Homebrew Bubble Grow Journal - 32 Plants - 8 Strains

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Yesterday, May 5th, was water change day again. Going into the water change i could definitely tell there was some deficiencies showing up - which i figured would happen as i was only at 1/4 strength.

I've already gotten the process pretty smooth overall with the addition of a $10 part i found at a random pet store. It's one of those adapters that goes on the faucet to create either a vacuum or a water source (depending on if a valve is open or closed). I believe it's normally used to clean aquariums / gravel from a tank or fill it.

At any rate, with this piece i can empty as many totes as i want at a time without the worry of the pump running dry. so mix up 2 x 18gal worth of nutes, empty 4 totes, fill 'em back up, and do the whole process again. overall all a bit under 3 hrs total with just myself.

Nute strength @ 3/4th "normal" dosage, added diamond nectar, rapid start (root accelerator) and brought up the strength of liquid karma.

i would tell you i think things are going pretty good - despite the newer plants being behind and 1 or 2 others that could be doing better - i think the proof is in the pics

same order as has been from the start:

jean guy - one in upper left was pretty sad - new growth is coming in strong

g13 haze - newbie in lower left

lsd - ridiculous right?

nebula - 2 newbies here

blue cheese / royal cheese (newbie)

ls + sour diesel

twilight + nightshade

fruit punch

i'm a little worried that going from 1/4 to 3/4 strength was too much of a jump for some of the younger plants, but only time will tell. for the sake of the majority i had to start giving something strongth and didn't feel that 1/2 would have done justice.

speaking of nutes, i will be starting up rhino skin next water change. aside from that, i dont think i'll be changing anything until switching to flowering - and i'm not yet 100% of what i'll be using beyond the basics. i guess more to come on that, and another change, in the next few weeks.

 

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So... this update is from Sunday May 13th. Today is water change #3 happens; but before the pics after the water change, a few updates...

First off are some changes that i've been wanting to apply to my totes. I think the biggest is getting them placed on wheels. To do this, I: went to hoe depot, picked out a nice sheet of 3/4" ply and had it cut into 8 12"x18" boards. also purchased 32 1.25" castors and 8 packets of 2" l-brackets. once i had everything together, assembly was simple. wheels on the bottom corners, and attach the l-brackets to the center of each side - used to make sure the rubber tote doesn't slide atop the board when moving around.

I installed these after i had emptied out all the water during the change today, and let me tell you are they friggin sweeet. now i can easily adjust the totes once i bring the lights down to make sure each is properly under the light. it's also now very simple to roll each tote around or change positions.

I also got ahold of 8 more 14gal totes so i can make more changes (drilling required, hence the new totes). In each tote i used a 1" hole saw bit to drill what will become a drain hole. in that i installed 'bulkhead drain fittings' which were a brass fitting, gasket and a nut. see the pics below for details. the fitting has 1/2" female NTP threading - so to connect to these i bought what are called 'nipples' (1/2") or basically adapters. then, to those i will attach a ball valve. and now i will not have to drain each tote by lifting up the lid

atop the new tote lids, i also drilled a 1 1/8" access hole (for filling up with h20/nutes). to cover this whole when not in use, i bough 6x6" sheets of gasket rubber, and out of each sheet i cut a flap which i then screwed on to each tote lid. wa-la, now for next grow, i will not have to ever lift up the tote lids!

the last addition which i have yet to do is running 2 x 1/4" air lines into the tote and then sealing with silicon. basically i want to make each tote a 'sealed unit' once a grow starts, so if i ever have to disconnect it all i'll need to do us unpluged the pump power and detach the air lines at the coupler, which will be about 1 - 2" away from the tote lines.

now, i've blabbed enough. on to the pics!

here are 2 shots, standing in the middle of the tent, before the water change (but with the lights drawn up):

first 4 - these are the first 4 totes as shown in each of my updates:

other 4

Now... about 6 hrs after the water change, each tote in usual sequence

jean guy

g13 haze

lsd

nebula + grapefruit

blue+royal cheese

lsd + sour diesel

twilight + nightshade

fruit punch

they are starting to fill out, but i think i need to do a stretch soon because alot of them are really thick - but only a few are showing any real vertical growth.

note: i continue to mist morning and night, most of the time with ph balanced h20 - but every now and then with a mix of h20+liquid karma+diamond nectar+b52 (all light on concentration)

i want to do around 5 - 6 weeks total in veg - so today would put me at or ever 1/2 way there!

one last thing - which is to say i know a few aren't looking great, but i do believe they are on the come back. i was going to cull them, but a friend gave some good advice which was 'let them all go - whats the worst that could happen?' so, i'm going to give the little ones / sad ones some extra time and tlc, and see where that takes us

more updates in a few days~~

 

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Based off recent developments, I'm really starting to get a good feeling about the way things are going.

While today is Wednesday May 22nd and 34 days since putting the seeds down I would like to first give an update from this past Sunday which was the end of week 4 and another water change. Up until this change, for the past few weeks I've been keeping the nute routine pretty similar, with GH MaxiGrow as the base and then adding in Liquid Karma + Diamond Nectar + Rapid Start. This week I decided to re-tune things and used the following mixture (remember I mix in 4 18 gal totes with 16.5gal of h20 in each):

16.5 gal h2o
16 tsp maxigrow
13 tsp liquid karma
16 tsp diamond nectar
8 tsp rapid start
8 tsp AN B52 <--- new

I went with a ph of 5.9 across the mixture, and wound up with an EC of 2.1. I've settled on using EC as my measurement since it's easier that way, and the ppm500 & 700 scales are calculated using EC anyways!

For peoples who use the PPM scales, this is around 1040 on ppm500 and ~1460 on ppm700. My intent is to get close to what is called 'greenhouse burn' but just under that. i want to do one last nute push before switching to 12/12.

SO... yeah. First off, here are the pics from sunday may 19th just before the water change:


jean guy:

g13 haze

2 x nebula + 2 x grapefruit (yes, only 2 nebula made it - but theyre doing great!)

1 royal cheese + 3 blue cheese. these aren't doing that well.

LSD (its getting so full its hard to keep the tote in picture and still get close!!)

2 x LSD + 2 x sour diesel

1 x night shade + 3 x twilight

4 x fruit punch

Big change in the past week, right?

Check out the next post to see how the nute adjustment went

 

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I believe I mentioned that I have been misting all these beauties every day in the AM, PM and then right before bed.

Well, I wound up getting up late Monday so I missed that misting. The day itself was super long, and when i got home i crashed and so the PM and 'before bed' misting was missed as well. Slept late Tuesday also so the first time i actually saw things again were yesterday early evening.

It sort of sucks that I wasn't using the same camera i normally do, but I did get a good pic of the back 4 totes and then took another pic from the front of the tent looking in. Unfortunately I couldn't get a shot of all 8 totes keeping everything in frame, nor could i get the right angle because of the lights to shoot only the front 4 totes.

At any rate, here are the pics!

Back 4 totes, from upper right going counter clockwise:

jean guy, g13 haze, nebula+grapefruit, LSD

This shot is from the front of the tent looking in, but as mentioned i couldnt' get everything (ipad camera sux) but this will give a diff. perspective on the back 4 plus it does show some of the lsd+diesel tote (bottom left) and the cheeses (bottom right)

I need to get a few pics of the roots as well - which i'll do soon - cuz holy balls are some of them getting ridiculous.

One last note before closing out this post.... made a decision to switch to dual 600W HPS when i go to 12/12. Really want to try and get good quality, and while the T5HO+CFL did *awesome* for vegg alot of peoples have said that for flowering the bulbs wouldn't penetrate more than the top 1 - 2" of the canopy.

Changed the setup (and semi-reorganized the totes) late last night & do have a few pics which will be shown in next post in addition to layin out the nute schedule to be used in flowering.

 

[Sphnx]

Blowing up! It's crazy how well shit does under cfl's. I'm subbed my friend!

 

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Well, changing to 12/12 was a success!

Check out these progress shots from this first week in 12/12

Evening of the flip - a bit more room due to the 2 600W fixtures being higher up

2 days after the flip... notice the growth?

4 days after the flip.. going to have to prune some smaller growth near the bottom just to be able to get around!!

I also wanted to show this shot, which was taken around a week before switching (so ~end of week 3) to show how tight the inter-nodal spacing is with the CFL's & T5HO's. This shows the first ~4.5" of the main stem:

Here are a few more shots of individual totes (tho the totes are obviously impossible to see):

So on the subject of nutes, based off some advice of a pretty awesome local shop owner, I'm doing an augmented AN schedule of:

Base: Sensi Bloom A+B
Additives: AN bud candy, sensizym, bud factor X, rhino skin, and bud ignitor.

For the rest of the "AN week 1 nutes", i'm substituting Cana Rhizotonic.

These all worked out to an EC of 1.9 and i set a ph of 5.9

Let me tell you, Rhizotonic works WONDERS. The cheeses from this grow, if you look back, were not doing so well. I tried using AN 'rescue' and it helped a little... but not the kick in the pants i was hoping for.

Well, after 2 days of foilar rhizotonic, the cheese are back in business!!! I will have a shot of them and others with detail in the next update this weekend.

Until then....

 

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So... there has been quite a few things happening across the past 2 weeks - most notably the fact that we have pretty much every plant now well into flowering.

Asymmetry is now dominant across all most every single plant.

One really *STUPID, ANNOYING* thing that has been happening is on the larger plants, the largest shoots/branches are becoming top heavy and falling over. Most time i can catch this and try and do something - but i have lost 3 plants already to them falling over during the dark periods. Since I've had great airflow the entire time, personally I'm attributing this to a two-fold issue of switching to HPS during flowering and big vertical growth spurts combined with a lack of silicate during vegg (i only started using silicates at the start of flowering). But i'm not expert so i could be totally wrong.

Some of the biggest, when they fall over, actually warp the top of the rubbermaid tote to the point where the netcup then pops out, then falls into the tote. This can create mold problems if not caught right away. I will also say this - on my "tote v2" for next time i actually used a hole saw instead of a dremel to cut the hole a bit more exact to try and remove any possibility of this. In the mean time i've been using multiple layers of duct tape around the circumference of the netpot to reinforce it from popping out.

Still not 100% sure what the proper solution is for the branch and tops falling over. I do not want to keep loosing branches to this problem - its like watching my investment of blood, sweat, tears, time and money vanish for the dumbest of reasons. IF anyone has a good solution for this (other than awkward chicken wire) please let me know!!!! I've thought about tying some tops to the roof but i'm not sure what sort of line/rope to use....

At any rate, enough bitching. Here are some pics!

 

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This week has been productive. So far i've found an acceptable fix for any plants that have exhibited the tilt + come out of tote behavior, as well as a fix for any of the tops that get too heavy and bend over.

The tilt behavior was simple enough, just make a strip of about 8 6" pieces of duct tape on top of each other, pull up net cup, wrap around, jam it back in tote. ta da.

The tops and branches that get too heavy to support their own weight - that was solved with some kit string and lightly tying the branches up to some support struts located throughout the tent.

aside from a very minor (knock on wood) mold issue isolated to 1 sad plant [and addressed with a 1:4 solution of 2(HO) sprayed across a few days] things are going well. i thought i would give some more bud pix

nebula

twilight

fruit punch

blue cheese

LSD

G13 haze

LSD bud close up

a shot of a blue cheese "soon to be" cola top

continuing to use the AN plan minus the few noted few additives (and replacing with rhizotonic). thinking about getting a dehumidifer to keep the humidity down to 40 - 50%... lately its been running between 65 - 70.

that's it for now. next check in post-water change this sunday

 

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Water change going into week 4 is now under the belt. I'll start this off by saying that last picture above - titled "blue cheese soon to be cola" turned out to be a male! I was told by one person this was how blue cheese buds looked but thank my lucky starts I had a friend watchin out for me. It was removed well before any of the sacks started to fill with pollen but phew.

Anywhoo - I ran into a few more problems with the damn branches drooping and falling over due to the weight of the buds. Some more string later, I think things are under control. I'm really starting to be able to spot the potentially troublesome ones before they get too heavy and secure them.

Currently the only real problem I face is a one of the plants has gotten so damn tall, they grew right past the reflectors!! One other is close. I'm not sure if I top it - or leave it - but gonna leave it for now. Against what i thought the bud above the light continues to plump out, and some of the fan leaves from the plant have situated themselves right under the reflector but for almost a week now show no signs of burning - so against leaving them as well.

Here are some more shots.... even after culling a few plants (mostly due to being weak) the tent is definitely filling back in any small gaps. So far had to remove a total of 4 individual plants plus one whole tote of 4 - so currently down to 24 plants. Way ahead of what I expected. Knock on wood the rest look like they will make it through and in very very good shape

A beautiful LSD top

Another LSD top

This is a shot of Jean Guy plants on the right, LSD on the left and G13 back left

Nebula bud

looking towards the cheese (which is what the strings are holding up)

Look at the LSD plants on the left!!! Right side has cheeses, then nebula, then jean guy

A shot from the front half way down looking up and towards the middle of the tent

One other thing I will say.... the smell has started to shift from that "fresh cut green plant / bud" smell to the yummy yummy fragrant sweet bud smell. Oh so intoxicating!!!

Someone needs to invent a method to transmit smells over the internet

 

[KingJohnC]

you might consider super cropping the tall plant that grew past your reflector.

here are some youtube videos on supper cropping

https://www.youtube.com supercropping

 

[TanR]

Love everything your doing toasted! Thanks so much for sharing it with us all.

 

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Thanks TanR

A quick update here, I followed the suggestion of KingJohnC and implemented the supercropping technique on the few branches that have shot wayyy up during the past 2 weeks. I really appreciate the advice!!

Here is the status of the largest of the branches which I did it to - note this was shot tonight and has been 24hrs since did the bending:

I did have a boo boo on the second largest - it was one where the top had multiple buds bud had gotten to the light... well when i bent it unfortunately cracked open so instead of leaving it bend i tape it up cuz about 5/8th of the stem had actually severed during the crack. at any rate that one is recovering too.

i did a few other smaller branches as well tonight. that fruit punch strain really likes to grow tall - so does the nightshade.

here's a random shot at part a fruit punch:

 

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Getting to the end of week 4, I had to put up a few more ties to keep some of the heavier branches up. Aside from that, everything has been going pretty smooth. Water change is so much easier now that I have a empty netpot hole in 5 of the totes; I can't believe I didn't design something to start with for that. Not a big deal though, live and learn - it is def. built into my "v2" totes.

Anywhoo, I figured i'd brave the middle of the tent to take some shots of a few branch tops that are looking pretty nice.

LSD top starting to look oh so pretty

Jean Guy branch top doin the same

Nebula here - super dense - had to pull back some stuff to see this one but man does it smell awesome!!

Here is a shot of a Nightshade top

And finally a shot of a blue cheese top

I had an idea of setting up some spare 250W CFL bloom bulbs I had about mid-way down in the canopy, or possibly near the bottom to help out some of the lower buds that are developing but don't have the best light - not sure if this would really be of help vs what it would cost - so we'll see what i wind up doing as I'm not 100% sure yet.

At any rate, I'll try for another update after water change tomorrow, or at latest some time mid week

peace~

 

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Man time flies - here are a bunch of pics from this week, week 6

I did switch out the AN Bud candy at the advice of my local grow store for a product called Sugareee. In his words, the AN bud candy has a bad habbit of making alot of different strains taste the same. On the other hand he said he's had alot of great results with Sugaree and to be honest, this guy to date had not steered me wrong so I figured I'd give it a go.

With Sugaree it's only used in the last 2 - 3 weeks of flowering.

Aside from that, i've had to use a bunch more string to tie up the tops because many of them are getting pretty damn heavy!

check out some of the results from the tip to implement supercropping... this is an actual horizonal stretch

 

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Boy oh boy the buds are starting to plump out!! Unfortunately I do not have a way of producing high-resolution high-magnification photos, else I would post of some 'trichome porn' shots I tried to capture just how frosted some of the buds & leaves are getting but it's sooo difficult in the HPS light with the camera that I use.

Anywhoo, while I know grow time is dependent on too many variables for there to be a single golden rule, this sunday will make it 11.5 weeks since the seeds germinated. If i were to do the 'last week' starting sunday that would put me around a total of 12.5 weeks upon completion. If nothing else this hints to me that I'm definitely in the final 1 - 3 weeks.

That said, my primary issue now is trying to figure out if, on Sunday (bloom week 7 start), I simply go with h2o + final phase -or- if I do one more week of nutes. I'm sort of on the fence about this because while I am seeing signs of things coming somewhat near completion I just cannot say how near

I"ll have it figured out by Sunday

 

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Well, things are definitely moving quick twoards the first round of harvesting.

For whatever reason, 1 single cheese plant (the least healthiest of all my plants) finished almost 1.5 weeks ahead of *everything* else. Amber trichomes and everything - it was even to the point where the flowers started looking a little bit "over done" so i had to clip it. I think I got *maybe* 7gr total but again it was the weakest tiniest plant.

Now on to some pics - I'm not able to get any good angles lately since i've had to tie up sooo many of the tops and branches because they've gotten so damn heavy. Hopefully these shots will at least give an idea of what the current status is, and some better shots are forthcoming as soon as the first round of harvesting starts in a few days.

Final flush contains only ph balanced water, final phase @ 2ml/L and also 2tbsp of sugareee per 16gal. Figured a little more sugar couldn't hurt

 

[Happy Kitty]

Hi Yummytrees

How did this grow turn out?

We would love to be updated with some pictures and info!

How about posting a 420 Strain Review?

I am moving this to abandoned journals until we get updates.

Hope all is well in your world