Homegrown Fantaseed: Big Bud / Short Stuff: Himalayan Blue Diesel and Onyx autoflower

DWC/Bubbleponics 18 gallon reservior

3, 6 inch air stones, connected end to end, per reservior

1, GH dual diaphragm 320 gpm, air pump

10 cfls, for seedling and after transplant, until good rooting

Eye Hortilux 600 watt hps, veg and flower

Jiffy peat pellets, to germinate seeds

6 cluster laser beam, to irradiate seeds before planting (see laser irradiation thread)

Schultz TakeRoot rooting hormone powder, used in watering peat pellets, will also treat roots before transplant

Hydrogen peroxide every 4 to 5 days to reservior, to keep clean

Andvanced Nutrient's grow, micro, bloom base nutrients only @ 1/4 strength added to reservior, all other feeding will be foliar to keep reservior at low ppms for sterile environment. May increase gradually to 1/2

Homegrown Fantaseed Big Bud regular seeds from Attitude 6

Freebie, Short Stuff 1 Himalayan Blue Diesel, and 1 Onyx, femanized autoflower seed also from Attitude

The Big Bud seeds popped in 54 hours from planting, using no pre-soak to germinate, just planted in peat pellets, and the others popped in 72 hours.

Photos fom a 3.1 megapixel camera as my 10 megapixel camera has a broken view screen. May start using it anyway if the 3.1 photos are too poor, let me know.


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Ok, Day 6 from seed.

I got them in the reservoirs, been there for about 15 hrs.

Running 424 and 411 ppms using base nutes, I'll adjust as needed, but no higher than about 600 ppms for weeks 1 and 2.

Ph at 5.8 and 6.3.

The Big Bud plants popped sooner and are larger. The Onyx is tiny, but is responding well to being put in the net pot. The Himalaya Blue Diesel was spindly and the stem was bending different directions on it's own, but it's buried on hydrotron now.

They all seemed to repond quickly to transplant, I just pulled the netting off the peat pellets and buried the whole thing in the hydrotron filled net pots, easy transplant.

I've decided to run my regular nute schedule and skip the foliar feeding. I was trying to run a "sterile" reservoir to avoid any algea problems, but I'll just use a microbe tea to address any algea issues that may show up. I don't expect to have any, but I know how to deal with any if it does.

Ok, 3 days ago I introduced homemade Co2 to my grow room, and 2 days ago I started playing some jazz cd's fo my plants, seems to help. The Co2 more than the music .

Still running around 450 to 500 ppms.

I am keeping my ph levels around 5.5 to 6.4, when they get up to the higher range I reduce to around 5.5.

All of the Big Bud plants are taking off, except one which almost withered away on me. I finally figured out that it was not getting enough water because it is not deep enough in the net pot to stay watered, so I have to keep it watered until the roots reach down and start to water themselves.

The two auto-flower plants are small, as expected, but doing well.

My reservoir temps are running a bit high, at around 77+ degrees. It's never seemed to hurt my girls before, but I add bottles of frozen water to the reservoirs occasionally to help out. Next time I'll build my reservoirs from igloo coolers to avoid this problem, I just didn't want to make that purchase this grow cycle. I'll also be adding another hps next time.

Thanks for looking, any comments are welcome.

Three day growth spurt

All of the Bigbuds but 1 are 3 inches tall and spreading out ove the net pots, the one was stunted, but is now recovering

Had some algea problems in reservoir #2 because of light leaks, got that fixed, changed out rhe reservoirs and added hydrogen peroxide and Silica Blast to my nutes.

Ph keeps going up, have to correct daily, ppms are stable.

Sorry about the crappy pics, I'll turn off the hps lights and use cfls for photos from now til I get a better camera.

Let me know what you think

Thanks for looking

Day 16 and 17

Bad news, I got slimed in reservoir #2. Brown algae attacked my roots in reservoir #2, added hydrogen peroxide @ 2 ounces per gallon to the reservoir to slow it down, washed the roots with running water and anti-bacterial dish soap, then sprayed them with water and hydrogen peroxide solution.

Day 17,

Brown algae seems to have slowed quite a bit, but the plants are showing signs of stress. Have ordered Physan 20 to kill the slime, will add 1 ml per gallon and run in reservoir for 1 hour then drain reservoir, thorough sterilize everything with physan 20 and water. I have also ordered ZHO, aquashield, ewc, great white and root accelerator for a ewc tea to inoculate reservoir with beneficial microbes to control any future brown algae outbreaks.

I don't understand why I got the slime in one reservoir and not the other. but I'm damn happy that it only effected one. I just hope that, the plants in resevoir #2 hang on till I can get them some help. I am foliar feeding them to help with the nute lock-out situation till I get my stuff in.

Day 21 from seed

Well reservoir #2 is a complete loss the plants are stunted, and suffering from nute lock out. So I planted them in soil, now the onyx and himalaya blue diesel and two of the bigbud plants are soil grows.

I am germinating the last 4 bigbud seeds to replace the plants from reservoir #2.

Reservoir #1 is doing great, the plants are so full and green and growing fast.

I sterilized reservoir #2 with physan 20 and am brewing EWC tea so my seedlings will have a spot when they get ready in about a week.

Here are some better photos:

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Day 24 from seed

Well, now my biggest plant in reservoir #1 is contaminated with root rot, oh well.

Gave the roots a h2o2 @ 3% with water bath, also bathed the other plants' roots, then rinsed them off and put em back in the reservoir with some EWC tea and some extra airstones and another pump. I think that was the whole issue, my air pump. I thought I could run two reservoirs with a dual diaphragm 320 gph $70 air pump, I guess not. Now I'm using it in one reservoir and have added a smaller pump to it also. Guess I gotta get more air pumps before I restart reservior #2 again

Two of the four BB seeds I planted on day 21 have popped.

Day 25 from seed

All plants seem to be recovering, still only two of four seedlings out, one is stretching it's ass off, got them under a couple of cfls now to slow stretching.

Day 29 from seed

The recovery act is a success!
All plants have recovered from disease and stress.

I found out that RH is a very important factor in vegatative growth, and in plant recovery speed. I am always doing research and found a lot of information on RH and temperature. My temps were running at 80 degrees f and the relative humidity was 40%. After my research I purchased a cool mist humidifier and put in with my plants. At first the RH rose to about 45% and the temps stayed about 80 f. Then I reduced the exhaust from the grow area, and the temps went up to 90 f and the RH to 60%, and the plants loved it! They started to grow faster and started recovering from the stress immediately.

In conclusion, it seems that a higher RH with higher temps are just what my plants needed. In scientific terms the rate of transpiration increased with the higher RH and temps causing the plants to uptake more nutrients because the stomata is open more for transpiration at higher RH than at lower. In other words, the photosynthesis process is optimized.

Here are some more photos, they aren't the best cause I have no view finder on my camera, so I just try to point and shoot.

Day 32 from seed

With RH of between 50% and 60%, and a fully exhausted grow room, with temps running 80 to 85 F, water temps running 71 to 74 F, also running homemade co2, with an every third day feeding of 3 oz of EWC Tea, three Big Bud plants, in reservoir #1, have been experiencing a growth spurt. With two of the three at 12" tall and the third 10". We hope that they are female, but my experience has shown the bigger, faster growing plants tend toward male.

But the growth of these three is exciting, I am able to guess, since none of them got root slime to any degree, they did suffer from a pythium outbreak, but the roots recovered quickly after a water/h2o2 bath, and the introduction of EWC tea to the reservoir.


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Day 40 from seed

Reservoir #1 plants are 21", 18", 12" and 11" tall, and growing well, with much fewer issues than when trying to run a "sterile" reservoir. The beneficial microbes are all the difference. Have to keep a close eye on my airstones, they seem to need cleaning weekly. EWC tea causes a slow uptick in ph levels, @ about up .7 per week, and it takes more ph down to drop the levels. A little mag deficiency showed earlier in the week, so I added a bit of epsom salts to the reservoir, that seemed to help.

The plants in soil,

The Big bud plants are up to 12" tall, and the Himalayan Blue Diesel is also 12" tall and flowering, as is the Onyx, which is only 6" tall. Gotta love those autoflowers, they stay small and produce early. I plan to keep a coupla of autoflowers going all the time to supplement me grow.

Pics.

Day 42 from seed

Transferred three of the larger plants from reservoir one into 5 gallon buckets, and transferred BB seedlings into reservoir one. Opened up my growing space to give more room to grow.

Keeping an eye on your grow. I've been sitting on a Blue Him. Diesel seed for a couple months and currently growing an Onyx which was severely stunted , and several Easy Ryders. Really would like to know the measurements of your Blue Him. Diesel now and in the future, and to see pics of it if possible, so I can tell whether or not it will be small enough for my grow space. Curious not only how tall it's getting but how wide/bushy it is as well. My Easy Ryders are doing well, but my poor Onyx is only 6" tall at day 35, with just a small cola and a couple small flowers. It was exposed to extreme temps for 48 hours at a critical phase of development, just before it flowered. Might grow one again someday.

Good luck with your grow, it looks like things are going nicely despite the problems that you've had.

hey dude, nice grow, you should definitely look up/google 'the great phosphorus myth' its research/video explanation by Advanced Nutrients but it explains about how and why most nutrient companies put way too much phosphorus in their feed (long story short) something to do with the excess phosphorus not being used by the plant, staying in the medium and then slowly adversely affecting the PH of the grow medium, not sure if it will help but its interesting all the same, take care dude