Bloomin' In A Box

[LEDBud]

Another pump is a good idea if it lowers the PH great , if it does not you know its something else.

I can't think of what it would be if not the aeration , I'm pretty sure that's it.

You could add the pump and use 3 air stones on each or if they are big two stones on each , for good aeration water likes bottom to surface turbulence more then tiny bubbles as many promote. Word

 

[Sonora]

20 May 2016 - Day 14 of Flower

The girls drank all 8 gallons of water I had put in last week, and were looking a little droopy this morning. Perfect time for an aggressive defoliation!

I went and cut all the big fan leaves beneath the screen, as well as all the small popcorn stalks I didn't think would make it above the screen this week. That left the screen much more thinned out, exposing a few more tops. Unfortunately, I was high and forgot to take before pics.

I put in 10 gallons of RO water, with the following nute mix:

• CalMag at 5ml/Gal
• Hygrozyme at 5ml/Gal
• H202 at 3ml/Gal
• Future Farms Bloom at 20ml/gal
• Future Farms Common at 20ml/Gal
• Future Farms B+ at 8ml/Gallon
• Future Farms Carbon Blast at 8 ml/Gal

This results in a pH of 5.8, and a TDS of 1380. Good enough - in it goes!

PICS!!

Happy weekend from The Box!

 

[Sonora]

22 May 2016 - Day 16 of Flower

Checking on the girls today, and the stretch seems like it's slowing down. As such, I wanted to finish up the defoliation below the screen, so I spent about an hour and cleared out all the stems, scrub growth, and anything that I didn't think would make it to the screen in the next week. From here on out, all growth should happen above the screen. The buds have formed some solid centers, so going forward we want the focus to be on bud, not leaves or stems.

PICS.

 

[Sonora]

27 May 2016 - Day 21 of flower

We're finishing up week 3 of flower, and the buds are beginning to take shape, and move beyond a cluster of hairs. The small when I open The Box is....powerful. These white windows are stanky! On the flower side, they stretched a bit more this week - I probably could have spent another week threading and weaving, but I just let them rise. The girls only drank 2.5 gallons of water this week, and the pH was 6.6, with a TDS of 1500 ppm. Honestly, I probably didn't need the change nute solution this week, but I like to keep things fresh. So I took the old stuff out, put 10 gallons of RO water in, with the following additives:

• full strength common
• full strength bloom
• full strength CalMag
• full strength Hygrozyme
• 25 ml H202
• full strength B+ supplement
• full strength carbohydrate additive

These girls are very hearty; they take full-strength nutes with no problems, so I can push them hard. Pics of the girls in flower:

The clones are also doing well, although I made a mistake; I was using evap'd tap water for them, and still adding CalMag. This resulted in a TDS of almost 1600 which is too hot for recently rooted cuttings still in veg. You can see the burn on the tips of their leaves, 1.1 especially. Interestingly, just like their parents, 1 and 3 are jockeying for which one is largest, with the 2's lagging behind in growth. The clones are taken from 1, 2, 3, left to right, and have growth patterns similar to their parents. This kind of reaffirms that 2's shorter stature was genetic, and not environmental. Pretty sure 3 is still going to be the mother plant - not quite as tall as 1, but stockier, which is an advantage in a height-restricted area like The Box. Pics of veg:

Some of the nute burnt tips on WW1.1

All in all, things continue to cruise full-speed ahead; I suspect I'll be harvesting around day 65 or so, and tracking towards 5-ish oz of really great weed.

Happy weekend from The Box!

 

[Sonora]

It's always nice to see what the plants look like in natural light. I grabbed a couple of snaps before the lights came on this morning. You can see how the buds' hairs are starting to frost up a bit, and how healthy and dark green the leaves are.

 

[Sonora]

3 June 2016 - 28 day of flower

Update day! Let's start with the clones...

Clones are doing good. I'm having to trim them about twice a week so I can get their height in check - when I move them into the flower zone, I want them to be between 8 - 12" tall. Because I'm trimming them so frequently, it's causing them to bush out a bunch. I'm thinking I'll need to run the SCROG for them when it's time to flower these. Once I get into a regular SoG cycle, I'll take clones much closer to the end of flower so I'm moving clones into flower only about a week after they're rooted. But for now, it is what it is.

I took 3 gallons out, so the clones drank 2 gallons over the week. Ph was 7.5, TDS was 775. I put 5 gallons RO water back in, with the following mixture:

• 40 ml Grow
• 40 ml Common
• 25 ml Hygrozyme
• 15 ml H2O2
• 25 ml CalMag

This results in a nute mix with a pH of 5.2, and TDS of 695. Pics of the clones:

On the veg side, the bud sites continue to grow. My canopy isn't as even as I would have liked it to have been, but nothing's perfect. It's hard to SCRoG in The Box. I took 4 gallons out, so the girls drank 6 gallons. Ph was 6.8, TDS was 1395. Honestly I could have let the girls go another 1/2 week before a res change, but I wanted to add bud bloom this week. I may let them go 2 weeks with this mixture. I added back 10 gallons RO water with the following mix:

• 50 ml CalMag
• 100 ml Hygrozyme
• 50 ml H2O2
• 60 ml Bloom
• 40 ml Common
• 80 ml Bud Bloom
• 80 ml Carbo Blast
• 80 ml B+ additive

Pics of the girls before the defol:

I also did an aggressive defoliation. What I wanted to do was make sure sugar production was flowing to the bud sites, and not to leave production. When I defol like this, I focus on large fan leaves with stems - basically, if I have to touch a bud to get to a leaf, I leave it alone. If I can snip a big fan leaf without touching a bud, because it had a thick stem, I snip those. This opens up the plants, helping air flow, encouraging sugar to flow to the buds, and focusing growth where I want it. I kind of feel there's no real right way to defoliate. I had a college professor who once said "You can tell how big a thinker someone is by their language: small thinkers say 'you should'; great thinkers say 'What I do...'". So - this is what works for me. Others have other techniques that work for them! It all comes down to your environment, your plant, and your style. Pics of the girls post-defol:

I took enough leaves off to stuff a 1 gallon zip-loc bag full. Since there's a lot of sugar-crystals on some of those leaves already (yay!), I froze them and I'll use them for..I don't know, hash oil or canna-butter or something. We'll see.

I suspect we have ~6 weeks remaining: 4 more weeks of nutes, and a 2 week flush. We'll see. Everything is cruising well - hope you're having a safe and fun weekend. Thanks for following along with the girls in The Box!

 

[Frenchy672]

I've been saving all my trim so far too [freezing it]...I'm still trying to figure out what to do with them, far too many options, which is a good thing to have.

Whats the latest in flower you would defol? You still plan on doing more or is this prolly the last one?

Looking purdy

 

[Sonora]

I've been saving all my trim so far too [freezing it]...I'm still trying to figure out what to do with them, far too many options, which is a good thing to have.

Whats the latest in flower you would defol? You still plan on doing more or is this prolly the last one?

Looking purdy

I might do one more in two weeks, depending on growth. Probably wouldn't do another one after that. I try to go by the feel of the plants, rather than a pre-calculated plan.

 

[Frenchy672]

I ask for the reason of, I'd assume yield would be affected by reducing the amount of fan leaves too late into flower, especially when doing flushes. so I guess better worded, how long would you leave from your last defol till flush/harvest. you would defol no longer than __?__ weeks before you think the plant would finish.

I understand each plant grows at different speeds, therefore there is no given answer to say stop defol at week 6 or 7 or whatever, but how long would you want to give the plant to recover before starting the end of flowering/flush?

lol sorry for repeating the same question 10 times different ways, couldn't figure how to quite ask it the right way

 

[Sonora]

I ask for the reason of, I'd assume yield would be affected by reducing the amount of fan leaves too late into flower, especially when doing flushes. so I guess better worded, how long would you leave from your last defol till flush/harvest. you would defol no longer than __?__ weeks before you think the plant would finish.

I understand each plant grows at different speeds, therefore there is no given answer to say stop defol at week 6 or 7 or whatever, but how long would you want to give the plant to recover before starting the end of flowering/flush?

lol sorry for repeating the same question 10 times different ways, couldn't figure how to quite ask it the right way

Hahaha, no worries my man.

I guess with White Widow I normally wouldn't want to defoliate if I was within 4 weeks of harvest, with a SCRoG.

If it was a SoG, I wouldn't want to defoliate at all unless I had a critical reason.

Generally I think defol's are less impactful than some people think. At the end of the day, where the plant puts the sugar is more important than how much sugar is being manufactured from photosynthesis. I look it at like this: If I'm producing 200 "units" of sugar, and 20 is getting to the buds, that's less desireable than if I was producing 100, and 50 was getting to the buds. So I view sugar pathways as more important than sugar-producing capacity. Hopefully that makes sense.

But honestly, what do I know? I''m just a schlub

 

[Sonora]

I took a couple of pics a few minutes before the lights came on this morning so you can see the girls in natural, non-HPS lighting. The buds are very dense - I don't like to squeeze them very often, but I did this morning as a test, and I was surprised at how dense and hard the nugs were at this point. I don't want to be too optimistic, but it was pretty exciting.

 

[Sonora]

10 June 2016 - 35 days in flower

Stead wins the race, as long as you're running in The Box.

Nice growth in both chambers. The buds in the flower zone slowly continue to grow and ripen. The clones continue to bush out and grow. Everything flourishes. I almost wasn't going to change the res today, but the flower size was starting to show nute burn a few days ago, and so I wanted to go down to 80% nute strength anyway. SO I went ahead and did a full res change on both sides.

On the clones side, I took out 3 gallons. Came out at 7.8pH, 860 tds. A little high on the pH side, but the plants look great. Friggin' clones grow so fast I have to trim them twice a week. In the future, I'll take them once I start the flush - that way I'm not keeping bushy monsters penned in.

Pics of veg

In flower, the girls drank 8 of 10 gallons of water, and the last two are hard to get with the bed of roots in there. I put in 10 gallons at 80% to let the plants soothe a bit. 5.9 going in, 1120 tds. If you look at the pics, you can see the nute-singed tips. I pushed them really hard, so it was inevitable.

These pics are from 10 minutes prior to the light coming on. You can see how sugary they're getting already.

Finally, a few pics of me smoking some of a white widor from a previous grow (back when I lived in Mass). This was my last grow in Mass - this is a bud og White Widow, grown in a hempy bucket under a Mars 400. This was jarred 10/3/2015. It is smooth and mellow, a great companion to the GravLabs Helix glass pipe.

I don't have any fancy clip-on lenses, so this is as close-up as my iPhone gets. Still - you can see it's frosty stuff.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Nothing but growth here in The Box!

 

[SunWorshiper]

Pretty impressive journal thanks for posting man

 

[Frenchy672]

My buddy has one of those vortex pipes [very similar] it's so fun to watch/smoke. twists like a fkin tornado. the vortex are half clear/ half matte with dimples in the 3 larger balls [chambers] which forces the air to twist. regardless, everything looks dope

 

[LEDBud]

I have an observation and suggestion to help the harvest and your future grows

Having the PH rise to 7.8 will cripple your grow/harvest despite being green plants ,

Keep it between 5.7 and 6.5 at the highest , this is the 1st rule of growing you MUST adhere to it

Factoid successful hydroponic growers keep the PH between 5.7 and 6.2 never above and grow bumper crops.

Many of the hugely successful growers use a PH of 5.8 the whole crop threw as its what is called ideal.

PH your Tank man or dump it at 6.5 or add aeration you must do something


Whip that tank into shape you will be glad you did

 

[Far East Buds]

I have an observation and suggestion to help the harvest and your future grows

Having the PH rise to 7.8 will cripple your grow/harvest despite being green plants ,

Keep it between 5.7 and 6.5 at the highest , this is the 1st rule of growing you MUST adhere to it

Factoid successful hydroponic growers keep the PH between 5.7 and 6.2 never above and grow bumper crops.

Many of the hugely successful growers use a PH of 5.8 the whole crop threw as its what is called ideal.

PH your Tank man or dump it at 6.5 or add aeration you must do something


Whip that tank into shape you will be glad you did

Spot on... Agree with I think all of it... 5.8 ideal... yup all of it...

FE

 

[Sonora]

I have an observation and suggestion to help the harvest and your future grows

Having the PH rise to 7.8 will cripple your grow/harvest despite being green plants ,

Keep it between 5.7 and 6.5 at the highest , this is the 1st rule of growing you MUST adhere to it

Factoid successful hydroponic growers keep the PH between 5.7 and 6.2 never above and grow bumper crops.

Many of the hugely successful growers use a PH of 5.8 the whole crop threw as its what is called ideal.

PH your Tank man or dump it at 6.5 or add aeration you must do something


Whip that tank into shape you will be glad you did

You're 100% right, of course, and it's one of the areas I'm struggling with the most. I think I've got the pH fairly stable in the bloom section (ranges between 5.5 - 6.5, but not more than that). The veg side is still a pH struggle. We'll learn and experiment and figure it out.

 

[LEDBud]

I should add this, check the PH add some PH down as directed and recheck , you can use tap water to fine tune it when you set the ph.

If you do not use or have PH down add 1/2 tsp of Vinegar per gallon of nutrients for about a 1.5 drop in PH. Your results may vary.
Give it an 10 minutes to stabilize then re check the PH if its now to low add some more water/nutrients to bring it back up. Try not to use both ph up and down to balance it dilute it instead.

Also give the meter 5 or 10 minutes if possible to stabilize its reading as well , many meters need time to sense the PH

Check the PH daily after a tank change until you get it under your control , its up to you to keep the PH correct.

Hope this helps

You must solve this simple problem , its painful to watch I had to say something to try to reach you.

 

[Sonora]

I always pH it going in, and it's always around 5.5 or so. Something is causing the pH to shoot up a few days in (I just tested, and it's 6.1 now, so it's crept up about .5 on the scale).

The flower side isn't have that issue at all, the pH going in was 5.9, it's 6.1 now.

 

[LEDBud]

At what PH level will you reset the PH ?
Most kept it between 5.8 and 6 and for good reason

If you keep it below 6.2 the plants would enjoy it , I think my work here is done.

P.S Aeration