purple urkle and gsc grow

Newby,
...and on your tap water. ppm 170 I think you said. That's good and since much of that is Ca and Mg compounds...no need to add calmag unless you see clear deficiencies. Much depends on your nutrients...if they are designed for tap water...then you're good to go.
JD

When I left the air pump off I was doing 20 min floods than lowered em down to 10 a day or two later. I've read a couple of his threads and have taken in a lot of much needed info. I'll check tonight to see how the leaves are doing and hopefully they'll be starting to turn around a little bit. What are rigis pots? Once I put the bags in place I leave em in that spot and don't move them so I won't mess with the roots. I've seen people put the hydroton around the pots and without, this was my first hydro grow and I figured it would help the pots from not moving around but now I see that there isn't a need for it and that it can just cause more problems. Deff not gonna be doing that next go around. Also for the next grow I'm either gonna get the panda film to lay across or build something out of plastic that will cover everything from the top of the pot down. I had a couple beans from my GSC and should of went with all the same strain and clones for my first go around, another thing I learned after I started but live and learn. My next grow will be quite a bit different and better. I'm gonna choose one strain and start from all the same clones, using the panda film to cover everything up and also get rid of all the extra hydroton. Should I clean it all out when I do my next water change and get it out of there?
Thank you for all the advice, I've learned more than I thought I would on this site and all my questions are always answered plus some. Very great site.

Newby,
Sorry about the typo...I meant rigid, hard plastic pots. (damn little keyboard on my laptop). Nah, I wouldn't bother moving the hydroton now. There might be roots in it that could be damaged. If you don't have the hydroton filling the tray...then it's much easier to just have individual squares or circles of panda plastic. Allows ability to move plants if you need to. Your doing a great job...keep it up.
JD

Oh ok lol, with only a few little holes around the bottom can water still flood the pots like the mesh ones? I thought about that, I'm deff not gonna have it in my next grow. I'm also gonna bump up my plant number to 9 with the next go around. I've gotten the hang of this and am deff learning from my mistakes. Thanks man. Do you have a grow goin on?

Newby,
I did sog E&F with 25 small (5x5) square pots. Did that for two years and got the details worked out pretty good. Rigid pots filled fine during floods...never any root issues.

I recently moved halfway across the country...sold most of my stuff before the move. So I'm currently setting up a new room. I'm debating doing another clone to 12/12 sog vs buying some Waterfarms and growing 4 larger plants. I started in hydro with a Waterfarm and was amazed by the growth rate. (great aeration)
JD

Oh nice, I'd like to eventually go that route, I have like 12 or 14 square pots but they're too tall for my flood set up so for my next run I'll cut the top part off to make it level with the top of my flood tray. I didn't think that the water would flood up enough but after you saying it does that's deff what I'm gonna do next. My flood tray is about 3.5'x3.5', how many pots you think I should put in there with having enough room for light to get in.
Ah ok, I've heard of quite a few people using the waterfarm systems and they really like em and their plants always turn out big and nice! And the systems aren't that expensive and even cheaper if you build it yourself.

ND,
The flood doesn't necessarily have to go to the top of the pot. Early on you may need to top water till the roots grow...but my little pots were 6" tall with only a 4" flood. That's a big table you have and you could fit 35 to 45 small plants in there easy. Lots of cloning and you would have to keep clone Mommas. Saves veg time.

I'm trying to keep things a little simpler and smaller plant numbers would help with that. Gotta run for now. Take care and merry Christmas!
JD

I usually make it to where the rockwool cube is right above the water line so the little roots that are sticking thru get water. And my pots are like 10" lol so I was gonna cut em down to 5". Ya it's a decent size flood table lol, I wanna get this dialed in than maybe bump it up to my max of 30 plants. I always hear of people taking their own clones and it being super easy and all that. Is it as easy as everyone makes it out to be?
That's a good plan, than you can put all your focus into those 4 or so plants and get some monsters!
Enjoy your holidays! Merry Christmas!

Good Mornin' ND,
Ya, that's the best way to determine pot size and flood depth. Your tray is probably deeper then mine was...and you got a hell of a deal on that rig too.

Cloning isn't a big deal once you get the hang of it. If you follow some good protocols and have the right equipment...then it becomes routine. I cloned 30 at a time every couple months and got pretty much 100%. Though when I was learning, I lost quite a few till I got it dialed in. Keeping clone Mommas is also no problem. The more you cut from them...the better Mommas they become.
Later,
JD

Hey!
Ya and it took me a little to get the hang of everything for my first time but to me it's been a lot simpler than growing in soil. I believe it's 5" deep, I wish it was 4x4 but for the price I couldn't pass it up.

I'm still debating if I wanna go down that road or not. I don't mind buying clones each time but it would be nice to have them be ready to go and not spend the extra money. I'd love to get a perpetual grow going but the old lady wouldn't go for it lol. She already doesn't care for the noise of the fans and the time I spend in there haha. We'll enjoy the end result so not too bad.

Day 26 of 12/12 and they're coming along pretty nice. The leaves on the purple urkle are looking a little better but the bud spots won't produce white hairs, just looks like a mini nug. It's kinda hard to explain what they look like.

Hi ND,
You're coming up on the 5 week mark. That's when people usually give a bloom booster. I don't recall if you have plans for that. After that point, you should see more aggressive bud formation. Double check for light leaks in the dark period. That'll slow down buds for sure.
JD

Hey what's up?!
Ya they're coming along, the GSC is my fav one in there. I haven't thought of a bloom booster yet, any ideas? I added koolbloom two weeks ago when I did my last water change and added it again when I did a water change last night. Ya I've got everything sealed up real nice and tight in there with no leaks. That's what I like most about using a tent instead of a room, a lot easier to completely seal up.

ND,
Hey Newby, I'm doing good.

All I can tell you is the way I've done it with hydro. I've seen people toxify plants late in flower and often, there's no recovering from it. So my advice is to keep it simple. Koolbloom is all you need...that is along with your regular bloom nutrient.

So I back off on base bloom nutes and add in the bloom booster. Like if I had ppm of 1000...I'd back off to maybe 800 and then bump the ppm to what you want with the Koolbloom. That way, you shift nutrients to higher P and K safely w/o risking burn. P burn is especially nasty (and bad tasting)
JD

Ah ok that makes sense. I backed my bloom nutes down a bit and added the rest with the koolbloom last night when I did my res change. I also usually add a little superthrive and h2o2 for the roots and sometimes a little subculture m but only about half as much as the label says to. I wish I could get the light a bit closer to them but the GSC is so damn tall now. I may add a couple cfl's above them to give em a little extra. You think I should add a little calmag or they'll be alright with the bloom and koolbloom?

ND,
You're using tap water? Can't recall. Koolbloom has some Mg in it and your Flora no doubt has some too. I wouldn't throw CalMag into the mix unless you see a specific Ca or Mg deficiency. That's my thinking...
JD

I am using tap water and it has a ppm of 150 which isn't bad at all. Ya they both have a little in em. I looked at the plants today and the urkle is coming along just a lot slower than the GSC so hopefully it picks up and gets going and the purple diesel I started about two weeks ago is finally opening up and getting started. Is it possible to use tea in my res or you think that would be throwing to much in em? I haven't been too happy with this pheno of the urkle, deff not a keeper.

Newbyduby24,
Dude, now you're getting into an area where I know nothing. I don't think you can mix organics and chemical nutes in the same res. But truthfully I'm not sure why. Perhaps someone else will know the answer on that...but I sure don't...sorry.
JD

ND-- figured I'd throw in my two cents.

First off--purple urkle is a notoriously slow growing strain, I wouldn't expect it to keep up with anything, and certainly not catch back up with something else you're running. I'm running reserva privadas purple wreck, its purple urkel x train wreck and mine is an indica pheno (from the urkel I guess) and its not too fast of a grower. Its supposed to be a great purp, just slow growing but I'm sure there are shitty phenos and if yours is budding im sure you can tell whether its a keeper or not.

Before I go into the next part, just wanted to make sure you understood the difference between organic and synthetic nutrient uptake. Quick lesson--synthetic nutrients are basically just salts. They are water soluble, and in forms that the plant can readily absorb through its nutrient channels. For example, plants can only absorb nitrogen through nitrates and ammonias- so if you fed it calcium nitrate, the nitrogen would be able to be immediately absorbed. With organics, the nutrients are not always immediately ready for uptake. Beneficial bacteria must first break the organics down into simple components that the plant can absorb. This is why synthetic nutrients are so fast acting, and organic nutrients have a more delayed affect.

As far as the teas-- it is possible (and fine) to mix organic and synthetic, but you have to be realllly careful to make sure they are compatible. For example, silica (like Dyna gros protekt and botanicare's silica blast) supplements are organic (I think the protekt says "beyond organic" on the bottle lol) and help the plant withstand extremes, like heat, drought, cold--whatever. Its fine adding that to whatever medium you are growing in.

But when you start getting into actual nutrients (not just supplements) and you want to go organic in hydro/aero, then there is something realllly important that you need to understand: organic nutrients need good bacteria/microbes in order to break them down. The owner of my local grow shop is doing a huge 3,000 square foot grow for the local farmers market (veggies and stuff) and the person who he is doing it with has a wife that wants to have "organic" hydroponic plants. The owner of my store was saying that in order to do that, they would basically need to have some type of medium in the system that would continuously hold the microbes necessary to break down the organic nutrients (that aren't water soluble). I dunno if he was talking about using sponges throughout the system or what.

But in hydro, every time you do a res change you are having to start all over again with your good microbes--and adding things like peroxide, or fresh tap water that hasn't sat for 24 hours (to let the chloride evaporate) will kill any and all bacteria's, even your good ones.

If you were wanting to use a tea, it would totally be possible (be easy tho-watch your ppms and don't burn it up). But again, without good microbes in your system to break down the organic nuteients, you would basically just be wasting the tea.

Look into things like botanicares aquashield, it provides good microbes, which also help keep the slime under control. You might also want to consider products like hygrozyme, that get rid of excess living matter that has started to die in the system.

And btw, I use koolbloom as my synthetic bulking booster in my organic soil grows. I'm pretty sure it says "bulking formula" on the bottle