Archer12 Black Widow LED RDWC Grow To Perpetual - 2017

[ARCHER12]

Here's the new makeshift dome with the fluoro on top lol

 

[ARCHER12]

"Today was a good day" - not for Ice Cube, but for rock wool cubes! After all the mixed reviews I've gotten on them as a starter medium, I can happily say the black widows are 6 for 6 on germination! 2 of the new cubes made it to the lights, and 2 are staying in the dark dome until tomorrow morning. Big to Mr Nice Seeds for the good genetics so far..

The first set of leaves are coming through on the first two seedlings to make it under the fluoros, and 2 more seedlings were pulled from the dark humidity dome and put into a second "tall dome" - gotta love the versatility of tupperware.

Also, I noticed the cotyledons on the top seedling in the third picture are a little abnormally shaped: slightly oblong and squared off on one side. Not sure what to make of this, but I'm not too worried about it. I'm sure it will sort itself out.

*Room pics to come tomorrow if I'm as productive as I'd like to be*

 

[ARCHER12]

Got all 6 in a proper dome under a 40w fluoro - I need to calibrate my Temp and humidity, but don't have anything to compare it to so the temp seems to be 2-3 degrees higher than actual, and if I had to guess I would say the humidity is pretty accurate.

 

[ARCHER12]

Day 12

The room and system finally got finished, and I have to say I'm pretty pleased with how everything turned out. The pics were taken separately over the last two days - two rough days. Temps in the room have been out of control after everything got put together - in turn water temps got as high as 86! Luckily, the seedlings just got put into the system so I just turned off the air pump providing water splashes to the bottoms of the net pot and overnighted a water chiller. In the 24 hrs between then and now, I think the temps caused some stress on the seedlings and the leaves have started to droop.

In the later photos you can see the water chiller installed which didn't help the temps in the room at all so I am turning the chiller off overnight to hopefully keep temps down until I can vent some heat in the morning.

Unfortunately, one of the seedlings cotyledons got caught in the seed casing under the surface and cause it to rip off after popping - first set still grew in small and the second appears to be doing the same sonwe'll see how it adapts with the start of nutrients today at .5 EC.

The seedling with the squared off cotyledons initially has continued to exhibit odd behavior - despite having a spotty first set, it has the fastest growth on its second set.

Stay tuned. We'll see how the plants do after a night of lower temps and low strength nutes.

 

[ARCHER12]

***Update***

There was no change this morning, so I dug the rockwool up out of the growstones and it seems it was just a good old fashioned drought. I overestimated the grow stones ability to wick the water splashing up so I raised the water level a little, but not before I was able to see some nice furry roots growing out of the bottom of the cube - in the end the little drought might have been some good stress to force those roots out to the water.

 

[SHRuuM]

Looks good....you're on your way.

 

[salchipapa27]

Definitely excited. Im subbed .


Sent from my iPhone using 420

 

[ARCHER12]

**Update Time**

The girls had a rough go of it for a little while - it's been hell trying to figure out what has been going on with limited knowledge, but luckily Greg Green and Jorge Cervantes have been more than willing to school me.

The under watering I mentioned last post wreaked havoc on the little guys, and after figuring out that part of the issue was light stress and low humidity, I was able to start tweaking the setup to allow everybody to recover. Long story short, I believe all the stress factors contributed to a few different deficiencies in a few different plants: chief among them, potassium.

Thankfully they've come back, and not only did I learn a shit load about nutrient deficiencies and environment controls in the last week, but I've also figured out that the SpydrX Plus is a monster. I had to unhook 7 of the light bars because they were too strong for the seedlings at 4 feet!

Anyway here are some pics of what they look like today. Ignore the light discolorations and raised edges - I tried to go full strength after letting them grow a while, and I had to back it off to 3 bars because they quickly showed stress. Luckily they seem to be on the way back, green is slowly working its way back down the stem to the purplish, red formerly deficient areas.

**This one is easily my favorite of all the plants:it was the 4th to germinate, but has the second most growth; certainly, the more dense growth, tight node spacing, the most root production so far, it was the first to have roots showing out of the net pots; most importantly - during the high temp/light stress/ low humidity problems it remained the most resistant to deficiency.

Needless to say I am hoping this one goes female and packs on the buds because so far, it exemplifies the qualities of a great SOG pheno for the perpetual.

This one is hanging in there after taking the brunt of the poor conditions. Optimism has me thinking it will be a super frosty dark horse: forged from stress and determination to live!

I'm happy to see this little guy come back from having one of it's cotyledons ripped off by the seed casing so early in life - all in all, not bad for everything it's been through in its young life.

I've cranked humidity to 65% with an auto humidifier. Temp is hovering in 76-80 range. Water temp lowered to 65 degrees. I also lowered nute strength, from the suggested 1mL/L, which equated to 0.5 EC to 0.3 EC (ppm change from 340 to 240) after witnessing the heat related problems wreak havoc, I thought a lower ppm would allow for a greater margin for error.

I'll make sure I keep things updated frequently over the next two weeks, as I expect there to be a lot of growth in the coming days!

Stay FROSTY - Archer

 

[ARCHER12]

**Need Advice**

I'm seeing a brownish residue built up on the pvc and air tubes coming out of air stones - I went ahead and added food grade H2O2 just in case because I've read there are all kinds of benefits in using it regularly in hydroponics.

With that said, my initial thought is that it isn't algae: this is because from my understanding the brown color comes from the breakdown of root matter - I barely have roots making it out of the net pots at this point and the rest of the water in the system is clear. The second reason I don't think it's algae is because it appears to only be in high agitation areas: air atone surfaces, air tubing above air stones, and pvc flow pipe surfaces.

What does everybody think? I put in an email to AN about the residue, and haven't heard back yet - my optimism and limited knowledge tells me that maybe the nitrogen formula that is a dark color is being separated in high flow areas and is grabbing glossy surfaces, but I know a possible algae or bacteria issue is serious, so I am looking for any and all advice!

 

[Lazarus13]

I get residue like this on my lines, my netpots and underneath my lid sometimes. Its never hurt anything and i just wipe it off when i notice it. I run the AN line as well. I also notice some particulate matter in the leftover nutrient mix so something is coming out of solution, though only slightly.
I just run great white through the system for the first 2 weeks of veg and first 2 week of flower and use hydroguard, sensizym or pondzyme the rest of the time and i have had zero bad things happening in my rez. My roots are big and healthy white.
I saw you ordered H2O2 and thats another good idea for rez control.
I really like your set up and if i wasnt renting i would like to play with something like that. Looks like a fun build. Gotta stick with my single buckets for now as a leak to my downstairs neighbor would be catastrophic.

 

[ARCHER12]

I get residue like this on my lines, my netpots and underneath my lid sometimes. Its never hurt anything and i just wipe it off when i notice it. I run the AN line as well. I also notice some particulate matter in the leftover nutrient mix so something is coming out of solution, though only slightly.
I just run great white through the system for the first 2 weeks of veg and first 2 week of flower and use hydroguard, sensizym or pondzyme the rest of the time and i have had zero bad things happening in my rez. My roots are big and healthy white.
I saw you ordered H2O2 and thats another good idea for rez control.
I really like your set up and if i wasnt renting i would like to play with something like that. Looks like a fun build. Gotta stick with my single buckets for now as a leak to my downstairs neighbor would be catastrophic.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one having this show up! Trying to avoid any spectacular failures on the first run. I'm planning on keeping up with regular doses of H2O2 - can you use sensizyme and H2O2 or is that not a good idea?

I hear you when it comes to the single buckets, if I was in your shoes I would definitely be doing the same. I think I spent a month solid of 8 hours a day on the internet trying to figure out what equipment I wanted and how I was going to go about setting everything up - I'm still catching up on the sleep, but it's been pretty sweet to see everything finally come together!

 

[ARCHER12]

Goodish news, I think? I checked on everything, and all of the residue is gone. Don't get me wrong - I'm glad it's gone, but the fact that it's gone after adding the H2O2 makes me think that it may have been some sort of bacteria or algae. Either way, I'll keep a look out to see if it returns. In the meantime, I've got some sherbet that needs smoked - it's so good, I think I might have to start hunting some solid beans for after the BW!

 

[Lazarus13]

Do a quick check for any light leaks in your system. Algae would probably thrive in highly oxygenated area so tgat may be a sign that theres some leakage somewhere. Glad the H2O2 helped. In response to your question... I would think if using peroxide you wouldnt need an enzyme. Not certain tho. I know it works a trick with great white and keeps everything nice even when my rez temps get a bit high.

 

[ARCHER12]

Do a quick check for any light leaks in your system. Algae would probably thrive in highly oxygenated area so tgat may be a sign that theres some leakage somewhere. Glad the H2O2 helped. In response to your question... I would think if using peroxide you wouldnt need an enzyme. Not certain tho. I know it works a trick with great white and keeps everything nice even when my rez temps get a bit high.

I don't have any light leaks in my system, but I was wondering if the light was able to penetrate my PVC pipe enough to cause some growth - so, I went ahead and covered all of the PVC connections with some extra mylar. Hopefully that was the extent of the issue. Either way I'll keep up with periodic doses of H2O2 - speaking of which I'm using 35% food grade H2O2 and adding directly to my control bucket at a level of 1 tsp/gallon. My system is at about 25 gallons right now, and I started out on the low side with 18 tsp for that first dose - didn't seem to have any adverse reactions, but I wanted to make sure that concentration sounded about right; I've heard everything from 1oz/gallon to 1 tsp per gallon... I can't wait until the good ole USA wises up and cannabis can come out of the shadows so that there is a little bit less misinformation floating around!

Update with pics to come later!

 

[Lazarus13]

Im with you man. Ive been dreaming of that day since i first joined NORML in the early 90s. Its come so far now. Though i think we will have other things to worry about soon enough now that the new regime is settling in.

 

[ARCHER12]

Day 24 from seed**

Time to update and solicit advice!
Day 24 from seed - PH 6.3 - PPM 250 - Res temp 65

I went ahead and raised the water level yesterday to almost flush with the net pots - I had initially read that the air stones would mist enough water on to the net pots to keep everything moist enough until roots came out. I found this to be false. Now that I have raised the water level I am starting to see much more (still not a lot) root growth coming from net pots.

I also went ahead and added a cap full of Grow Part B (approximately 8-10 mL) because the plants still seemed to be battling reddish/purplish stems and altogether didn't look ideal. I have been doing a lot of research on Black Widow that has said it tends to prefer less nitrogen; I figured adding a little part B would tip the concentration in the favor of PK. It might have been just chance, but in the 7 hours between adding the part B and the pictures this morning, they seem to have better color, less red in the stems/petioles - in new growth areas, and they were sticking up at a 45-ish degree angle and altogether looking much more perky this morning. Something I'll have to keep in mind as things progress.

One question for Laz or any other PH Perfect nute users, my ph has been steady at 6.2-6.4 for the last day or so - is this normal? Should I be using any ph down/vinegar to combat this or as I've heard will the ph naturally work its way back down?

 

[ARCHER12]

Im with you man. Ive been dreaming of that day since i first joined NORML in the early 90s. Its come so far now. Though i think we will have other things to worry about soon enough now that the new regime is settling in.

I hear you. Let's hope the canna agenda is the greatest of our worries over the next four years

 

[Lazarus13]

6.4-6.5 is the limit id let it get too. Dont put too much faith in that ph perfect thing. 90% of the time it will keep ph in acceptable ranges but i had it dip down to very low 4s on me twice. I didnt think ph when my plants started to look spotty with ca/mg deficiencies. I bumped up my dose to no avail. When i finally said "aha!" and checked, some damage had all ready been done.

 

[ARCHER12]

Have you had any experience with Voodoo Juice or any other of the AN root expander line? Right now, AN suggests Voodoo & B52 (which I understand helps with heat stress - something that might benefit seeing as how I only have 2 of 8 light bars plugged into the Spydr because the leaf tips curl up with any more light added).

Root production has been very slow - only 3 plants have roots out of the net pots at 25 days, so now that I feel like I know where the brown residue came from, I could lay off the H2O2 for a week and supplement with Voodoo/Tarantula/Piranha... but I don't have any experience with additives so I wanted to get some opinions before I just went ahead and started dumping everything AN suggests into the nute mix.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It seems vinegar may have been the brown residue culprit! I found this in an old thread, but it seems to be one of the only places I've been able to find solid information when it comes down to the use of vinegar as ph down. So I figured I'd repost so that others might avoid similar problems:

I wish I would have come across a thread like this before I chose to start using vinegar. I will try to include as many pertinent words as possible in this post so that it hopefully comes up in google searches for people.

I was trying to avoid having to spend lots of money every month on an acid, so I began researching what other acids I could use. I was running both an ebb and flow (flood and drain) system and a DWC (deep water culture), and GH's pH down ain't cheap. The most obvious choices to me were ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and acetic acid (vinegar). Vitamin C really isn't all that cheap either, when you take into account how much of it needs to be used to affect pH, so vinegar became the obvious choice.

I began looking online and found tons of anecdotal information about using vinegar. Arguably, the most prevalent mentions of this topic on almost every forum out there all seemed to agree that vinegar is safe to use, but that it doesn't work well, or it only works for a brief duration then the pH will rise again. But overwhelmingly the consensus was that vinegar is safe to use, and many people recommend it over the GH stuff.

Well, I began using regular distilled white vinegar in my reservoirs, and the pH was definitely stabilizing. I was having no problems keeping the pH down where it needed to be, and I was certainly not experiencing it rising faster than it should have. So I thought to myself that I found a well-hidden secret, and I left it at that... I continued to use the vinegar.

Well, fast forward a few weeks and I began noticing I was having a slime buildup in my reservoirs. I have never had this happen to me before, ever, in over 10 years of hydroponic indoor gardening. But I was in a relatively "dirty" environment, having been relegated to the spare bedroom where the cats' litter box is located. I just assumed it was growing some bacteria that came from the cats feces, even though I noted that the slime had a faint mycelial smell to it, or in other words, it smelled like mushrooms! So I began innoculating my reservoirs with beneficial bacteria, in the form of Aquashield.

That definitely seemed to make the water get "clearer" but after a week went by the snot was back, and this time it seemed to be only colonizing specific areas, instead of the entire volume of the reservoir. I figure this means that the bennies from the Aquashield were doing their thing, but the snot was still present, and was being segregated, so to speak, by the other species present. So the slime was still there, and I began freaking out, because I don't have the time to deal with this shit. But I had no choice other than to figure it out, so I began researching some more. And some more. And some more.

I then came across a reference to using vinegar in hydroponics from GardenWeb, of all places. In this post, someone mentioned how they actually make their own vinegar, and the way they do this is by using something known as "mother of vinegar" which is bubbled in an aerated water solution (sounds like a hydroponic res to me, right?), which then grows into a slimy mass that can be separated and used to innoculate more batches of the stuff.

Mother of vinegar? What is that?

So I went to Wikipedia:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mother of vinegar - Wikipedia
Mother of vinegar[1] - also called Mycoderma aceti (a New Latin expression, from the Greek μὑκης (fungus) plus δἐρμα (skin), and the Latin aceti (of the acid)[2] - is a substance composed of a form of cellulose and acetic acid bacteria that develops on fermenting alcoholic liquids, which turns alcohol into acetic acid with the help of oxygen from the air. It is added to wine, cider, or other alcoholic liquids to produce vinegar.

Mother of vinegar can also form in store-bought vinegar if there is some non-fermented sugar and/or alcohol contained in the vinegar. This is more common in unpasteurized vinegar. While not appetizing in appearance, mother of vinegar is completely harmless and the surrounding vinegar does not have to be discarded because of it. It can be filtered out using a coffee filter, used to start a bottle of vinegar, or simply left in and ignored.
Well holy crap! That sounds a lot like what I've been dealing with, and I had forgotten that I was using vinegar instead of "actual" pH down. I then had to look at a picture of it:



Eeeewwwwwww! Yep, that's what I got in my res.

So I wanted to start this thread in the hopes that if anyone is using hydroponics, and is also experiencing slime in the res, and also knows that the res is 100% lightproof, and all other things are in check... that they could ask themselves...

"Are you using vinegar in your res?"

So, yeah, for what it's worth, vinegar should not be used in your res. Not because it won't adjust the pH, because it WILL. The reason is because you will end up inadvertently becoming a vinegar manufacturer. I wish this relatively well-known process of science was a bit more well known in the hydroponics and gardening communities.

 

[Ziggii]

Here are the seedlings in 2x2 Rockwool cubes in my cake pan humidity dome. I am hyper-paranoid about using these things because I have no experience, and I don't know what is too much water etc...

Cake pan humidity dome on a heat blanket.

Fluence SpydrX Plus 660 Actual LED watts (I'm told its comparable to a 1000w HPS) I chose the SpydrX because of the combination of lower power consumption LEDs and after doing a TON of research before buying this light I found the Fluence light spectrum most closely resembling that of an HPS (which despite not technically being the "ideal" light spectrum for cannabis - all evidence seems to point to them being the most successful historically) while also adding in the other parts of the light spectrum that make full spectrum LEDs so great!

That thing looks really cool.Id love one but for the moment Ill stick and watch ......


Always thirsty for knowledge!!!