was getting too much light flooding through the gap the fan made. I put it in a box and cut it into a periscope type thing. Its really cut down on the noise and its blowing plenty of fresh sea air in. The garage usually has a breeze blowing through it but I'm going to have to invest in a ducted system soon enough. It creates its own breeze on low. I have never needed to crank it any higher.

My plants are hauling ass and sending roots out like mad. Plant B has a single 1m long root coming out of the pot into the base. The two smaller orchid pots are sending out a lot of roots too. I'm definitely getting a few more aerators, tube and stones this week. The water is pretty aerated already from the main tank but the more roots that get into the water the harder its going to be to keep the gas levels up in the water.

The two main plants (plant A and plant B) are doing well although I bent the pinched branch a bit too much and it kinda snapped a bit. Its no real biggie as the tips below the pinch have all shot out. I'm going to have to buy some fulvic acid to strengthen the stems. The plants in death row are doing much better at the moment. I'm still going to bin two more plants based on their performance during early flowering. I gave a friend and the guy at the hydro store 6 clones each and they both said that they grow like spastic during early to mid flowering.

One thing I'm not sure about is watering. My pump timer has every second pin pressed (15 min off/on) in during the light cycle and every fifth pin in (1 hour off/15 min on) at night. I have each drip set up as a T piece with the two ends about 2-3 inches long to keep the flow away from the stem. I have a 700 LH pump which gives plenty of flow to all the drippers. Should I be giving my plants less waterings throughout the day or is what I'm doing right? Most of the plants root systems have already grown into the base pots. I'm definitely going to have to drop air stones in to all the pots pretty soon. I have an old black "crate on crate" hydro setup that I could rearrange a bit to make a DWC tub. I stopped using it because of the high walls and capacity but it would be perfect for DWC. I'm guessing it would be fine to integrate it into my current system with a nice 400w HPS.

Its amazing to see how much the roots grow in one day. I'm definitely going to be using DM Zone™ from now on. Its great stuff.The Supercropping is taking really well and the smaller plants are really starting to bush up. The broken tip on plant A has healed overnight and the tip seems to be growing fine. I can't wait to buy another bulb and shade on later on this week. I need to buy some PK 13/14 too if I remember but otherwise I'm well stocked on chems.

The Supercropping is working well. I've been over them 3 times in the last week and they are loving it. They have gone from skinny stretched babies into fat little Buddhas. I've noticed that the leaf stems have started to purple, indicating a phosphorus deficiency. I'm wondering if I can treat it with a small amount of "Canna, PK 13/14™"? I'm only two weeks into flower so I shouldn't really be using it for another two weeks. I'm sure it will be right until then. My nutrients are EC 1.0/ppm500 which is a little weak. I'll bump it up to around 1.6 tonight when I flush the mix.

O.k I've flushed the pots and added new water and nutrients. My mix is 10ml of DM flower Max™, 5ml of DM Zone™, 5ml Earth Juice™, 15ml/15ml Plantastic 2 part bloom to 10 liters. Which has an EC of 1.8 Which I dropped to 1.6 with some extra water once it was all in the system. After adding nutrients my ph comes out to about 6.0. I rarely have to play with the ph until I start using DM potash which contains Phosphoric acid. I bought a new aerator today which is going nicely for the two main plants. Their roots have exploded out the bottom of the 20L upper pot of Hydro-Ton and most of the tips have turned white from all the pistils. I'm going away for three days so I'm jacking the lights up a couple of inches. It will be great to see the difference after a few days of not seeing them.

Three days without seeing them made a huge difference. Its amazing how much they can grow in such a small mount of time. I was filling the res today and forgot about it for a few minutes. I flooded out half the garage with nutes. The stems on a lot of plants have thickened right up and the pinched nodes all look great with plenty of extra growth. My two smaller plants on death row have really shot up so I've jury rigged another crate to keep them going for a bit longer until I decide which other plants are going to get pulled.

lookin good rusty!!

I've just been flushing my system again and noticed the state of the roots on the two orchid pots. I'm definitely going to go shopping today for some more gear. I should transplant the two test pilots into a DWC system. DWC from scratch shouldn't be a problem. Damn UNICRON, your setup looks awesome.

O.k......I went out and got another two 12 inch pots, a 50 L crate, sandpaper, spray paint, 9 air stones, 2 X 36w cool tubes, and an aerator. I put the two large orchid pots into the two 12 inch pots and hooked them up with bubbles. I spray painted the crate black, cut two 130 mm holes in the lid, put the two smaller orchid nets into it, hooked up more air stones and another aerator. I'll see how the bubbles treat the two runts and maybe do a full switch next crop. I've placed my old fluro shade over the top of the mother for now until I can resolve my lighting deficiency. My setup is looking a lot tidier now. Now I can relax for another week until I flush. I need to buy some seeds in the near future, I wanna try something different this time. All we get here is Skunk, Northern Lights, White Widow and AK-47. There are so many seed banks out there and I'm paranoid about getting busted importing them. I'm going to have to do some more research. I'm going to go get ripped.

Everything is coming along nicely it seems. Its week 4 so I'm going to flush and add PK 13/14 for week 5.
One of my aerators died so I will have to get myself a new one ASAP. I've managed to even out the air so I'm getting less all round but it will do for now.
They are budding like mad and it shouldn't be too long until the branches fill out properly.
I added PK 13/14 to the DWC system which is going great and the plants are loving their new home. I'm hoping to get them going for an early harvest. I'm running low on weed and I couldn't think of a bigger waste than buying the stuff when I've got plenty growing and only a month till harvest.

I'm half way through week 4 and Wednesday is flushing day. I've gone 10ml of bloom A&B, 5ml Root Zone, and 30ml of PK 13/14 to 10L in my hydro system and I've put one 10L bucket of hydro fluid and 20L of water with about 50 ml of PK 13/14 in my DWC system. The PH is about 6.0. My res has started leaking again, I will have to keep checking it over night. I have to go to the hydro store tomorrow to get a new aerator and some better stones. I can just pick up an $8 10L pot for a new res.

The plants have budded well along the branches to the stem with a close inter-nodal gap. Most branches have a 12 gauge sized bud on the end already with a few having even bigger ones. They have started giving off their sweet sherbet smell and the trichs are spreading across the buds and leaves quite nicely. The last good crop I got from this strain had a few buds as big as my arm with softball sized heads.

Less than 4 weeks to harvest!!!!

Everything is going well except the smallest plant in my crop which has developed rust on its leaves. I gave the DWC system a flush and removed the PK 13/14 and replaced it with some base nutes, DM Max and DM potash +.

The root systems on all the orchid pots are huge and the roots coming out of the bottom of the larger pots are well over a meter long.

I've run out of last seasons weed so I'm going to pull one of my bonsai's up in a day or two. Its filled out but still quite immature. Fuck buying the shit when I have it growing in my shed.

I've bought three more CFLs giving me a total of 7 x 26w which is the equivalent of 700w at 2700k. Next pay I'm going to get one or two 100w CFLs. They are the equivalent of 400w without the added heat and they are only $77 for bulb and lamp holder. It wouldn't need a shade as I would drop it in vertically. There are two pics of my setup without the HIDs on and its still nice and bright.

I promised my GF that I wouldn't spend any of my insurance money on the plants but it would be nice to go out and get a couple of 1000w digital HPS. I'm going to be harvesting in a few weeks so I can start upgrading the system after then.

Cheers dude. I'd give you rep back but I need to spread more around before I hit you again. I love your journal dude. I'm a subscriber.

Things slowed down a bit over the last week. I may have messed up on the last flush by giving them too much PK 13/14 and not enough base nutes. Its filled right out though with some massive colas developing.
I wish you guys could smell it now. Its so light and sweet. I pulled off a bottom tester a few days ago and it was good stuff too.
I love this strain even though I have no idea what the hell it is. I wish I could get it to seed again so I had nice fresh DNA but unfortunately it doesn't work that way.