Aberration Goes ker Bloom! - 2009

[Aberration]

Yeah, I'm going to be doing a bit of staking. It has indeed turned into a jungle. I need to clean that up, but it's doing alright for now and I don't have time yet. Maybe Saturday.

The space issue isn't too bad, and I have a plan to improve it going forward. Just not right now. I'm going to wait until most of these are harvested, because I need to move lights and that will be easier when the room is nearly empty.

I intend to put the next wave through at the same start time. The staggered start is efficient and all, but it's a lot more work because they are less alike and need more varied treatment.

---

I'm thinking I may be done trying the PBP Bloom formula by the end of this round. The one that's been getting it (OC1) still looks much like the control (OC3). The color is a bit different and so is the growth pattern. But it's close enough as to be inconsequential. It will be up to yield and taste, and I will only use the PBP if it is noticeably better, which I do not expect.

---

The CO2 went empty last night, so I got a refill today at lunch. It's back in place and the ppms are back up to 1800.

I also picked up a 1/4 hp submersible utility pump today. It's a Flotec FPSC1725X from Home Depot if anyone cares. It seems to do a great job. It comes with a hose adapter. I hooked a hose up, dropped in into my sump (had about 30 gal in it), drug the end out into the back yard, an plugged it in.

It wasn't regular hose pressure, but it puts out a hose-size stream and if you spray with your thumb, you can throw a 12' spray or stream. It's supposed to pump 21 GPM with no head, and 19 GPM at a 5 foot head height (how high it has to pump the water upward). It emptied the sump in a couple minutes. I could put a basic sprinkler on the end and my yard would love it. On the other hand, it might atomize enough to gag the neighbors with the smell.

Finally, I picked up a small hand truck and straps to lug the CO2 tank around with. That thing is hernia-heavy. I could swear I felt my intestines trying to pop through last time I dead-lifted it past 4 stairs. Never again. I'm too old for that crap.

---

I decided to work up a list of the nutrients I use and provide a little detail, all in one spot. That way I can link to it in my signature, and anyone can then quickly jump there for reference. I'm going to be doing this with a few things going forward, including how-I-do-it posts. Give me a few minutes and I should have it done.

Water for the cutlings.

--> MTO1:
1. Pre-flush: 1/2 gal. 
   Per gal:
	 1  T  liquid bone meal
   pH 6.21 @ 23.9 C

2. Feed: 1 gal.
   Per gal:
	 2  t  Soil Nute
	 2  t  PGE
	 1  T  Notrazyme
	 1  oz yucca
	 2  t  Biggest Bloom
	 2  t  liquid bone meal
	 2  t  Feather Tea
	 1  oz Amino Blast
	1/2 t  Carbon sweet
	 1  t  Cal-Mag
         1  T  Calcium Syrup
	 1  t  Companion

   Raise to 1230 ppm with Bioactive
   Bring up with liquid lime to pH 6.24 @ 23.8 C

[Aberration]

I use these nutrients:

Harvest Moon Organics:

• Soil Nutrient 3-7-3 - A nice general nutrient good for both grow and bloom.
• Plant Growth Enhancer (PGE) - Organic acids, humus, V B1, 5% humic acid (leonardite), 5% kelp extract
• Notrazyme - (not Nitrozyme) - 10% kelp extract
• Yucca Extract - wetting agent, makes water 'wetter' - better nutrient-root contact
• Biggest Bloom Tea 0-3-0 - Worm castings and sea bird guano
• Liquid Steamed Bone Meal 0-10-0 - plus humic acid
• Feather Tea 3-0-0 - "enzyme hydrolysate" (?), primary source of N
• Amino Blast - water soluble amino acid supplement
• "One Bottle Organic Bioactive Supplement", AKA Bioactive 1-5-1 - This stuff has just about everything in it, plants love it, doesn't burn very easily, and is a great ppm topper. Feather meal, kelp, acids, castings, bone meal, carbs, humics, soybean meal, yeast and yucca. Mmmmm.
• Calcium and Magnesium - It's cal-mag.
• Calcium syrup - my mentor says he liked Ca-Mg, but when he pushed it too far, he had Mg issues and had to back off. He know the guys that make this brand, and he saw one day they had a bottle of just the Ca in a syrup form. He asked if he could buy some. They hesitated because it is a difficult thing to source, and it's more an ingredient than a supplement, but they sold him a gallon. He started at 1 Tbsp / gal and has worked up past 2. He says it improves the strength of the structure and they grow bigger. He also says it improves the taste. He buys it by the pallet now. I'm trying and so far, I can't complain. I have to know somebody just to get this stuff. Start asking your grow shop for it every time you go in. If enough people do, maybe they'll source it for you, if they don't already carry it.
• "Carbon Sweet Love Bud", AKA Carbon Sweet - carbs for the microorganisms in your medium. Dextrose, malic acid, lactic acid, fructose, and sucrose. If the organisms in the soil are happy, your plants will be healthy.
• Big Foot - just kelp and humic acid, but it works well after a transplant to encourage greater root mass.
• Bloom Power - A foliar spray intended for the first month of bloom that I have never remembered to use. Kelp.
• Liquid Lime - 10% Ca, made from Oregon limestone. My pH up. Use too much and you are hosed. Very strong, very corrosive, burns skin on contact.
• Golden Amber - Organic acids: humic, citric, fulvic, hymatomelanic (?). This is my pH down. It takes more because it's not primarily intended and a pH adjuster, but plants love it and it's a lot more forgiving to add than the lime is.

Other brands:

• Ful-Power - Humic acids.
• Companion - Bacilus subtilis GB03. Roots love this and will maintain a symbiotic relationship with it. More importantly, on the advice of my mentor, I use this every feed. I don't ever do a normal flush until the last 10 days, and I can keep the soil wetter longer without rot. I'm convinced this stuff saves my a$$ and improved my yield. This and the aggressive feeding schedule.
• Budswel 0.01-0.10-0.01 - Bat guano, seabird guano, and earthworm castings in seaweed extract. The worst smell ever, but plants love it, and it is hard to burn with this stuff. I'm still figuring out how much to use.
• Pure Blend Pro Grow 3-2-4 - After comparing this to the Harvest Moon veg regimen, this is cheaper, easier, faster and actually works better. All my veg gets is this with Companion.
• Pure Blend Pro Bloom 1-4-5 - For soil and coco. Testing this against the Harvest Moon bloom regimen, but I don't expect it to hold up to the test like the PBP Grow does.

Also on hand:

• Distilled water - for meter rinsing mostly.
• Spring water - it's what little plants and clones get when they only get water.
• Hydrogen Peroxide 3% H2O2. A better choice for cleaning and sterilization than bleach. Turns into water and oxygen in three days.
• Bleach - For those times when it has to be be spotless and only bleach will do. Never without massive ventilation.
• 91% Isopropyl alcohol - Get it in the red bottle by the quart at Wal-Mart. Great for soaking and cleaning glass. Also removes what's left after you scrape the finger hash from your fingers. Soap doesn't get that crap off, but this does.
• GH Std Ref. Solution - pH 7.0 - for storing and calibtation of the pH meter.
• GH Std Ref. Solution - pH 4.01 - for storing and calibtation of the pH meter.
• TDS calibration solution - 1382 ppm reference solution for calibration.
• Azatrol - great at killing spider mites. I only use it as a last resort however and haven't in months.
• Fungus Gnat Treatment - Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis. That's from memory, so I hope the Latin is correct. I use this for the constant fight against fungus gnats. I got rif of them for a month or two, but they come back, so I'm going to just use it weekly or so from now on. This bacteria kills the larval stage of fungus gnats. That is where the damage happens - they eat the small hairs on the roots and starve the plant. The flying ones are only an annoyance. Yellow card and this can stop them if you are persistent.
• Williewann Wonder Dust - Mycorrhizae, trichoderma, and bacillus sp. I'm not typing in the full list, because it's the whole back of the cannister is small print. Just about everything you ever heard of is in there, ready to colonize your soil and help your plants. I sprinkle it on bare roots when transplanting and everyone gets a heapin' helpin' at least twice.

---

You may notice that I'm pretty organic in my approach, and that I use as many different sources of the basic nutrients as I can. Lots of the guanos add to smell and taste, and don't change ppm much. I actually overlap on a lot of stuff. While I think I could simplify some, the more forms of the same nutrients I give the plants, the better I am told they will do. And I would say that sounds plausible. Plus this regimen yielded a crap-load of really good pot last time and I don't want to screw it up now.

Anyway, this approach lets me really load the plants with minimal burn. In return I'm getting great growth. My mentor regularly pulls 12 oz per plant in his rooms, so it's kinda hard to argue, especially when the bud is as good as it is. I'm not too proud to take obviously good nutritional advice and just run with it.

---

Maybe in the next one of these, I'll try to explain my feeding schedule.

[BWC BayArea]

Well organized as usual and nicely put. Good to see u can still work in that jungle without messing things up. I have to be careful where I step, how I turn and everything. Lights above, pots and saucers below. I've step on a saucer rim and almost launched a pot.

[Aberration]

--> MTO2, Cutlings (*VEG*):
1. Feed: Water to saturation
   Per gal:
	  1  T Pure Blend Pro Grow
	  .5 t Companion

   Add PBP to 800 ppm
   Bring up with liquid lime to pH 6.25 @ 22.8 C

--> OC5, MTN1, OC3, MTN2:
1. Pre-flush: 1/2 gal. 
   Per gal:
	 1  T  liquid bone meal
   pH 6.20 @ 23.4 C

2. Feed: 1 gal. ea.
   Per gal:
	 2  T  Budswel (0.01-0.10-0.01)
	 2  t  PGE
	 1  T  Notrazyme
	 1  oz yucca
	 2  t  Biggest Bloom
	 2  t  liquid bone meal
	 2  t  Feather Tea
	 1  oz Amino Blast
	1/2 t  Carbon sweet
	 1  t  Cal-Mag
         1  T  Calcium Syrup
	 1  t  Companion

   Raise to 1300 ppm with Bioactive
   Bring up with liquid lime to pH 6.25 @ 22.7 C

--> OC1:
1. Feed: 1.5 gal.
   Total for 1.5 gal:
	 3  T  Pure Blend Pro Bloom (1-4-5, soil and coco formula)
	1.5 oz yucca
	1.5 oz Amino Blast
	 1  t  Carbon sweet
        1.5 T  Calcium Syrup
	1.5 t  Companion

   Dilute to 1300 ppm
   Bring up with liquid lime to pH 6.26 @ 22.5 C

I left the thermostat for the AC is program mode last night. I'm pretty sure it was on full blast for 12 hours. When I opened the room at lights-on it was 95 F in there and the cold side of the AC was a solid mass of ice. I'm just guessing that with the AC on full blast all that time, it gathered much of the moisture from the air and it froze. Once it was solid, the cold side could keep it frozen, but it couldn't cool the room. I've been defrosting repeatedly and draining off the resulting water. It still frosts up right now, but the temp is coming down, It's at 85 F now and slowly dropping. Gah. This sucks.

---

I redid my aging res today. I keep water in a trash can with bubblers to age the water before I give it to my plants. Today I made some upgrades and solved a problem:

Here is the base. It holds it off the floor for convenience:



I bought a 44 gallon Rubbermaid Brute garbage can. It's a good size. I drilled a hole in the side and inserted a 3/4" (i.d.) bulkhead fitting that has threads on the female (outside of the res) side. I used a 1-1/8" hole saw for this. Just had to clean up the burrs after with a utility knife. Then I added a ball valve and a bend to make this:



At the top I added some wide headed zinc plated screws to act as risers around the top rim. This prevents the lid from snapping in place and maintains a gap. This allows the res to breathe and the air lines can also snake through now without being pinched:



I have two air bars in the bottom to aerate the water. They are the longer ones like this:



The thing is, they are always turning upside down. It drives me nuts. Maybe the bubbling is fine that way, but I want them turned right side up anyway:



I needed to find something inert that would keep them upright. No metal or wood. And then I had an inspiration - I could fix this with two of the same hangers I use for drying:



Cut each of them right here:



Cut on both 'shoulders' of both hangers, leaving you with two of these (toss the tops or whatever):



Wedge one of the hanger pieces into the bottom at one end of a bar, like this:



Here's another angle for clarity:



Do this to both ends of both bars so that it makes a semi-rigid square, like this:



Now it can drop into the bottom of the res and it won't flip over:



See, it looks much better now:



And here is the result. Later I will add a permanent filtered water feed with a ball valve and a float valve, so that it can fill itself. Right now it gives me fresh clean tap water with no chlorine, and it's easy to use:



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The Bloom room is at 79 F now. I'm beat but I want to see it working correctly.

[Setting Sun]

Thanks for the DIY porn!

That coat hanger solution for your air stones is excellent, thanks for sharing that.

Our garage is so cluttered right now that I can hardly get near my grow corner. Maybe I'll make some headway this weekend.

thanks for the inspiration bro!

[Aberration]

Originally Posted by setting sun

Thanks for the DIY porn!

That coat hanger solution for your air stones is excellent, thanks for sharing that.

Our garage is so cluttered right now that I can hardly get near my grow corner. Maybe I'll make some headway this weekend.

thanks for the inspiration bro!

No problem.

---

Just water for the cutlings tonight.

---

The AC unit seems fine now. I was up past 2 o'clock in the morning, but I eventually cleared the ice and got it working well again. Just in case, however, the girls spent the last 5 hours of their 7pm-7am 'day' huddled under the one center 600W lamp. I turned the others off. I wanted to be sure it wouldn't all go to hell-in-a-handbasket again on me while I got 4-1/2 hours sleep before work. Gah. That was messed up by the way.

In any case, all seemed well this morning, so right before I left for work I plugged in the other three lights so that they would all turn back on at 7pm. This evening when I got home I checked, and again at 7:30, and finally just now. The moisture is gone, everything is in working order and the AC is taking the full load with confidence.

So the lesson is apparently that an AC running full blast indefinitely can lead to disaster. In the grow-control software I am writing, I need to make sure that no matter what, the AC is never allowed to run indefinitely. I would rather the temps climb a bit and everything stay working than have that thing ice over and the temps go through the roof like that again.

Maybe it would be good to have a secondary AC that can be switched on while the primary thaws. I mean, now that I know not to leave the thermostats in programming mode (and I would be moving away from the things anyway), it's unlikely the AC would do that again. But it would be nice to be sure. I would also need to figure out a way for the system to sense the frost-up. I'll have to think it through.

I do tend to take everything farther than necessary. It gets me in trouble sometimes. I should have known that a 25,000 btu AC was rank overkill for a sealed 730 cubic foot space. Now I know that (too much cold) + (too much wet) can take down even this AC unit.

In any case, the AC is great again. Whew! Live and learn, I guess. The girls seem to be OK. They had good CO2 saturation to offset the heat a little.

[Aberration]

Everybody gets fed tonight. The cutlings are scheduled to be transplanted to larger digs tomorrow night.

--> MTO2, Cutlings (*VEG*):
1. Feed: Water to saturation
   Per gal:
	  1  T Pure Blend Pro Grow
	  .5 t Companion
   Add PBP to 800 ppm
   Bring up with liquid lime to pH 6.23 @ 22.7 C

--> OC5, MTN1, OC3, MTN2, MTO1:
1. Pre-flush: 1/2 gal. 
   Per gal:
	 1  T  liquid bone meal
   6.20 @ 22.9 C

2. Feed: 1 gal. ea.
   Per gal:
	 2  t  Soil Nute
	 2  t  PGE
	 1  T  Notrazyme
	 1  oz yucca
	 2  t  Biggest Bloom
	 2  t  liquid bone meal
	 2  t  Feather Tea
	 1  oz Amino Blast
	1/2 t  Carbon sweet
	 1  t  Cal-Mag
         1  T  Calcium Syrup
	 1  t  Companion
   1350 ppm
   Bring up with liquid lime to pH 6.20 @ 22.7 C

--> OC1:
1. Feed: 1.5 gal.
   Total for 1.5 gal:
	 3  T  Pure Blend Pro Bloom (1-4-5, soil and coco formula)
	1.5 oz yucca
	1.5 oz Amino Blast
	 1  t  Carbon sweet
        1.5 T  Calcium Syrup
	1.5 t  Companion
   Dilute to 1350 ppm
   Bring up with liquid lime to pH 6.21 @ 22.4 C

I believe the last time all y'all saw my work area, it looked something like this:



Well, due to recent efforts, it now looks like this:



Those little blue bins on the right are being sorted, except the top one, which contains a good bit of my stash.

The laptop that was in such bad shape was replaced with a widescreen LCD and a decent keyboard. Also I'm using a nice wireless mouse. I like it better now, except if you are too tall you can't see the monitor. It's only semi temporary anyway. It'll be just fine.

The picture is stitched together from about 10 originals, so it has a few sloppy blurred ares. Good enough for my purposes though.

[cigo]

:D what a lab!:D

[Aberration]

So tonight I transplanted the cutlings from 3.5'x3.5" pots to 4 gallon grow bags. I watered them in with myco, Bt-i and Bigfoot (1% kelp extract and 0.5% humic acid).

I bought one of those rubber keyboards you can roll up, etc. It's completely waterproof, which is good because I often type with dripping hands here in the grow space. It's a bit different to use than a normal keyboard, but I don't touch type, so I've gotten pretty used to it just typing this post. The only issue so far is that it doesn't always register my space bar usage. I'll give it some time and see how I like it. It was less than $13, so it's no great loss if I end up disliking it.

[Aberration]

Well, I took pictures, so I might as well post them.

Just so you get the idea, I've had these darlin's in these itty-bitty pots. There are five of these cutlings. They are all about 18" tall and healthy, like this one. But they need bigger pots, stat:



To prepare, I made up 4 gal of pH 6.20 water with 9 tsp gnatrol granules, 4 Tbl Wonder Dust (myco), and 4 tsp Big Foot:



I also have a spray bottle of balanced water:



And the myco dust and a spoon:



I add soil to the bottom, being sure to fill the corners and make a flat bottom. If I don't, the contents will shift with watering, sometimes in ways I don't want. I don't pack it too tight though:



I then set the transplantee in on top. I want to see if the soil line on the old pot is about where I want it in the new one. I like to just cover the original soil:



I gently squeeze the old pot a bit to loosen the soil a small amount. That way the old pot slips off easy. I then pour the loose perlite on the top into the trash. Finally, holding the base of the stalk between my middle and ring finger with my palm to the soil, I invert the plant and gently remove the pot. I took a blurry pic, but this one is root-bound. The roots are OK considering what they eat and how stressed they likely are:



I spritz the roots with the water bottle, partly to keep the roots moist, and partly to help the myco dust stick. I dust all sides and the bottom with myco. I also dust the soil in the new pot where the root ball will sit. Here's a blurry pic of the dusted roots:



I then set the plant into the new pot on the myco dust and hold the root ball in place with one hand while I backfill gently around the sides with the other. I try to just cover the original soil, as mentioned. I don't touch the roots and try not to disturb them. I also will bury it slightly tipped if it will leave it centered in the pot with a vertical stem. I then water in with 3/4 gal of the premixed water. I always re-stir well before watering, as the Bt-i granules will settle out pretty quickly:



Afterward, I re-level the surface soil. Here's the 5 new ladies now:



Their new designators are OC6, OC7, MTN3, MTN4, and MTO3. They will be in veg until the next round goes in all at once.

OC = Orange Crush
MTN = Matanuskan Thunderfuck (new pheno)
MTO = Matanuskan Thunderfuck (old pheno)

It's looking to be nothing but OC and Matty around here for the foreseeable future. I gotta do something about that.

[BWC BayArea]

The roots look awesome (size and color). Using that myco dust promotes root growth or helps with shock? How big of a difference does that silencer make?

[cigo]

Nice, shiftred names :D strain+number...

[SouthernWeed]

Love the DIY airstone bit. Everything looks great here.
+rep

[Aberration]

Originally Posted by BWC BayArea

The roots look awesome (size and color). Using that myco dust promotes root growth or helps with shock? How big of a difference does that silencer make?

I was looking for a little bit whiter, but they do look healthy.

The myco is good all around. It's all beneficial fungi, bacteria and microorganisms, and they like to live right around the roots. The plant benefits from the way they 'pre-digest' nutrients. The plant can use the nutrients the way they come, but after the myco eats them and then craps them out (etc), they nutrients are even more suitable. So they will help with growth both above and below the surface. On top of that, if you establish good myco colonies, they will out-compete the bad organisms and prevent rot and other bad stuff.

The silencer does a good job. I plan to eventually have one one each side of the fan, with the fan itself packed in a box full of fiberglass insulation. Additionally, I'm going to change to the Sunleaves fan for this job - the plastic housing is plenty durable,and much quieter that the metal housing, hands-down.

I have another setup like that, and the Sunleaves plastic housing is so quiet, I have to put my ear within an inch of the housing before I can hear the fan over the rushing air it's pumping out the end of the duct 4 feet over my head. With the metal casing, I can hear the fan itself over the sound of the air from several feet away. I try to use mostly what works, you know?

I also plan to insulate it and duct it diagonally across the ceiling, flaring that to 8" or larger on the way to the exhaust end.

Together, I would expect that would reduce the noise to just the sound of the air leaving the exhaust side. As it is, just having that one silencer on the exhaust side of the fan has reduced the decibel level by 40-50% IMO.

Originally Posted by cigo

Nice, shiftred names :D strain+number...

I refer to them as identifiers. Each is unique to a plant. I will have more reason to track them individually as time goes on. I even have a 'register' where I track what IDs have been used.

On the other hand, one of my own human offspring (who assists me enough that I throw $100 at them every few weeks) has come in and given them names, but they are too cumbersome to type. It's easier to use IDs, and also more informative.

Currently, they have names as follows:

MTN1 - Lydia
MTN2 - Pavarti
MTO1 - Lakshmi
OC1 - Veena
OC3 - Julia
OC5 - Monster

They don't get 'name' names like that until they hit bloom.

Originally Posted by SouthernWeed

Love the DIY airstone bit. Everything looks great here.
+rep

Thank you. Yeah, I'm quite pleased as well. The idea popped into my mind fully formed. A lot of ideas do when I'm high. Lately I've been taking light notes, and about 20% of my 'good' ideas seem worth pursuing once I'm no longer stoned. Hehe. Try it. Keep the cream. Toss the rest. I think Edison worked that way. Try everything and keep what works.

--> MTO2 (*VEG*):
1. Feed: Water to saturation
   Per gal:
	  1  T Pure Blend Pro Grow
	  .5 t Companion
   Add PBP to 800 ppm
   Bring up with liquid lime to pH 6.20 @ 22.7 C

--> OC5, MTN1, OC3, MTN2, MTO1:
1. Pre-flush: 1/2 gal. 
   Per gal:
	 1  T  liquid bone meal
   6.24 @ 22.7 C

2. Feed: 1 gal. ea.
   Per gal:
	 2  T  Budswel (0.01-0.10-0.01)
	 2  t  PGE
	 1  T  Notrazyme
	 1  oz yucca
	 2  t  Biggest Bloom
	 2  t  liquid bone meal
	 2  t  Feather Tea
	 1  oz Amino Blast
	1/2 t  Carbon sweet
	 1  t  Cal-Mag
         1  T  Calcium Syrup
	 1  t  Companion
   1300 ppm
   Bring up with liquid lime to pH 6.24 @ 22.3 C

--> OC1:
1. Feed: 1.5 gal.
   Total for 1.5 gal:
	 3  T  Pure Blend Pro Bloom (1-4-5, soil and coco formula)
	1.5 oz yucca
	1.5 oz Amino Blast
	 1  t  Carbon sweet
        1.5 T  Calcium Syrup
	1.5 t  Companion
   Dilute to 1300 ppm
   Bring up with liquid lime to pH 6.24 @ 21.8 C

[cigo]

So monster should be best xD