We're all fuct now

Howdy Al.

Just sending some SOG love your way.



Thank you for the inspiration!

Noice woik. My only suggestion would be to rotate your lights 90 degrees. The light pattern of a horizontal fixture is somewhere between oblong and rectangular, perpendicular to the lamp tube. The way you have the fixtures oriented now, your light pattern ends are on the floor, when they could be putting some light down on the adjacent trays.

Hey Al,
Don't know if you come in here any more, but...

I just harvested the bulk of my crop. I had a few that were done early and when I dried them in the bud dryer i built they ended up smelling like hay. I really dont want that to happen to the buds I just cut. Any ideas on fixing this? I just read a thread from FDD about "The other side of the coin: Quick Drying". Old thread and I didn't find the answer I was looking for. Thanks in advance. Hope all is well.
DS

dirtysteve said:

Hey Al,
Don't know if you come in here any more, but...

I just harvested the bulk of my crop. I had a few that were done early and when I dried them in the bud dryer i built they ended up smelling like hay. I really dont want that to happen to the buds I just cut. Any ideas on fixing this? I just read a thread from FDD about "The other side of the coin: Quick Drying". Old thread and I didn't find the answer I was looking for. Thanks in advance. Hope all is well.
DS

Click to expand...

If you read FDD's commentary all the way through that thread, you'll find that he eventually built his own bud dryer and uses it to dry his buds now.

A bud dryer simply will not be the cause of anything 'smelling like hay.' If buds come out of a dryer 'smelling like hay' then they'd do the same if the buds were hang dried. A properly operating bud dryer which holds air temp to 29C max will dry in about 3 days, accomplishing exactly the same thing as hang drying except preventing any possibility of mould, which is common in hang drying.

A few things could have happened to yield buds with poor flavour. Buds which yield rich, perfumey smoke have lots of resin compared to the cellulose leaf matter content. If one harvests so prematurely that the majority of the material is comprised primarily of leaf, which has very little resin compared to the mass of cellulose plant matter, buds will be harsh to smoke and have poor flavour. Poor quality DNA could also have yielded buds with low resin content.

On thing is certain, a properly operating bud dryer, built to perform as I specified, won't cause this problem.

I never thought the dryer would cause it. Just wondering if my process was off a bit. the dryer I built works great. Dry buds in three days. I am fairly certain that the fact that I had a dirty hermie pollenate my crop is the main reason for the poor quality of the product. I had a few plants that grew out to their potential and they are nice with only a few seeds. Man it is a tough reality to put more than two months work into seedy bud. Oh well. Lesson learned and now I got a zillion seeds. Thanks for the time Al.

Hi Al, I just wanted to thank you for your post on "harvest a pound every two weeks." Your thread had encouraged me on how to set up my first grow.

Do you mind checking out my thread and also helping me out by pointing out in the right direction with your awesome knowledge?

https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/268731-new-grower-please-help.html

Thanks, you're a G!

Al b., thanks for confirming my intuition that organics have no place in my res despite the constant barrage of bad advice from hydro store workers and friends whom have jumped on the organics bandwagon.

Regarding the hay smell; I'm still a newb here so take this at face value.... but after my 1st grow (Bagseed, 600W, FauxAero w/ bubbler, almost 1/2 lb yield) I noticed that while still wet the buds smelled great, stunk up the whole house. Tried to trim a bud while it was wet and it gunked up the scissors in resin real quick. Upon reaching proper dryness they had that hay smell a bit, but after a few days of curing it seems like the Hay smell dissapated and the proper stank came back a little. I dunno, maybe its all just in my head.

I know the "wet hay" smell you are referring to. Like you said, it goes away after a couple days curing.

AL-B can i get some info on H2o2 this is my grow...https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/259390-gods-gift-sour-bubble-cfl.html... and I wanted to start mixing nutrilife's 29% h2o2... any input?

Use 2ml/gallon of the 29%. Add directly to reservoir. Close enough for govt.work

I don't have anything nice to say about CFLs. Upgrade to a real light ASAP. Environment is everything. HPS and a proper fan are a must for anyone who wants nice dense nugs. I can't tell you the number of CFL growers i've seen get to a disappointing end and move up to real lights for the second round.

Good luck, friend.

doogleef said:

Use 2ml/gallon of the 29%. Add directly to reservoir. Close enough for govt.work

I don't have anything nice to say about CFLs. Upgrade to a real light ASAP. Environment is everything. HPS and a proper fan are a must for anyone who wants nice dense nugs. I can't tell you the number of CFL growers i've seen get to a disappointing end and move up to real lights for the second round.

Good luck, friend.

Click to expand...

Yeah I upgraded to a 400W before i started flowering, look at the last page of the post and you will see the plants.

punker said:

AL-B can i get some info on H2o2 this is my grow...https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/259390-gods-gift-sour-bubble-cfl.html... and I wanted to start mixing nutrilife's 29% h2o2... any input?

Click to expand...

29% is an odd strength. Can't recall ever having seen that before. Usually, you find 35% ('food grade', usually sold by foodservice goods sellers for sterilising foodservice equip) and 50% 'horticultural grade.'

I use 50% grade H2O2 @ 1ml/L every 3-4 days.

Make friends mit der metric system! 1 US gallon = 3.78L, so the equiv for 50% is 3.78ml/gallon.

50% is 1.72x stronger than 29% (50/29=1.72), so use 1.72ml/L or 6.5ml of 29% per US gal.

You can get this fairly wrong- plants are quite tolerant of H2O2. For example, you can dose tanks at 10ml/L to one-time shock-treat a system with a big pathogen load, with no harm to plants.

I think that the 29% is coming from pool supply shops. That's where I have seen it.

You can get this fairly wrong- plants are quite tolerant of H2O2. For example, you can dose tanks at 10ml/L to one-time shock-treat a system with a big pathogen load, with no harm to plants.

Click to expand...

True that. My system runs cleaner with 2 - 2.5 ml of 35% H2O2 per gallon. I still had a substantial amount of nasty growth in my res with the smaller dose. After I bumped it up a bit things were golden.

This is what I got at the local Hydro shop



They used to carry Grotek, but this is what they got now. I just bumped up to 2/ml per liter. Seems to work just as well as the 35%.

al.b fuct i'm not sure if im disrespecting you or not but i want to build a system this will be my first grown and im wondering between the stinkbud system(harvest a 1lk every 3 weeks) and your system which one would give me the best result with the least electrical bill im planning on growing super lemon haze and have a basement to work in.I have had qoutes of 4-7 oz per plant using stinkbuds system how many plants per cycle can i harvest using 2x1000w bulbs and for a plant that take 10 weeks to flower what would my setup look like???

Wats up AL B. i have a little question about the "Cheapo aero" cloner. What should the timer schedule be?(whats the best "big store" timer that you have found)....yep thats it call me simple but.... just dont call me wrong TY

Fman said:

Seems to work just as well as the 35%.

Click to expand...

yep, should be fine, it's the same stuff, just more water added.

One caveat about using really low strength H2O2 is that below a certain packaged strength, stabilisers must be added to prevent the H2O2 from breaking down into 2H2O + O2 while still in the retail container.

From Wikipedia:

Hydrogen peroxide available at drug stores is three percent solution. In such small concentrations, it is less stable, and decomposes faster. It is usually stabilized with acetanilide, a substance which has toxic side effects in significant amounts.

Click to expand...

From h2o2.com:

[SIZE=-1]What are H2O2 stabilizers and will they affect my application? [/SIZE] [SIZE=-1]Most commercial grades of H2O2 contain chelants and sequestrants which minimize its decomposition under normal storage and handling conditions. In some applications (e.g., copper etching or cosmetic formulations) a high degree of stabilization is needed; whereas, in others (e.g., drinking water treatment or semiconductor manufacture) product purity is more important. For most environmental applications, H2O2 stabilization does not affect product performance. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]The types of stabilizers used in H2O2 vary between producers and product grades. Colloidal [sodium] stannate and sodium pyrophosphate (present at 25 - 250 mg/L) are the traditional mainstays, although organophosphonates (e.g., Monsanto’s Dequest products) are increasingly common. Other additives may include nitrate (for pH adjustment and corrosion inhibition) and phosphoric acid (for pH adjustment). Certain end-uses -- which depend on the bleaching ability of H2O2 in alkali – utilize colloidal silicate to sequester metals and thereby minimize H2O2 decomposition.[/SIZE]

Click to expand...

High strength H2O2 as found in hydro shops will not have stabilisers. The breakdown components of stabilisers can cause problems for hydroponic growers, notably if it's sodium.

slh puffer said:

al.b fuct i'm not sure if im disrespecting you or not but i want to build a system this will be my first grown and im wondering between the stinkbud system

Click to expand...

No disrespect taken.

I've never heard of the 'stinkbud system.'

AllAboutIt said:

Wats up AL B. i have a little question about the "Cheapo aero" cloner. What should the timer schedule be?(whats the best "big store" timer that you have found)....yep thats it call me simple but.... just dont call me wrong TY

Click to expand...

I don't use aerocloners. Tried them, never got one to work well. Even with H2O2 regularly applied in the solution, I usually got stem tip rot. Others have made them work well, I never have.

OK, got curious & looked up the Stinkbud System.

SB & I differ on a few notable points.

SB veges plants before flowering, as opposed to my system which flowers clones immediately after they have developed a good root system. SB grows larger individual plants than I do but fewer of them. Instead of maintaining mother plants in a separate area, SB takes cuttings from his plants in veg growth. SB uses aeroponics, as opposed to my flood trays which support plants in pots of Fytocell foam media. SB uses CO2, I don't. We both use a dehumidifier and cooltubed lighting. SB 'cures' buds after drying; I don't find the step necessary.

Every grow op will be tailored to how the grower likes to work. My problem is that I don't like to work. I've said it a million times in here, I'm a lazy stoner.

As one result of my slackness, I use flood systems with plants in pots of media because it's deadly reliable; aeroponic systems like SB's require power backup to the water pumps to get the plants through a power outage. I can safely totally ignore my op for up to 3 days at a time if I want to. A pump can fail but the media will hold up to 3 days' backup water supply. The water storage in the media obviates the need for a UPS to run the water pumps in my system, as well.

Aeroponic watering systems have one very serious Achilles' heel from a slacker's viewpoint- sprayers. Nutrient solutions have a lot of dissolved solids; it you atomise the solution, those solids fall out of solution and collect as nutrient salt crusts, in particular on the sprayer nozzles themselves. If you don't clean sprayers VERY frequently, they'll clog- this is an every day or every other day task- or you lose plants and have to buy replacement sprayers when they're too clogged to clean. However, I'm quite confident that SB gets better plant performance in flowering. Nothing beats aeroponics for getting oxygen to the roots. However, SB & I get similar yields per sq ft of grow op space.

SB takes clones from the plants he's vegging. SB vegges under a 250 and has 2x 1000HPS in the flowering area. Because I don't veg the plants I'm going to flower, I maintain a separate mother plant area. It takes all of 4 sq ft to maintain 10 mums. I use a 400HPS for mums but could probably use a 250. We're both using about the same lighting gear, with cooltubes mainly dealing with heat. I don't use CO2 because it would require aircon. The cost of the CO2 tank and CO2 management system are nutty kind of expensive and involve ongoing costs for tank rental and refills. Aircon is exxy to buy and run- for cooling my op, it'd take about the 1/4-1/2 the cost of running a 1000HPS. I'm pretty confident my op costs that little bit less to run.

SB is claiming 1lb every 3 weeks. I get at least 1lb, usually 1.5, every 2 weeks. Eliminating the veg step is what makes my op slightly quicker. Higher plant mass density, which is a key feature of straight Sea-of-Green growing, as I do, accounts for my better yields with the same lighting.

SB is a great grower and a skilled writer. His guide is to the point and well documented. He's much more energetic than I am!

I came just in time to catch that synopsis I was just looking at your threads. Anywho I am lookin to get perpetual under my 600w and I have a tent which can fit a 4'x4' tray but I only want to put a 3'x3' in there. using 3.4 litre square pots I could fit a max of 36 plants in the flood tray (on a 20 gal res I guess). From what I gather it will cost $115 for the reservoir, $115 for the tray, $50 for the fittings and pump: that about right?

edit:
don't wanna make another post but I realized I forgot about the table... hmmmmmm I donno if flood and drain is quite right for me. I live on second floor and no running water on this level so I would have to drain the reservoir out of the window or with a very long tube hahaha, entirely possible I suppose.

I saw that an average price for a 3x3 tray, table, 30gal res, and 350gph pump, is around $450. so idk if this is realllly in my price range for the moment. I was really thinkin about picking up some of the durable square storage containers and stacking those think that would work out at all?

dbo, the cost for the tray is a tick high (I pay about $AUD52 for a 900mmx900mm tray), the pump & fittings are about right, but you could save some big dough on the rez tank by using a plain old plastic storage tub from the dollar shops. 3'x3' is a good size for a 600 but a 1000 will improve your yield and density, at a certain cost for the extra mains power. You might start with a 600 and upgrade later but bear in mind that the 600 ballast won't run a 1000, so will become surplus upon upgrade and won't have much resale value. 36 plants is about right for a 600, 48 if you use a pair of 3'x3' trays under a 1000. Rez capacity should be about 5L per plant to facilitate steady EC while water level drops on a bi-weekly tank dump basis.