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Hey everyone. Long time lurker, first time poster. Forgive me if I'm doing anything wrong. Apparently I'm not allowed to post in the grow journal section?
A bit of a backstory: I used to grow plenty back in the day, but haven't grown in nearly 15 years or so, and my have things changed!
I suffer from spinal stenosis, sciatica and RA, and all the pills the doctors would give me would stop working after a few weeks, and I mentioned I have been using cannabis for nearly 20 years and that it works for me and my lifestyle. Zip boom bang, here we are. Usually stick to heavy indicas, and sativa every now and then, but indicas have always been my style.
I've never tried any form of hydroponic growing, so I decided this time around I was going to give it a shot. I got the tent, a bunch of buckets, watched a few videos and got it all set up working just fine. I believe the term for what I am doing is called 'RDWC', in that it's deep water culture but I also have a small pump that feeds from my control bucket out to the 4 other buckets, thus recirculating the water/nutes. Totally correct me if I'm wrong. I actually only kept the feeding tube near the plant while they were young, but as they got older I just pulled the tube out slightly so the water just drips into the buckets.
I've also never grown with LEDs, so I'm giving that a shot as well. Budget is of course a major issue, so I found a light that fit the budget, but still pulls a decent amount of wattage from the wall. I figure, as budget allows in the future, I can always toss more light in
Currently, I am one week in to flowering, and the plants vegged for 8 weeks. I should have started this when i popped the seeds, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to share, to be honest.
Anywho, here's the specs:
Crown Royale seeds, CKS
4x4x7 tent
BESTVA 2000w full spectrum LED (pulls about 395 from the wall a little after the initial turn on)
Advance Nutrients Grow, Micro, Bloom and Big Bud
RDWC, 4x 5 gallon buckets + 1x 5 gallon control bucket
commercial air pump
small sub pump
6in fan on the ground, 16in oscillating fan above
I also set up an old phone as a web cam, added it to my security camera dealie (all just raspberry pi's, nothing fancy) and set it up to take timelapse stuff. should be neat to stitch it all together at the end!
Because I'm starting this a little late, I'll catch you up on a few things:
- all 5 seeds germinated perfectly using the cup of water + paper towel method
- 4 of the 5 plants were keepers, one never made it past 5 inches tall, not sure what happened, but i made the decision to cull her
- 2 plants were really strong starters and grew nice and bushy, while the other 2 were slow starters until about week 6 of veg, when they took off straight to the moon. i mean, the 2 that WERE really the shining stars of the tent now look like runts compared to the 2 that used to be the runts!
- I tend to keep the light 24-30in away from the canopy
- I took clones, however none of them rooted. I was trying a new method, but that's OK, as I have some Bubba Kush seeds on the way (also CKS) and a few other strains from other seedbanks as well. I find that if I use the same strain for too long, it ends up taking twice as much to do the same job, so I try to change it up.
- I was going to build a proper scrog but I have super bad back problems, so I honestly can't be bothered, so I just grabbed some netting, which actually worked out for the better, as I was able to adjust the height for the 2 smaller girls.
- I have a second 2x2x3 tent that is rigged up with a similar RDWC (2gal buckets) and using just some white LEDs and a full spectrum (about 100w from the wall in total, really nothing major). This will be for vegging while I flower.
- My water stays pretty cool, but I also rotate frozen water bottles in there. Just once a day is enough
- The plants have been pretty straight forward to work with, although I am getting off and on pH burn, although, to be honest, I haven't been paying much attention to the pH, because the AN lineup does a great job of balancing it at 6.5.
- I top a lot, and I tend to defoliate often, just a little here and there, and I add all my leaves to my morning smoothies
The two larger plants are sitting at about 16in tall, and the two smaller ones are about 12in tall. All of them are nice and bushy!
Here's some pics
I love the fan leaves on this strain, really nice and wide indica style
A bit of a backstory: I used to grow plenty back in the day, but haven't grown in nearly 15 years or so, and my have things changed!
I suffer from spinal stenosis, sciatica and RA, and all the pills the doctors would give me would stop working after a few weeks, and I mentioned I have been using cannabis for nearly 20 years and that it works for me and my lifestyle. Zip boom bang, here we are. Usually stick to heavy indicas, and sativa every now and then, but indicas have always been my style.
I've never tried any form of hydroponic growing, so I decided this time around I was going to give it a shot. I got the tent, a bunch of buckets, watched a few videos and got it all set up working just fine. I believe the term for what I am doing is called 'RDWC', in that it's deep water culture but I also have a small pump that feeds from my control bucket out to the 4 other buckets, thus recirculating the water/nutes. Totally correct me if I'm wrong. I actually only kept the feeding tube near the plant while they were young, but as they got older I just pulled the tube out slightly so the water just drips into the buckets.
I've also never grown with LEDs, so I'm giving that a shot as well. Budget is of course a major issue, so I found a light that fit the budget, but still pulls a decent amount of wattage from the wall. I figure, as budget allows in the future, I can always toss more light in
Currently, I am one week in to flowering, and the plants vegged for 8 weeks. I should have started this when i popped the seeds, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to share, to be honest.
Anywho, here's the specs:
Crown Royale seeds, CKS
4x4x7 tent
BESTVA 2000w full spectrum LED (pulls about 395 from the wall a little after the initial turn on)
Advance Nutrients Grow, Micro, Bloom and Big Bud
RDWC, 4x 5 gallon buckets + 1x 5 gallon control bucket
commercial air pump
small sub pump
6in fan on the ground, 16in oscillating fan above
I also set up an old phone as a web cam, added it to my security camera dealie (all just raspberry pi's, nothing fancy) and set it up to take timelapse stuff. should be neat to stitch it all together at the end!
Because I'm starting this a little late, I'll catch you up on a few things:
- all 5 seeds germinated perfectly using the cup of water + paper towel method
- 4 of the 5 plants were keepers, one never made it past 5 inches tall, not sure what happened, but i made the decision to cull her
- 2 plants were really strong starters and grew nice and bushy, while the other 2 were slow starters until about week 6 of veg, when they took off straight to the moon. i mean, the 2 that WERE really the shining stars of the tent now look like runts compared to the 2 that used to be the runts!
- I tend to keep the light 24-30in away from the canopy
- I took clones, however none of them rooted. I was trying a new method, but that's OK, as I have some Bubba Kush seeds on the way (also CKS) and a few other strains from other seedbanks as well. I find that if I use the same strain for too long, it ends up taking twice as much to do the same job, so I try to change it up.
- I was going to build a proper scrog but I have super bad back problems, so I honestly can't be bothered, so I just grabbed some netting, which actually worked out for the better, as I was able to adjust the height for the 2 smaller girls.
- I have a second 2x2x3 tent that is rigged up with a similar RDWC (2gal buckets) and using just some white LEDs and a full spectrum (about 100w from the wall in total, really nothing major). This will be for vegging while I flower.
- My water stays pretty cool, but I also rotate frozen water bottles in there. Just once a day is enough
- The plants have been pretty straight forward to work with, although I am getting off and on pH burn, although, to be honest, I haven't been paying much attention to the pH, because the AN lineup does a great job of balancing it at 6.5.
- I top a lot, and I tend to defoliate often, just a little here and there, and I add all my leaves to my morning smoothies
The two larger plants are sitting at about 16in tall, and the two smaller ones are about 12in tall. All of them are nice and bushy!
Here's some pics
I love the fan leaves on this strain, really nice and wide indica style
