Pure Power Plant 540W LED UC DWC Grow!

[SlyPi]

Hi Guys

New here so hello to all!

Figured I should my current grow so here it is...I get bored with long winded posts that go on and on, so here's the TL;DR version! But feel free to offer suggestions or questions and I'll do my best to answer

4x Pure Power Plant grown from cuttings
Undercurrent deep water culture system + water chiller
2x Grown Northern 270W LED lights
3,000L/hr water pump
2 Air pumps, 1x 30L/min 1x 60L/min

Nutes - full BCuzz range including Rootbastic and ATA clean for the system

Water temp 19C~20C
Avg. ambient temp 25C +/- 5C
Humidity 45%~55%

Will post the EC and pH values of the res in a photo

Currently they're on day 11 of flower and were in veg for 23 days once the roots touched the water

Day 6 Veg 09/08

Day 11 14/08

Day 23 26/08

Day 9 Flower 04/09

Feeding during veg

Feeding during flower

Will try and keep this updated! Looking forward to seeing the 1st results of the new setup!!

~Sly~

 

[Green Knight]

Very nice mate, love the setup and the plants look very healthy- the roots look fantastic. Subb'd for this one.

Very professional and i'm assuming its not your first grow, you look very on top of things, so forgive me if I'm teaching you to suck eggs (and it's not in any way meant as a criticism, just a possible watch out) - your pH looks like it's tending towards the high range; optimum is between 5.5-6.1 in hydro, with 5.8 being the sweet spot. 6.3, 6.7 etc will lock some nutes out and from your chart they're spending a reasonable amount of time outside optimal range which could cause problems with nutrient deficiencies etc (over 6 and you're locking out K which will hurt you during flower in particular, plus Ca, Mn, Fe & B). If you can keep things below 6 and hold it nearer 5.8 in the long run this will prevent problems arising in the future.

Out of interest are you dropping the pH manually daily? It's odd for the ppms to drop that fast but for the pH to drop too - nutes are acidic so normally as the ppms drop the pH rises? Because you've got a ball valve that automatically tops the res up and the plants are hoovering up the nutes you could possibly try increasing the ppms to 950 or 1000 and setting the pH to 5.5 at the res change. Then as the nutes get used and the water tops up the pH will rise nicely through range ensuring all the nutes are available for the plant to use.

Lovely set up and I'm looking forward to see it progress. Sorry for the long winded pH post!!

 

[KingJohnC]

subscribed

 

[trichomes]

wow! nice roots, I have to take another look at your nutes, sweeeeeeet!

 

[waknbak88]

Looks green! I'm subbed

 

[Kushmaster216]

Nice grow I'm subbed here's some rep+

 

[RainStacks]

Welcome to friend.

Your setup looks super clean. I like the dry erase to keep track of stuff. Have you been lurking for a long time, or did you leave another site?

 

[SlyPi]

Thanks for the welcome guys!

@Green Knight - Cheers dude, not my 1st, I think this is actually my 5th grow maybe? Did a couple of auto's in soil, then on to individual DWC bubblers but this is the 1st time using this undercurrent system, loving it so far!! so much less work than the individual buckets!!

Thanks for the advice, the pH has been dropping by itself but today I'm dropping it to the 5.6 - 5.8 range for the rest of flower. Kept it higher during veg to see what difference it made and gradually dropping it now its been switched over to flower. Also bumping the EC up to around 1.0 today as the new growth is looking a little light but will keep a close eye on it!!

So far this is the healthiest grow I've done and I've never seen a growth rate like this, would recommend this system to anyone!!

@RainStacks - Thanks man, been around here for a while, started a thread on a couple of other forums last year but got about 3 replies in 6 weeks so wasn't really worth the effort, seems like there's a load more people over here though so will keep this one going!!

I'm currently on the fence whether I should strip the bottom 1/3 of the plants to get rid of the popcorn nugs which I did do last time, but on reading loads of threads on this, there are very mixed opinions. I'm thinking I'm going to give it a couple of weeks then just take out the very bottom heads to stop them using energy for bud production, but leave the fan leaves on. May just tie the fan leaves back a bit on the main stem so the center gets a bit more light

Also air flow isn't really an issue here as I've now added a big floor fan so there's much more air flow than the little fan you guys can see in the photo's above.

I'm struggling to find a better hobby than this!! Love it

~Sly~

 

[waknbak88]

im growing out purple paralysis next which has PPP genes mixed with lavender so Im vary interested on how this will turn out.

 

[RainStacks]

I think you will be very happy at this site. You will certainly get more traffic with such a clean setup. Don't hessitate to invite people to come to your journal either. People on here are almost strangely friendly. Night and day difference from othr sites. Feel free to PM me with any questions. If I don't know an answer I can usually find it, or know someone who can answer. Have a great weekend buddy.

 

[Light Addict]

Thank F@#k for that, I caught this one early subbed.
Wow as ive said before somewhere on here some setups here blow my mind! If you didn't guess this is one.
If I knew how to give reps I would. Really looking forward to seeing more of your work.

 

[danklover79]

Subscribed, very nice roots, I hope I'll be able to pull that off, +reps for joining this awesome site, and starting a journal.

 

[Mike Wright]

Subbed!

 

[Green Knight]

Sweet; I didn't think it was your first, but you never know, apologies if I stated the obvious re: pH! DWC's great, I reckon it's pretty low maintenance generally, but I love your ball valve set up, makes it even easier and I imagine it's pretty comfortable to leave for a week if needed and things will still be good.

Re: stripping the bottom third of tops and leaving the fans, I'd be tempted to leave all the bud sites, but strip some of the leaves instead to allow the lower bud sites to get more light and develop further so they're less popcorn. But there doesn't seem to be any consensus on this, just a lot of debate!
I think with a scrog lollypopping underneath the screen is a must, but with more natural grow like yours removing budsites feels a bit of a waste if you can clear some leaves to get more light to the lower sites and make them more viable from a yield point of view. But defoliation is hotly debated. I'm a fan of defoliation because it feels logical, but I can't say I've proved it with experience (I changed to LED between the grows I was planning to compare defoliation vs non-defoliation because the cfl just didn't cut it, so I never ended up getting the fair comparison I wanted with the same genetics as I've only got room for one plant at a time unfortunately).

I've seen others on here get great results opening things up to the light so the lower growth becomes meaningful, but I'm increasingly beginning to think the plant balances itself and gives what she gives - i.e if you strip the bottom out and allow the plant to focus energy on the upper tops it puts her energy there and gives a certain yield, whilst defoliating allows light to get to the lower growth and increases the bud size there, but the energy is more distributed throughout the plant so the upper tops are smaller and the overall the yield is similar. But again, that's a gut feeling, not proven.

With your set up you have it perfect to test though - strip two, leave two, compare the results. Same nutes, same environment, everything controlled. The only difference would be the defoliation. Weigh the plants individually at harvest. And they're four cuttings (I'm assuming from the same mother) so there would be no genetic differences. Strip one front left (or right), and one back right (or left) to account for minor environmental changes (air flow, spacing etc). Could be a pretty definitive comparision as to whether or not defoliation benefits or hurts yield, and would help your future grows (but more selfishly it would help a lot of the rest of us on 420!!)

EDIT; I should also add that your focus on recording stuff with the white board and the neatness of your set up etc. also makes you a perfect candiate to carry out such an experiment because you clearly have the attention to detail required to make the results meaningful!

 

[stealthgrow]

Beautiful setup SlyPi, I'm saving for a very similar setup myself. Your plants are doing great. I'm sub'd
Good luck with the rest of the grow.

 

[SlyPi]

Just a quick update

On day 19 of flower and have just finished another res change. Have bumped the EC up to around 1.1 and keeping the pH to around 5.8

I'm tempted to put my 250w HPS in along with the LEDs as the temperature is now dropping down to around 21C average so this will give it a bit more heat as well as a good bit more light.

The ladies are looking good! Think they've stopped stretching towards the light as much and the pH has started rising by itself rather than dropping

Decided to do a mini experiment with these thanks to some of your suggestions! I was tempted to lollipop 2 of these girls but I think its a little late to do a 2 stage bottom 1/3 strip, should have done that earlier on from what I've read.

Instead I have removed all the little bud sites underneath that aren't getting any light on 2 of the plants. The idea of this is supposed to be that the plant doesn't waste energy trying to flower these tiny buds, only to give popcorn, instead focusing it's energy making the main colas bigger but again, this is only what I've read. I've always been one for "I'll believe it when I see it" so lets find out

A 3rd plant I've not removed anything except dead leaves underneath that had fallen off by themselves and were going brown. Have also used twisty ties to tie this plant a bit more upright so that the main bud sites are pointing up directly at the light source.

The 4th plant I've not touched at all except clearing the old fallen leaves from its base

Should be interesting to see the difference in these as they are all from the same mother, same ages, exactly the same conditions!

** Remember kids: the difference between screwing around and science is writing it down!! **

Will post a couple of photos in a bit so you can see how they're getting on!

~Sly~

 

[SlyPi]

Couple of photos as promised!

Day 19 Flower
EC 1.1
pH5.8

~Sly~

 

[Light Addict]

Wow lush plants, too lush, defol quick no light getting through to anywhere below canopy, go brutal still not to late. unless you can space her out for more light pen. lollipop needs to be started earlier. I go by trying to only ever take one leaf from each node on opposing side each time along each limb. If you notice the build of our cannabis plants limbs and stem they are clearly segregated into sides or quarters as it were. hence the ridges. I believe that for this reason you can pinch one side, or defol one side each node per branch at a time lying inline with node gen for each branch. Giving complete control to the grower.
This is before before flower..
had to much smoke hope this is not nonsense!

 

[stealthgrow]

I think its looking great Sly, keep it up.

 

[Green Knight]

Looking very nice mate!