infinitalus
Active Member
Alright, this run is gonna wrap up the end of my second year of legally growing medical marihuana. Last run was cut short with the 3 seeds each of Long Peaks Blue (Rare Dankness) and Pure Afghan (DNA Genetics) being males. With the modest help of a friend, I received a Walker Kush (Rare Dankness) teen and got one of the Alaskan Lemon (Lemon Cake x Alaskan Thunderfuck) cuts I gave out back. I wanna try that again with this technique. I think I can do it even better than I did last time.
I installed an RO unit to clean up the variances in my tap water so I can be sure I have clean water every time. My tap water reads 100-250ppm depending on the time/day. The unit is an ispring 5 stage filter with a UV lamp for a 6th stage. It takes it down to 0-10. I remember last year my town had e.coli contaminated water and black shit coming out of the tap. This went on for three days. I wont be having this again. For drinking, It is filtered again through a 5 stage countertop unit with alkalizing mineral stones at the bottom. Comes out of this at 40-50ppm, pH of 8.0-8.1, and tastes like excellent water without an after taste or dryness.
Im trying something new for this grow. This is my first run ever using hydroponics or coco and Im running them both. From what I seen on Ed Rosenthal's how-to on Coco (seen here: http://forum.grasscity.com/coco-coir/620656-askeds-coco-guide.html) it is the only medium that is a hybrid between hydro and soil. The perfect soil-less base.
I picked up some General Hydro blocks of coco coir from the local grow shop. I also bought a large bale of coarse perlite and some neoprene discs. I mixed up one of the blocks of coco with ~9 gallons of water. This made about 15 gallons (2 cuft) of coco base. I added 3 gallons (plus a scoop extra) of perlite. I added two cups of pelletized dolomite lime. I blended this all very well by hand in a well cleaned out tub. Effectively, the mix is 75%coco/25% perlite.
For nutes, I am using a long line of mixed and matching reputable brands. Pulling this table from my other thread:
Turns out this mix is really heavy on the PPMs. First tested at 1500. Still trying to water it down to around 500 for feeding. pHing it to maintain 5.8-6.0. Watering will be done with a 1/2" HP transfer pump. The 2x 55 gallon black reservoirs in my room have faucet spigots at the bottom with adapers for 3/4" garden hose which will be attatched there, then to the inlet of the pump. From the outlet is another 3/4" garden hose leading to a 26" watering wand with adjustable pressure valve. Perfect for getting the plants in the back without making a mess on the floor, or even worse, on the buds.
Note: once these nutes are gone, I will be switching to an all-organic mix using the Subcool Supersoil recipe where coco will be replacing the soil content. Depending on the results of that run with the supercoco will be the final determining factor between running coco and hydro for the rest of my days.
I have a DWC cloner from Supercloset called the Supercloner 50. It's a 50 site DWC cloner with dome and two air stones. It did not come with neoprene discs and it took a month to get here. The only reason why I got this cloner is because it is the only commercial cloner available that is completely light proof when all the discs are seated in the netpots - which effectively prevents algae and build up in the bottom reservoir. With a tiny digital hygrometer, it can effectively measure the humidity and temperature in the dome for me. Inside the dome is ~82F temp, 80-90% humidity. I also have a warming mat and digital thermostat for the mat. The mat is set to heat until the water is ~78F for optimal cloning conditions. When I am not cloning, the mat will be coming out. The bottom res has a 200ppm diluted nute solution of the above mix, pH'd to 5.7-5.8.
The ambient room for the growing areas is not sealed or co2 enriched. This will be in the future.
The veg / cloning area is a 4x4x6.5 tent being vented by a 6" 240cfm booster fan. The lights in the veg area is a 4ft 8 lamp T5 fixture with PAR lamps. This fixture is suspended using 1/8" metal internal rope ratchets. These things are the BEST things ever for having to change position of suspended equipment. The camera makes the lighting appear similar to LEDs, but it is actually spectrum specific aquarium lamps. Really good stuff for veg and clones - but only if the clones are far enough away from the light. They kick out a good bit of heat, canopy temps run around 84 and ambient is 78-80. There is a 6" air king fan clamped to the fixture blowing air across the lamp tubes for cooling. The plants get a nice breeze from it.
Seeds and clones will be put in Flora root plugs and put in the DWC cloner and covered with the dome. The clones are cut at a 45 degree angle and some of the fiber at the bottom 1/2" is peeled away with the sharp edge of the Fiskar's Micro trimmers, dipped in Clonex gel, put into the cube, then into the netpot in the cloner until they are about 1' tall. When they hit 10-12", they will be transplanted to the coco mix and vegged for one more week. Then the cloner gets cleaned and scrubbed for its next use.
The flower tent is where the magic really happens. It is a 4x8x6.5 tent, with 1 plant every 4sqft for a total of 8 plants, 4 in each 4x4 area. An 800 CFM centrifugal inline fan is pulling air through a carbon filter. The ducting is insulated duct, R-7 I think, and is ran out of the tent towards a Y flange connector. The lighting is 2x 1000w Hortilux Super HPS lamps, with 2 ReptiGlo 10.0 UV CFL lamps for boosters. These UV lamps run 1/2 of the 12/12 light cycle. 3 hours in, the UV lamps turn on for 6 hours. Then they turn off for the remaining 3 hours. One of the reflectors for the HPS lamps is a 6" Yieldmaster, the other is a 6" Sunleaves xtrasun. They seem to work about the same. I would like to get a hinged XXL reflector, but for now thats out of the budget. There are two 6" booster fans pulling air through the reflectors, out of the tent, and into the Y flange connector. The other end of the Y flange has a 12"x4" register duct, and is being pushed into the intake of the central air unit for the house. Most of the connections are using duct clamps. I dont feel any leaks at any of the connections, so all is well. There are two pedestal fans being suspended by the tent's support bars in the middle: one of the fans blowing to the left side's canopy, and the other to the right side's canopy. With the bottom tent flaps open, the 800CFM fan literally sucks the tent in for a heavy negative pressure. The under growth gets good air flow while the top gets a nice breeze.
The plants are going to be scrogged and trained under the screen just before they go into flower. Once they start hitting 12"-16", even in soil, growth really takes off in veg. I find that a slow transfer to flower is best. I leave the HPS lamp up a bit farther when pulling from the veg room. When my light intensity readers says "Normal+" is when I level it off for 5-6 days. After 5-6 days, I drop the light until the intensity reader says "High+" and keep training the plants until the canopy is full, all the while clearing undergrowth over time instead of all at once. I do it like this because there is still a somewhat natural feel to the light change and not cutting all undergrowth out at once to prevent over stressing the plant. I find that the fans do a pretty good job of keeping the lamps cool enough for the plants to be 15-17" away, but some strains get light bleached and I think I will have to watch for that here since Walker Kush is an unknown strain to me.
For now: I just transplanted the Walkers Kush which was also originally in coco/perlite into my mix. The Alaskan Lemon was in hydroton so I flipped it over, dumped it out, and dropped it right into some damp mix and buried it quickly. The cloner is all set up and has 16Tombstone seeds (phx origins, F2, Purple Kush x Tucson Haze.. aiming for Kush pheno) germinating in those root plugs. The flower room is ready to go, the only thing left to do for now is maintain.
Current plan: Let the Walker Kush and Alaskan Lemon keep vegging and get over the transplant into coco until the seeds that were planted in the DWC cloner are about 3" tall. Then take cuts of the Walker kush. Alaskan lemon is on the back burner for now, but will be keeping the genetic since it is only taking up one plant. I can take a good cut, wait to make sure it has rooted, then get rid of the mother and start over for next run. The Alaskan lemon can grow from the new cut while the tombstone is finishing flowering, dried, and smoke tested. Whatever females are had can be cloned and will keep the best pheno after testing. With 16 seeds, I am bound to see a good pheno.
This grow goes to honor my buddy House, who was lost to non-hodgekins lymphoma. Cheers dude
Pics:
Veg Tent:
Rez between / behind the two tents. I only keep them 1/2 full or less. I dont want too much weight in one area. The tubing is for RO water coming out of the faucet.
Flower room ready to go:
Can fan:
HVAC solutions:
I installed an RO unit to clean up the variances in my tap water so I can be sure I have clean water every time. My tap water reads 100-250ppm depending on the time/day. The unit is an ispring 5 stage filter with a UV lamp for a 6th stage. It takes it down to 0-10. I remember last year my town had e.coli contaminated water and black shit coming out of the tap. This went on for three days. I wont be having this again. For drinking, It is filtered again through a 5 stage countertop unit with alkalizing mineral stones at the bottom. Comes out of this at 40-50ppm, pH of 8.0-8.1, and tastes like excellent water without an after taste or dryness.
Im trying something new for this grow. This is my first run ever using hydroponics or coco and Im running them both. From what I seen on Ed Rosenthal's how-to on Coco (seen here: http://forum.grasscity.com/coco-coir/620656-askeds-coco-guide.html) it is the only medium that is a hybrid between hydro and soil. The perfect soil-less base.
I picked up some General Hydro blocks of coco coir from the local grow shop. I also bought a large bale of coarse perlite and some neoprene discs. I mixed up one of the blocks of coco with ~9 gallons of water. This made about 15 gallons (2 cuft) of coco base. I added 3 gallons (plus a scoop extra) of perlite. I added two cups of pelletized dolomite lime. I blended this all very well by hand in a well cleaned out tub. Effectively, the mix is 75%coco/25% perlite.
For nutes, I am using a long line of mixed and matching reputable brands. Pulling this table from my other thread:
- 8ml/gal GH Flora Micro
16ml/gal GH Flora Bloom
5ml/gal Dynagro Protekt
15ml/gal Botanicare Sweet Raw
5ml/gal Botanicare Cal Mag
2ml/gal GH Root Starter
6ml/gal Azomite
3ml/gal Humic Acid
6ml/gal Fox Farm Microbe Brew
Turns out this mix is really heavy on the PPMs. First tested at 1500. Still trying to water it down to around 500 for feeding. pHing it to maintain 5.8-6.0. Watering will be done with a 1/2" HP transfer pump. The 2x 55 gallon black reservoirs in my room have faucet spigots at the bottom with adapers for 3/4" garden hose which will be attatched there, then to the inlet of the pump. From the outlet is another 3/4" garden hose leading to a 26" watering wand with adjustable pressure valve. Perfect for getting the plants in the back without making a mess on the floor, or even worse, on the buds.
Note: once these nutes are gone, I will be switching to an all-organic mix using the Subcool Supersoil recipe where coco will be replacing the soil content. Depending on the results of that run with the supercoco will be the final determining factor between running coco and hydro for the rest of my days.
I have a DWC cloner from Supercloset called the Supercloner 50. It's a 50 site DWC cloner with dome and two air stones. It did not come with neoprene discs and it took a month to get here. The only reason why I got this cloner is because it is the only commercial cloner available that is completely light proof when all the discs are seated in the netpots - which effectively prevents algae and build up in the bottom reservoir. With a tiny digital hygrometer, it can effectively measure the humidity and temperature in the dome for me. Inside the dome is ~82F temp, 80-90% humidity. I also have a warming mat and digital thermostat for the mat. The mat is set to heat until the water is ~78F for optimal cloning conditions. When I am not cloning, the mat will be coming out. The bottom res has a 200ppm diluted nute solution of the above mix, pH'd to 5.7-5.8.
The ambient room for the growing areas is not sealed or co2 enriched. This will be in the future.
The veg / cloning area is a 4x4x6.5 tent being vented by a 6" 240cfm booster fan. The lights in the veg area is a 4ft 8 lamp T5 fixture with PAR lamps. This fixture is suspended using 1/8" metal internal rope ratchets. These things are the BEST things ever for having to change position of suspended equipment. The camera makes the lighting appear similar to LEDs, but it is actually spectrum specific aquarium lamps. Really good stuff for veg and clones - but only if the clones are far enough away from the light. They kick out a good bit of heat, canopy temps run around 84 and ambient is 78-80. There is a 6" air king fan clamped to the fixture blowing air across the lamp tubes for cooling. The plants get a nice breeze from it.
Seeds and clones will be put in Flora root plugs and put in the DWC cloner and covered with the dome. The clones are cut at a 45 degree angle and some of the fiber at the bottom 1/2" is peeled away with the sharp edge of the Fiskar's Micro trimmers, dipped in Clonex gel, put into the cube, then into the netpot in the cloner until they are about 1' tall. When they hit 10-12", they will be transplanted to the coco mix and vegged for one more week. Then the cloner gets cleaned and scrubbed for its next use.
The flower tent is where the magic really happens. It is a 4x8x6.5 tent, with 1 plant every 4sqft for a total of 8 plants, 4 in each 4x4 area. An 800 CFM centrifugal inline fan is pulling air through a carbon filter. The ducting is insulated duct, R-7 I think, and is ran out of the tent towards a Y flange connector. The lighting is 2x 1000w Hortilux Super HPS lamps, with 2 ReptiGlo 10.0 UV CFL lamps for boosters. These UV lamps run 1/2 of the 12/12 light cycle. 3 hours in, the UV lamps turn on for 6 hours. Then they turn off for the remaining 3 hours. One of the reflectors for the HPS lamps is a 6" Yieldmaster, the other is a 6" Sunleaves xtrasun. They seem to work about the same. I would like to get a hinged XXL reflector, but for now thats out of the budget. There are two 6" booster fans pulling air through the reflectors, out of the tent, and into the Y flange connector. The other end of the Y flange has a 12"x4" register duct, and is being pushed into the intake of the central air unit for the house. Most of the connections are using duct clamps. I dont feel any leaks at any of the connections, so all is well. There are two pedestal fans being suspended by the tent's support bars in the middle: one of the fans blowing to the left side's canopy, and the other to the right side's canopy. With the bottom tent flaps open, the 800CFM fan literally sucks the tent in for a heavy negative pressure. The under growth gets good air flow while the top gets a nice breeze.
The plants are going to be scrogged and trained under the screen just before they go into flower. Once they start hitting 12"-16", even in soil, growth really takes off in veg. I find that a slow transfer to flower is best. I leave the HPS lamp up a bit farther when pulling from the veg room. When my light intensity readers says "Normal+" is when I level it off for 5-6 days. After 5-6 days, I drop the light until the intensity reader says "High+" and keep training the plants until the canopy is full, all the while clearing undergrowth over time instead of all at once. I do it like this because there is still a somewhat natural feel to the light change and not cutting all undergrowth out at once to prevent over stressing the plant. I find that the fans do a pretty good job of keeping the lamps cool enough for the plants to be 15-17" away, but some strains get light bleached and I think I will have to watch for that here since Walker Kush is an unknown strain to me.
For now: I just transplanted the Walkers Kush which was also originally in coco/perlite into my mix. The Alaskan Lemon was in hydroton so I flipped it over, dumped it out, and dropped it right into some damp mix and buried it quickly. The cloner is all set up and has 16Tombstone seeds (phx origins, F2, Purple Kush x Tucson Haze.. aiming for Kush pheno) germinating in those root plugs. The flower room is ready to go, the only thing left to do for now is maintain.
Current plan: Let the Walker Kush and Alaskan Lemon keep vegging and get over the transplant into coco until the seeds that were planted in the DWC cloner are about 3" tall. Then take cuts of the Walker kush. Alaskan lemon is on the back burner for now, but will be keeping the genetic since it is only taking up one plant. I can take a good cut, wait to make sure it has rooted, then get rid of the mother and start over for next run. The Alaskan lemon can grow from the new cut while the tombstone is finishing flowering, dried, and smoke tested. Whatever females are had can be cloned and will keep the best pheno after testing. With 16 seeds, I am bound to see a good pheno.
This grow goes to honor my buddy House, who was lost to non-hodgekins lymphoma. Cheers dude
Pics:
Veg Tent:
Rez between / behind the two tents. I only keep them 1/2 full or less. I dont want too much weight in one area. The tubing is for RO water coming out of the faucet.
Flower room ready to go:
Can fan:
HVAC solutions:
