B0rk Takes 2 RDWC: Green Crack & Blue Dream: LED

[b0rker]

Let's try this again shall we!

After a very successful first attempt with a RDWC system I have took what I learned and decided to start all over again.. well mostly. Rather than 3 tubs I'm going with 2. and rather than using the yellow topped tubs I'm going with brand new black ones to avoid light leak. The res is the same. will get the total Gallons once I get the set up wet with water

After how big the plants got with three.. I am almost sure I can get more yield with 2 than 3.. having 2 I should get better light pen and more dense buds. which is really what I want.. Trimming is not fun when it's a lot off lil twirps.

Other than that the Grow follows almost the exact same as the last..

2 tub RDWC with a Res
Total Gallons TDB
Light is my usual 550w LED
Tent is a 2x4 Gorilla .. will document the fans / layout later on as I build this out as with the rest of the equipment being used.
Nutrients is the Gen Hydro Flora Series (3)

Strains are Sativa Dominate Strains. Green Crack and Blue Dream. I find more people enjoy happy than tired.. so this should be good.

I'm still building out the whole setup so will keep posted on updates as I go along.. (thats the point of a journal right!) =)

Another main difference is I am going to switch the water level control from inside the res to inline like most everyone does.. AND! I'm adding in a 1½" drain rather than the ½" pump out. DRAIN FASTER! =) (that will go on next this below is just the water level control)

WIll update more as I go along.. for now gonna let things cure over night.

 

[StoneOtter]

Sounds exciting! Do you have any pics of the last grow? What were they?

 

[b0rker]

Sounds exciting! Do you have any pics of the last grow? What were they?

oops.. forgot to update signature.. well for the current that is.. the last was

Lemon and Crit Kush Autos.

Welcome along!

 

[b0rker]

Little more info on the tubs.. they're 19G for the plants and I opt'd to replace the old Res with a new one which is 27G. I'll figure out the total G's once I finish everything as they're not be completely filled.

I replace the Res for two reasons.. One it started to leak from the uni (more on that below) and two .. I'm not going to use the pump to empty so I needed the uniseal lower on the res for the 1½" pipe to drain.. I also had to lift the res up 4" too. no biggie..

The uniseals are starting to crack. the one in the res really cracked and this one inside the tub is starting to crack.. I don't trust that.. so I'm going to replace it with a new one. not worth the risk of leaking.

Getting closer! but that's all for tonight.. I'll finish this once I return from the trip.

 

[Mars Hydro]

Good setup

 

[b0rker]

quick little update. Just realized I made this backwards.. I raised my res up.. but forgot water levels will be the same across the board so when I filled up the res fully it made the others raise to.. gonna have to rethink how I handle this ;p

however.. after watching this.. I'm fine with how it is.. I just won't be able to have more than 40g in the system.. or it'll raise up the levels. I'm just going to go with this setup and see how it works.. and fix the problem in the next grow =)

 

[b0rker]

And away they go.. Going with seeds directly onto wet paper towels inbetween two plates.

I still need to hang the lights / fans / etc in the tent but I still have a good week left before these puppies go into the tent so no rush.

 

[b0rker]

And we're off!

I'll leave them in this little humidity dome with a heater under them till they start to show some roots. last time I believe it was under a week so fingers crossed.

Also got the tub tops cut and the bubbles hit the bottom of the rocks.. so I'm happy with that water level.. not happy with the res but can't win them all =)

As for my water. I ph'd the 5.8 lastnight to put into the humidity tent.. but the water in the tubs has climbed back to 6.0 with a 210 ppm and water chiller has the temp at a cool 66ºF . I also have put in 20mL of the z7 p1/2 to keep the water good.. hopefully hopfully I won't have an issue like I did with the last grow seeing as the tops aren't leaking light.

I'll get the water down to a 5.8 before putting the seedlings into the tubs.. then I need to go back and figure out the feeding sked for this gen hydro.

 

[b0rker]

Finally starting to get somewhere.. one seed didn't look like it was going to make it past the root phase so I planted another (blue haze) and it's starting to catch up nicely.

the GC seed won't fall off so I ended up cutting it off the leaves and they seem happy now

The GC has a little roots coming out of the bottom but I'll give them a few days to establish before moving into the rocks.

 

[b0rker]

Today I transported the plugs to their new homes.. the Green Crack is larger due to being a day ahead as the Blue Dream's first seed didn't pop. I looked back at my last grow and this happend to me before.. where it started with the tap root but never finished.. lil buggers.

That's alright she'll catch up. I also added 2.5mlx40 or 100mL of each of the Micro Grow Bloom to the water I startefd with a
250ppm
66º
5.8ph
About 2 hrs later I am now at

570ppm
66ºF water
5.6 ph

I'll top feed this once a day till roots start to appear. another thing I had to do is reinforce the one hole because I cut it a little to wide.. prob will do the other just to be safe. these lids aren't as hard as the yellow ones (last grow) so I just cut the lid off it.

Now it's the waiting game

 

[b0rker]

Nothing major this week.. just watering daily with some water from the res to keep wet. they've both started on their next set of leaves so that's a +

Blue

Green

I remember this time last time.. seems like they're not doing anything. I may install the time lapst camera again this weekend.. I enjoyed that on my PK grow.

 

[b0rker]

The plants are coming along nicely.. Roots are showing and even have grown past the node I usually snip.. so snip snip time!

I started off adding in 4g of water.

I ph'd to 5.1 so I had a base 4g of 260ppm to which I added
4mL of the z7 mix
20mL of CaliMagic
28mL Micro
40mL Grow
28mL Bloom
which brought me to a 1440ppm and 4.7ph I added 5mL of ph up to bring to a 5.2

Before adding the res was a 540ppm 67º 5.7ph now it's 690 and a 5.6. I'm happy with those numbers as I don't want to go crazy on the start nutrients like I did before.. next week I'll increase unless I see a drop in them over the week then I'll do faster.

As I said before snip snip. For these two plants I want to do the quad manifold or 6 way if they produce the lower. I wanted to do that with the autos but ended up just leaving those be. but now that I have two plants and plenty of room.. why not!

I also added the yellow support for the Green Crack just to be safe.

First the Blue Dream .. I keep thinking it's haze.. but it's dream.

And now the Green Crack

And if you're into this kinda data.. The PAR readings were around 550-600 so I lowers the LED a few inches and now range about 775-890 so I'm happy with that for the time being.

No I wait to see how they like their new hairdoo's

 

[Asesino85]

The plants are coming along nicely.. Roots are showing and even have grown past the node I usually snip.. so snip snip time!

I started off adding in 4g of water.

I ph'd to 5.1 so I had a base 4g of 260ppm to which I added
4mL of the z7 mix
20mL of CaliMagic
28mL Micro
40mL Grow
28mL Bloom
which brought me to a 1440ppm and 4.7ph I added 5mL of ph up to bring to a 5.2

Before adding the res was a 540ppm 67º 5.7ph now it's 690 and a 5.6. I'm happy with those numbers as I don't want to go crazy on the start nutrients like I did before.. next week I'll increase unless I see a drop in them over the week then I'll do faster.

As I said before snip snip. For these two plants I want to do the quad manifold or 6 way if they produce the lower. I wanted to do that with the autos but ended up just leaving those be. but now that I have two plants and plenty of room.. why not!

I also added the yellow support for the Green Crack just to be safe.

First the Blue Dream .. I keep thinking it's haze.. but it's dream.

And now the Green Crack

And if you're into this kinda data.. The PAR readings were around 550-600 so I lowers the LED a few inches and now range about 775-890 so I'm happy with that for the time being.

No I wait to see how they like their new hairdoo's

Quadlining you say? I’ll stick around to watch this....

 

[b0rker]

Quadlining you say? I’ll stick around to watch this....

thats the plan! and welcome along!

Defoal time! Here's the Blue Dream looking all happy..

She's crying! =( ah well.. it's for her own good. And now Green Crack.. The first set of leaves have some sort of Magnesium def which I can understand as i didn't add any calmag till this last feeding.. oh well.. they're chopped off =p and the new leaves look perfect.

This one is ready for some training.. so I am going with the same way I did before.. blocks and pc's it looks like I will be able to get 6 main stalks from this.. but only time will tell.

Nothing changed in the water other than a little lower than before so I'll leave that be.

Until next time girls..

 

[Asesino85]

thats the plan! and welcome along!

Defoal time! Here's the Blue Dream looking all happy..

She's crying! =( ah well.. it's for her own good. And now Green Crack.. The first set of leaves have some sort of Magnesium def which I can understand as i didn't add any calmag till this last feeding.. oh well.. they're chopped off =p and the new leaves look perfect.

This one is ready for some training.. so I am going with the same way I did before.. blocks and pc's it looks like I will be able to get 6 main stalks from this.. but only time will tell.

Nothing changed in the water other than a little lower than before so I'll leave that be.

Until next time girls..

When I came up with the method of quadlining I thought about leaving those first nodes on (the very bottom ones) to see if they would do anything (or make 6 mains instead of 4) and I just found they never produced well or just plain got in the way. This is why I have always taught people to just get rid of all but 4 mains early on and let it focus it's energy to just those instead of splitting it 6 ways. Maybe you'll have a different experience and that is the joy of growing! Will be interesting to see.

 

[b0rker]

Maybe you'll have a different experience and that is the joy of growing! Will be interesting to see

yes.. yes it is! I don't recall where I saw this method.. some random post a long time ago... but if it's from you.. THANKS! =) I've always wanted to try it.. and did(ish) with my last auto grows.. didn't work out so well ;p but these aren't autos so fingers crossed!

 

[Asesino85]

yes.. yes it is! I don't recall where I saw this method.. some random post a long time ago... but if it's from you.. THANKS! =) I've always wanted to try it.. and did(ish) with my last auto grows.. didn't work out so well ;p but these aren't autos so fingers crossed!

Autos are tough to do it with but I won POTM for January with a quadlined auto. You really just have to know how to read a plant and do all of it in a very short time frame when the auto is ready. I'm not really an auto grower but it did really well for me so I won't complain! You dictate almost everything using a photo plant so I think you'll be successful this time around for sure.

I did start the method of quadlining (here on these forums, it's a 420 magazine exclusive!) but there are plenty of people using it now. I'm sure you saw it off someone else thread but I do a search on the forums every week to see if anyone uses the word "quadline" and when I see a new face I have to check it out. I'll just be around watching and if you have any questions you can stop in on my thread and ask or just use the tag feature and I'll come running! I do recommend reading the first few pages of my journal if you want the whole scoop on quadling. I did a fairly decent tutorial on how and why I came up with it. You look to be off to a great, healthy start so I look forward to watching this progress.

 

[b0rker]

Had to change how I was training.. the blocks just weren't holding like I wanted so I just used scotch tape instead.. being so low to the base these suckers are complicated to train. but I think I got it .

The Green crack is starting to show the 6th nodes nicely.. I really have no idea what I'm doing so I'm just winging this. I trimmed off some of the bigger leaves to get a better angle. One thing I've learned with these plants is even if you screw up somewhere it really doesn't matter.. they will still reward you in the end.. just got to be patient

Blue

Green

Something I already think I'm going to do for the next grow is add in an underlying mesh something to allow for easier tie downs.

 

[b0rker]

I keep having flashbacks of previous exp with things.. todays was when I was pulling down on the very top node I kinda snapped it off.. normally I would freak out.. but if I recalled right it'll heal its self. so I just pulled more and put it where I wanted and hopefully it'll heal.. if not no biggie.

along with some more defoil I also did a full res change. I was thinking of just adding to the res.. but at 12g's meh.. why not add in fresh!

I started with a 710/5.8ph

drained and added 12g which gave me a 310/6.7. Normal I would ph that but decided to wait as last time I had to upper it.
to that I added
12mL z7's
90/120/30mL Flora series
60mL Calimag

which sent to 1210/6.2 and I ph down to 5.3. Now circulating I'm sitting at 920/5.7

I also redid the pipe cleaners.. the scotch tape didn't hold as well as I'd hoped so hopefully the painters will.

This is the Green which had the snap on the top lower node (pink PC)

I reset it like a bone fracture lol .

This whole start out process is always the most nerve racking.. but it's amazing how quick they recover and spread.. soon they'll be ready for their Scrog! which reminds me.. I need to find that!

 

[Asesino85]

I keep having flashbacks of previous exp with things.. todays was when I was pulling down on the very top node I kinda snapped it off.. normally I would freak out.. but if I recalled right it'll heal its self. so I just pulled more and put it where I wanted and hopefully it'll heal.. if not no biggie.

along with some more defoil I also did a full res change. I was thinking of just adding to the res.. but at 12g's meh.. why not add in fresh!

I started with a 710/5.8ph

drained and added 12g which gave me a 310/6.7. Normal I would ph that but decided to wait as last time I had to upper it.
to that I added
12mL z7's
90/120/30mL Flora series
60mL Calimag

which sent to 1210/6.2 and I ph down to 5.3. Now circulating I'm sitting at 920/5.7

I also redid the pipe cleaners.. the scotch tape didn't hold as well as I'd hoped so hopefully the painters will.

This is the Green which had the snap on the top lower node (pink PC)

I reset it like a bone fracture lol .

This whole start out process is always the most nerve racking.. but it's amazing how quick they recover and spread.. soon they'll be ready for their Scrog! which reminds me.. I need to find that!

You may find that training them this way doesn't require a scrog net but if you want to put one on it then have at it! Snaps are no biggie and if you aren't sure a little duct tape works as a good band aid. Most of the time in hydro they heal up super quick though.