Archer12 Black Widow LED RDWC Grow To Perpetual - 2017

[Rider509]

Don't give up on RDWC! Soak your air stones, pump, and whatever in bleach for a few minutes to kill any trace of the slime, and start with fresh Hydroton that has been rinsed several times. When you try it again you should dump the rockwool and use Rapid Rooters. Keep the seedlings in the Rapid Rooters until the roots are popping out everywhere and then give them a few more days because we all get too eager to do SOMETHING. When you move them to the RDWC either hand water them around the periphery a couple of times a day or set up a drip ring system until the roots reach down into the water. You may have to mist the plants occasionally to keep them happy but don't water the Rapid Rooters more than just a light spray. The idea is to get the roots to seek out water. Make those bitches work for their water! Once you get a RDWC system dialed in you'll see crazy good results.

 

[ARCHER12]

Thanks for the encouragement Rider! I'll definitely be taking your suggestion on the rapid rooters for next go around. My big worry is the water that backed up into the air pump - I'm worried I'll use it again after cleaning, and have the same issue, but I will definitely be using Z7 after doing some research last night after adamblues gave the suggestion. It's all a learning process, but I'm looking forward to dealing with clones in the RDWC next time. I think I'm going to build a bubble cloner as my next project while these ladies finish up vegging, idle hands and all.

 

[Rider509]

The thing that appeals to me about RDWC is that I feel more like a chemist than a gardener. Soil adds a variable that I have no control over.


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[ARCHER12]

Update** Day 40 from Seed

Overall things are looking pretty good. There are for sure 2 females, and they are the two plants in the center. The one plant that was thought to be male initially (front right) is giving reason to think that may not be the case. Upon further inspection, the small roundish pre flowers seem to be coming more to a point - I'm hopeful that I'll have another female on my hands. Either way it won't bother me because I do want to get into breeding my own strains, and producing seeds of my own.

It has been 8 days since the last feed/water, and everybody is still looking good. The plan is to wait until they start to show signs of under watering before I go ahead and give them another feed, but I am curious as to what point I will need to re-pot them? I was planning on ending up with 5 gal smart pots, but I don't know if I should go directly to 5 gal from 2 gal, so if you have any suggestions, let me know!

P.S. I had a dream that during flower the entire crop was pollinated, and I took the thousands of seeds and planted them all over my city in different places. I love that my subconscious is fighting the good fight. I think I'm going to steal my own idea, and start my own small scale war against the establishment. I'd Love to hear what you guys think!

 

[Spitz]

They don't need any nutrients yet. That FFOF will carry you until transplant. In fact, I'll make a gentleman's wager that if you give them a good soaking, you'll see some nutrient burn on your tips. Should be ready for transplant in (I'm guessing) 2 weeks. Start topping, bending, twisting in the meantime. Looking great!

 

[WillGrow510]

 

[ARCHER12]

They don't need any nutrients yet. That FFOF will carry you until transplant. In fact, I'll make a gentleman's wager that if you give them a good soaking, you'll see some nutrient burn on your tips. Should be ready for transplant in (I'm guessing) 2 weeks. Start topping, bending, twisting in the meantime. Looking great!

Spitz, I'm using the happy frog as opposed to the FFOF because I was told it was better for seedlings, and the plan is to switch to FFOF when I transplant. Do you think directly into 5 gal smart pots is the way to go? It seems silly to pot into a 3 GAL only to stress it out and transplant into 5 gal two weeks later.

Right now the plan is to let them go until they look like they really need a drink, I'm thinking 1-3 days. I saturated 1ml/L nutes last Thursday night along with GW, Voodoo juice, and rhino skin, so that puts them at about 10 days no water (seems pretty long to me) but I'm still going to hold off until they look like they need it. There is a powdery mildew spot I noticed on one of the plants about a week or two ago, and I have neglected to do anything about it because it hasn't grown at all, and actually seems to be getting better. I read that its better to do nothing other than keep the heat a little higher and add a fan, as the PM is systemic and although it can be treated on the leaf surface to keep it from spreading, it doesn't mean its gone. This tells me I'm better off managing with environmental controls than spraying the plants as long as it isn't spreading or getting worse (which it hasn't), but as the journal shows, what do I know?

 

[ARCHER12]

**Day 44 Update**

I watered with Cal/Mag Plus 2 days ago, and after finding a few mites on a few of the plants yesterday, I saturated the tops, bottoms, and stems with neem oil. Overall I think they're looking pretty good.

In some better news, it looks like I've got 5 ladies on my hands! I think I've got a few different phenotypes too, which will prove nice when it comes time to choose a mother. I'm planning on giving them another day to get comfortable before I top everybody. I'll give them a week to heal up, and then give them the flip. In the meantime, I need to get some extra ventilation and a filter so that I can kick the spydrx up to full power. I'll throw some pictures up when I get the filter done this weekend.

-A

 

[ARCHER12]

5 out of 6 plants seemed to do fine with the neem oil, but one (not sure if its the neem or something else) is showing some burning on leaves between the veins, and they are folding like tacos as they turn a lime green color. Also, the neem didn't seem to bother the mites too much because they and their eggs are still visible after two days. Can I spray again? I read to only treat every 1-2 weeks, but another spray of neem has to be better than letting mites ravage the plants for 5 more days. Who knows? Drop some wisdom on me if you have it.

 

[ARCHER12]

Quick update. No pics because the ladies are a little camera shy after the week they've had...

I fed/watered everybody about 6 days ago, and then topped them two days later. They looked alright for a day, just a little droopy from the stress, before they started showing serious troubles. Leaves at the bottom turned yellow and then brown and crispy in less than a day, and similar yellowing with brown spotting occurred randomly throughout the plants before they all got nice and droopy. I think there was a problem with my water - the kroger purified bottled water I found out comes from municipal sources that load it up with chlorine/chloramine/chlorates. I think between the water and maybe a slight overfeed despite only 50% of reccomended dosing combined to cause a little lock out.

Long story short, I flushed everybody last night with ph'd pure life water, and they are all much happier today. I went ahead and did a little defol of some of the damaged leaves - a couple of them needed it regardless - and I did a little LST as well. They should be fine in a couple days I'm thinking, so my pride will have recovered enough by then to post some pics. So stay tuned because they will be getting repotted in a couple days when they look better and have had a chance to dry out. After that, it's just a day to make sure there's no stress from the transplant and then the flip! - A

 

[ARCHER12]

**Day 58 Update**

As you can tell, they still look like shit, but I am optimistic that the reason they've been struggling so much is because they were a little root bound. I got them transplanted into FFOF in 5 gal smart pots and watered last night, and I foliar fed Bloom B nutes this morning to help combat the P&K problems they are having. We'll see how they recover over the next couple days. I can't seem to get it right no matter what I do, so I'm just going to stop worrying about them and get them to the flip and see what happens.

 

[Spitz]

I'm dying to see the variety you find in your phenos of this plant. I've done a ton of reading on this exact strain and really learned a lot with regards to genetics. There are some fantastic phenotypes that are absolutely worth saving. I've read a few posts from the breeder Shantibaba regarding them. The breeder himself reccomends dropping 50 seeds and follows with "you should find a keeper". Most are just "good" with a few spectacular ones. I've looked at hundreds of pictures of these plants. You should probably take clones now "just in case" if that's your thing.

I'm a drop a single fem seed type person and hope for the best. I've had a couple pretty good plants and a couple duds. Most are somewhere right down the middle. I really thought going with "the breeder" of WW was the best chance of experiencing a very prolific strain. Turns out, it's going to be a lucky draw anyway. I get keeping the original P stock. In fact, I appreciate that a whole lot. Still, I can't believe over 20 years, the breeder hasn't worked this strain over and come up with a killer WW offshoot. When the breeder reccomends dropping 50 seeds... geesh. I'm a closet grower that has a plant or two growing for 1. A hobby and 2. To help ease some of the wife's medical needs. NFWay am I going to drop 50 seeds. Lol. I've been following a few threads referring to breeders as pollenchuckers. Yeah.. I get there is only 1 WW or 1 Northern Lights breeder. It's horeshit that others are able to buy a pack of seeds and self a "good plant" to claim a name. There is very little integrity in this game.

I'm not sure why I polluted your journal to go off on a personal rant. Lol. Anyway, you have one of the highest potential strains out there from the original P1 stock. I hope you get a great one! Looking good!!

 

[ARCHER12]

Haha no worries, I enjoyed the rant. I'm excited about getting them healthy and getting them into flower so I can really see what they've got. I've been dying to smoke some white widow since I had some a few years back, but I've never been able to get my hands on any since. I really hope I don't have to pop 50 of these - mostly cause they're so damn expensive, but I already got lucky with 5 females so I'm going to stay optimistic that I'll get some decent buds. After all the hype, I'd hope this was the best version of white widow out there. As soon as they start to heal up a little, I plan on taking some cuttings to preserve the genetics until I can give them a smoke test. Between the carbon filter, the CO2 setup, and a bubble cloner - I've got my work cut out for me over the next week. Hopefully, I can report back with healthy plants and a finely tuned environment!

 

[ARCHER12]

**Day Who Gives a Fuck**

They're looking more green! I'm very excited to see them looking a little healthier. I think I might have an inclination as to why they've had so much trouble, and I am attributing it to too much light. They all appear to be a healthy green at the top, but have consistently had leaves going yellow to brown and dying off with what seemed like different deficiencies in each plant. It wasn't until I started noticing it make its way to the top leaves of one of the taller plants that showed a little heat stress, that I realized that it might just be all around light stress since this spydr is so damn powerful! In any event, the problem seems systemic, so it seems more likely to me that its light stress from being to close as opposed to everybody is having multiple/different deficiencies despite being transplanted into fresh nutrient rich soil. Especially since, they all seem to have stayed fairly small for what seems like the longest veg ever!

The long and the short of it is, they're looking good! I'm going to give them a couple more days to make sure the light was the problem, and then they're getting flipped. I've finally got my fan coming in, so as soon as it arrives, and I can start venting some of that hot air and humidity - with spring time the temps are getting up to 83 around the hottest part of the day with RH rising to 70%.

The plan is to get the fan installed tomorrow, I'll give them 48 hours dark starting tomorrow night (maybe water tomorrow and start dark period friday). After that though its the home stretch, I'll put in the carbon filter and get my co2 going - it's flowering time bitches!

 

[Nicholas Flamel]

Flower time for the widows, woooo

 

[Jgrowlove]

Awesome journal. Gorgeous plants too. I've had my eye on the original black widow strain. I also use fox farms and I use the bottled nutes too. Have had great success with them both and look forward to your girls flowering out!!

 

[ARCHER12]

Flower time for the widows, woooo

Nick, I'll pass along your excitement to the girls!

BTW, if they had a contest for the best handle on 420, I'd be nominating you. Gotta support a fellow HP enthusiast

Awesome journal. Gorgeous plants too. I've had my eye on the original black widow strain. I also use fox farms and I use the bottled nutes too. Have had great success with them both and look forward to your girls flowering out!!

Thanks Jgrow, I'm looking forward to being able to finally give my opinion on shanti's strain.. I've heard so much on both sides, it will be nice to give it a proper smoke report. I've got to say, even though I never planned on doing soil, I'm impressed with FF soil, happy frog and ocean forest. It has definitely made the second half of this grow a lot more manageable, but I can't wait to get the hydro going again!

 

[HiddenGrow]

They look healthy and Happy Archer You brought them to a nice stage. You can lst them to keep them away from the heat. I hope the fan helps. I made a swamp cooler for my grow instead of getting an ac and It worked wonders.

 

[Nicholas Flamel]

Hows it going Archer?

 

[SHRuuM]

any updates and pics?