Green Knight - Hydro CFL - Auto Bomb - First Grow Journal

[big budda]

Nice closet man,pretty cool setup,im along for the ride,i grew in a closet some time back and had a descent grow considering what i had to work with,yours should grow pretty good where it is.i had no proper airflow,carbon filter mylar or anything like that,so good look with it man.
Check out my grow and you will no what i mean.

 

[grogreen]

Looking good buddy, can't wait to see these things grow up

 

[Green Knight]

Thanks big budda; looks like you got some nice smoke. You planning another grow?

Her growth rate is accelerating now grogr33n so she's getting noticeably bigger each day. Roots are now also showing growing out of the net pot and down towards to the nute solution. I'm looking forward to seeing her grow up too!

 

[grogreen]

Glad to hear it ! Keep doing what your doing, I'd love to see some pics of the plant and the roots, hydro is always something I've been interested in, and I'll follow this grow to the end, teach me how to do it, you obviously know what your doing when it comes to hydro

 

[big budda]

as soon as the roots reach the nutrients the lady's will grow like the hammers.
Yes im planning another grow at the moment but going to do it properly,im in the process of getting everything i need so it wont be to long more.
Im very interested in your hydro setup as i am kinda thinking aeroponic for my next.

 

[Green Knight]

as soon as the roots reach the nutrients the lady's will grow like the hammers

So we've reached Day 9 - she's sent a couple of roots down which are almost touching the nutes now:

Her growth is really beginning to accelerate and she's still only small which is a good sign - looking forward to when those roots hit the res solution!

teach me how to do it, you obviously know what your doing when it comes to hydro

I'm still learning myself grogr33n - the hydro grows I did ten years ago I don't think count - I'm very rusty! I've done a lot of reading though and the concept is quite simple, it's just keeping on top of things so you don't hit avoidable problems (pH, res temp, EC etc.) At the moment it's pretty low maintenance as she's not using tons of water / nutes etc. The pH is staying pretty stable and she's not using too much water (she's used about 1.5l since Saturday and the EC had climbed from 1.3 to 1.4 but I've topped up with 1/2 strength and the EC's back to 1.3).
I think a small hydro set up like mine is pretty low maintenance; a couple of minutes a day to check everything is ok, and then about half an hour once a week to empty and clean the res and add new solution. I've never grown in soil but I think hydro can be less messy as you're only moving water around, and it's all automatic, so as long as the levels and pH etc aren't bouncing around you can leave it for a bit if you go away for a few days and it will keep doing it's thing. It's not very forgiving though if your pump breaks or you do something wrong!
Whilst I've never grown weed in soil I do a lot of gerdening generally and I've never seen anything grow as fast as with hydro. I'd recommend giving it a go - I think some people get put off by the cost of the systems if you buy them pre-made and the seeming complexity, but it's really no more complicated than mixing the nutes (which you have to do for soil too) and building the system, which is as simple as a tank and a pump to take the nutes to the roots.
Keep following though and you'll learn from my mistakes !!

Im very interested in your hydro setup as i am kinda thinking aeroponic for my next

It's quite a simple DIY system; a DWC with a pump and dripper to get the nutes right into the centre of the root mass. I bought the totes off the internet and then a pump and air pump. The totes were the expensive bit actually, but if you can find some second hand ones or know somebody who can give you a couple then you're just looking at a pump, air-pump and net pots - you could probably be up and running for £20 (excluding the cost of the nutes).
It runs 24h 24/7 pumping in the oxygen and pumping the solution to the roots.
I was thinking of aeroponics myself too before building this. I can quite easily convert it to aero and I'm tempted to give it a try, but I'm going to wait until I've got the BerryBomb going and I've cloned her - I want to keep everything the same but see how different systems / techniques affect yield, but if I use different plants it won't be a fair experiment!

If you wanted to build an aeoponic system you could follow what I've done but rather than run a tube from the pump to the centre of the root mass, just run a short hose up from the pump with a 'T' on the end, and a couple of short pieces of hose with mister spray attachments on the ends (Hozelock make some good ones for gardens and they come in 90deg, 180deg, and 360deg arcs so you can make sure there's a good mist across the whole inside. The sprays cost about £5. And then not worry about the clay pebbles obviously, just get some of the neoprene collars to cover the top of the net pots.

 

[Green Knight]

Oh, and you wouldn't need the airpump either for aero big budda; there would be more than enough oxygen for the roots in the mist, and the mist falling back into the res will agitate the surface continually and ensure you've got decent DO levels.

 

[Jfault20]

Along for the ride will be watching your journal

 

[Green Knight]

Along for the ride will be watching your journal

Thanks Jfault; welcome

 

[big budda]

Yeh i just got some ez clone misters today and im getting the pump tomorrow so i should be starting my next grow pretty soon
But for now i will just watch your grow.
Roots are looking nice and healthy man,good job.

 

[Green Knight]

Yeh i just got some ez clone misters today and im getting the pump tomorrow so i should be starting my next grow pretty soon
But for now i will just watch your grow.
Roots are looking nice and healthy man,good job.

The anticipation is part of the excitement isn't it - I spent quite a while measuring, reading, planning and designing and thoroughly enjoyed that part. Then started ordering the kit and as it arrived it was like Christmas each day, and I was then really motivated to get everything built so I could start as soon as possible. Then whole new levels of excitement when I actually started the grow itself. I hope everything arrives nice and quickly - the waiting bit's the worst

 

[big budda]

yeh but the waiting is some of the fun because as your waiting your planning..im looking forward to starting but im still planning on a grow room design aswell so it sould be a bit of fun.

 

[Green Knight]

It's now Day 12 and things are progressing reasonably well.

I've changed the nute solution and increased the EC to 1.5. I'm also now adding DM Zone thanks to a suggestion by Alaskan1 on a different thread.

Roots have grown a lot in the last couple of days and are looking nice and healthy

I think she's showing signs of nutrient deficiency which is one of the reasons why I've changed the nutes a little earlier and increased the EC to 1.5. There are some rust brown spots on some of the leaves and with the lights off she just looks like she could handle more nutes - not as dark green and looking a bit lime/yellow between the veins of some of the leaves.

I think it's a magnesium deficiency because other than the symptoms the pH has been holding pretty consistently around 5.5. My understanding is that magnesium gets locked out at a pH below 5.7 so she may not have been absorbing it properly at the lower pH. As well as changing the nutes I've also set the pH to 5.9 so it's a little higher and she should absorb Mg better.

Some photos are below and if anyone more experienced has any ideas then please let me know!!

Leaf showing some of the spotting:

Lights off shows some of the colour a bit better:

Otherwise she's looking pretty healthy and seems to be growing well and starting to develop some branches:

 

[Green Knight]

Scrap that last post. She doesn't like 1.5 EC, way too much!

Nute burn! Just on the tips of a couple of leaves.

Happened very quick (within half an hour of changing the nutes) but hopefully I caught it quick enough before any major damage has been done. So anyway, drained half the res and added plain pH adjusted water. EC's back to 1.1 where she started when she was a tiny seedling and we'll see how we go from here!

 

[grogreen]

Wow she's growing like a weed

 

[Green Knight]

She was - just nute burned her which was a bit stupid!! Well, you live and learn!

 

[grogreen]

Its not bad at all, she will be just fine, just easy on her nutes she still a baby

 

[Green Knight]

Agreed!

 

[big budda]

Not looking to bad GK,just don't force feed her,adjust the ph and ec over a couple of weeks otherwise she will become stressed...or worse...
Looking pretty good so far tho.

 

[Green Knight]

Thanks big budda; I agree with you, I was definitely forcing her, rather than just letting her do her thing. She still seems pretty happy and her growth doesn't appear to have slowed which is reassuring (she still seems to be growing like a train!) but it was a good lesson learned. I think forcing things in life in general is always a recipe for disaster so I'm going to back off her and let her do her thing in her own time.

I also read a really useful piece of advice in teSmps' journal, which now I think about it seems obvious but it was really helpful reading it and having it pointed out:

If the ppm/EC is dropping plant is using nutes faster than water, so add nutes
If the ppm/EC is rising the plant is using more water than nutes, so lower the nutes
If the ppm/EC stays the same it's at equilibrium and using water and nutes at the same rate

So since lowering the nutes back to EC 1.1 after the nute burn incident the EC is very slowly dropping so it looks like where things are currently is slightly less than she could take, but I'm happy to keep it here for the moment until the nute burn is a memory.

I'm a bit nervous though as I have to go away with work this week so I'm not going to be around, which is another reason I want to keep things slightly below what they could be as I won't be able to react to any over-fertilisation. My wife will keep an eye on things for me and I'll check in regularly to make sure nothing's going awry but I'm a bit nervous! Although it will be a nice surprise (I hope - fingers crossed!!!) when I get back on Friday and see how much she's grown in a week.