The time has come.

[Guest]

Hey all,

 

Well it's finally gonna happen! Myself and grow buddy Majestic (new member here) are just about ready to get this thing up and running already.

 

As for the basic plan of the design, it's a 250 watt fluro DWC grow, stealth cabinet style... pretty generic really and I won't bore you with the details.

 

However I would like to run by the initial seedling stages with the experts, just to make sure everything is in place and that I haven't made any fundamental errors.

 

We'll start off by germinating a few seeds, Very Berry #2, donated by Pipeman. Majestic will start as soon as he gets them. Thanks a fucklot for that Pipe, you're going out of your way to help some fellas you don't even know and I think that's just tops. The favor will come back to you sometime, I'll make sure of that

 

I've been reading up on propagation techniques, and we've decided to go with rockwool in a humidity dome for rooting, under twin 18w 2' fluros. We are still rather dubious about watering and nutrients, however. We'll most likely be using 1/4-1/6 strength Canna Substra Veg nutes to bring it along... does this sound right? I also remember seeing a technique where seedlings were started in rockwool or peat pellets, but planted in a small layer of potting mix. I think this would help as any extra moisture would be retained by the soil without drying them out, yet not drowning them either. Does this make sense? I have no practical experience with this sort of stuff so I may be getting my logic mixed up a bit.

 

As for water, ph adjusted tap water will do, I think. So between that and the weak Canna Veg nutes, that's about all the little ones will be getting before the strongest is chucked in a DWC pot. Is there anything else I am leaving out?

 

Anyhow, Majestic will be doing all this, and he'll be using this plan to get started. I'll only take part in the grow once I head down there to build the cabinet and DWC system, hopefully if all goes well the seedling will be rooted and we can take things from there

 

Any suggestions, comments, criticism would be great ... I'm sure I've missed out on something but I can't pick up on it yet. Thanks fellas

[Guest Field_of_Light]

Hi Bubba and Maj

 

Not being overly well versed with growing from seed I have a few pointers which are more guidelines rather than things to do as I wouldnt want to steer you down a crooked path....

 

Try planting 10 of your seeds as a minimum...that way you stand a better chance of being able to choose a decent mother with the qualities you desire...maybe ask pipeman what phenos this strain displayed for him so you can look out for them....

 

Old method was to just throw them into seedling mix, water em and let em sprout...worked wonderfully...especially with free seed....bag seed....

 

Paid for beans...Id be a bit more cautious with...I soak em in water...distilled....till the spouts pop out..check e after day 1....and plant those which have opened...labelling them - opened first...then a day later....those that opened...label them opened second and so on...

 

Some people say to germinate them you need to keep the temperature of your water at a desirable rate...according to the background genetics of your seed....I find if you keep the water at about 20 centigrade youll do fine...

 

Also...some say if your seeds dont open up ater 2 days then discard em...but Ive seen seeds take as long as 6 days...and still got very good plants out of them...altho this isnt a desirable time to leave them so u need to change the water daily....

 

Once the seeds have opened...I transplant them into distilled water soaked grow cubes...pushing a nail down into the cube at the depth I want the seed...maximum I centimetre...but I go for 1/2 a centimetre personally with the root facing down...then I seal the grow cube over so there is no light permeating nto the seed growing area and let em go...

 

Stick em under the fluros...about 5cm away...and make sure your cubes dont dry out at all.....then once they have popped up you can either remark them to show which ones were more vigourous to start and then let the seeds own food keep em going till roots form at the bottom of the grow cube...when this happens I add some dilute nutrient...

 

Then the fun begins....

[bongonaussie]

hey bubba

 

good luck with your grow . have you got a digi camera to keep us updated.

 

with all the expert advice around here i know you and your grow buddy will succeed

 

cheers

[Majestic]

Yeah hopefully I can get my hands on a digi cam to upload pictures for everybody to look at and help us out with.

 

Thanks for the help Field of Light and please anybody else out there with opinions,comments or anything at all feel free

[white_cluster]

hello,

 

Seeds and DWC in a 250w crop is not a good idea. I'd do your first crop as a mini SOG with them 140mm pots in a 60 x 40 tray (them styrofoam packaging boxes would be perfect.) So you could run 12 plants. 12 seedlings, and find a decent amount of females.

 

Growing 1 seedling in a bucket will dissapoint you lots if you get male or hermy.

 

For a DWC system, I reckon you'd be better off with a tub with a few little plants. like a 60ltr tub with 6 plants in 100mm net pots. As a 250w light wont penetrate very deep in the crop so your best off keeping everything low. Buckets are pretty tall things too, you could get one of them low underbed container things and save more headroom.

 

Good luck.

[hydrodude]

I agree with WC nothings gonna piss u off more then to get a male or hermi.....

 

Cant wait to see ur grow mate I am sure u will do fine...

[pipeman]

We'll start off by germinating a few seeds, Very Berry #2, donated by Pipeman. Majestic will start as soon as he gets them. Thanks a fucklot for that Pipe, you're going out of your way to help some fellas you don't even know and I think that's just tops. The favor will come back to you sometime, I'll make sure of that

 

No worries mate, the seeds were spare and I would never have used them anyway. Its no more than if I bought you a drink, no big deal.

 

maybe ask pipeman what phenos this strain displayed for him so you can look out for them....

 

phenos? well, they growed buds and got me ripped. is there anything else you want to know?

[Guest]

Wow thanks for the comments fellas... this is some good shit.

 

FOL, thanks for the advice, I'll take some pointers from your method and combine it with our own, hopefully starting the seeds won't present too much of a hurdle

 

Heya WC, ta for droppin' in, I hear what you're saying there. Sure 1 plant with 250 watts to itself does sound a little silly, but we have our reasons.

 

The grow area is to be 2x2' wide and 4' high. In a box. We can't make any compromises on this, it's the largest the grow can be, as we are keeping security in mind and not trying to get ahead of ourselves with too large a grow.

 

We have 6x36w 4' fluros (bulb and batton only) plus a twin 18w with hood which will also be used to propagate the seedlings. See the attached picture and you will see how the lights are to be setup. For ventilation a single 150mm sunon fan is being used with a passive intake. Since we can't fit any oscillating fans in there I'm assuming we'll have to support the plant with ties at some point. On the diagram, just ignore the DWC pot dimensions for now, I've discarded that because I realised such a shallow container wouldn't work with 6" net pots

 

Now again it may look a bit silly... I was keeping in mind the fact that fluros have very little penetration, so the light distribution has been evened out, coming from 7 sources from all sides, instead of a single source from the top. This solves the penetration problem ... all areas of the plant would recieve a generous amount of fluro light, not just the canopy. I'm not sure what the effect will be but I am hoping the end result will be a tall dense column of cannabis that takes advantage of the square footage it's receiving.

 

I like the idea of using a few small plants in a DWC (don't want to go soil, pipeman's grow scared us too much )... but say if I were to use 6 plants, how tall do you think they'd be able to grow? We should end up with at least 3.5-4 feet of useable height here and I am not sure if plants packed in sog style would be able to take advantage of the available height. If they could, I'll run the idea by Majestic, and I reckon we'd be all for it.

 

And yeah we were worried about taking our chances on one plant to get a female. But hey ... now you've seen the basic design, which would be better?

[pipeman]

have you bought those fluoros yet? cause I reckon a single 250W HPS light would be more effective and may even give off less heat than all those fluoros.

 

IMO you need to setup a mother chamber for future female clones, otherwise you will waste a lot of time and space germing and sexing every grow. With a mother you could be harvesting every 2 months, without one it will be more like 3-4 months. A 250W setup harvesting every 3-4 months may struggle to keep you both happy if you are full time smokers, plus you will run out of seeds.

[Majestic]

Thanks a heap for all the suggestions, I can tell this thread is going to be of great value to us.

 

Pipeman yes we have already bought the fluros, we stayed away from HPS lights because of the heat, such a small grow area we decided that it would be safer and not burn the plant if we use fluros. The fluros can actually touch the plant and not cause any hassles, we thought that would be better.

 

The timeframe between grows isnt a huge factor as we are not big smokers... yet...

 

Anyway keep these suggestions rolling.