Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon Haze

[CCOiler]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Your staying on top of this problem Snacks, keep it up and you are going to need a lot of YoYos. Pictures are always nice.

 

[snack420]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Your staying on top of this problem Snacks, keep it up and you are going to need a lot of YoYos. Pictures are always nice.

Thanks RSOiler!

Your wish is my command... Enjoy

5/5 Diatomaceous Earth covering Tori's Coco

5/5 Some oily sludge forming in the nute mix bucket. Presumably from the oil in SNS-203.

5/7 adult fungus gnats trapped on stickies

5/7 group shot

5/7 no runoff - bone dry bottoms

5/7 side view

5/7 Acurite Hygrometer #1

5/7 Thermo Hygrometer #2

5/7 The stretch has begun

5/7 Reaching for the sun, or that big light above.

 

[Major PITA]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Lookin' good!

 

[CCOiler]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

GET THOSE BASTARDS Snacks.

WOW, your girls are very happy looking. Yup, you'll be needing those Yoyos.

 

[snack420]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

GET THOSE BASTARDS Snacks.

WOW, your girls are very happy looking. Yup, you'll be needing those Yoyos.

I hope you're right about needing the Yoyos RSOiler

I actually ended up not watering last night because the top layer was still moist, but I definitely plan to tonight since it will be four days since the last watering at that point. Interestingly, the plants still look fine and do not appear to be looking droopy at all or under watered.

Also, there were 45 adult fungus gnats caught on the stickies. I must be bringing them in from outside unknowingly or something...

 

[snack420]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Hey everyone!

Here's an update from the weekend...

Gnat count on yellow stickies
5/8 - 45
5/9 - 48
5/10 - 56

On the evening of 5/9 I got 2g of the hottest tap water that would come out and I mixed that with a bit under 2% of H2O2 34% strength. I picked this 2% strength mixture based on readings saying that one can take 3% H2O2 and mix it with 4 parts water, so 20% H2O2 in the mixture. In my case, I have H2O2 which is roughly 10 times stronger at 34%, so I reduced the number of parts (20%) by 10 to get the figure of 2%.

Anyway... I was a little nervous about how the hot water would affect the roots and also slightly skittish about the H2O2 concentration, since my understanding is too much H2O2 can actually kill plants, but it appears to have worked fine. I poured about 1/2g onto each of the coco surfaces and they starting bubbling up after a few seconds and settled down after a few minutes. I believe that treatment should've killed any lurking larvae! After that I watered them normally, with about 32oz of nute mix for each girl. There was only a smidgin of runoff so I'll probably increase this to about 48oz for their next feeding tonight. I also poured in a little bit of BTi (in the form of mosquito bits) into the nute mix to let that do its magic.

Then, last night I also got some play sand (which is sterilized) and added about a 1 inch layer on top of the coco. This should hopefully prevent any future gnats from getting into the coco and presumably also prevent any that might still exist in the coco from coming to the surface. So, after the hot water/H2O2 treatment and the sand, I'm feeling really good about the chances that any larvae that was lurking is now dead, or will be soon. The adult population is hopefully being controlled by the sticky traps, but I wonder if there is anything else I should do to attack the adults?

And here are some environmental figures...

TEMPS + RH
AcuRite hygrometer: 61 - 77 F, 47 - 63% RH
Thermo hygrometer: 59 - 79 F, 41 - 57% RH

The tops of the plants are around 11-15" inches from the bottom of the light hood. I am watching for evidence of light stress, but don't see any yet. I think optimally the light should be as close as is safely possible, so I'm keeping it as is for now and will raise it as needed when they tops get a little closer. My reading suggests the 600W HPS light should be no closer than 9" from the tops at any time. The back of my hand is fine when doing the heat test.

Well, that's about it for now. Hope everyone had a great weekend and their grows are looking good as well

 

[snack420]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Hey 420 friends!

Things are looking good I watered the girls last night with the remaining 2g of 50% strength nute mix until there was a small amount of runoff. One issue I noticed is the layer of sand on top got somewhat displaced and mixed with the underlying coco during watering. I'm not sure there is a way to prevent this. Possibly watering very slowly, but that would be kind of annoying and I'm also not convinced that will matter much as I did start watering slowly and could see the sand forming holes and deforming. Instead, I'm thinking of a different way to cover the coco to prevent gnats from entering it in a way that is less disruptive during waterings and more easily sustainable. "Easily sustainable" is very important to me! I'm going to see about using a bucket lid or similar round plastic disc and cutting it into the center where I'll make a hole for the plant trunks. That way I could place the plastic in between waterings and it wouldn't get affected by waterings. I know a lot of hydro/DWC growers put plastic over the tops, so this is basically the same idea so I believe it should work. I just need to find the right size lids and figure out a way to cut into that thick heavy plastic. There are also these coco caps that I've seen by GH, so maybe that is a better solution. I'll have to look into it a bit more...

When I checked the gnat situation on the stickies last night I counted 56 again, so no increase from the night before, which sounds good to me! Maybe it's finally getting under control.

Today I mixed up a new batch of nute mix moving to the scheduled "week 5, early bloom" week. I also increased the nute concentration to 60% and added some mosquito bits to get some BTi in there. I'm hoping to get away with preventing fungus gnats using the BTi, DE, yellow stickies and coco covers going forward, because the SNS-203 stuff helps, but it's somewhat expensive to use on a regular basis.

The nute mix this go around includes the following, in 4 gallons of water that was treated with H2O2 a few days ago:

FloraDuo A - 12ml (accidentally added about 5-6ml more, so more like 17-18ml, )
FloraDuo B - 18ml
CALiMAGic - 6ml
Rapid Start - 2.4ml
Diamond Nectar - 6ml
Liquid Koolbloom - 4.8ml *** (newly added this week)
Floralicious Plus - 2.4ml
Tea Blend - 6ml
Flora Nectar - 6ml
Hydroguard - 8ml

I also got some blackstrap molasses and am thinking about starting to mix that in soon. Does anyone have any opinions or tips on using it???

For my next grow I'm considering exploring a different nute regimen that includes fewer bottles and hopefully less money too. I'm all about keeping it simple as much as possible, but first I have to research and learn a bit more about different nute mixes. I know a lot of people seem to like the Canna line of nutes and I know they have a Canna Coco A+B nutrient regimen for coco grows, so that might be just the thing for me. I'll figure it out after this grow is over and I've taken a short break to prep for the next one

More pictures coming soon, but so far, no big changes in that department. They are just steadily growing up. Oh, actually one thing I should mention is I did notice a couple of leaves on the biggest plant, over the last few days, look a little funky. They are discolored yellowish and have brown pots and blotches on them. Looking at the plant problem chart that's been posted a ton here, it looks to be either a potassium or manganese deficiency. It's only shown on a few leaves and the rest of the plant looks very healthy, so I assume it's a minor issue that doesn't call for immediate action, but I'll post some pics and maybe someone can chime in if they think it looks more serious and requires corrective action.

As always, thanks for reading and all the support. All comments are always welcome!

 

[CCOiler]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Your doing great snacks, I wish I could help more but I'm still learning. Hopefully Graytail or the Major will chime in soon. Mean while have some +reps for the outstanding job your doing.

 

[Graytail]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

I'm not sayin' anything because they look great and I don' know nuttin' 'bout nutes.

I can tell you though, that you should back 'em away from the 600 watt hps. Mine didn't like getting much closer than 14 inches - stunted the highest blooming buds. There's a chart around here somewhere ...

How tall are you going to veg 'em?


[Edit] Here's that chart:

 

[Major PITA]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

I'd try to offer assistance but I know nothing about coco and the nutes being used. Besides, snacks seems to have it workin' well.
As for the gnats, the BTi only works on larvae so you need to be consistent in its use. Rather than plastic lids, I used scrap pieces of mylar cut to fit the tops of my pots. I slit then to the center so I could remove them for watering, etc. I had good luck with a .8% solution of Azamax for killing root aphids. It's about as nasty as anything I'm willing to use. Two treatments about one week apart. For gnat traps I just used duct tape. Yellow is better, but the tape is dirt cheap and works really well, too.

 

[Antics]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Ok all caught up.

A few things I want to mention, and I apologize if someone else said it and I missed it!

The pods/growths you saw were calyxes, they looked swollen and appeared to have trichomes on them.

Coco growers usually water once a day, some 2-3x. Make sure each watering gives you a decent amount of runoff. It's called DTW, or Drain To Waste. Watering this way eliminates the need to flush any built up salts in the medium.

Gnats shouldn't normally be attracted to coco, but there might be some left over roots from the root rot, and that's likely what is attracting them. Or they're just stopping by and saying to each other "Hey what the hell? Freddie said there's some root rot here, but this is coco. WTF man!"

Other than that, the last few pics have been fantastic, and an amazing improvement over the difficult start you had. Keep up the great work!

 

[snack420]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Your doing great snacks, I wish I could help more but I'm still learning. Hopefully Graytail or the Major will chime in soon. Mean while have some +reps for the outstanding job your doing.

Totally appreciate the reps RSOiler and just your presence here has been awesome! Plus, you were instrumental in bringing in some big guns to assess and critique my grow, which I believe really helped me to get back on track, so you are definitely helping, so please know that

 

[snack420]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

I'm not sayin' anything because they look great and I don' know nuttin' 'bout nutes.

I can tell you though, that you should back 'em away from the 600 watt hps. Mine didn't like getting much closer than 14 inches - stunted the highest blooming buds. There's a chart around here somewhere ...

How tall are you going to veg 'em?


[Edit] Here's that chart:

Hey Graytail,

Wow, that's really great info to be aware of. Looking at the chart it seems that if the target "PAR" is 100%, then I need to increase the light height by a few inches. Currently, when I checked it a couple of days ago they were 11"-15" away which is closer to 125%-225%, so the top growths are probably too close. Another article I read on a different site suggested there was a range of about 9"-24" for a 600W HPS bulb. So, I was going to let them get close to the short end of that range to give them maximum light, but I definitely don't want any blooming buds to get stunted, so I'll back the light away a bit today.

I most definitely appreciate you sharing that info with me!!

 

[snack420]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Oh yeah, also, to answer your question Graytail, I actually switched them from veg (18/6) to flower (12/12) about 10 days ago. At that time the tallest plant was roughly 1.5 feet tall (from the top of the coco pot). I really hope they don't outgrow the tent because that could get tricky!

 

[snack420]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

I'd try to offer assistance but I know nothing about coco and the nutes being used. Besides, snacks seems to have it workin' well.
As for the gnats, the BTi only works on larvae so you need to be consistent in its use. Rather than plastic lids, I used scrap pieces of mylar cut to fit the tops of my pots. I slit then to the center so I could remove them for watering, etc. I had good luck with a .8% solution of Azamax for killing root aphids. It's about as nasty as anything I'm willing to use. Two treatments about one week apart. For gnat traps I just used duct tape. Yellow is better, but the tape is dirt cheap and works really well, too.

Hey MajorPITA (love the name btw ;-)
When you say be consistent with BTi, does that mean I should use it throughout the grow, or are there times when it is good to break from using it?

I also like the mylar idea and may borrow that. I don't believe I have any around, but I wonder if I could just use saran wrap or aluminum foil instead. Any idea?

Ah, good to have another weapon in the arsenal against fungus gnats, and I'll certainly add Azamax to the list. I seem to recall the guy at the hydro store also mentioning that at one point. I just looked it up and it isn't cheap though, but I guess the idea is that it shouldn't need to be used too often.

Thanks for those tips and please let me know if you think it's okay to use other materials to cover the coco. I'm sort of assuming most anything should work, but I'm not really sure if there are some constraints to take into consideration.

 

[snack420]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Ok all caught up.

A few things I want to mention, and I apologize if someone else said it and I missed it!

The pods/growths you saw were calyxes, they looked swollen and appeared to have trichomes on them.

Coco growers usually water once a day, some 2-3x. Make sure each watering gives you a decent amount of runoff. It's called DTW, or Drain To Waste. Watering this way eliminates the need to flush any built up salts in the medium.

Gnats shouldn't normally be attracted to coco, but there might be some left over roots from the root rot, and that's likely what is attracting them. Or they're just stopping by and saying to each other "Hey what the hell? Freddie said there's some root rot here, but this is coco. WTF man!"

Other than that, the last few pics have been fantastic, and an amazing improvement over the difficult start you had. Keep up the great work!

Hi Antics!

Thanks a lot for stopping by and adding some suggestions. It's most appreciated

Ah, calyxes. Very interesting. But just to be clear, are you referring to those "pods" I was asking about on page 1 from my post on 4/10?

I've been reading about recommended watering frequencies for coco and it does seem like a lot of the really experienced growers out there seems to water at least once a day. I'd like to try and do that as well, but unfortunately, sometimes other life obligations prevent that from happening. As much as I might like it to be at times, growing is not my full-time job ;-)

I didn't realize that gnats shouldn't normally be attracted to coco. That is also very interesting. My first grow was also in coco and the gnats showed up that time too, but it's totally possible that there was some root rot going on there that I didn't know about. In fact, the only reason I really knew about it this time around was that I started in DWC and was able to visibly see the root rot.

By the way, I see in your journal you're growing in soil. Here's another question for you and whoever else would like to comment. What would be the advantages to growing in soil over coco? I'm wondering if it's something I should consider changing up for my next grow.

Thanks for the kudos. Things have definitely turned around and I'm really excited to start seeing some bud formation soon! I hope you stick around to witness it as well.

&

 

[Major PITA]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Hey snacks-
By consistent with the BTi, I mean with constant use for a couple of reproductive cycles of the insect in question. You can use it non stop as far as I know. It won't harm anything.
Anything will work for your pot covers. I used what I had readily available. The mylar reflects light for the plants and keeps the pot a little cooler. I don't think anything will really keep bugs out. The best defense is healthy plants. You're looking great!

 

[snack420]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Hey snacks-
By consistent with the BTi, I mean with constant use for a couple of reproductive cycles of the insect in question. You can use it non stop as far as I know. It won't harm anything.
Anything will work for your pot covers. I used what I had readily available. The mylar reflects light for the plants and keeps the pot a little cooler. I don't think anything will really keep bugs out. The best defense is healthy plants. You're looking great!

Thanks for the clarification on the BTi usage Major PITA. I'm going to plan to use it consistently from here on out unless I run into problems. There are a couple of things I'm not sure about with the BTi application. First, it says on the box to use a teaspoon per 25sq ft. Not really sure how to translate that into gallons of water/nute mix. Any thoughts on that? Next, the girls are starting to drink more and more so I have to mix up batches every other day now. I usually mix hydrogen peroxide to my tap water and let that sit for 24 hours before adding anything else. However, I understand letting the BTi soak in the water is what lets is dissolve and become useful. I wonder if I can add the BTi in right away with the H2O2 or whether the H2O2 would actually kill the beneficial BTi. Any clue? I'll see if I can find anyone talking about that online. If I have to wait to add the BTi until the H2O2 dissipates I'll have to start getting multiple batches ready in a rolling fashion.

 

[Major PITA]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

Sorry - I've never used h2o2. IDK if it hurts the BT, or not.
I use the "dunks" I used about 1/3 of a dunk (maybe 2 teaspoons to 1 tablespoon in size?) and just let it float in a bucket full of water. When I water or feed the plants, that is the water I use. I did it non-stop for my last grow and it didn't hurt the plant at all.

 

[snack420]

Re: Snacks - DWC Bucket - 600W MH/HPS Grow Journal - Strawberry Diesel & Super Lemon

I took Graytail's advice and raised my lights by a few inches such that the highest growths are now 14" from the 600W HPS light. And the good news is that for the first time yesterday, the very beginnings of bud formations are now visible! This is getting me all jazzed up

I watered them with 1/2g each and got decent runoff from everyone except Vera who is growing in the Coco Slacker stuff Slacker®, which is Coco amended with some extra stuff like bat guano and so forth. For some reason there was no runoff on that one and this has been a pattern since I transplanted into Coco. (Not really sure why I keep capitalizing that word.)

I also noticed that Vera is a darker shade of green than the other three, so she must be the Super Lemon Haze and the other three are the Strawberry Diesels. I had failed to label them correctly when I first transplanted them into the DWC buckets, so I lost track of which were which strains. It seems to clearer now though. And the amazing thing is that Vera is the one that had the worst root rot and was looking the most unhealthy in DWC, but now she is the second largest and strongest looking plant. Really amazing how things have changed over the last month or so!

Yesterday I fed them with a 60% strength mix using the same ingredients as last time, so I won't rehash it again. The pH was oscillating between 5.8 and 5.9 with my tester and the ppm is around 830 and EC of 1.14.

As far as the gnat situation goes, it seems somewhat stable from the perspective of gnats caught on sticky traps. I count 59 on the traps in total over the last 2 days. I think I may plan to use the hot water and H2O2 drench approach weekly unless anyone says that's a bad idea. I'd like to try and make sure any larvae are dead on a regular basis.

Without further ado, here are some pics for y'all... (it's funny that depending on where I hold the camera, sometimes I get the orangy HPS hue and sometimes I get a nice green hue)

Vera

Close-ups

side view

AcuRite Hygrometer - I'm trying to get the RH down a bit by increasing the outtake fan speed

possibly deficiency symptoms

Mosquito Bits - how much to use per gallon? Directions are by square feet

Blackstrap Molasses - I'm going to start adding this to the mix soon

Hope everyone has a very green day!