New grower, first indoor 250W hydro, any input appreciated.

[hashwizard]

Hey SpaceMonkey. Isn't growing weed fun? Wait till your smoking your own bud, that's when the satisfaction kicks in  

So far so good, your girls are looking healthy.

 

How much light is passing through the plastic? Being opaque it's blocking light to some degree. A seedling dome can be bought at bunnings for around $7. Get one .

Are there air holes in your makeshift dome?

 

I was taught to keep the clones in the dome for 5-6 days with the lid on. Then take the dome lid off to 'harden' the clones. [harden the stem. If the clones are kept in an ultra humid environment for too long the stems will rot]

My clone strike rate improved significantly when I bought a horticultural heat mat for $30.

 

I use an energy saver cool white [can use warm white to assist in flower]  for my clones, it works well. I find one sufficient for 6 clones until ready for re-potting [meaning they're well rooted] when they go under a 130w cfl [$85 including reflector] until ready for the grow tent.

My lights on atm so I can't read the wattage but I think it's a 23w. [i remember it's equivalent to an old 100w house bulb]

Cool white has more of a blue spectrum suitable for cloning & vegetating. Warm white has more of a red spec suitable for flower.

Edited November 30, 2013 by hashwizard

[hashwizard]

Merl1n, that is one seriously impressive grow. Respect.

 

I've taken up growing again after a break for several years.

I was taught to grow in expanded clay with flood & drain with a 15min an hour feed/water schedule. With extended veg & a healthy strain I'd get 3- 4oz a plant under a 400w light.

I'm now growing in coco & averaging 2oz a plant with the same light. I went to coco in an attempt to grow as organically as I can.

Coco only has to be fed/watered at most once a day. No messing around with ph testing [ph testing drove me to distraction when I grew hydroponically. I finally learnt that the ph could change all by itself over 12 hours, then revert back close to what it was 12 hours later, so a test became an average from several tests over 2 days. What a pain.]

I've never heard of using 100% perlite rather than expanded clay.Your results speaks for itself. Gives me food for thought. And I hear there's a new 100% organic liquid nute on the market it gives me more reason to do a side by side hydro v coco trial next year. I think I already know what the results will be.

Has anyone achieved same yield from coco as they did from a hydro set-up? Buggered if I can.

Did you say what strain it is Merl1n? I'm already drooling

Edited November 30, 2013 by hashwizard

[SpaceMonkey23]

Hey there, Hashwizard. Thanks very much for the input! Growing weed is an absolute blast. I'm having a great time, particularly since things are going so well!

 

I had a couple of bad starts in soil, but switching to the pure perlite has been a real success. I get the impression that the plants really like the aeration from the perlite, plus it's porous enough to wick up a fair bit of fluid from the bottom reservoir in the hempy bucket, so I feed them 4 times per light cycle just for a minute each time (a fair bit of runoff comes out of that single minute - I think that my pump's pretty powerful! It's a 1,000L/hour one). I've heard a lot of people raving about the pure perlite. You should give it a try. Also, I'm on 1/4 strength nutes still, and the plants don't seem to be craving more. I think I'll need to up it a bit now they're flowering, though.

 

The run to waste in perlite is somewhat wasteful, because it doesn't hang onto the fluid for a long time, but with the 1/4 strength nutes I'm giving the roots a shower 4x per day, and with the wicking from the bottom res they seem fine, so there you go! I'm getting about a litre of runoff every day, so that's not too bad. 

 

How much light is passing through the plastic? Being opaque it's blocking light to some degree. A seedling dome can be bought at bunnings for around $7. Get one . Are there air holes in your makeshift dome?

 

The dome is pretty transparent, although it might not look it in the pics. It's kind of a misty translucent. I might get a seedling dome though, based on your suggestion. Yes, there's a few holes in the top. It's actually a seedling box from the local hardware store. 

 

My clone strike rate improved significantly when I bought a horticultural heat mat for $30.

 

I left the clones for a week, and didn't see any roots at all when I pulled them up, which was disappointing. I've placed a heat mat underneath them now, so it will be interesting to see if that improves the strike rate in a week's time. Thanks for your advice. I'm finding the cloning to be a bit harder than I thought. Don't know why they didn't strike at all in the first week. I used a rooting hormone. 

Edited November 30, 2013 by SpaceMonkey23

[merl1n]

Hey Hashwizard,

Thanks for the comments, it was a good one and I still have a fair bit of the smoke despite those pics being a couple of crops ago now.

It was a bagseed and I'm not sure of breeding. I was real impressed with the smoke and was lucky to find a good seed, so I kept it.

 

Hey Space,

I had headfucks with soil too years ago. I was goin to give up at one point cos of it. An oldtimer recommended perlite, so I thought I'd give it a go and which I used straight. One of the problems using straight perlite is that over time it compresses down at the bottom of the pot. It smothers the bottom with dust, which when wet is a bit like a slimy grit. The roots in the base of the pot also get coated in the slime, they cant feed thru it and they can't breathe thru the slime. This can be a problem with using straight perlite. Perlite MUST BE WASHED PRIOR TO USE. This reduces the dust, doesn't get rid of the problem, but it also saves your pump from the grit.

Now I use a 4-6 inch layer of clayballs at the bottom of my pot. This gives me some larger airpockets for the roots to expand into and removes the problem of the perlite compressing down. The clayballs also need to be washed prior to use as they too have a fine dust that is like grinding paste on pumps.

 

Just some advice

Merl1n

[hashwizard]

Thanks for the tip on perlite Merl1n, I'll keep that in mind.

 

SpaceMonkey, if that is a seedling box then it should be good for cloning, no need to buy another. In the pic it looked like a converted lunch box

The golden rule to cloning is to keep everything clean & the cutting blade or razor sterile.. Pour what gel you need into a clean cup & throw out what you don't use. [Don't dip clones into gel bottle every batch]. Keep in mind that some plants/strains clone easier than others.

[SpaceMonkey23]

One of the problems using straight perlite is that over time it compresses down at the bottom of the pot. It smothers the bottom with dust, which when wet is a bit like a slimy grit. The roots in the base of the pot also get coated in the slime, they cant feed thru it and they can't breathe thru the slime. This can be a problem with using straight perlite. Perlite MUST BE WASHED PRIOR TO USE. 

 

Now I use a 4-6 inch layer of clayballs at the bottom of my pot. This gives me some larger airpockets for the roots to expand into and removes the problem of the perlite compressing down. The clayballs also need to be washed prior to use as they too have a fine dust that is like grinding paste on pumps.

 

Once again, your advice is very greatly appreciated, Merl1n. I did wash the gunk off the perlite before using it. I'll be very interested to rip up the plants at harvest time and have a look at their root balls. I might take your advice about the clayballs if there's a problem. Cheers. 

 

The golden rule to cloning is to keep everything clean & the cutting blade or razor sterile.. Pour what gel you need into a clean cup & throw out what you don't use. [Don't dip clones into gel bottle every batch]. Keep in mind that some plants/strains clone easier than others.

 

Hmm. Thanks for the input. I was a bit careless about it, and just used a sharp knife I had in my toolbox. Maybe that's part of the problem. I'll be careful to sterilise next time. I'll give these cuttings a few more weeks before writing them off. I've got a few seeds left for another few grows and will try to pin down the cloning technique next time if this one doesn't pan out. I thought of it more as a learning experience, anyway. 

[SpaceMonkey23]

Just an update - the plants look amazingly good! This is after four days of flowering. They were at the scrog screen level four days ago, and in that time some tips have grown around 4-5cm or so! The growth rate is awesome! The stretch turns out to be very real, and a lot faster than I expected. Luckily, I still have plenty of vertical space in which to raise the light. Otherwise we would have real problems! 

 

 

[Edit]: It's totally overcrowded in there, as you pointed out earlier Merl1n. The scrog screen is packed full of tips and fan leaves. Next time, one plant will be all that's required. I've learned my lesson... . 

 

This is the home made drip ring that I am using now. It uses 4mm tubing from the hardware store and a few of their adjustable drippers. Seems to be working quite well. I had to stuff around with a few different designs to get this one right. Still not sure if I'm completely happy with it. It's just large enough to sit within the rim of the pot. I'm thinking that my next one might just be a ring of 13mm tubing with drippers stuck straight into it. More testing and experimentation is required...!  

 

Edited November 30, 2013 by SpaceMonkey23

[SpaceMonkey23]

OK, so here's an update on my wardrobe grow for anybody who's interested. 

 

Main Grow: 

 

'The Stretch' has been scaring the shit out of me..! I had no idea that the plants would grow so much when they went 12/12. It blows my mind to think that they went from this before flowering:

 

 

to this now:

 

 

This is after less than 2 weeks of flowering. I hope it cuts out soon! Luckily I have a bit of vertical room to expand into. 

 

 

Since the wardrobe is so packed full of vegetation, I've started to worry that mold might become a problem later down the line. The humidity in there is a nice 40-50% when the light and fans are on, but it's getting up to 70% during lights out. I have started running the fans during lights out for 15mins/hour to freshen the air, and it has been reducing the humidity well, but it jumps back up when they are off so I'm thinking that I might just have to leave the fans on 24/7.

 

Next grow I'll try to reduce humidity by dealing with waste water more intelligently. Right now, the hempy buckets are draining right into a waste tray that they sit in, but obviously that creates a big body of water which evaporates and increases humidity I guess. I think that next time I'll try to keep the drainage from the buckets enclosed with some poly pipe or something. 

 

 

Clones: 

 

I had no luck with my cuttings - only one developed some crummy little roots. I've tried again. I have no idea what I did wrong with them. Still trying to figure it out. I'm trying water cloning now, as so many people seem to swear by it and the peat plugs didn't seem to work out. Any suggestions would be appreciated. 

[Train Wreck]

Plants are looking nice there monkey

Canna is not that hard to clone and a lot of methods/items will work. You could snap a branch off, shove it in the ground, good chance it will grow

For cloning, this has been the most successful method/items I have used in the many years I have been growing.

I use Easy Plug N Grow cubes along with a gel called Root it.

I don't use a heat mat, never needed to. You can cut the grow cube trays into whatever cube numbers you want.

You don't dip the cuttings in the gel, you squirt/pump it into the holes in the cubes, no gel wastage. Place cutting in hole and then I put the cube in a seedling dome. Keep the cubes damp, not wet and 2 to 3 weeks later, ready to pot up.

My biggest problem is that I throw out a lot of clones due to the very high success rate.........

 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-EAZY-PLUG-N-GROW-PLUG-CUTTINGS-TRAY-HYDROPONICS-77-CUBES-IN-TRAY-/400611632067?pt=AU_Seed_Starting_Hydroponics&hash=item5d465063c3&_uhb=1

 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ROOT-T-CLONING-GEL-250ML-HYDROPONICS-/261135160453?pt=AU_Seed_Starting_Hydroponics&hash=item3cccde5485&_uhb=1

Edited December 8, 2013 by Train Wreck

[Frank Reynolds]

I have to also recommend the rootit gel, it has added vitamin b1 (thiamine) great for cuttings!