Strawberry cough - Aeroponic Grow 2

[Marley Haze]

Howdy folks, This is my second grow in an inexpensive aeroponics system I put together in my phonebooth style shower. It fits perfectly. Anyway I am attempting my second grow, it's really my first official attempt since the first one was very experimental and I stress the mental! It's been an interesting few months.

Let me give you a little backstory. I had these seeds I got while traveling abroad. I've had them for a while and just never did anything with them until (for shits and giggles) I got one of those aerogardens you see on TV. The seeds took off! I planted 4. 2 were strawberry cough and the other 2 were Dolce Vita. Very quickly they seem to outgrow the system.
After a couple days: 12/8

12/10

12/26

At this point I should have gone into flowering but being totally clueless I just let them grow.
1/9

After making a few modifications I was able to raise the light and turned my extra shower into a grow room. The kitchen table was a bit much!
1/15

I was doing nothing more than throwing in the tabs they give you every 2 weeks and watched the water level. I new nothing about PH levels or nutes or anything at this point. But I have been bitten by the bug! So i start looking at small systems and buy a few books. Next thing you know...
1/26

Daddy has a new system

A week later using a 3 part nute solution. After much reading and surfing I am starting to figure out the basics.

2/8

They're looking good but I still haven't started flowering yet. It's February already and I started this on December 2nd if you remember. Again I was clueless!


Jumping ahead a few weeks, I'm totally hooked at this point. After several weeks of intensive absorbtion into my brain I not only started a new crop but due to my impolsevness I purchased a BC Blombox. I love it. I like those neat turnkey type setups.

I've transplated my 3 week old flowering plants to soil, outside and they seem to be doing fine believe it or not. I bring them in at night so they don't get too cold. I'm in Socal so the weather is nice enough. They are in a pitch black enviroment for their 12 hrs.
3/1

3/4

OK so that was a brief look at the backstory. I'll get back to the rest later, I need to go check on the kids...

T

 

[gmase22]

Wow, nice. I like the impulsiveness. I got into it the same way, and theres no going back.. Everything looks good hope to see some pics of that new closet set up and those monsters you set out to flower.

 

[Marley Haze]

OK, so that was a brief look. Very brief! I didn't get into all the things I screwed up along the way. It really is amazing those first plants are still alive. I've had humidity problems, heat problems, nute and meter problems, the list goes on. I purchased a BC Bloombox Rayale ( gonna start a separate journal for that grow) which came with 2 meters, a Hanna "Champ" PH stick and a TDS 601. Now I'm thinking I have things together but NOOOPE. After several confusing days I came to find out the calibration fluid (1000 ppm) is the wrong fluid to calibrate a TDS 601. It should be the 1382. So my readings were way off for probably 2 weeks. I was over 2000 on my PPM. But that's all behind me now, let's look to the future and the new grow. Again cause I didn't know better I purchased everything on the Advanced Nutrients recipe list that comes with the BB, I'm going to use them. I know people seem to think it's a lot but I figure other than trying to sell me a bunch of crap that isn't absolutely necessary, they must have done some research so I'll try it and see what happens. So in the strawberry field this is my first week of flowering mix in a 15 gal rez.

Advanced Neutrients
78ml Connoisseur Bloom A and B
45ml Mother's earth Tea Bloom
56.7ml H2
56.7ml F1
6ml Barricade
56ml Carboload
283ml Sensizyme
17g Paranha powder (Premixed and run through a cheese cloth)
17g Tarantula powder (Premixed and run through a cheese cloth)
113ml VooDoo Juice

PH is 5.5 @ 800 ppm

A complete breakfast for any growing kids lol!

I put them in on Tuesday the 3rd and they've grown a good inch, inch and a half. The force is strong in this one!

Not sure what the deal is with the yello/brown spots. I'm gonna take some better pics here in a minute.

OK well that puts us up to today. I'll keep updating as things progress. Gonna work on the BBox Blackberry journal now. Mmmm can't wait for the fruit salad!

 

[Marley Haze]

checked on the strawberry fields this mornig, everything looks stable. I added a 2 ft T5 sunblaster today. We'll see how that improves things.

Lone Bubba amungst the Strawberrys

I pinched this one early on

Gonna go check on the Blackberry patch and the outdoor transplants now. I'll be back in a minute with the outdoor progress. They weren't looking very strong yesterday so I gave them a foliar spray of Revive. We'll see if it helped. I should rephrase that. The outdoor Strawberry wasn't looking strong but the Dulce Vita love the outdoors. They've actually thrived in the past 6 days.

 

[Marley Haze]

Re: Strawberry cough - outdoor transplants

Well, I don't see much of s difference from yesterday. Don't know if the revive helped or not yet.

My PH is high I think. It's a 7
I was watering with RO water but stopped. Now just straight tap.

I'm just getting the Hydro thing down but have no clue AGAIN about soil now. Can anyone tell me what to give them? Can I use the Nutes I already have?

If 6.5ph is optimum how do I adjust ph leves in soil?
Here is the Dulce which seems to have handled the move better.

 

[Marley Haze]

Week 1 of flowering is over! Things look OK. I like that my clones are a little shorter than the original seeds from my first grow.

The Bubba is about 8 inches, (upper right corner) and Jack The Ripper (bottom right) about the same. The rest are Strawberry Cough at about 6 inches.

Jack The Ripper

Bubba

 

[Marley Haze]

Well you knew it was just a matter of time before I screwed something up. LOL! I think I put my strawberries into flower too early. Either that or they're midgets. They are between 6 and 8 inches and after 1 week of flower they are popping buds already. I don't know if this is a good thing or bad but I guess we'll find out. It seems I have to learn things the hard way! LOL. Check'em out.

What do you guys think I should do, let them go and see what happens?

 

[Doctor Dread]

Nah man your fine, let em do their thing. You could have waited longer for bigger flowering plants, but its too late now. They might be small but I think they will still be good producers.

Good luck man

 

[nsanyte34]

Yes. What he said.
Good luck

 

[Cherma]

I take it they were put into a 12/12 cycle from the get go?

 

[Marley Haze]

I take it they were put into a 12/12 cycle from the get go?

I gave them 2 weeks of veg but totally forgot I pinched them. I wanted to slow down veg a little to finish my first grow, then did the swap. It's a long story but my first grow was way overdone. I think they vegged for 2 months. They outgrew the small shower I had them in and had to move them outside. They're still hanging on though.

 

[Marley Haze]

Nah man your fine, let em do their thing. You could have waited longer for bigger flowering plants, but its too late now. They might be small but I think they will still be good producers.

Good luck man

Thanks for that! They seem pretty healthy. And like I mentioned below, I forgot I pinched 4 out of five of them. The one I didn't is 9 inches, the others are 5-6 inches.

 

[flyfishinrock]

this looks like nute burn to me, if your adding nutes, you may want to back off a bit, say -25% or so.
Once the bug bites, it doesn't go away. lol

 

[Marley Haze]

WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE LITTLE BASTARDS AND HOW DO i GET RID OF THEM???

 

[budlover3388]

WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE LITTLE BASTARDS AND HOW DO i GET RID OF THEM???

wish i could help but dont know myself but wats new with the grow?

 

[WheeloFortune]

thay kinda look like aphids, but aphids wouldn't be on roots they only attack stems and leaves and buds.

no idea about the bugs sorry, hey do you lower your lights to get them closer to your plants? couldn't see if your sunmaster was on something adjustable.

 

[flyfishinrock]

To figure out if they are aphids use a magnifying glass to find the pair tiny "duel exhaust pipes" (much like an old VW bug has) on their posteriors (ass). These are properly named cornicles and Aphids are the ONLY insects which have them.

Aphids can be almost any color. Aphids are born pregnant and actually the embryos have embryos in them too. This is why they multiply so quickly.
Let me know if thats what you've got.

 

[Marley Haze]

OK, so I haven't been updating, probably due to my frustration. Let's see, the little bastards really screwed with me and I still don't know their source. I have my suspicions but... I'm not sure. I think carboload had something to do with it though. Between them relentlessly attacking my roots, and the fact I put my strawberries into flower too early so the root system wasn't strong enough to handle it. Ends up, I put them outside and they will have to fend for themselves. They're hanging in there though.

My training plants, (the big ones started in my aerogarden) survived the outdoor transplant and yielded about 7 z's. Not bad considering what I put them through. They're curing now and smell great.

So that's it for this Journal. I'm going to start a new one for the Shiva and Hindu Skunk grow I started vegging 2 weeks ago.

 

[Marley Haze]

thay kinda look like aphids, but aphids wouldn't be on roots they only attack stems and leaves and buds.

no idea about the bugs sorry, hey do you lower your lights to get them closer to your plants? couldn't see if your sunmaster was on something adjustable.

It is on a chain which is adjustable.

 

[WheeloFortune]

cool,

and you are lowering it to how close? what is the wattage?