Archer12 Black Widow LED RDWC Grow To Perpetual - 2017

[Rider509]

I'm only going to go from clones for now on in the RDWC - help avoid problems from different plants having different needs.

Funny you mention that. I got lucky with the Gold Leaf. I have three White Widows in soil that are all different phenos and one is giving me grief and requires a different pH and nute schedule. I'd be screwed (or it would be) if they were in RDWC. Something to think about.

 

[ARCHER12]

Yeah, the more I read it sounds like doing RDWC from seed is a bad mix. I'm watching your gold leaf almost as impatiently as my own widows man. I almost dropped a couple hundred at 420 on seeds around Christmas time when the bourbon was flowing, and gold leaf was my primary on the list! I'll be watching yours to see if I need to order some of my own.

 

[ARCHER12]

Day 25ish

The seedlings seem to be taking to their new home rather nicely. There appears to be relatively little damage from its time in the RDWC, and all of them have had decent new growth in the last 24 hours so we'll see how they do from here! I plan on starting with voodoo juice and great white with the next watering, but I have to do a bit more reading on when and how to apply in soil.

 

[Spitz]

Interesting read! I too am giving Mr Nice's Black Widow a try. I will be soon anyway. Drooling over your RDWC setup! Did you try running a sterile res? I noticed H2O2 and Great White. I couldn't really decipher which one you were trying to go with. How well does your water chiller work? Does that chiller heat up your tent much? What temps were you running for your res and what type of air pump? Were you pumping air into all the buckets and recirc bucket? Sorry for the million questions. Your setup was exactly what I want to try!

Other than being a Blackhawk fan, good luck! Looking forward to seeing what you can do!

Edit..
Looks like you got yourself a triploid plant (or whatever they call the 3 leaf/node plants). Those are neat.

 

[ARCHER12]

Thanks, I researched it for hours so it was more a product of obsessive reading. I ran a sterile res to start with, but after I got slime from the first run of seedlings. When I started with the second run, I decided to go with the GW, but as you saw that didn't work out very well. It wasn't the GW that caused the problems though, just a few rookie mistakes.

The chiller definitely heated things up a bit and I had a larger than average space. The next time I run the RDWC, I will definitely run the chiller from outside the room. Temps were set to 68, and the chiller didn't have a problem getting temps down. I had a 27 lpm air pump, and stones in all of the containers including the control. Word of advice, make sure you keep your holes in the containers as close to the bottom of them as you can without the bulkhead leaking - quarter/half inch above the bottom. I'll definitely go mediumless, and I won't run anything but clones in the RDWC the next time I use it either.

 

[ARCHER12]

I watered everybody with a dose of GW, Voodoo Juice, Rhino Skin, and 1 mL/L Sensi Grow A/B. Here are some pics!

 

[ARCHER12]

Help! The plants are looking a little rough around the edges, literally. The humidity has gone way down in the room because my humidifier broke, but I just got another one and its on its way up. My best guess is a potassium deficiency or maybe magnesium, but its hard to tell from the pictures. There are a few plants with dark leaves and a bit of the claw, and then there are a few more obvious with the yellowing from the tips and the brown spots on leaf margins. I didn't include any Cal-Mag with the nutrient watering last Thursday, which has me leaning towards Mag deficiency, but what do I know? Let me know what you think!

 

[Spitz]

Honestly, I think your roots just need time to develop. After the transplant, they likely just have too much above and not enough below. I wouldn't do anything crazy (feeding/flushing). I wouldn't even saturate the pots yet. I'd just keep nursing them along for a while with a cup of plain water every couple of days. That's me.. I suspect someone will jump in with "flush them with PH adjusted water, measure your runoff, and give them a mild feed". I don't think they'd take that well. Keep us updated!

 

[WillGrow510]

Yes, what Spitz says. Let them just chill out. Let them be for a bit. Let them dry up a bit, they may be over watered. Looks like they have been through hell and back. To me they look stressed. And if you look at the fourth photo down from the top of your 3/12 post, you'll see male pre-flowers.

I'm sure they will recover. They just need to stabilize. Also look at your lighting. It's very minimal. There seems to be a lot of stretch. See if you can get some more lights.

My 2 cents. I hope it helps. Good luck mate!

 

[Spitz]

Nice catch on the male preflowers. I'm not sure I'd toss him out yet without looking at him close, but I think WG510 is right. Curios to see the male/female ratio of "The real deal White Widow". I can't wait to run her!! Things are moving forward over here. Good job!

 

[ARCHER12]

Things are looking better today. The green is starting to move out from the base of the extremely yellow leaves, and is about a third of the way up. I turned on another light bar on the spydr and lowered it about 6 inches. I've been hesitant to give them too much light with the spydr because I had problems last go around. As long as they respond well to the added light, I'll keep slowly intensifying. I'll try and get a few decent close ups of the area that looks like pre flowers - I have no idea what I'm looking at, so I'll throw them on here and let you tell me haha. Thanks for the input!

 

[WillGrow510]

Sorry about the male. Here's a photo for referencing what you're looking for.

Hope that helps. You can google image search male preflower and there will be lots of examples.

 

[ARCHER12]

I looked closer at that plant, but couldn't find the spot from the 3/12 photo. Unfortunately, it looks like I found another male pre flower on the other trifoliate plant. Let me know what you think!

 

[WillGrow510]

Yeah. Looks like it to me. I like to wait a bit more to be certain, but I think you're right. The sooner you identify them, the less resources you have to spend on them. I usually keep them on minimal support (life support I call it) just until I'm certain.

Cheers.

 

[ARCHER12]

I'll keep watching them as they go, but I'll keep the life support idea in mind.. No need to waste any more money on them!

 

[ARCHER12]

The count is 2:1... the ladies are edging the males out right now. Lets go ladies!!! Wooh!! Ooh!!

Side Note: The plan was to FIM everybody at some point.. When would be the best time? I want to plan it out well because they are all starting to recover nicely, but I don't want to wait too long and have them in Veg for another month, so what's everybody's thoughts? Is there a better time feeding/watering schedule wise to FIM/top?

 

[Spitz]

I wouldn't screw with them too much now. I'd let them go another node or two and go for it. If it were me, I would let them hang until I knew they were happy, top, heal, grow, and flip. I'd be at 12/12 in about 2 weeks. That's me though. I don't even try to fim. Topping is predictable and the route I go. Looking good!

 

[ARCHER12]

I wouldn't screw with them too much now. I'd let them go another node or two and go for it. If it were me, I would let them hang until I knew they were happy, top, heal, grow, and flip. I'd be at 12/12 in about 2 weeks. That's me though. I don't even try to fim. Topping is predictable and the route I go. Looking good!

Thanks for the info man, I'm still working out my noob growing muscles lol. At this stage how much should I expect them to grow in a day or two or three really? I just want to get an idea of how healthy they are besides just looking at them since they will likely show the signs of the earlier stress permanently.

 

[adamblues]

Don't give up on RDWC. You may be able to just replace your airstones and flush the system with z7 or clearex. Have you tried using Flying Skulls Z7? It does wonders for the roots, allows you to use less nutes, makes temp fluctiation in the water a little less of a problem, and keeps your entire system clean.... Nice looking setup and grow, will sub to follow along....

 

[ARCHER12]

Have you tried using Flying Skulls Z7? It does wonders for the roots and keeps your entire system clean.... Nice looking setup and grow, will sub to follow along....

This is the first I've heard of it, but I will definitely check it out... If I never saw any slime again, it would be too soon. The RDWC had me so discouraged, I'm thinking of leaving it empty for a bit, and going straight to and ebb and flow SOG table after these gals finish up.