First Hydro Grow! Very Detailed Journal with Many Pics! Help the Noob!

[THConnoisseur]

whats up everybody? hope all is well in the 420 community. i finally got everything together in my grow space and the clones have rooted so ive had it up and running for the past 72hrs. all comments, criticism, jokes, noob bashing, etc. are welcomed and encouraged!! TEACH ME.

Grow Room Set-up:
-4.5'x6'x7 walk-in closet
-4x4 flood table
-nine 9x9x5 net pots w/ 4" rw cubes and hydroton
-35gal reservoir w/ 2 airstones
-400w mh/hps
-6" air cooled reflector
-can33 carbon filter
-hydrofarm 6" exhaust fan 400cfm
-16" wall mounted oscillating fan
-passive intake
- temps: 74-80F humdity: 47-55%

Nutrients:
House & Garden Aqua Flakes A&B
-anyone ever fuck wit these nutes? the dude at the hydro shop said he highly recommends them for flood/drain. theyre same price as all other nutes and theyre easy as shit. same 2-part nutes for veg AND flower, with the option to throw some additives in there later on... i was down )
-also, i DO NOT have a ppm meter. i was also told i should be fine using the feeding schedule which is very simple. so i follow that, and adjust pH down to 5.6-5.8 and let it go for the week.

Strain:
-Master Kush x Bubba Kush... aka Master Bubba
-strong indica properties and can handle high nute doses, ive grown this twice in soil and it came out phenomenal.
-these were the last clones that I was able to take/salvage from my last 2 master bubba mothers, I have new mothers vegging right now for the future, all different strains.
- I KNOW the clones are small, but they have nice root masses and should have no problem recovering.

I currently have 3/4 strength nutes until they start to recover from transplant and begin to grow well. I am flooding ONCE a day for right now (7am) and running 24/0 wit the 400w mh (i do plan to get a 600w in the future but i should get decent results wit my 400) i have the light 24" so i dont stress the babies, but ive had that 400w as close as 8" by the end of flowering and they love it.

AND, here are my future mothers! this also doubles as my cloning area when needed. (northern lights, alaskan thunder fuck, grape ape, and hash plant)

IF ANY PART OF MY SYSTEM SEEMS COMPLETELY WRONG PLEASE SHARE YOUR OPINION! I WANT TO LEARN! THANKS AGAIN GUYS AND I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE JOURNAL!

 

[THConnoisseur]

I realized that this picture was posted without being "flipped" so it looked backwards. btw im using the camera on my macbook pro for the shots lol dont hate...

THANKS DUDES!

 

[PitViper]

welcome to 420!
super pimp setup
H&G nutes....what kind of water you using?
PM your answer..its important...I might not see the thread till whenever

 

[THConnoisseur]

alright im back with my first update! my stressed out clones took 10-12 days to get settled in and start showing new growth, 6 out of the 9 bounced back really well and the other 3 ended up gettin tossed cuz i was tired of waitin on em lol for the first 2 weeks i ran 3/4 strength nutes once a day, week three 2x a day, and now starting week four im flooding 3x a day as the plants are growin at an amazing rate and seem to be able to handle that amount of flooding. I also added Drip Clean to the res after the 1st week since im not using RO water, its supposed to make it "impossible" for salt to buildup in the medium... we'll see. at this point it looks like im going to veg one more week while im outta town for 5 days, and when i get back i should be within a few days of flowering these little ladies check out the new pics, ENJOY!

the base of these stalks are close to a HALF INCH in diameter!! if its any indication of how the hydro system will make the buds swell, all i can say is holy shit, i cant wait!

THANKS AGAIN 420!

 

[Greenthumb422]

Beautiful...Yeah bro...hydro is like Steroids for plants!! Just about to add about the same set up to my grow!

 

[DEAN420]

Looking good Thc... Good luck!

 

[THConnoisseur]

thanks dudes, now that everything is running smoothly i should have pics up weekly so check back often! peace

 

[THConnoisseur]

what up dudes, im back from my trip and i couldnt be happier wit what i found in my closet when i got home!! i had topped all of the girls before i left and they responded wonderfully wit more branching and tighter node spacing, and i had fan leaves about 8"-10" wide! lol something ive never had in soil... AWESOME i already trimmed many of the fan leaves to get light to the newer growth so the pics dont include the massive leaves i mentioned but you can still see the impressive gains that occured in just 6 days. the res is due for a change tomorrow and they will begin flowering as well this is gonna be fun...

enjoy the pics!!

 

[THConnoisseur]

alright dudes, back wit another update! i stuck in the hps bulb a wek ago and the girls have just finished week 1 of flowering with great results the res has just been changed and the nutes increased to wk 2 strength. they got droopy during their first 12hr light cycle due to overwatering so i knew i had to decrease flooding from 2x to just 1x for awhile until the roots and plants get bigger, and they"ll continue that until i see need to for more flooding. after the first week of flowering the roots started to just explode out of the net pots so i put a 2" cushion of hydroton under the pots to give the roots somethin to grow into, they seem to love it. everything looks healthy and seems to be running smoothly, im currently only running the H&G 2-Part Aqua Flakes nutes for the first 3 weeks of flowering, then i will be adding H&G Bud XL staring week 4 and then switch to H&G Shooting Powder around week 6 or 7 and i should see some impressive buds enjoy the pics guys, PEACE!

 

[THConnoisseur]

whats up dudes?? back wit an update, tho no one seems to be checkin this thread out... lol if anyone was wondering, all is still good, ive yet to see nute burn/deficiencies or experience any algae issues during this grow, so for a hydro noob imma have to give myself a pat on the back the ladies are 14 days old in these pics and things are lookin much more interesting, you'll notice the new sheet of panda film i placed over the table, i had AMAZING roots coming outta the net pots all over the table so i figured it was better to cover them before they got fucked up haha the topped sites from a week ago have recovered and are branching out into a pretty even SoG canopy and the bud sites are forming at an impressive rate the last 5 days, maybe itll be enough to get a comment or two haha, peace dudes, enjoy.

 

[Kief Man]

great start on the grow journal can't wait to see the final product

 

[bubble grower]

I'M IN!!

just found ya....

 

[THConnoisseur]

thanks dudes!! ill be puttin new pics up friday night when i change the res and start wk 4. the buds have really started forming well and i have roots going everywhere, theres nothin i can do to contain them but all of the ladies seem to be happy and that tells all... thanks again for the support!

 

[Green Utopia]

Oh man - what a noob. You're doing it all wrong!

JK of course. I predict you will get no bashing and quite a few reps, cause not only is this not a noob grow - you're lookin pro so far.

+Reps

 

[THConnoisseur]

lol thanks papa green! ive been pleasantly surprised how easy this flood & drain system has been to operate and maintain. i have no worries about leaving the grow space unattended for a few days or even close to a week, and that was a large part of why i made this switch to hydro. thanks again for checkin out the grow, i update every weekend when i change the res so stay tuned

 

[Green Utopia]

lol thanks papa green! ive been pleasantly surprised how easy this flood & drain system has been to operate and maintain. i have no worries about leaving the grow space unattended for a few days or even close to a week, and that was a large part of why i made this switch to hydro. thanks again for checkin out the grow, i update every weekend when i change the res so stay tuned

Cool!

How deep is the tray? How high does the 35G fill it?

 

[THConnoisseur]

including the drainainge grooves its about 5-6" deep, which is very shallow and i actually wouldve preferred a deeper one if i KNEW they made them, the guy at the hydro shop said they only came in that depth... now i know its just cuz he was out of stock and tryin to sell me what he had left... LAME!! anyway, i dont really know how to answer your question about the water level, it pretty much depends on how high you set your overflow drain and how strong your pump is, and nearly nothing to do with your res size. i have the standard botanicare 1/2" and 3/4" drain fittings and wit a 260gph pump, when the tray is completely flooded its about 1/2" from the top and there 5-10gal left in the res to keep the pump submerged. i mean, i feel a 35gal is the smallest res i could use with the way im growing in the net pots, but if you used a coco mat & rw cubes you could use a lower overflow height and probably a 25-30gal res because you dont need as much to soak the medium. but anything bigger than 35 gal would just be a waste of water and nutes cuz the table only takes so much to fill and you only need so much extra in the res to keep the pump submerged to find a happy medium. hope that helped lol

 

[THConnoisseur]

what up dudes? back wit another weekly update, these ladies are now 21 days old and i have just added the Bud XL supplement to the res which, even after 2 floods, has seemed to boost the calyx's growth rate. i should see these ladies start to put on some nice weight in the near future i took just a few pics to see comparisons from last week; the last pic on this post is the same nug that was in the last pic of the 2wk update, just 8 days fatter enjoy!

PEACE

 

[direless]

pretty impressive, I a real noob and was quite surprised that you moved those babies into flower so quite but it seems to be really working for you

 

[THConnoisseur]

thanks dude! and yea im really into small, topped plants and keeping an even canopy lol i get to have the most harvests per year this way as well as the most efficient yields. nearly all of my harvest will be top colas and i love big fat nugs so its all for the better i used to lst big plants in soil but fuck that, takes SO LONG, 4 months between harvests isnt cool wit me lol lst is extremely fun tho and in some grow spaces (especially outdoors) its the only option for an efficient garden.

check back this weekend for an update on my ladies!
peace