ChunkyChunder's First Solo Grow

[GigaGrew]

very thorough mate =)
are you managing your PH?

for your bubbler it should hold at 5.8 and the water for your soil grows should be 6.3....however i do soil at 5.8 too because the ph rises slowly overt time as the food gets eaten.

but thats a descision i made based on my pre-feed run off (when i run water through to re moisten the soil (my soil is hydrophobic from gnats)).
the simple way is just 6.3 and water generously, lol.

they can be quite tolerant and survive outside these numbers...but they provide optimal uptake of food and there for more bud =)

 

[chunkychunder]

Gotta admit I haven't bothered checking PH at all yet. My little bubbler is something of an experiment. I have been doing some studying on using a hydro-system similar to the one I posted here but I'm being dissuaded by the amount of times water has to be changed and the noise from the 'brain'. This would basically be on top of whoever lives below me.

 

[GigaGrew]

hmmmm good point.
ill have a think on it mate.

long story short, one guy here grows the same strain time and time again for years. he can grow a crop and harvest in hydro faster than he can just do the veg part in soil...so from that perspective hydro is definatly the way to go.

but i feel ya on the noise and water.

there are loads of different types of hydro tho mate and im pretty sure with a little thought you could be growing hydro with little heavy lifting. and it is entirely possible to hydro without noisy bubblers, but at the cost of buying h2o2, and using that for oxygen pretty much means you have to go chemical rather than organic as h2o2 will kill good bacteria much the same as the bad stuff.

dont give up entirely on the bubblers either. there is always expantion opportunities

 

[chunkychunder]

One post I read (not on here) suggested that it is Ok to run the system I am interested in without changing water until the final flush. Just have to keep a close eye on PH and PPM.

Just keep topping up as and when needed.

 

[GigaGrew]

it IS possible. but about as easy as trying to beat schumacher in a race at silverstone

you would have to have a fantastic understanding of the rates your plants eat the different types of food and train yourself into a schedule of adding just the right amount of this and that almost blind.

neither ppm nor ec can tell us whats in the rez, it can only tell us how thick the soup is sort of thing.

the rez type that needs the least changing is drain to waste (what im using, and for similar reasons). because the plant is not eating the food in the rez, the ppm/ec stays fairly constant and the PH only moves a little.

you could fill your rez with a hoze pipe and have a hoze and pump to send the waste to a drain. do this in a 'waste rez' and you only have to turn the pump on for a little time per day and when practiced could even get it on a timer, or if feeling clever you could have the pump activated by a 'full' sensor.

 

[chunkychunder]

Unfortunately, there is no way I could set up an automated system like that unless I refused to let anyone through my door again. Unfortunately, they are persistent fuckers round here and one of them would eventually get through.

I am only just scratching the surface when it come to studying hydro but I understand that a pre-set time(s) each day all of the water is pumped from the buckets, through the controller (or 'brain') and back into the reservoir. It is at this point you do your measuring and adding of water/nutes/ph up/ph down as needed. But surely these things must give off waste? (everyone needs a shit now and again!).

I know it would be much easier to control these things by just flushing the whole system on a regular basis, but that would be improactical in my current location. I may just go with four individual oxy-pots. They are cheap and if it doesn't work out I haven't lost a shed load of cash.

 

[GigaGrew]

in this instance the waste is primarily 'breathed' out. plants are very bloody efficient actually and only take what they need for the most part. as far as taking a crap, dying leaves and things like that are its equivelant really.

and if you dont mind walking a pair of hosepipes say from your grow room to your kitchen sink once per day, there is no reason you cant stay stealthed in your current grow room except for like an hour a day when the lines need to be out or something

every problem has a solution buddy. its just a matter of will and a dash of creativity

 

[chunkychunder]

Lots more studying and thinking to be done before I make a decision then. In the meantime, back to this grow.

Not much to report but I just thought I'd post a couple of pics of Gladys and Kali:

 

[chunkychunder]

Nearly got caught viewing this page at work. Phew! Won't be doing that again in a hurry.

 

[chunkychunder]

Nute day tomorrow. Got 'em all mixed and ready so I can sort my babies out before I go to work tomorrow morning.

I am a half-pissed efficient motherfucker. THAT's what I'm talking about.

 

[GigaGrew]

just remember to give it a good old stir. nutes can often 'clot' into bits if left too long. and water can lose its o2.

if you have a whisk of something like that to mix it again in the morning, the violent agitation should re oxigenate the liquid

 

[chunkychunder]

Yep! Gave my bucket a good stir before feeding the plants. I gave Luath (my little hydro guinea-pig) fresh water and nutes yesterday and she seems to like:

 

[GigaGrew]

do you use a bubbler to add o2 to the water before adding nutes?

i cant stress enough how massively underestimated o2 to the rootzone is. plants love it. you can give them huge amounts and it reduces all manner of sicknesses that can affect a plant. and if your not working in partnership with bacteria then h2o2 is a fantastic way to dechlorinate and oxigenate water for soil grows.

as long as your water has enough o2 in it its really hard to overwater too

 

[chunkychunder]

do you use a bubbler to add o2 to the water before adding nutes?

I do indeed.

 

[chunkychunder]

Remembering what a chore the harvest was last time, and looking forward a little, would it be easier to hang the plants to dry and then trim the buds afterwards? I'm not as nimble-fingered as SA and it would take me quite a while to trim the buds before drying. Having said that, if that is the way to go, I'll get it done no matter how long it takes!

 

[GigaGrew]

yes if i were you thats exactly what i would do.
you cropping the lot at the same time then converting your tent into a drying room (small fairly air tight)?

step 1. get a bunch of Boveda 62% humidipaks for your drying and curing stages (get big ones for the room and small ones for curing tubs)
step 2. hang them up as is in the 'drying room' and trim at your pleasure..the humidity control will ensure the perfect drying and curing conditions.

step 3, once you have done most of the crude trimming, you can start snipping off buds in nice little nuggets. sure big buds are impressive, but nobody wants buds with damp cores and half a tree trunk of stalk buried in it, and place these either on the drying rack/s in the drying room or straight into betterware tubs with a small 62% in each tub.

once you have all the buds roughly at 62% from the big humidi packs and the buds are now in betterware, you can clingfilm up the big packs to preserve them for next harvest and then only worry about replacing them every 4 seasons maybe. and the small ones are disbosably cheap when they stop working properly

then its merely a matter of greed vs quality of smoke when it comes to cracking open the tubs and ending the cure.
a good couple of weeks is a great balance =)

 

[chunkychunder]

The last grow was harvested and trimmed as soon as ready. Left to dry in tent and rack for 4 days and they were bone dry. No moisture weight at all. It fucked a few people up - 'couch lock' I believe is the term. More like 'tractor lock' round here.

 

[GigaGrew]

The last grow was harvested and trimmed as soon as ready. Left to dry in tent and rack for 4 days and they were bone dry. No moisture weight at all. It fucked a few people up - 'couch lock' I believe is the term. More like 'tractor lock' round here.

the couchlock is to do with the trich development (starting with strain variation then modified by trich colour)
the dryness isnt a good thing, if the bud is too dry it wont cure properly.
62% is the magic number where bud becomes smoother over time and those thca's become thc . being hit with a sledgehammer of a stone is all very well, but even better if said hammer is solid gold with a comfi grip handle

 

[chunkychunder]

Just waiting for the battery to charge on my new camera. Post some nice pics. Girls are looking great!

 

[GigaGrew]

looking forward to it! im observing every little detail.
can you post some side pics looking at the bottom half of the plants from a horizontal angle, want to see how the ventilation and aging are going.
i like looking at all the layers and looking for hidden troubles, im rather good at it