WOS - Chronic Haze and SS - Power Africa ( Ebb & Flow )

firsttimeARE · Nov 23, 2011

The thing is my RW isn't even getting wet. I also thought it was cause most of the root mass is in the RW that isn't getting wet so I was top feeding the dry cubes for a bit. Since my table isn't level #1 and #4 that were up front were bone dry(the two that are showing yellowing/deadening of the leaves) and the 2 in the back were moist. I've since lifted the ones that were moist up a bit so they wouldn't touch water and now all 4 cubes are at most slightly damp. The one that's crispy and yellow I actually picked up the RW Monday night to see if the bottom of the RW was getting wet and thinking back that probably was a bad idea. I was very careful not to pulltoo hard and rip roots so I nudged it out slowly and there was some roots hanging down. They looked really white and some were going thru my rockswhich I just left attached as I didn't wanna damage the roots taking them off.

Ill take that advice to lower my waterings to every 4 hours. I thought if anything they weren't getting enough water due to how dry the cube is. But I did aim for half inch above flood level so they really shouldn't be getting wet at all. But doesn't that mean my roots inside aren't getting wet? I mean I think that's the point to prevent root rot and to make your plants roots dig deeper to find water?

I'm also concerned with those white specs on my RW. Can you guys see that in plant#2? Aka nemo. A lot of those plant pics were taken in hopes of getting a clear shot ofwhat I believe to be nutrient salts? My humidity never gets past 50% anymore and I have 2 clips fans blowing on the walls of the tent and a circulating fan for the room and my exhaust on 24/7 so iunno how it could be mold or powdery mildew.

Thanks for your help guys...trying to do a lot of research on my own as I know everyone doesn't have enough time for their own ops than to help others with theirs so I do appreciate the help you two have personally given me. I also don't like to be one of those people who just ask for advice and don't do any reading on their own and just expect people to grow their shit for them. So despite all my questions I am reading and learning independently as best I can. Which fortunately riu makes it easier. Thanks again you two.

Someguy15 · Nov 23, 2011

firsttimeARE said:
The thing is my RW isn't even getting wet. I also thought it was cause most of the root mass is in the RW that isn't getting wet so I was top feeding the dry cubes for a bit. Since my table isn't level #1 and #4 that were up front were bone dry(the two that are showing yellowing/deadening of the leaves) and the 2 in the back were moist. I've since lifted the ones that were moist up a bit so they wouldn't touch water and now all 4 cubes are at most slightly damp. The one that's crispy and yellow I actually picked up the RW Monday night to see if the bottom of the RW was getting wet and thinking back that probably was a bad idea. I was very careful not to pulltoo hard and rip roots so I nudged it out slowly and there was some roots hanging down. They looked really white and some were going thru my rockswhich I just left attached as I didn't wanna damage the roots taking them off.

Ill take that advice to lower my waterings to every 4 hours. I thought if anything they weren't getting enough water due to how dry the cube is. But I did aim for half inch above flood level so they really shouldn't be getting wet at all. But doesn't that mean my roots inside aren't getting wet? I mean I think that's the point to prevent root rot and to make your plants roots dig deeper to find water?

I'm also concerned with those white specs on my RW. Can you guys see that in plant#2? Aka nemo. A lot of those plant pics were taken in hopes of getting a clear shot ofwhat I believe to be nutrient salts? My humidity never gets past 50% anymore and I have 2 clips fans blowing on the walls of the tent and a circulating fan for the room and my exhaust on 24/7 so iunno how it could be mold or powdery mildew.

Thanks for your help guys...trying to do a lot of research on my own as I know everyone doesn't have enough time for their own ops than to help others with theirs so I do appreciate the help you two have personally given me. I also don't like to be one of those people who just ask for advice and don't do any reading on their own and just expect people to grow their shit for them. So despite all my questions I am reading and learning independently as best I can. Which fortunately riu makes it easier. Thanks again you two.

As for the roots it sounds like your onto the problem. Maybe the lava rock is the issue I couldn't really tell you as I've never used the stuff. but the roots sound like they are out of the cubes which is important.

As for the mold, I wouldn't worry about it. As long as its not on the plants or roots...it's pretty common to have some salts dry like that/a lil algae growth. It could just be from the rw holding too much water (was it on one of the lower, more wet cubes?)

firsttimeARE · Nov 23, 2011

Yeah the plant that has the worst white specs/mold or whatever it is, is Nemo, the #2 plant which was in the back. I kinda tried to lift it up a bit today as its the only one slightly damp still. Good news is a frame for the table is in the works to get it even as its in a basement and the floor isn't level. I'm using the tent its in currently to house the future moms and the clonebox and taking the table out of the tent(too hard to work around as 2 walls of the tent are up against a wall).

#4 the one that had the yellowing then it turned into this dry crispy patch thats slowly breaking apart, well the same thing is happening now to #1 (Banana) The ends are kinda flaking off. All new growth looks green, but the undergrowth and the cotyledons are yellow. On #4 the new growth of leaves are much thinner and less full than the other 3.

And yeah the roots are definitely out now and reaching towards the water underneath.

firsttimeARE · Nov 26, 2011

DNA Genetics Cataract Kush Feminized
Feminized Seeds Per Pack - 06 Seeds

Barneys Farm Violator Kush Feminized
Feminized Seeds Per Pack - 05 Seeds

Ordered these today. Can't wait to get and start em.

Someguy15 · Nov 27, 2011

firsttimeARE said:
DNA Genetics Cataract Kush Feminized
Feminized Seeds Per Pack - 06 Seeds

Barneys Farm Violator Kush Feminized
Feminized Seeds Per Pack - 05 Seeds

Ordered these today. Can't wait to get and start em.

Nice, I know the Violator Kush is awesome... think I've seen a cataract kush grow too both very nice strains.

firsttimeARE · Nov 29, 2011

Problems problems problems. My ballast is messed up, took the advice from Hydrofarm and bent the mogul socket tab to make a better connection with my bulb. Worked for a week, sunday I came into a dark room. Worked monday. Today I come into a dark room.

Using my T5 until I get a replacement ballast.

I guess it doesn't matter how much loot you spend you're still going to end up with a bad apple. Sacks.

firsttimeARE · Dec 3, 2011

Replacement ballast coming in this week.

Setting up a frame for the table and reservoir(to keep the edges from bowing out) and a mom area and flower area tomorrow.

Started 4 chronic haze seeds.

Hopefully I don't have as many problems. Better strategy this time and no nutes so I think itll work out well.

The 4 power africa's are still putting out new growth. Their old growth is still turning yellow. Don't know the issue with them, but hopefully things work out for those little ladies

I flushed them with a half gallon of 5.8 water with some superthrive.

Room temps for the past 2 days have been 71F lowest and 80F the highest. 35%/50% hi and low RH.

Happy the room is finally settled with consistent good temperature and conditions.

Next on the list is a 2x2 table for the moms. Not buying a res this time since I realized how shitty store bought ones are, so this table will be a bit cheaper. Once ballast refund goes through i'll buy one.

Someguy15 · Dec 4, 2011

firsttimeARE said:
Replacement ballast coming in this week.

Setting up a frame for the table and reservoir(to keep the edges from bowing out) and a mom area and flower area tomorrow.

Started 4 chronic haze seeds.

Hopefully I don't have as many problems. Better strategy this time and no nutes so I think itll work out well.

The 4 power africa's are still putting out new growth. Their old growth is still turning yellow. Don't know the issue with them, but hopefully things work out for those little ladies I flushed them with a half gallon of 5.8 water with some superthrive.

Room temps for the past 2 days have been 71F lowest and 80F the highest. 35%/50% hi and low RH.

Happy the room is finally settled with consistent good temperature and conditions.

Next on the list is a 2x2 table for the moms. Not buying a res this time since I realized how shitty store bought ones are, so this table will be a bit cheaper. Once ballast refund goes through i'll buy one.

Good to hear u got the enviroment dialed in. So no rez at all with the 2x2? why not use rubbermaid or something similar. Anything up to a 30gal seems fine in my experience. Worse case grab a couple of those little $1 clamps in the tools area and clip the edges of the lid to prevent bowing. Idk a 30gal tub and 4 clamps should only cost you about $11-15... were you just going to hand water?

firsttimeARE · Dec 4, 2011

I meant I wasn't going to buy a branded res like botanicare and was going to go a trash barrel or rubbermaid. Figure the money saved I can get a couple of those micro pore stones. Planning on 60 for table, 13 for air pump and hoses, 3 for flood drain attachments, 15 for water pump and tubing, 40 for 2 stones, 10 for rubbermaid/trash barrel. 141 total.

The frame for my 3x3 has a bottom part for the res that has side stiffeners to prevent the sides from bowing. Looks nice in there now. My arms, back and shoulders are sore from all the contorting trying to fit in there and work.

Moved everything out of the tent and put the t5 up in the tent area, soon to be clone/mom area.

Going to take pictures tomorrow. Happy its looks real good in there. Lotta work and cash spent into this, hopefully it pays off in some nice perpetual colas in 6-9 months time.

firsttimeARE · Dec 5, 2011

Ballast came in today. Weird. Supposed to come in tuesday-friday.

The 4 chronic haze i started looking good. all 4 sprouted up.

Room looks good. Digging not having to bend over into a tent.

OldLuck · Dec 7, 2011

Nice info. I learn something everytime I read your thread. +respect!! I am in the process of learning my 1st ebb and flow grow, but nothing on your magnitude. Your work looks awesome!!

firsttimeARE · Dec 7, 2011

Thanks for the kind words mate...I'm still learning too man. I jumped right from knowing a little about soil and never having grown longer than it took to get annoyed like 3 weeks. Its hard for me to get something successful and big growing. But it will happen. I've gotten environment under control. Just being new to it all is a huge hinderence. Good ideas and a wealth of information available I'm just not at that practical level yet. I am putting a lot on my plate though and trying to learn as much as I can and forgetting some along the way. I'm positive ill get something good going just a matter of time.

firsttimeARE · Dec 8, 2011

The 4 chronic haze look good.

Drinking up water like crazy, watering in the morning at 6am and again at 6pm and today when I went to water at 6pm one of the taller one was drooped over and the RW read like 4g. Not good. But it'll bounce back. It was like that yesterday at 6pm also, but this morning it was standing up again. Gonna try to get in there earlier at like 4pm.

One, which I hope survives so I can mother it has like a 2-3mm stalk already at 4 days old. If I took the other 3's stalks and put it together they'd equal this one. Theres 2 leggy ones that are about 2-3 inches already and 2 small ones at an inch.

Temps solid 77 and 71 at night on 24's. My t5's are about 5 inches from the tops. Is this too far for t5's? Also I shouldn't be letting the plants droop? But I should wait till all the water is gone until I water some more, right?

Someguy15 · Dec 8, 2011

firsttimeARE said:
The 4 chronic haze look good.

Drinking up water like crazy, watering in the morning at 6am and again at 6pm and today when I went to water at 6pm one of the taller one was drooped over and the RW read like 4g. Not good. But it'll bounce back. It was like that yesterday at 6pm also, but this morning it was standing up again. Gonna try to get in there earlier at like 4pm.

One, which I hope survives so I can mother it has like a 2-3mm stalk already at 4 days old. If I took the other 3's stalks and put it together they'd equal this one. Theres 2 leggy ones that are about 2-3 inches already and 2 small ones at an inch.

Temps solid 77 and 71 at night on 24's. My t5's are about 5 inches from the tops. Is this too far for t5's? Also I shouldn't be letting the plants droop? But I should wait till all the water is gone until I water some more, right?

In hydro u want to water as much as possible without o2 starving your roots. Different mediums can take different max waterings. But basically as the plant consumes from the medium the medium EC and Ph change. So more watering helps stabilize the root zone to the rez settings. but with rockwool you have to be careful as it tends to hold a lot of water and can easily starve roots of o2. If the plants are drooping you are waiting too long to water.

firsttimeARE · Dec 8, 2011

Someguy15 said:
In hydro u want to water as much as possible without o2 starving your roots. Different mediums can take different max waterings. But basically as the plant consumes from the medium the medium EC and Ph change. So more watering helps stabilize the root zone to the rez settings. but with rockwool you have to be careful as it tends to hold a lot of water and can easily starve roots of o2. If the plants are drooping you are waiting too long to water.

Yeah i'm pretty sure my 4 power africas I had going had root rot. I came into the room tuesday and my res that I had just changed sunday was reaking and had foam at the top. I didn't put any h2o2 in as I was waiting for the chlorine to go away and taking advantage of the free pathogen control. I doubt it was the res that soiled as it never gets above 65F. I looked at the roots of the worst one and they were brown and dead looking, very dry. Only a couple plants had white hairy roots still, but even those had a mess of dead roots to go with it.

It would explain all the issues I was having with slow growth and yellowing and droopy leaves. I left my RW too wet in the beginning. Trying not to repeat on these. But already one of them are bigger than the 6 week vegged power africas. Sucks. I feel like im never going to get this down. Lol.

Trying to do everything right for these 4.

I keep my RW above the flood level, well I did when they were in the table. Any other suggestions on preventing root rot? My RH is between 45-60%. I Can get it to 35%-45% with dehumidifier going.

Someguy15 · Dec 8, 2011

RH isn't really a factor in root rot. Root zone temps are. So there's basically 2 ways to address the problem. A) leave the chlorine in there and go for a sterile rez. You can actually buy chloramine which won't evaporte and a lot of commercial grows actually add it as a pathogenic preventive. If you go this route, no mycor or bennies, no sugars, and minimal organics. Your going for a sterile, pure chemical, clean environment. option B) is using beneficials to try to prevent bad pathogens. So this route you use things like Aqua Shield, Hygrozyme, and Great White mycor in attempts to build an army of good bacteria to fight the bad. You should also start with RO water, which adds cost to the grow. Personally I lean towards option A, but I do occasionally inoculate my medium with a great white top watering, how much it matter with chloramine in my water idk. My city uses chloramine in the supply (great to drink I'm sure) so I don't add anything. Just use it out of the tap, comes out about 0.4EC...no real issues in 2 years, 10+ grows.

If you want less of a headache next time, give hydroton a go. As long as you wash it very well I think you will be much happier with your results. I started in blocks of RW and hated it. PH was out of control, they were always holding too much water...just not a good medium for a rookie. While hydroton will dry out much faster, it also is a much easier medium to learn with I believe. Or try like I do and mix some rockwool cubes (like crouton sized ones) in to help hold some water. But in my experience it is very challenging to dial in big slabs of rockwool.

firsttimeARE · Dec 8, 2011

But how do I start seeds right in hydroton, aside from an aerocloner? Im not using slab RW i'm using the starter cubes.

I'm trying option A, I think I just kept the cubes too wet last time and lacked O2 to the roots. But going to give the res only 24hrs until I dose with h2o2. I'll have to look up chloramine. I think every tap water has that in it. I dunno the EC it works out, but the city tap I use is 115ppm.

What kind of nutes and at what ppm would you start on seedlings or in the beginning did you just apply when you saw deficiencies? Am I correct in thinking that once I put the cubes into the table that they can get nutes now? I was doing 550ppm.

Someguy15 · Dec 8, 2011

Start them in a plug, like the 1.5 x1.5" rockwool cubes and then surround it with the mix after it's well rooted. I clone (and start my seeds) in root riots which are compost bark. Once they root well (usually ~2 weeks from cut) I transplant them into the pots with the hydroton/rw mix. I top water the first week to let the roots get down in the pots and then the table takes over. As soon as they are potted the table floods them but the roots take a little while to get established down far enough, hence the top watering.

As for nutes, I start my clones around 0.5EC(250ppm on 500scale) of feed, so .9EC total with the tap crap (my tap runs about 0.4EC). Seems to work fine. I only go to about max 1.2EC (600ppm) of feed or 1.6 total in veg. Just slowly ramp it up as they get larger.

Seeds are a bit diff. I use no nutes until they have the first two sets of true leaves. Then I start them really low, say 100ppm or something and slowly work up. You have to be a little more gentile with seedlings then clones tho.

The water, 115ppm sounds fine, thats about .2EC

firsttimeARE · Dec 8, 2011

Someguy15 said:
Start them in a plug, like the 1.5 x1.5" rockwool cubes and then surround it with the mix after it's well rooted. I clone (and start my seeds) in root riots which are compost bark. Once they root well (usually ~2 weeks from cut) I transplant them into the pots with the hydroton/rw mix. I top water the first week to let the roots get down in the pots and then the table takes over. As soon as they are potted the table floods them but the roots take a little while to get established down far enough, hence the top watering.

So say I was using the 1.5"x1.5" RW and growstones around it(which is what im using) I would topwater the stones and make sure not to get the RW wet, right?

As for nutes, I start my clones around 0.5EC(250ppm on 500scale) of feed, so .9EC total with the tap crap (my tap runs about 0.4EC). Seems to work fine. I only go to about max 1.2EC (600ppm) of feed or 1.6 total in veg. Just slowly ramp it up as they get larger.

Seeds are a bit diff. I use no nutes until they have the first two sets of true leaves. Then I start them really low, say 100ppm or something and slowly work up. You have to be a little more gentile with seedlings then clones tho.

True leaves like not the cotyledons and the next singular set, but the 3 leaved leafs?

The water, 115ppm sounds fine, thats about .2EC
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Someguy15 · Dec 8, 2011

After the roots make their way out of the lil cubes and down into your main medium there should be no need to keep the cube wet. After that initial week I just stop top watering and my root riots dry up. How deep is your medium/how high does your tray flood?

Correct, the first 2 pairs of true leaves not including the cotyledons. Usually this time period is about a week after sprout, then I begin to feed.

WOS - Chronic Haze and SS - Power Africa ( Ebb & Flow )

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