Boxpipe's blueberry/hawaiian & Afgan Grow Journal

Day 12
(Isn't it cool how I can just skip ahead several days like this?)
((Uploading pics is a pain. It would really really useful to be able to see the link to the pic on the member gallery preview page, instead of having to click on each pic, then going to the properties).

- AFG3:
day12a2.jpg


- AFG2:
day12b1.jpg


- AFG1:
day12c.jpg


- They're all roughly about the same size. AFG3's roots are poking through the bottom of the mesh pot (and the 3" rockwool cube). Good sign.
- BBY1. It's small but it looks strong:
day12d.jpg


- I was reading one of the threads yesterday and someone mentioned that light on the water creates algae. Well duh, of course it does! (Damnit.) I cut two pieces of white... board? Maybe I'll remember the name later. Anyway, two pieces of board, one 10" x 5" and one 4" by 5". The holes in my tub are 3.5" diameter. I even cut a little slot in the smaller one for the air hose. Ain't that clever?
day12e.jpg


day12f.jpg


- This is a little oil dispenser I picked up at Canadian Tire. I use it for dispensing the PH tester solution. And while it works perfectly for dispensing drops of water, the viscosity of the tester liquid is lower. I can dispense one drop, but I have to be very careful. Still beats the hell out of using the eye dropper:
day12g.jpg


- This is the swiffer cloth I use to clean the mylar. It's real poopy for sucking up water so I use normal papertowel for that. Then I use the swiffer cloth to pick up the dust.
day12h.jpg


- The BBY of my germinating seeds has popped a tap root, so I'm going to start soaking a couple of 1" rockwool cubes in PH adjusted, non-cholorinated water now. I will call this one BBY4.
 
Day 13
- Roots have cleared the bottom of AFG1, 2, & 3 and are expanding like crazy. I can see the root at the bottom of BBY1 but it hasn’t come out of the mesh pot yet. Tomorrow probably.
- BBY2 Autopsy. The tap root is out but it has withered. In my professional opinion… it’s dead, Jim:
day13b.jpg


day13f.jpg


day13g.jpg


- I’m trying to jury rig something to aid me in flushing the tub. If you read above, my spout is at the right end jammed in the corner. First I try this:
day13a.jpg


- It works but it’s clunky and will make flushing hell. I may have to just buy a longer hose. I won’t have enough clearance to drain into a bucket unless I prop the tub up even higher, something I don’t want to do. Yuck.
- BBY4 is in its rockwool but hasn’t popped up top yet. But BBY1 was pretty slow… this time I’ve put the dish right in the grow room but blocked from direct light by a piece of plastic (that I used way above). AFG4… tentatively… hasn’t split at all yet. Very different from the first 3. I wonder if temp or humidity had anything to do with it. Heck, perhaps the D&D Monster Manual… ?!?! Egads.
- Here’s a question I can’t find an answer for: if my water level just skims the bottom of a 3” rockwool cube, how much water gets soaked up? How high into the cube would I expect to find moisture? An inch? Two inches? I’ll lie awake tonight wondering about it. Well, either that or where basketball players sleep in hotels when all they have is 6’ beds.

- I’ve discovered a rudimentary flaw with my system. The water doesn’t move. Strike that, it only moves if I drain or top up. The rest of the time it doesn’t move.
- Witness: I tested the PH through one of the open holes and added some PH down. Several hours later I tested the same hole then tested a hole at the other end. Off by more than a full point! This is not good.
- I assume I’m having a similar problem with oxidation, but I’m not sure about that. Phosphoric acid stagnates in water, it needs to be mixed. Does oxygen?
- My only recourse at the moment is to drain a litre or two, add PH downer, then pour it back in through the hole closest to the air stone. It’s not great but it will help. Maybe it will be less of an issue when I’m required to add more water daily. I just don’t know. I’ve been thinking of methods to move the water back and forth, but most won’t work when the tub is full of roots.
- I’m very slightly color blind. Sometimes I have problems with reds/browns, or greens/blues. I’m paranoid now because these colors become important in testing PH. Oh how I’d love a digital meter, but I’m still way over budget. Sigh.

- Reflections…

- I hate how long the whole grow takes. I really really want to setup a separate veg chamber and try cloning. I still have the 4’ flouro and a spare full spectrum light. But I’m pushing it as it is. Maybe after this grow.

- I wish I could clone money, but apparently that’s illegal too.

- I’d like to buy a small square of kitchen/bathroom counter top and install it on top of my workbench. Good for use, easy to clean. Maybe I can pick up a used one somewhere. Must be careful of scratches, though. Can’t have bacteria hiding on me. Currently my work bench is MDF, medium-density fibreboard, which is the same as the walls on my grow room. Good strong stuff, but it’s a work bench and it’s dirty. It’s clean for a workbench, but not for a sterile grow work bench. Incidentally, I have a rock climbing wall I made out of MDF. Do we have a climbing forum?

- My mom-in-law wandered through the basement. “What’s that noise?” she asked. “Computer fan, mum. Big server. Fancy. Lots of heat. No, you can’t see it… Two week stability test.”

- Wow, in retrospect, I wish I had setup the chamber like a server room way before I started all this and taken a few pictures. Then I could have made an excuse not to open it, but showed pics for the curious. Dangit!

- I’ve been reading up on cannabutter. To make it, I think I’ll use the water method as that seems a little more noob-safe. I’m going to check the temperature settings on my crock pot. Plugjug says not to boil it, so I assume I have to keep it under 100C or 212F. Makes me wonder why folks do the firecrackers at higher degrees. I dunno, maybe with the right amount of peanut butter, with an oven at 300+F, it takes 15 minutes for the internal temp of the firecracker to get to 212F? Not sure, need to read some more. I’m betting 200F for an hour in the oven would work. We’ll see. Oh and one other thing, I can take the crock pot outside! Dude, who stole my fumes?

- What’s the difference between a mathy and a physicist? A question was asked: if you shot a bullet straight up into the air, when it came back down would it be traveling fast enough to kill you if it hit you in the head? (you may have heard this “true” story. It’s an urban legend). It’s entertaining listening to people try to figure it out. One mathy sat down with a pencil and paper then after an hour proudly proclaimed: “The bullet would be traveling 56 miles per second when it hit your head.” Too funny.
 
(This is just a small update, so adding it now right on the tail of the last one)

Day 15
- Not much new to report. I'm still waiting for an appearance of BBY4. I really hope it comes up.
- My oscillating fan is dying. It wasn't running at all when I first checked this morning, and when I unplugged then plugged it in again it was making weird noises. I should be able to pick up a new one cheap. The room runs a degree or two hotter when this fan isn't running.
- I just remembered: A couple days ago I put my intake fan on the same timer my light runs on. Out fan runs continuously.
 
Great read bro, and your twisted sense of humor is right up my alley, lol.

Made me lol for real!

I'm at work and of my coworkers heard me and looked at me funny ;).

thanks for the update!

and yes, oxygen does not oxygenate evenly unless there is enough motion to distribute it evenly. A friend of mine lost all of his expensive Koi during the recent Cali heat wave because he had a large pond with only a small fountain flowing at one end. All of the Koi were huddled together at that end of the pond, if that tells you anything, but it still wasn't enough :(.
 
Helping people or making them lol. Life doesn't get any better than that!

Oy! Too bad about the koi!


I fixed my PH and oxygen troubles when I converted to a proper NFT (in a future update). Fixed a lot of things actually. Thankfully.

Thanks for stopping by, SS.
 
Day 16
- Tentative BBY4 and AFG4 both went in the garbage. BBY4 looked the same as BBY2. AFG4 never cracked open.
- Yesterday I went to an aquarium store and bought a water pump and two lengths of hose. Last night I converted my system into a true NFT. I should have done it a lot sooner. It makes so much sense. Everything will be easier now; adding nutes, flushing, monitoring PH, controlling water level… and I’ll be more confident that the water is running the length of the system. And since the water level in the tub will remain the same, I can just keep the reservoir full and not worry too much. I have it balanced so that the water doesn’t touch the mesh pots, but the roots of each plant do dangle in the solution (had to raise the whole thing so that water would drain back into the reservoir. Not overly keen on the bench, may look for something more appropriate. Pump struggles to get the water that high):
day16b1.jpg


- One draw-back of the NFT system is that if the pump fails, it doesn’t take long for the roots to dry out and kill the plant. However, most drawings I’ve seen of NFT systems has the outlet on the bottom of the tub at one end (or it just pours out). On mine, there is a small spout at the side about a ½ inch off the bottom. If my pump fails, I’ll still have a ½ inch of water to keep the roots wet. That’s not bad, it gives me some breathing room should I have to run out and buy a pump. Well, I could just turn the spout back up and fill the tub like I used to. Could go indefinitely if I had to. (put your head on your right shoulder to view this pic, and that would be right side up). You can just see the bottom of the spout sticking into the hose:
day16g.jpg


- Left side, I cut a 3/8 hole in this filler piece to hold the intake hose. Then I tied it down with ordinary string:
day16h.jpg


- I wanted to go to Home Depot to look at fans. I just want a cheap, oscillating fan. 12 bucks? Okay but the wife wanted to go to Zellers so I thought I’d check out their fans. Then I found the perfect fan… $40! Buggers. But it’s perfect. It oscillates, it has 3 power settings… it goes up and down!! Omg. Small footprint for small grow rooms. It has other options such as night/day settings, timer…which I won’t use. Here it is:
day16a.jpg


- Perfect, no?
- I checked this morning and the reservoir was almost empty. The top of the pump was out of the water! (but not the important part). Where the hell did all my water go? Well, it was in the tub, of course. A piece of heydite was blocking the out spout. Doh.
- It’s been a week but I could resist no longer. I added nutes. The instructions say to add 1 tsp of each Grow A & B to 1 litre of water. So I added ½ teaspoon to the whole reservoir (about 8 litres total?). Pretty weak. But damnit, I swear the plants burst up almost immediately. I wish I had taken before shots. Here is BBY1. Shorty, but going strong. Good root growth:
day16f.jpg


- AFG1:
day16e.jpg


- AFG2:
day16d.jpg


- AFG3:
day16c.jpg


- AFG3 is the best and brightest. Here is a root shot. I should have taken pics the last few days to show progress:
day16j.jpg


- One last thing to note: None of the 3 mesh pots touch the water, only the roots.
- Later in the day I noticed tiny bits of foam in the reservoir. I assume that’s from the nute formulas.

- After looking into crock pots, I see that the settings are supposed to keep everything just under 100C. Perfect. Also, it strongly recommends putting water in it, no matter what you’re cooking, as it helps maintain a constant temperature. Guess that settles it.
 
- After looking into crock pots, I see that the settings are supposed to keep everything just under 100C. Perfect. Also, it strongly recommends putting water in it, no matter what you're cooking, as it helps maintain a constant temperature. Guess that settles it.


I must have missed something. What's up with crock pots?

I make a great pot roast in ours, but what possible application do they have as regards growing?
 
Hey Aberration, welcome to my grow!


I must have missed something. What's up with crock pots?

I make a great pot roast in ours, but what possible application do they have as regards growing?

Post #24. Cannabutter! Not exactly anything to do with growing. But wait'll you read my cookie story. Fills me with shivers just thinking about it.

edit: oh wait, that's actually a hash story (thought I was gonna die). Oh well. The cookie story was pretty scary too.
 
Post #24. Cannabutter! Not exactly anything to do with growing. But wait'll you read my cookie story. Fills me with shivers just thinking about it.

Ahhh, now I remember, cannabutter, thanks. Watcha mean cannabutter has nothin' to do with growing? It can be a great byproduct of our grow labor. I think I'm going to make cannabutter from my two big males and see how good it turns out. The BHO I made from them on my last grow was decent, if not great. Sure beats throwing the males in the fire pit. Like some people say about pigs, I like to use everything but the squeal, lol.


edit: oh wait, that's actually a hash story (thought I was gonna die). Oh well. The cookie story was pretty scary too.



You're a master of suspense! ;)
 
Day 17
- Added 2.5ml of both Grow A&B directly to the reservoir, then stirred it with a measuring spoon.
- AFGs:
day17a.jpg


- BBY1:
day17b.jpg


- I've covered the reservoir with tinfoil to keep the light off it. I need something better.
- I looked at computer fans in best buy today. There was a 4" that is 34 decibels. And there was a smaller, 3" at 24 decibels.

Thanks for checking in.

:nomo:
 
Day 18
- Everything is looking great. I'm in love with my reservoir. I can't believe how much nicer it's made things.
- I added 1 litre of water. I used my 500ml glass and added 2.5ml of Grow A&B to each cup before adding to reservoir. That's 5ml in total. This is the first cup:
day18d.jpg


- The Ladies (hopefully):
day18c.jpg


day18b.jpg


day18e.jpg


day18a.jpg


- I'm dying to setup a webcam so I can watch them while I'm in bed. I'd have to get the wireless one that runs $180cdn. But that would be so cool.
- I'm also still hankering for a digital PH meter. This is one thing I may have to splurge for.
 
- I'm dying to setup a webcam so I can watch them while I'm in bed. I'd have to get the wireless one that runs $180cdn. But that would be so cool.


I just got a remote thermometer so I can check temps from my desk, or wherever I'm at within a 100' range, and I thought that was pretty cool, then you have to go and mention a web cam, LOL.

Would be so cool to be able to see them while I'm at work. Only problem is I don't get paid to sit there staring with a faraway look in my eyes, ;).

:thanks:, :thanks: verra much.

LOL!
 
Day 19
- Walked into the living room (above the grow room) and heard something amiss below. I ran down to the basement. It was the air pump! It was just rattling against the wood floor. So I put a cloth underneath it and it was fine.
- Stuff I'd like to do/get: Create a new veg chamber so I can do cloning (light, NFT tunnel, pumps, reservoir, etc). I'd like a digital PH meter. I should get a heater with thermostat for the winter. I'd like to be able to hook up some AC for summer, but it's kinda hard to hide, especially since we have central air. I saw an instrument that displayed temp, PH, and EC in real time. Sweet. Expensive.
- I'm wishing now that I had started taking pics from day 6 with a standard method. Then I could track the growth of each plant through pictures, as the example below. But it's hard to track changes 'cause I didn't shoot from the same distance/angle: (this is actually day 6 to day 21)
AFG3-day-6-to-day-21.jpg


- Pic status:
day19a1.jpg


day19b1.jpg


day19c1.jpg


day19d1.jpg


- Going well. This weekend I plan to flush the system and nute at half strength (1/4 strength of recommended values on the bottles).
 
Love your grow room and plants are looking like they are coming along very nice. Great job and will stay tuned to see you progress. + reps for a great start...
 
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