2016 - Perpetual Basement Blues In RDWC - 1000W HPS - Autoflowering Blue Strains

[growchick]

Quite the opposite reaction here.

All those hoses! Id trip, or forget which line goes to who constantly.
Looks like a lot of work, think ill stick with dirt.

But good job, ya dun well with the new setup

HAHAHAHAHAHAH I've already tripped twice now, and it's not even 12 hours since I've built it, and I've slept in that time.

I like how uniform and clean it is. Are autos best for the bucket setup? I could do 4 under my 400w HPS, plenty of space for the rez, and the air flow is fantastic. Sounds like my next perpetual, huh, huh?

Well, my goal now is to put seeds in the little nursery bucket once a month, move them to the middle buckets after 25 days, move them to the big light after 25 days, so I'm starting something every month, and picking something every month.

It doesn't matter if it's autos or photos - I used to grow photos in very similar buckets back in the day (they had pvc parts instead of the soft vinyl tubes but that's the only real difference) Actually, to some extent, autos do better in these 5 gallon buckets than photos do because they have such shorter lives - the autos don't get any root issues at all. WIth photos, sometimes you have to trim out the roots when you change out nutes.

For me, hydro is way easier than soil because I suck at watering plants.

 

[growchick]

Four of six are showing preflowers with pistils - the other two have what I think are calyxes but are still too small to be definite.

 

[DankWolf907]

If you ever got sick of hydro, you could look into the SWICK way of watering. Just to put it out there..

But youre doing fine as is, maybe get those handrails and some saftey runner lights on the floor so you dont trip. ..some pillows and cusions on each side to break the fall

 

[G00ch]

well you could also do a much more simplified method of hydroponics with all the same equipment in a slightly different config and using it as an ebb and flow system rather then dwc and you would only have 1 line ou to each bucket at most, the airline stays in the res

 

[G00ch]

I see what you did there! hahah



It's really crazy when these autos take off, they really take off!

OK so I got the new garden built. I took some pictures for the DIY curious.

Start with 6 buckets and put a 3/4" hole in the bottom and a 1/4" hole in the top. Put rubber grommet and straight barbed connector in the bottom holes. The top hole is for air line.


Make a manifold from little bits of 1/2" ID tube and t connectors. I put a smaller hose on the end this time instead of capping it off because I want water to flow in to the res faster than it leaves it. Rubber grommet and straight barbed connector in the 12 holes in the large reservoir bucket.


Add water pump, connected to manifold. Add air pump.


I transplanted the 6 blue mystic from the little nursery garden into 6 inch net pots. The roots were so big!



Happy in their new homes.

you could also run the bucket lines to the wall, put a 90 and more tube down the wall, then another 90 heading towards the buckets and then you would gain your walking space back. Just route all hoses in the same direction

 

[growchick]

If you ever got sick of hydro, you could look into the SWICK way of watering. Just to put it out there..

But youre doing fine as is, maybe get those handrails and some saftey runner lights on the floor so you dont trip. ..some pillows and cusions on each side to break the fall

SWICK is like the hydro/soil hybrid? You create a water table under the soil for the tap roots to water themselves?

I did move one of the weights over the blue hoses to kind of pinch them together some and remind me not to trip on them. I'm pretty well trained to avoid weights on the floor now. I'm so stupidly clumsy - it's a real miracle I haven't pulled the whole garden down yet, TBH.

well you could also do a much more simplified method of hydroponics with all the same equipment in a slightly different config and using it as an ebb and flow system rather then dwc and you would only have 1 line ou to each bucket at most, the airline stays in the res

True - someday I'm going to convert them to aeroponic buckets by extending the return hose to have sprayer heads on it and wrap around the net bucket instead of just draining water into the cell - like I did on the nursery buckets. I've just been lazy to build the insides since they're working well, as is.

you could also run the bucket lines to the wall, put a 90 and more tube down the wall, then another 90 heading towards the buckets and then you would gain your walking space back. Just route all hoses in the same direction

Yeah, if I hadn't been so cheap and bought more tubing, I could have left more room to walk! haha.

There's so much more I could have done - and judging by how many times I keep rebuilding this thing, there's so much more I will do!

The tallest of the 6 is just about 11.5" now. The four taller of the six are the ones showing preflowers definitively. They're on 800 PPM aggressive growth nutes - at 6 weeks old I'll switch them to bloom nutes, I guess. I had a lovely chart worked out with days and when to switch and all, but I've thrown that out the window. These autoflowering plants don't seem to give a flying rat's ass what you want - they're gonna do what they're gonna do when they want to do it (and not a damn one of them read the breeder's notes on their packages as far as I can tell). LOL

 

[growchick]

Checked pH again and gave 1 mL pH Down - kinda funny since I'm struggling to get pH up in the older plants' bucket.

Here they are the day after transplanting to new buckets:


This one wilted completely over night because I didn't get its root through the net pot when I moved it. Fed it with a baster from above for about 15 minutes, and it stood right back up. Two leaves won't make it, but otherwise, she's fine.


This is the one I attempted to FIM but didn't get quite deep enough - only managed to deform a few leaves but not split the stem :/ Oh, well, builds character!


This one is a little miniature - just like that one little miniature plant I had with the narcotherapy. It's got the same number of nodes and leaves as its sisters, but it's fully 60% smaller, at least. It's not quite even 4" tall.


The narcotherapy that was like this turned into a hermaphrodite, and I composted it. I'm wondering if this one herms, and if I kept it in another room and harvested its pollen, if i pollenated one of the remaining plants - would those seeds be feminized? would they be autoflowering?

Next weekend I'll be sprouting something new up there in the nursery buckets. Blue Amnesia or Narco Purps ... still undecided. I kinda want to do both, but with the inconsistency in these auto seeds, I'm not sure 3 of each gives me enough to evaluate the strain.

 

[CCOiler]

Subscribed growchick, Great journal, great information & awesome DIY. I'll be in the shadows just keep a eye out for my foot prints.

 

[mokel]

autoflowering comes with the ruderalis genes, so any offspring should be autoflowering as well when the genes were passed to them
and if you use herm pollen, those will get you feminized seeds, but i read, that those herms, without any manual treatment, have an increased chance of herm in later life as one on it's parents has already proved it likes to do so under (little) stress.

 

[growchick]

Subscribed growchick, Great journal, great information & awesome DIY. I'll be in the shadows just keep a eye out for my foot prints.

Glad to have you along! Welcome!

autoflowering comes with the ruderalis genes, so any offspring should be autoflowering as well when the genes were passed to them
and if you use herm pollen, those will get you feminized seeds, but i read, that those herms, without any manual treatment, have an increased chance of herm in later life as one on it's parents has already proved it likes to do so under (little) stress.

That's what I was thinking, they should produce feminized seeds - thanks!

 

[Budworshipper]

Hi growchick...

Glad to see ya ladies have shot up.... And now in new homes... Lots of room for those roots to stretch out... Nice long healthy roots aswell...

I would be going arse over head all the time in that room too .... Hope you ok tho..

Hope the ladies respond to all your hard work... And get their grow on real soon

 

[growchick]

Hi growchick...

Glad to see ya ladies have shot up.... And now in new homes... Lots of room for those roots to stretch out... Nice long healthy roots aswell...

I would be going arse over head all the time in that room too .... Hope you ok tho..

Hope the ladies respond to all your hard work... And get their grow on real soon

When I first go into the garden, I sit on the floor and meditate for 3 minutes, then I get up and go about the gardening very, very slowly being highly conscious of every movement. I only trip once or twice a day, this way.

Thanks!!! I hope they turn out like the one I just picked today - 860.2 grams wet off one narcotherapy plant at day 72. I'm so excited right now!!!

 

[growchick]

5 of 6 have preflowers now of the girl variety. That weird little one looks like it will turn out male. The tallest is 12".

 

[growchick]

If I were going to LST these plants, now would be the day to start doing so. The taller ones are just over a foot each (3 of them) and they are super flexible right now. I can't see a way to LST them that won't be totally disrupted when I have to move them to the 1000W light area in a few weeks, though. I could put some little loop things on the net pot lids that I can attach tie downs to, but I'm not sure what I can affix to those tops that won't come un-attached later. My best idea so far is to drill two little holes and run a zip clip through to leave a loop to put the tie downs on - just put 4-6 of these loops in each lid. Then when I move them to the next garden, they stay tied down. Until I know what a strain's max height is, though, I really don't want to LST any of them. I like to see them grow wild and free and however they like to be.

 

[Budworshipper]

Hi growchick...

On the question of height... The mystics are mainly indica, short n bushy... About 50-80cm in height... Maybe more under your lights and RDWC....

Thats what Nirvana reckon anyways....

Hope that helps ya

 

[slayer44]

How old are they grow chick?

 

[growchick]

How old are they grow chick?

The Blue Mystic germinated on 11/17, so they are 28 days now. (I suck at date math, give or take).

Hi growchick...

On the question of height... The mystics are mainly indica, short n bushy... About 50-80cm in height... Maybe more under your lights and RDWC....

Thats what Nirvana reckon anyways....

Hope that helps ya

Ooo 80 cm would be the ideal height in my space to not require any kind of training. Any higher than 3 feet and they start to burn from the lamp.

 

[growchick]

OK It's here! and it works!

Ta Dah!!

Mechanical Dry Ice Kiefer/Hashish Extractor

I am so excited to unveil the mechanical dry ice kiefer/hash maker. It actually works! All the images are clickable to bigger versions.
You need these things:


You need 2 25s, 1 75, 1 100, 1 200, and 1 400 of the screens. If you can afford more than 2 25s, get 2-4 more.

Start with the jiggly thing, which comes unassembled. If you're high when you put it together, take it from me, turn it upside down. All the clever ways you can think of to keep those little square nuts in their space do not work when it is right side up. Trust me on that.


Once you've got it together, flip it over, and put the post in. Now, you'd normally put the lid on with the wing nut. Put the lid on but save the wing nut. Drill a 1/4" hole in the center of a bucket. Put the bucket on the post, and now put the wing nut on. Your machine is pretty much complete at this point!

A note on drill bits - the ones for wood, on the right, make cleaner holes and are easier to push through plastic buckets.

First you use a second bucket to freeze your trim/bud. Put the second bucket in the machine. Fill with shattered dry ice and trim - it works best when there's twice as much plant as dry ice. Say 2 inch of trim then 1 inch of dry ice and layer til you're out of trim. Put a 25 micron screen on the bucket just to keep any CO2 vapor from carrying away any kief. Turn the jiggler on and let it go for 5 minutes - this is just to freeze the trim. If you're working with more than 3 or 4 inches of trim, stir it once or twice during this time. If you're using cured bud, skip this step.


A note about plant matter and dry ice and jiggling time - If you start with fresh trim, you're going to take a long time to freeze and start producing kief. As it jiggles, crush the frozen stuff between your fingers, remove the stems that jiggle up to the top, stir it pretty frequently. The smaller the pieces, the faster this process goes. If you start with large cut fresh trim, it will be like ground shake in an hour. If you start with ground stuff, you start jiggling out the kief faster in the process.

Take this bucket out of the machine. Put a 25 micron screen in the machine. If you're using fresh trim, put the 400 micron screen in the 25. Put the trim and dry ice and jiggle the piss out of it until it's hard frozen, crumbles easily in your fingers with gentle pressure, and you've picked out most of the stems. Check it every 30 seconds or so, and once you start to see stuff coming through the 400 onto the 25, take the 400 screen out and set it aside. Check your 25 and scrape it if necessary. Put your trim and dry ice in the 75 screen and put the 75 screen in the 25 screen in the machine. Jiggle for 10 minutes. Move the trim and ry ice to the 100 screen and jiggle for 10 minutes. Move it to the 200 screen and jiggle for 10-30 minutes. Stir the trim around in the screen periodically. Crush any large buds you find. Take out stems. Lift the top screen periodically - when the color changes to green, you're done. Empty the screens. At this point, I put all the trim back in the 100 screen, set it in a 25 screen and put it back on the machine. I let it run until the dry ice was all sublimated. Just to see what I would get.



If you're using dry buds - say an ounce or two, stack the screens in order 25, 75, 100, 200, 400 and put your crushed dry buds in the 400 with the shattered dry ice. Turn it on. Wait about 30 minutes.


It jiggles best when the top screen is no more than 3/4 full. In the beginging before every thing was really frozen well, it wouldn't fit in one screen, so I took a 3rd bucket, cut the bottom off of it, and extended the sides of my 400 screen by setting the bucket inside it. Nothing was coming out the 400 screen, though, so I picked all the big stems out, crushed the ice up smaller, and did it by thirds in the 400 screen until it all compressed enough to fit in the screen at once.


What I find really handy is having several extra 25s. I can take it out and be scraping it while I'm running the ice/trim mix over a spare 25.

You should wear gloves and you should stir the buds with a wood spoon and not your hands. Otherwise you get kief all over yourself.


It's kinda cool while it's on, the stuff that has filtered down onto the 25 screens jiggles itself into little balls.


I got 2 g of 75, 3 g of 100, and I quit weighing the 200 at around 18g. I'll put all the 200 into a stick of butter, I think, and bake something.

You can tell which of the 200 was collected later based on how green it was.

I wanted to not miss anything, so I moved my trim/ice mix from the 75 to 100 to 200 screens several times over. I probably could have put it all in the 400, stacked them up in order, and walked away for 45 minutes too. I mean, if I were someone else.

 

[Light Addict]

Subbed up a little late, doh! Yet hopefully still room for a little un

 

[DankWolf907]

This sounds like alot... Of fun! *sighh* next year!