Final Grow in the Box Cap'n Style - Welcome Aboard

[Hiker]

Nice one. I love the info flying around here.
Got to admit, after using the bennies I'm quite impressed. My Rez looks ugly and there is a disgusting brown film on the top...but they smell great...much better than before so I can't complain at all.

It should smell "earthy"

Glad it's working

You will help a lot of people by trying bennies with the croutons. I don't know of anyone else doing this.

Are you filtering the tea? I was wondering if it clogged your drippers.

 

[c526]

I use the Heisenberg tea with mine,I dont filter,have never had a problem with clogging

the problems that I have is inconsistency of usage.

I will give recharge a go,next round instead of brewing tea

 

[Skybound]

Recharge is so much easier. Just mix, shake and pour. It holds up pretty well for a few days also. I try to use it as The Capn instructs (small quantity) so I don't get runoff. It stains the croutons a lot, but who cares about the color of rock wool. Definitely good stuff!

 

[Hiker]

Recharge is so much easier. Just mix, shake and pour. It holds up pretty well for a few days also. I try to use it as The Capn instructs (small quantity) so I don't get runoff. It stains the croutons a lot, but who cares about the color of rock wool. Definitely good stuff!

Huh, I never caught that he used the tea. Somehow I have in my head he was using GH Flora. Ooops

 

[Skybound]

Aside from experimenting with different nute lines, his primary nute is GH. Using tea, or now Recharge has always been a staple of Capn style, and IMO is probably the most important of all the practices that he shares. Greenthumb J is also having nothing short of fantastic results with using Subculture B & M, and he also is the cubes, but he uses different nutes I think. As best I know, everyone that is in croutons uses Heisenberg's, subculture, Recharge or whatever other Myco environment they can produce.

Edit - I solely use GH Flora with twice weekly inoculations with Recharge.

 

[Hiddenkoncept]

I'm brewing up my second batch of tea now! How old should a plant be before giving them tea? I'm about to start some seeds and I wonder when they can get a tea.
My family in the states are away for 2 months! So I gotta wait at least 2-3 months to be able to get my hands on recharge.mthey don't sell it over here at the moment.

 

[c526]

I start the tea as soon as I see roots

I know it works,im just lazy/busy at times and get forgetfull

 

[2clean]

your leaves are still green.. you know what your doing for sure!!!

 

[Hiker]

Aside from experimenting with different nute lines, his primary nute is GH. Using tea, or now Recharge has always been a staple of Capn style, and IMO is probably the most important of all the practices that he shares. Greenthumb J is also having nothing short of fantastic results with using Subculture B & M, and he also is the cubes, but he uses different nutes I think. As best I know, everyone that is in croutons uses Heisenberg's, subculture, Recharge or whatever other Myco environment they can produce.

Edit - I solely use GH Flora with twice weekly inoculations with Recharge.

Very interesting. I had completely missed that detail in Cap'n style.

I'm assuming Recharge is product, and probably a pre-made tea or something similar.

It's too bad the Cap'n, and Sl1ng, are gone. I consider them friends. I miss my friends.

I always liked the results you guys get with croutons. It obviously works well. Don't take anything I say as a slight against the method. There are LOTs of great ways to grow this plant.

I'm brewing up my second batch of tea now! How old should a plant be before giving them tea? I'm about to start some seeds and I wonder when they can get a tea.
My family in the states are away for 2 months! So I gotta wait at least 2-3 months to be able to get my hands on recharge.mthey don't sell it over here at the moment.

If you're feeding the plants, they can take tea.

 

[Hiddenkoncept]

You can still find the cap'n! I'm yet to find s1ing though just google dude grows the cap'n. He has a blog on that site and still gives out tons of info

 

[Hiker]

I dunno if I have the Capn's, but I have Sl1ng's email. I just miss having them around here.

 

[Skybound]

I reached out to s1ing before the holidays and he said he has good things lined up for 2015, so I was just hoping to catch wind of another means of checking in to see what monstrosities he is growing. A lot of great info used to flow when those 2 get to jiving off each other's grows. I know what ya mean miss having them around.

As far as the method, IMO, everyone that grows cannabis has got to know that DWC is the most efficient growing method, but most also know that it is the riskiest. Capn style (more precisely) Simple Hydroponics is a means to generate "similar" growth rates, but definitely w/o all the added risk. Use of beneficial bacteria combined with a very airy, but moist grow media IMO is the 2 main factors that gives it the success it has gotten. All other techniques have been adopted in to better focus on productivity for the grower with a plant count threshold. I studied HygroHybrid on youtube for quite a while before I got back into growing, and aside from a sterile RDWC, his method is the same as The Capn's, extended veg with frequent topping, flower under a 600, wait till near end of stretch to clean the undersides and put down the scrog net for the remainder = 1 pound harvests per plant.

 

[Hiker]

IMO, everyone that grows cannabis has got to know that DWC is the most efficient growing method, but most also know that it is the riskiest.

We will have to agree to disagree on that one.
Everything else I agree 100%.

RDWC is intriguing, but I think roots like something to 'hold on to'. I had a grower friend, back in the day, that built an NFT style system using long rows of PVC. It was a neat system, but he was always messing with it. The pipes would get so full of roots, it almost became RDWC. Maybe RSWC, Recirculating Shallow Water Culture.

I keep telling myself I want to experiment with other methods, but I really love my buckets of rock.

 

[Dutty Panty]

I've always come back to soil. Love other methods just keep coming back.

My dad when we started growing after my mom got sick used to say when I wanted to go hydro. "I've never walked by a pond and seen a marijuana plant just growing like a lilly it just isn't natural" I still get a laugh out of that. Especially in this day and age hydro is crazy tons more techniques

 

[Skybound]

In DWC, they have pots of rock for the plant to have some footing, then the roots just dangle below, but in a RDWC application, why couldn't the whole site bucket/tote be filled with rocks? But then again, I'm pretty sure that's what you're doing now, isn't it? RE&GWC These acronyms are getting out of control.

 

[Hiker]

I've always come back to soil. Love other methods just keep coming back.

My dad when we started growing after my mom got sick used to say when I wanted to go hydro. "I've never walked by a pond and seen a marijuana plant just growing like a lilly it just isn't natural" I still get a laugh out of that. Especially in this day and age hydro is crazy tons more techniques

It's been said many times, there are as many ways to grow as there are growers.

Soil definitely has it's pros and cons, just like all techniques. The biggest benefit I see with soil is the terpene variety. What I mean is, I think a quality soil grow will allow the plant to express every possible aromatic compound it can. In hydro, the plant may not have every molecule available that it might need (if it aint in the bottle, they don't get it), so it wont be able to express the entire range of terpenes/aromatics that it's genetics contain. This is just my opinion, and after typing it, the logic doesn't look right. It might work both ways. If the 'bottled' nutes are missing something, couldn't the soil just as easily be missing something?

Another big advantage is being able to tailor feeding to individual plants, but that comes with the con of maintaining individual plants. In my system for example, all the plants get the same diet.

Soils biggest con IMHO? It's dirty.
That is my biggest reason to avoid it honestly.
It also seems like more work to me, but I may just enjoy the type of work with hydro more. My grow room is my laboratory. I want it clean where I am doing chemistry.

In DWC, they have pots of rock for the plant to have some footing, then the roots just dangle below, but in a RDWC application, why couldn't the whole site bucket/tote be filled with rocks? But then again, I'm pretty sure that's what you're doing now, isn't it? RE&GWC These acronyms are getting out of control.

My growing style is sort of a natural progression. I went from throwing some seeds in the backyard -> backyard dirt inside under shop lights -> "real" soil and shop lights -> soil and a "real" light -> custom soil with things like perlite and vermiculite (use coco instead this stuff is a health hazard) -> soiless mix of verm and perl -> flood and drain trays (like my veg area) -> co2, ac, -> bucket system. Once I understood the difference between MH and HPS, lighting was always good in the above timeline.

To me, I am replacing the soil with an inert medium, rock. Then I just thoroughly saturate the root mass on a cycle that gives me an optimum mix of wet and dry. Kinda like I try to let my soil alternate wet dry.
I know some folks think hydro is unforgiving, but I think it's easier. Sure, if you aren't on top of it, things can go bad fast. On the other hand, when there is a problem, you can fix it quickly.

what was I rambling about


You can't put rock in the DWC or RDWC system because it would impede the water flow.

When you grow in rock, much like the rockwool croutons based on the pics I've seen, the roots fill in most of the gaps. The difference is, with the rockwool, the roots also grow INSIDE your 'rocks'. There are other differences, but structurally it's a decent description. Water doesn't move through the root mass very quickly. From what I have observed, this is any issue with ALL the media-less style hydro systems. As the plant matures, the mechanical dynamics of the system alter radically because of the addition of all the root mass. You need a system that functions as well at the start of the plants life as the end. My system does "flow" the nutes in and out, but it's a pretty slow process. It does take longer as the plants mature, but the system still functions the same.

In all methods, our goal is to support a healthy root mass. That means optimizing the water/nutrients AND the air. The most frequent problem I see with new soil growers is over watering. You must have both for optimum plant health. I like flood and drain because it gives me a thorough water and a complete gas exchange with every cycle. In soil, you can do a flush, but probably not daily. If you did, you would wash away the nutrients. Hydro gives us many cycles a day. The only downside I see to drip style feeding is the potential for dry spots. Capn's use of the RW helps that I think. Perhaps a good soil and/or coco mix would also wick or absorb well enough, but I've had issues with dry spots before in soil and soiless mixes. Based on my understanding/belief of what it takes for optimum root health, flood and drain has always seemed like the ideal solution.

I'm not knocking the Capn's methods. There are a lot of techniques in use, and they work together fantastically! This method definitely has some advantages over my method. Don't take my explanations of why I grow the way I do as a slight on any one else's methods.

"Why" is very important to me. In fact, I have a vivid memory of a conversation with my mother. I was probably about 4 or 5 years old (OK the memory is a little fuzzy haha), and we were driving home in our old pickup. I can't recall what we were talking about specifically until I asked her, "why?" I was always an inquisitive child, so I think she had just lost her patience after a long day. I'm pretty sure we were heading home from Grandma and Grandpa's house, so she was just visiting her parents. stressful perhaps? She was trying to explain something to me and after that gazillionth "why", she said, "stop asking why." I thought about it for about a second and replied, "How come?"

Anyway, it's just my brain. I suspect you're a little like that too Sky We seem to have a kindred spirit in our thirst for knowledge and understanding.

 

[Skybound]

I think the same way and it annoys many, but that's me. I agree with everything you said save for your position on an aspect of DWC. You said

You can't put rock in the DWC or RDWC system because it would impede the water flow.

True and false. You can modify DWC and IMPEDE but not RESTRICT the water flow. If I had a bucket of rocks that also had a large netpot filled with rocks, do you think I could put an air stone down bottom and top feed it relentlessly from a control res? If no, WHY?

 

[Hiker]

I think the same way and it annoys many, but that's me. I agree with everything you said save for your position on an aspect of DWC. You said



True and false. You can modify DWC and IMPEDE but not RESTRICT the water flow. If I had a bucket of rocks that also had a large netpot filled with rocks, do you think I could put an air stone down bottom and top feed it relentlessly from a control res? If no, WHY?

I think I understand what you're proposing. The theory is an air stone at the bottom of a DWC bucket, except we fill it with rock, not just the net tray. Is that right?

I don't think you would get enough air exchange throughout the whole bucket/reservoir. My understanding of DWC is you're trying to hyper oxygenate the water with the air stone and that sort of keeps everything "mixed". There would be no "mixing" if the bucket was full of rock. The mixing seems important based on the idea behind the Under Current systems, like Ronnie's DIY version. That designs goal is to be constantly replacing the water in each bucket as often as possible.

What's the difference between 'impede' and 'restrict', degree? I'm not saying the rock would completely stop any movement. I'm saying it becomes so slow, the dynamics of the system change. If normally I can move 1 gallon per minute without the rock, how much can I move with it? Sure you can probably make it work. You just have to design the system that assumes a much slower flow I guess.
I think the design changes to make it work would make it end up looking like a flood or drip system. The rate of movement through the rock is so slow at the final stages, I can't imagine a simple airstone at the bottom of a bucket would get ANY bubbles into the center of the root mass. I suspect they would all go around the edges.

LOL the more I discuss this, the more I like my flood and drain rock.

 

[Skybound]

I really liked what you said about the complete exchange of gases with every feeding. In croutons, I have to believe that the exchange is not as good as e&f, and not as good as rocks. My proposal is that the air stone is just a redundancy, and that the system would be an 'over'current system in that water is introduced at the top, it flows down through the rocks, than exits out the bottom of the bucket, same as RDWC, just slower flow, but still flowing. The air stone would aerate any still water that is waiting to exit if need be, but I'm thinking that the constant, or near constant water feed from the top would always be bringing in new air, or simply creating an environment that the roots have access to a lot of air and a lot of water.

I think I need to put up or shut up on this one so I'll let this go until I can afford to test my own theory on this matter. By afford, I mean put it all together as I already have all I'd need, but my rooms are still not complete and I need to focus on that before conducting experiments.

 

[SS396]

I too was impressed with the capn and slings work, sure wish I could see what theyre up to these days. Hope your doing well also