*LiZ LemonHaZE's 1st Medical Grow* WaterFarm-Trainwreck/Chemdawg*

Hello,

I am Liz LemonHaZE, a LEGAL medical marijuana grower in Arizona state. I am a virgin to growing, but my fiance has been growing for about a year, so i have him to assist when needed. I am trying to learn on my own without too much of his help, and he said doing a grow journal helped him a lot when he was first starting out. I am VERY excited to be growing and am eager to learn.

My Waterfarm setup:

--3 waterfarms (connected by a T-fitting 2 for growing, one as a reservoir)
--3 airstones W/ Gen hydro air pump(one stone per bucket, will be adding stones when oots are in the water)
--Hydroton for growing medium
--Nutrients are Botanicare CNS17

The strains i am using are both Humboldt Seed Organisation TrainWreck and ChemDawg. i will be vegging with CFLS, but will be upgrading to a 400w asap.

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Used the paper towel method to germinate my seeds
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IMAG0748.jpgPut into the steam dome;P


they got to tall for dome so I put them into the Waterfarms and cut the bottoms off of water bottles as Macguyver domes(Bfs idea) until they are strong enough to be naked to the world
IMAG0793.jpgIMAG0803.jpgIMAG0804.jpgIMAG0805.jpg(opps water rings are crooked)



My whole setup ;P
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I will be keeping this VERY regularly updated, and please leave ALL helpful advise and comments.

LiZ
 
Thank you Brother Numsi, that actually is one of the first threads i looked at when i first came to this site. I actually was really impressed with how much time and effort was put into making that thread. <3
 

herbalife

Member
Nice system, looking forward to the grow.

Something I noticed, though, you might want to add some plastic sheeting on the floor and up the walls.
It's almost a given with any hydro system that at some point there will be a leak. At worst case there is the possibility of all the water in your system being on the floor, so it's best to plan ahead for a way to contain all that water for easy cleanup.
 
OK so I just got up and checked the PH (it is 1:40pm my time), both pots for the plants were at 6.4. I PH'd them this morning at like 1am to 5.8. yesterday, same thing when i checked the PH they were at 6.4...is it normal to have to PH them every day? what makes the PH go up like that so fast (at least fast to me). Maybe the water running through the Hydroton rocks makes the PH go up? HELP I'm thinking the PH going up and down Cant be good for the plants :(
 
There are guys on here with tons more WF/hydro knowledge than me but it seems to me like you'll need to drain/change nutes in your system at the latest every three days. Another thing you're going to run into is running two different strains with different nutrient uptake on the same shit. This spells problems when your Trainwreck gets hungry and your Chem maybe ain't so needy. This may not be as much of a problem if you drain/change nutes every two days but you need to run half strength of what is recommended to make sure you don't nute burn the lesser needy of the two. Generally speaking, A new grower needs to run one strain in a hydro to learn specific traits she has. Just be patient, take it slow(which is really hard sometimes), and don't make multiple changes when you think you see something go wrong. Not doing those things will make it hard to learn from your mistakes which is THE most important thing when you're trying to be a great grower.
GOOD LUCK with your first grow! I hope you grow some shit that knocks your socks off!
 

herbalife

Member
OK so I just got up and checked the PH (it is 1:40pm my time), both pots for the plants were at 6.4. I PH'd them this morning at like 1am to 5.8. yesterday, same thing when i checked the PH they were at 6.4...is it normal to have to PH them every day? what makes the PH go up like that so fast (at least fast to me). Maybe the water running through the Hydroton rocks makes the PH go up? HELP I'm thinking the PH going up and down Cant be good for the plants :(
I'm not too familiar with running a hydro setup but depending on what nutrients and pH additive you're using this could be normal.
Did you measure the ppm's along with the pH? If the plant is taking in lots of nutrients and your ppm's go down you may just need to add back nutrients to keep the ppm the same. I believe when the nutrients are topped back off this will drop your pH back down. (Though with seedlings like you have there should be very little if any nutrients involved yet.)

Some nutrients and pH adjusters don't have as much 'buffering' capacity as others and the pH will fluctuate more, also if you have high ppm water to begin with (hard water, lots of minerals) it will make keeping the pH stable harder. If I remember right pumping lots of air through hard water will tend to raise the pH slowly over time.

Along with your nutrients you may want to use an EarthWorm Compost tea like Heisenberg's, might help keep the pH more stable and will definitely help your roots and keep diseases at bay.

Using an EWC tea like that you shouldn't have to change the water very often, might even be able to get away with none or just a few changes in veg. Dumping the whole thing every 2-3 days would get very expensive very quickly.
 
I have been working a lot so haven't been on here in a while :(
The Train wreck died, dried up and died, but the Chemdawg is still healthy and beautiful.
I moved the Chemdawg into the flowering tent because i didn't have a proper veg light. But i Just got a new light for veggin today yay!
the first photo was taken just now 11/3/12 at 4:05 am
The next two photos were taken a few days ago
 

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