Giovanni831 — Aeroponic / CFL Constant Grows

[j4s2u0]

Re: Giovanni831 – Aeroponic / CFL Constant Grows

Wow looking good,plants look very healthy!
New light looks nice,they will love it Im sure

 

[funnystyle]

Re: Giovanni831 – Aeroponic / CFL Constant Grows

sup Gio!
YAY for 600watter! that shit made me super excited!! dude just came back from a homies grow and hes got a 600watter pulln some great stuff in a 4x4 tent, he says its the perfect footprint. i believe him. im in a 2x4 i think i can pull way more
man im so stoked for you since you can compare with that 4footer vs hps
man... hook your dads homie up sick with the hindu sick come up!
im not postin much but i do read emails and this one deserved a signin and compliment hahahah! goodnight gio mmmm we gona pull some goodies off this light arent we? much fatter i believe

 

[Giovanni831]

Wow looking good,plants look very healthy!
New light looks nice,they will love it Im sure

Thanks bro, doing way better than last round. Appreciate you stopping by.

sup Gio!
YAY for 600watter! that shit made me super excited!! dude just came back from a homies grow and hes got a 600watter pulln some great stuff in a 4x4 tent, he says its the perfect footprint. i believe him. im in a 2x4 i think i can pull way more
man im so stoked for you since you can compare with that 4footer vs hps
man... hook your dads homie up sick with the hindu sick come up!
im not postin much but i do read emails and this one deserved a signin and compliment hahahah! goodnight gio mmmm we gona pull some goodies off this light arent we? much fatter i believe

F/S, whats up brother, you are over there doing your thing arent you. 600w will do you right, Im running both now. I plan on alternating short/tall plants every other month so that I can take full advantage of both lighting setups. Fingure HPS for tall sativa or sativa doms, and the T5 will do for Indicas that will grow pretty uniform.

Thanks for stopping by and posting even though you have been scarce online, means alot brother.

Congrats on the light and fan GIO!

Seems like a lot of people are getting hooked up with good lights lately, just a matter of time before I get mine

The baby girls look good, I'm sure you'll notice the difference with the new light

Thanks 52. It would seem as though we are all getting hooked up lately. The logic is undeniable that you are next in line to receive a blessing.

I am sure that I will see the difference. Like I told F/S gonna alternate crops.

 

[Giovanni831]

Any suggestions.....

I had an unfortunate accident that killed the rest of my clones, so I am going to San Jose today to pick some up. I am looking for something for the T5 setup, so I need kinda short, high yeild, potent, and uniform growth. Here are what I have to choose from...

Headband
Master Kush
Black Domina
Bubba OG Kush
Mendo Lavender
Afgoo
Purple Cadillac
Deadhead OG


Black Jack
Blue Dream
G13 Haze
Hawaiian Snow

Jack The Ripper
(Genetics: Pluton x Purple Haze x Lambsbread x NL x Jack Herer x Romulan x Cindy99BCGA)

Purple AK
Purple Kush
Rocklock
Romulan
Space Bomb
Super Star
Trainwreck

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I am on my way out there in an hour or so, would like a few suggestions before getting them.

Im online doing research now to eliminate the obvious bad choices for this light, but thought maybe some of you have grown some of these before.

 

[Giovanni831]

Okay, so after much research and deliberation, I ended up getting the Lavender. The guy said that they were a little tall and lanky, but if you top them you can get them to fill out a little and stay pretty uniform.

I was doing research on the strain, and all the info that I have come across suggests that mendo lavender is nothing more than a different pheno of purple urkle. I dont know how true that is, but had a grower buddy say that is true for regular lavendar, but wasnt sure if the mendo lavender had anything extra crossed with it.

So anyone with exp growing a lavender or purple urkle, please feel free to bless me with a little info on growing it. Things like PH and EC preference, etc.

Well off to build systems and take care of my girls.

 

[Giovanni831]

Quick update...

I have those new girls vegging, growroom is all good this week. I have been getting great results since I have been more vigilant about environmental control. I been keeping temp consistant at 75-77 day and 65-67 @ night. I would like it a little higher at night, but dont have a great heater and lack the electronics for automation. I will be working on that after this harvest hopefully. I want to get a better heater, humidifier, and buy a dehumidifier as well as hygrostat and thermostat. All in time I guess.

I have been diluting my res on my oldest ones in preparation for harvest. I have been reading online that you will get a better flush if you gradually bring the EC down over the course of a week. Then flush in the final week. I brought my PPM down from 1800 to 600 so far this week. I will still be adding half gallons of RO water 2-3 times a day for today and tomorrow to try to get it down more.

The theory is that it is similar to the gum-on-gum idea. Where if you get gum on something, you use more gum to get it off. From all of the research that I have done, it would indicate that the same hold true for nutrients. Alot of reputable sources claim that 1/4 strength nutes will clear the plants better than water or flushing solution. I can say that I am more likely to see some yellowing off this time. I dont know if it is normal to not get that in hydro like you do in soil or if that was just my bad last time. Guess we will wait and see.

I will eventually look into total automation for my room. I seen a few online that are a few thousand and take care of temp, humidity, PH, EC, lights, and have a webcam to be able to check out the plants when you are away. Sounds pretty good, just have to do research on what the best ones are and how much it will realistically cost.

On another good note, I made friends with a guy that has a few dispensaries in San Jose, so I now have somewhere to sell clones, and excess product. I built a few aero setups for him and he wants me to make more and put them in his store on consignment. I am kinda stoked about that, since I could use the extra income.

Well I think I am out, gonna take the day off and sit in my garage, smoke, and enjoy my plants for a day. It has been almost a week since I had the opportunity. With scrambling for parts, assembling systems, and delivering them, I been busy to say the least. Hope everyone has a great weekend. I will post pics tomorrow.

 

[Wingman420]

Thanks for stopping by wingman. I started with these guys. They are simple and yield big. I knew it was going to get my room together, so I needed something easy. Its a good smoke though. Lets hope mine come out good. My other ones are getting chopped down in the next few days. The thread is in my signature, I dont know if you seen it before.

Looks fantastic brother I love Hindu Kush

Okay, so after much research and deliberation, I ended up getting the Lavender. The guy said that they were a little tall and lanky, but if you top them you can get them to fill out a little and stay pretty uniform.

I was doing research on the strain, and all the info that I have come across suggests that mendo lavender is nothing more than a different pheno of purple urkle. I dont know how true that is, but had a grower buddy say that is true for regular lavendar, but wasnt sure if the mendo lavender had anything extra crossed with it.

So anyone with exp growing a lavender or purple urkle, please feel free to bless me with a little info on growing it. Things like PH and EC preference, etc.

Well off to build systems and take care of my girls.

Congratulations on your pick! We have a member named Lavendar who has grown Lavendar so please ck her out and tell her I sent you over.

 

[Giovanni831]

Congratulations on your pick! We have a member named Lavendar who has grown Lavendar so please ck her out and tell her I sent you over.

I had spoke to her a few times on OldMedMans thread. Honestly, I didnt think to ask her even though her name would obviously suggest that she is familiar with the strain .

I will hit her up for a little advice. The other thing that keeps me from asking people is that I feel I am still relatively new to the forum, and think that it is good practice to be around for a while before bugging people for help.

Thanks for the suggestion brother, I will go hit her up now. I am trying to do a little research on harvesting, drying, and curing the last week since my last harvest is still sitting in jars because it was garbage. Cant afford to eff up these ones =). Figured I should read a little and learn some things. I got the books from the old school growers ( Jorge Cervantes, Ed Rosental, etc.) and have been reading in the forums as well. Sorry to be so needy, but if you know of a good source or two for that, I would appreciate it. Thanks again bro, I have monumental appreciation for any help that people are willing to offer.

 

[HashAssassin]

I am in the process of switching to aero myself. Veg unit is done and I'll have my flowering unit up in a couple weeks.

Read through both your threads twice and will be following this one! Good luck with the Lavender.

 

[Giovanni831]

I am in the process of switching to aero myself. Veg unit is done and I'll have my flowering unit up in a couple weeks.

Read through both your threads twice and will be following this one! Good luck with the Lavender.

Thanks for coming by and the kind words. I have a personal preference for aero, but dont claim it is the "end all" solution. It just suits my personality and growing needs. I have to do indoors because of theft and nosey neighbors. I prefer not to deal with soil or the buffering that it causes. I am a pretty high energy guy w/ a good sized shot of ADHD and a little OCD. =). The aero setups give me something to pay attention to and interact more than just watering once/twice a week.

If there is anything that I can do to help you out any, just let me know. I am a newer grower w/ SOME exp from years ago. Of course, I didnt know shit then, it was pretty much plants in dirt with minimal nutes. Now that I have a card and have learned, I think that I am stepping up my game significantly. I just need to figure out the proper flushing, drying, and curing for my specific needs. I ruined my last crop w/ either a bad flush, or with the fan on the buds. Right now I am trying to figure out if drying by hanging in a rubbermaid tote w/o airflow is a good idea or not. I am thinking just space the lid up 1/2in or so to allow air exchange, but still keep the light out of there. Additionally, the tote has a large fan grate on the outside. I am thinking that if I leave the fan off, the air will still come in through the side naturally. Hopefully this batch comes out better.

I guess the last round could have been cause by habitual over ferting my poor girls. I have been doing good since I actually went and bought the proper instruments (ph, and ec meters). If you have any suggestions on flushing/drying/curing, that would be great. Trying to take a consensus of sorts.

 

[Giovanni831]

Okay its update time. It is overdue again this week, but atleast only by a day. Guess I am finally getting back on schedule.

So as for the oldest ones, they are in the second day of week 8. I tapered the nutes down end of last week, it is down around a hundred right now and that was with clean RO water. So I decided to go ahead and throw some florakleen in there to work out the last remaining bits. Will change water again tomorrrow with PHed water only.

Day 51 flower...

Day 23 flower
=====================

New Clones.
=====================

 

[HashAssassin]

I have a personal preference for aero, but dont claim it is the "end all" solution. It just suits my personality and growing needs. I have to do indoors because of theft and nosey neighbors. I prefer not to deal with soil or the buffering that it causes. I am a pretty high energy guy w/ a good sized shot of ADHD and a little OCD. =). The aero setups give me something to pay attention to and interact more than just watering once/twice a week.

Ditto...'cept for the OCD part. Aero works well for the way I like to grow plus I enjoy the science side of it.

I guess the last round could have been cause by habitual over ferting my poor girls. I have been doing good since I actually went and bought the proper instruments (ph, and ec meters). If you have any suggestions on flushing/drying/curing, that would be great. Trying to take a consensus of sorts.

In regards to flushing in this system, last two weeks are water only until 48 hrs before harvest. Then the pumps go off for 24 hrs starting with the dark cycle. The res is rinsed and then a new batch of water mixed with Botanicare Sweet for the final 24 hrs.

For drying and curing it seems everyone has their own methods. Check out the harvest prep forum and figure out what works best for you. Just please don't let it end up like the "perfectly cured" stuff I was offered the other day...smelled and tasted like hay...yuck!

 

[Giovanni831]

Looks like you're gonna have a green Xmas

I take it the florakleen is a flushing solution, have you used it before? I've been tempted to get the FF Sledgehammer since I'm using all ff products but think it's just another gimmick to get a few more dollars out of my pocket. For now I'll just stick with plain water flush.

You have definitly come a long way in a short time

I think that you are right that it will be a green Xmas.

I have been steadily bringing the PPM down since middle of last week. Im about 80PPM right now and plan on letting it flush for another day or two to get a little more yellowing off. Hopefully that will eat up some of the chlorophyll. I dont have an option to leave them in the dark by themselves, so I will just get up in the morning before the lights come on (6:15am) and cut them down so that they werent in the light before harvest.

To be honest with you, I think that you are right about the flushing solutions being a sham. People have been growing cannabis for thousands of years without it. The other thing that I was looking at online made me think....

There are some people that significantly "under-nute" the plants according to fert feeding schedules. They say that they mix nutes about 1/2 strength and keep res under 1000PPM. Two of the guys that say this are growing Sour D under CFL and got main colas over 2oz dry weight. The dude's buds are huge and look amazing. He says all he does is keep the PPM down and then in the last 2 wks, just top off with water, and let nutes run down naturally. Then last 4-5 days switch to plain water. This is pretty much what I have done this go round and it seems to be working. I will of course let everyone know what the end result is.

They claim the same thing w/ the fert companies...

They have you mix nutes super strong then sell you more chemicals to extract the first chemicals from the plant. The logic seems greatly flawed to me too. I have already been mixing my nutes at 75% strength since last harvest to help eliminate over fertilizing. The plants are healthier and buds are bigger, so there must be something to the theory. I am going to drop down a little more from 75% to 60% and see what kind of results I get. I will decrease it more if I can get away with it. I would love to use less chemicals and save money, especially if the buds will come out better.

I appreciate you noticing that I am trying to make some progress in my abilities, thanks. I apologize for rambling a little, have alot of ideas, and wanted to throw them out there for opinions.

Ditto...'cept for the OCD part. Aero works well for the way I like to grow plus I enjoy the science side of it.

In regards to flushing in this system, last two weeks are water only until 48 hrs before harvest. Then the pumps go off for 24 hrs starting with the dark cycle. The res is rinsed and then a new batch of water mixed with Botanicare Sweet for the final 24 hrs.

For drying and curing it seems everyone has their own methods. Check out the harvest prep forum and figure out what works best for you. Just please don't let it end up like the "perfectly cured" stuff I was offered the other day...smelled and tasted like hay...yuck!

I see what you are saying about flushing, might try that if this one doesnt work out good for me. I did cut a test sample Fri that was horrible, then another today and it wasnt bad for being dried on a ballast. It still tastes too "green", but lacks alot of the chemical taste and seems to burn cleaner. A few more days should get me there. I have a few days left according to the thrichs, so Im not stressing too much.

About the drying and curing, you are right that EVERYONE has an opinion, which makes it hard to find a good method w/o trial and error. I have been more or less looking for a concensus of sorts instead of on solitary source. I will check out the link you posted for sure. I appreciate you pointing me to a source for more research. I figure it wont hurt me to read more while I am waiting for the girls to finish. I am trying to avoid that "perfectly cured" shit too.

Thanks for stopping by, and for the info brother.

 

[Giovanni831]

Day 56 Flower...

Quick pre harvest update. I stripped most of the remaining fan leaves off in preparation for cutting my girls down tomorrow. Here are a few pics and I will be taking pics throughout tomorrow.

 

[Kotton Mouthe]

Re: Giovanni831 – Aeroponic / CFL Constant Grows

Gio, man those are some beauties! Looking alot better than last harvest. How tall are your plants when u put them into harvest? That is also cool that u got a place to off-load some clones to, to make some extra cash. Can't wait to see the next harvest u got coming in a few weeks and the smoke report from your harvest today. Well happy clippings and trimmings.

 

[Giovanni831]

Gio, man those are some beauties! Looking alot better than last harvest. How tall are your plants when u put them into harvest? That is also cool that u got a place to off-load some clones to, to make some extra cash. Can't wait to see the next harvest u got coming in a few weeks and the smoke report from your harvest today. Well happy clippings and trimmings.

Whats up brother? Thanks for stopping by. Yes these are waaay better than the last round. Amazing what not over fertilizing and maintaining proper climate control do =).

To answer your question, these last ones were only about 14 inches when I put them in to flower. In all fairness, I did cut a fair amount off of them when topping. I tried to even them up a little to try to get the canopy more uniform. The tallest ones I cut about 3 inches off of them. Ironically, they ended up still growing taller just had 6 chunky colas each.

I am excited about the next harvest too. I want to see the difference in yield between HPS and T5 =).

It took me until now to feel up to posting the pics from yesterday. 6 hours in a chair trimming after back surgery sucks. I am in the process of building a homemade trimmer. Its pretty basic, just a fan motor in a 4 inch PVC tube inside a 5 gallon bucket. Still refining the design, but should have it done this week. Will post a tutorial if they work out for me. I will be selling those bitches too, since even the hand crank ones you can buy are $400-$500. TOO MUCH!!! I will build my own for 20-30 thank you very much =).

Well, Im going to upload pics and get my update on here. Should be up in about 15min.

 

[Giovanni831]

HK#2 Harvest...

Okay so I am finally posing yesterdays harvest (I was relaxing today). Here are the wet weights...


Plant#4 - 52g

Plant#6 - 68g

Plant#3 - 93g

Plant#1 - 95g

Plant#2 - 140g

Plant#5 - 167g

===================

Total = 615g / 21.96oz

I dont know if it will be the same as last time or not. On that one, I lost about 70% weight, so I will say about 6 oz.

I am not going to get around to posting the update for the rest of the plants until tomorrow, but I figured that I would get these up here for you guys to take a look at.

 

[HashAssassin]

Re: Giovanni831 – Aeroponic / CFL Constant Grows

6 oz was my guess before you chopped. Anxious to see if I'm right.
Do you have any prelim pics of the trimmer? That is something I could use since I have a hard time holding scissors or doing any repetitive movements.

 

[j4s2u0]

Re: Giovanni831 – Aeroponic / CFL Constant Grows

Gorgeous buds dude!
And 6 oz is an awesome harvest for sure,never no could be more...but great job!

 

[Kotton Mouthe]

Re: Giovanni831 – Aeroponic / CFL Constant Grows

Beautiful done Gio! Those buds look awesome. 6 oz is good! What was your goal weight? Rest up man, give you back a day or two if it needs it. I think we can wait fo the pics. If you need the rest. So which plants did u top? And did u see an increase in yield? Will u top more frequently now? And how tall where the girls when they finished? Well loom forward to the next harvest. Peace