New Lights, New Nutes, New Strain, New Hope

I was kinda getting tired of growing. Now it's almost the hobby that took over my life for the last several years. Been growing for myself and my wife and it's starting to get old. I got some new equip tho. I had some really shitty home made reflectors and ballasts from street lights. Bulbs from street lights, everything was home built. For years I did that. Jesus, it was like i was paying penance or something. Like back in church as a kid. If your a real believer you're gonna have to show some suffering. Then I started getting back into it. I started getting some new gear off craigslist. I got it all fired up and then my a-hole roomy was a psycho. I had to get him out, away from the scene, had to tell everyone not to say anything to him about my hobby. He was never supposed to know about it until idiots with big mouths took over and ruined that little pipe dream.

Whew! Sorry, had to vent. Sonow I feel safer again. I have a fresh grow workin, new lights, new strain, and a new nutes package, i'm ready to rollah out with my cola out.
I got a Grandady Purps strain that's pretty tough. It seems like it so far. I had a bit of slime as soon as i started to grow. The bottoms of my netpots were getting slime all over. My res had clouds of slime floating around in it. I put a bit of bleach in it an ran the pumps until i was sure it had all circulated under the netpots for a day or so. I just watered by hand fromt he top for a day or two and ran it to kill all the slime in all the corners or whatever. It seemed to work. I wiped as much of it down as i could with the res empty. Last time I shut it all down i didn;t really do a cleaning that good. I think the slime was from that. I strated fresh and added a little sea green, oregonism, rhizo-boost, and humus to the nutes and it killed all the slime. Or beat it up anyway!!!

So i started with a clones that my amigo gave me from his stash about 12 to start with. Some weren't very healthy and they got aced. I kept 8 total when it was all said and done for. My new t5s seem to be just the ticket for these little guys. I ran the t5s at half power for a day, then lowered it a foot, turned on all the lights, lowered another foot. Then kept the lights on for an 18/6 for about 3 weeks. The lights are like 432 watts each. damn near 900 watts of floros., Love it

Im running a flood cycle every 2 hours or so. I'm using Cyco Nutes at 50% and adding in the sea green, oregonsim, humus and rhizo boost on top of that. it's a little muddy some times. Makes the roots look aweful brown but they totally love it.

The cuts had a little trouble getting hardened in and took time to start growing out.

They all started growin like crazy and i never got a pic of that. Next thing I know theyre huge already. It was like a week and a hlaf and they just blew up.

So i have been running CYCO nutes. Anybody else using CYCO? It seems to be doing great. One prob that has been noticed is keeping my PH right. Usually it has been solid. But with CYCO i seem to be bouncing around. It may also be the rhizo boost, sea green, and oregonism biology that i'm adding. I don't know. Has anyone got any insight into that? I just bought my first PH meter to test with because it was so different all the time i wanted a beter way to check my pH. now I have so many changes in my system that I can't tell what is the issue. Too many new things to know what is causing it.

I also have included a picture of the roots from my muddy ass ebb/flow setup. I thing the oregonism, rootbastic, humus, etc... has caused a mud slide in my root zone. But like I said, they love it. I guess i'm doing a combo of synthetic cyco and organic biology in a hydro system. The roots look like hell but man are the plants happy. It's not that there unhealthy, just ugly.

Yea I use and love Cyco as well great all around line fantastic results. My ph doesn't bounce around at all it must be the other additives your using. One tip I've learned is to start the swell phase one week before the chart recommends.

Cool, thanks man!
I guess the additives are the issue. I also just bought a PH pen. Ive been using drops in a testtube til now.
Heres a new pic of my 8 plants.

The ladies are blowin up as you can see in the next pic.

I've been using the 1000hps for about a week at this point. It was an uneventful switch from the t5 over to the hps. The only diference i see was the growth went crazy. No heat issues or anything. the nute switch to flower with the light change is doing its magic.

I've had to trim this crop worse than any crop ever. I really wanna make some sweet lolipops out of these babies.
Here are two pics I took after trimming. I got a plastic grocery bag packed full from each trim. Prolly 4 lbs of trim.
Wish it would do anything for me but stink up my car on the way to a safe garbage can.

View attachment 2328102
This last pic is the view from the top AFTER the trim. Jesus, i have alot more work to do.
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Weird. Pic didn't load
How much should I trim out of the top canopy to make some room for the buds? I'm in the last couple days of time to do any trimming time right now.
The bottoms are cleaned up. Alot of the suckers are gone.
I just don't know how thin to get the tops.
I have looked for pics that explain it but they don't really show a finished view. Any help is appreciated.

When are you flowering these girls?

They are in flower right now. Almost 2 weeks in. Kinda late for sure but i need to thin that shit out, it's a jungle fer sure.

Yes, just take the smallest looking ones and clone them, and leave the biggest ones to continue. Before you do anything, you can also try poking the fan leaves under the screen, so they are hanging low. I have seen many scroggers to this.

My plants are about 3 1/2 weeks into flower right now. They have shot up in the last week or so. I think there about 4 ft tall right now. 8 plants has filled up the canopy big time. I think i'll only grow 4 next time. The roots have tons of room left but the canopy in super full. I vegged too long again. I always do that. My lollipopping has definitly made the tops grow more. I am using alot of light and the babies are going apesh6t.
i am adding Cyco nutrients at the rate of about 50 percent to 60 percent. Im not exactly sure. I have alot of biology going on in there. I think the key to good crops is the biology. I have never had a bad crop when adding in biological additives and sweeteners. I used the Cyco as my nutrients, and Rhizoboost, Oregonsism, phc biopac, humus, kelp, and prolly some other stuff I cant remember as additives. I'm sure this is by far y most expensive grow. With the new lights and the nute loading its gonna pay off to! Now I wonder how much yield i was leaving on the table with all my old gear and GH 3 parts.
The first 3 pics are just after after my final lolipopping trim
Here are the roots.

The mat is dense as hell. You can see all the kelp, humus, mollasis, etc being deposited onto the roots. There super healthy and the plants reflect that

The buds are stacking up now. The tops are still growing and the nodes are really tight. I have had good temps most of the crop. I started running it at night instead of my usual daytime photo period. I think the 6pm to 6am schedule is bad ass. My basement is cool all day. Then i open the windows upstairs at night and the cold air goes down there while the lights are on. I put a vortex fan blowing into my sewer with the lights hooked to it. I have a decent little carbon filter sitting right behind the plants. It has been doing a good job sucking up the stink. I usually have serious issues with odor but not now. I may still have to get another carbon filter before the harvest time.
These pics are the week after trimming.

Here is a video link to the babies at this point.
They're getting much bigger since the trim.
http://youtu.be/Tv80WvdBJJ4

Roots look insane my friend

This is to sexy...

Thanks ya'll! Here's the latest root pics from today. Had a really shitty day. Nice to see some encouraging posts on my thread after work.




The dark stuff is all my biology, humus, kelp, etc... They are loving it! I am going to start focusing on the biology more than the nutes. I met a guy about 4 months ago that was an expert on agricultural microbiology. His companmy had a whoel rack of products that replaced the biology that most people kill off with excessive fertilizer. He had stuff for the leaves, roots, dirt, hydro, etc that made all the nature happen the way it was supposed to in, on, and around the plant. I talked to him for about 30 minutes of so and he made a believer out of me. I don't add any of the folier sprays yet but there just to expensive. The dudes from a local store swear by some as roots additives and for folier sprays. If all the plants eat is the waste of the microbes then why not just feed the microbes what they want to eat and let the plant have a few nutes and a ton of bacteria and fungus waste. It is working my friends. Anybody else using biological additives in combonations? I think haveing all the bacteria, microryzea, trichodermas and plenty of sugers to feed them is why my plants look so great. Yeah i have a badass system, a badass lights, Cyco nutes. But the additives is what is giving me the best results Ive ever had Anyone disagree?

I'm at about a month or so on my flowering. The ladies are still growing like crazy. I wish i woulda trimmed even more from the lowers and lollipopped alot more. I think my next crop is going straight into flower the second they have roots. This overgrown jungle shit is killin me. I have always done the bushes type grow till recently. I have never trimmed enough. I stopped cutting on the plants at 2 weeks or so into flower. EVerything ive ever read says to stop cutting and pruning at 2 weeks into flower. I hate to have the plants waste energy on the little popcorn buds. I like em, they still get me high and all that. But I want to have some giant colas!! I've had some good ones over the years but never the size of my buddy that grows too. He has brought out some HUGE buds over the years. I never have the right type of plants that get a giant single bud. I always top mine a few weeks in so they double up. Then I never trim as much as I could. I alwyas end up with bushes that have a couple good colas and a shit ton of smaller stuff.

The pic of the big ole trunk looks cool. I trimmed the hell out of the bottoms a couple weeks ago and they just kept growing. Now they look like I never even touched em.
Still using Cyco nutrients with all the additives I could find. I run at pretty low nute level but I add alot of biology still. It looks like a few of the leaves are starting to curl up and i have tiny burnt tips on some. Not major nute overload but starting to max out. I'll keep it about where it is.

I'm gonna run out of Cyco before the time I harvest. I have some House and garden stuff and some misc nute bottle remnants around. At least I won't have to buy anything until my next crop. Man, nutes are expensive for the good shit with all the add ons. Im doing like $30 a res change at least. What's normal?


Check out the soda can in the leaves of pic 2. It looks tiny

I have been seeing some unusual leaves and irregular growth patterns. It took me a little while to figure out that I had one of my light timers messed up. I was running the 1000w HPS at 12/12 and thew t5s at 14/10. This caused the plants to try to herm out or something. I was getting all these single leaves and thin ass stalks on my flowers. I have some leaves with only one leg and other leaves with 10 legs. It was freakin me out. Once i figured out the problem I changed my light schedule to 11/13 so I could have more dark time. I think the fact that I was giving my plants all the flowering nutes with the f'd up lights made them mad. They mutated on me like crazy. I have leaves with 1 leg, 3 legs, 4 legs, 5 legs, 7, 9 and 10 legs. My plants just kept getting taller. That should have been my first clue. They shot up like normal when I "flipped", or thought I flipped, then they just kept vegging. The flowers were growing which is what threw me off for so long.
It has been almost a week since i corrected the lights now. The flowers are looking better but not perfect. Anyone ever done this? What are my odds of making a recovery? Even a partial recovery would be great. I was all pumped about the new light and I didn't pay enough attention to my timers. The first pic is a 10 leg leaf from the bottom of the crop. The tall skinny one pic is the single leaf mutation, and the far away pic shows the 6ft tall beasts in ym 4x4 tray.

Alot of the buds look OK but not stellar. I sure hope I can recover some weight. Anyone who has done this or seen this please let me know if there is any hope.