Greenthumb J's BCNL Producer Grow - 800w DWC - First Grow Ever! Multi-Strain

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

So found another male in the Sativa's... Didn't pull it as I didnt have time before work, but I will first thing in the morning

I'm now down to 4 confirmed female Malawi gold left in the flower box.. Ah well at least the others will have some space!

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

Also the hydro store didn't have ancient forest! So couldn't make the Heisenberg tea yesterday!!

 

[jamthe3]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

Keep in mind you might have some males still in those reg seeds that will also thin it out. Have you spotted any pre-flowers along the main stalks yet?

Only because I so seldom get the opportunity to say "I told you so" ;P

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

Hahah ya bastard! You got me.. Pretty sure the plant went Hermie tho.. Oh well.. More space for the ladies in the box!

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

So the hydroponics store didn't have Gen Hydroponics Ancient Forest nor the mycorrhizal fungi - Great White.. In fact they didn't even know what the products were. Those are my last 2 ingredients I need for the Heisenberg tea I plan to start using for the remainder of the grow..

I currently have Aquashield, molasses and Rapid Start, and currently trying to order, Ancient Forest and Great white.

If anyone knows of a similar product to Great White I can buy here in Canada because i cant order it online to anywhere outside of the US.. Even tho the website states they comply with all laws of Canada and US and any other country that can use their products.. I'm assuming Canada can have Great White shipped over the border?

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

I should add that the Great White isn't completely necessary, but I figure it can only do good.

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

According to Amazon.com, both General Hydroponics Ancient Forest and Plant Success' Great White cannot be shipped to me here in BC.

So after some research I decided I'm going to go with General Hydroponics Subculture M for my mycorrhizae supply and still unsure of what I am going to substitute the Ancient Forest with. Although TheCapn suggests not substituting Ancient Forest, it appears I don't really have a choice if I want to brew some bennie tea for the ladies as it appears it cannot cross the border. After I bounce from the hydro store in 20 mins, I'll have everything for Heisenberg's tea, minus the ancient forest. hopefully theres a similar product?

Anyways, my second MH blew out last night.. Terrible quality bulbs these have been.. Will contact grow box supplier for replacements.. But in the meantime I need something other than the CFLs in the bathroom keeping these ladies from going into flower. Hence the trip to hydro store.. I swear I'm gona have no money for Vegas in 24 days..

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

So left the hydro store with 2 MH's, a 300g container of subculture-M and a liter of Botanicare Pure Blend compost tea.. The guys at the hydro store say that the very few people that do teas up here in BC use this premade tea as opposed to brewing their own.

I plan to make my own tea as well an compare the two. See how it goes!

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

YAY!!! My laptop is home and fixed! no more updates on the Smartphone!!

The sativas that remain have pistils shooting out everywhere!.. The runty Great white Shark has shot up and is now even with the rest of the Rhinos and Widows with pistils and bud sites forming everywhere and everything is starting to smell tasty in there.

the Mother plants looked a little shitty yesterday after staying in veg mode thanks to the CFLs i use in the bathrooms, I put the MH in when i got home this afternoon, and they looked like they have gotten noticeably bigger since this morning and are no longer droopy.

In summary, everything seems to be going too smoothly. I need to be patient, but i just want to do something!! Unfortunately for my crazy intense motivation since this growing endeavor started, i have to save money now!!

After Vegas Plans:

*The first Idea i am actually going to do*

- I plan to build a second flowering cab, that will be big enough to flower out my mother plants, which by the time they are ready to be put to pasture, they will be of considerable size. Planning on using LED lights for that cab. Also not exactly sure when i would put the mothers into flower as the sativa can take up to 16 weeks to finish flowering. Which means i would have to have the sativa mother in the cab by beginning of August. Its really hard to make everything line up when you have different strains that finish at such different lengths.

- Doing a "Capn" style grow using rockwool chunks and a top feed system in the new cab and try to reach a 1lb+ monster. A plant like that gets vegged for 2 months by his standards and then flowered for 2+months. That gives me a total of 4+ months to complete this grow. By that time frame standard, that gives me just under 1 month to build this cab before i run out of time to be able to complete the grow before i move at the end of the year. This option will most likely be after I move out of my apartment.

- Build my own Aerocloner, even tho with my grow box and its space limitations, a high plant count doesnt seem like the efficient use of my space, therefore rendering a high site count cloner to be almost pointless, unless i sold clones to other growers. However, i only know one person that grows MJ

Still need to figure out a good source/replacement ingredient of humic acid since the hydro store guys and I seem to think thats what the Ancient Forest is used for in the Tea. They had quite a few options, but at that time my bill was already at $115 with taxes and i'm sure the GF wouldnt be too pleased to know just how much i spent there with only a little over 3 weeks until our vacation.

And this is where i am now. I think i can safely say i am now counting the weeks of flowering, as most of my sativas are starting to develop bud sites and pistils are abundant

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

Ok quick update before i give the laptop over to the girlfriend for the night.

Changed water in the mother plant buckets.. added my pre made tea as well as the Subculture-M.. water was at 5.8 for ph.. no adjusting needed. The strange thing is the PPM of the water..

So my tap water tests at the lowest possible reading from my TDS pen which is 001(x10) = 10 ppm. I'm thinking its in fact lower than that and the pen is just giving me this reading cause thats as low as it can go, or maybe thats just what the PPM is. The pen is properly calibrated just before testing my tap water and still, 10 PPM. So after adding my nutes to the buckets, i do another PPM test and it reads 170x10 which is a whopping 1700 PPM!! Ive never read anywhere thus far or seen anyone feeding their plants with nute levels that high... That being said, my PPM readings have been well over 1200 for the last few weeks/res changes (2-3weeks) and nothing seems to be nute burned or anything.

As a matter of fact, i have been giving the Great White shark and the Rhinos much higher levels of nutes for the age they were before they went into flower. Probably almost 3 weeks ahead in feeding schedule since they were in the same DWC tub as the oldest plants i have growing, the Widows. Ph stays steady around 5.7-5.9. The PH of the Widow mother bucket was 5.8 when i dumped it out and filled it with fresh water/nutes. So i think i have to say that these particular strains, at least these genetics of them, seem to like high nutrient solutions with very high PPMs. i wonder whats gona happen in the later stages of flowering when the nute levels go up even further? I've read some of TheCapn's journals and he's gone as high as 1600ppm in flowering on some of his plants and started yellowing the leaves, so he cut it back to 1200ish. My ppms have been over 1300 for a solid 3 weeks with this weeks water change hitting 1700ppm, so I guess it could just be strain-specific.

Keep in mind these are just the mothers that are vegging in my bathroom.. The plants in flower haven't gotten a res change yet, and haven't gotten the new additions to my nute line up yet, which will be on Wednesday. The mothers have been drinking up the new nutes for a good 7+ hours when i came home from work tonight, and only thing that was noticeable was the Malawi gold mother was a little droopy. But shes always a little droopy before lights off Always perky in the morning. The other two mothers look just the same, only growing much bigger. Dropped the MH a couple inches closer to the canopy to try and minimize any unwanted stretching, and moved the 6" fan lower to accommodate for the increased heat on the canopy.

Speaking of stretching.. Anyone thats subbed or reading along care to share some of their knowledge on my subject of interest: the Flowering stretch.
Is it 21 days from when you go 12/12 or 21 days from "first" day of flower i.e when you start to see pistils and bud formation begin. Cause if its 21 days from going 12/12, i have 9 days until the initial stretch is done and i do my first defol. My plan is to clean up most of the small, extremely underdeveloped branches that is receiving next to no lights, and mostly below the screen and near the sides of the box, and then take my T5's i have and put them back into the box, to provide some light to the lower nodes not getting sufficient light.

The plants in the grow box are looking good, guess i should post some for an update!!

Here is the Front and Back label of the Pure Blend liquid compost tea:
Front

Back

Subculture-M.. Front:

And the Back for all your endo and ectomycorrhizae breakdown. I'm a noob so its all Swahili to me.

The last plant to be pulled from flowering chamber.. a very nice male specimen Malawi gold:

A Malawi gold lady in Flower, under some good screen training. See how bent she is.. Had to do this to keep them from stretching into the light chamber glass on the top of the grow chamber. lots are like this then i let em go:

The Great White Shark that caught up to the rest. I was super worried this was going to be another let down seed from my expensive seed order. Notice the cola starting to develop

The Sativas 12 days after flipping to 12/12:

White Widow, Great White Shark and 3 Rhinos 12 days into 12/12:

The temp and humidity in the box earlier today (its been raining the last couple days and both windows in the room which the grow box resides in were open to keep cool fresh air in the room that the grow box intakes its air from, which is why the humidity is above 50% right now) Temps usually hover around 20-24 degress and humidity usually hovers around 30-40%. Heres a shot of what it was today while taking a peek at the ladies:

Onto the happy mothers! Heres a shot of all three, then some side angle shots to show just how big these ladies are:

Side Malawi Gold:

Side White Rhino:

Side White Widow:

Temp in the bathroom has stayed between 20 degrees (probably around 18ish at night when the light is off) and 28 degrees. Sorry that was kind of confusing i realize. So temps with light on range between 19-28 degrees depending on weather outside cause that affects my apartment temp. i'm guesstimating on night time, lights off temp as i haven't checked the hygrometer at night (just looked right now, temp is 20.7 and RH is 49%) If its hot outside, i turn on my 3 fan, tower fan to high to blow cool air into the bathroom. Usually its just on low during the day to keep good air circulation into the bathroom. I also keep the bathroom fan on to vent any heat that rises up. dont know if this is completely necessary as i have a 6" clip fan on low inside the emerg blanket that blows downward onto the canopy, and the temps seem to be okay. guess i will see how temps range with it off for a couple days.. gotta try and save on the electricity bill any way i can!!

Needless to say, i think the plants that i have are in very good conditions to provide me with a very rewarding first harvest. There is a total of 10 plants remaining in the grow box. 4 Malawi, 2 White Widow, 3 Rhino and 1 Great White Shark. All 4 i am super stoked to be able to smoke some since 2 i have never smoked before (MG & GWS) and the other 2 i haven't seen since i started smoking pot 15 years ago (Widow&Rhino).

Jesus, another friggin' essay! I apologize for i have just gotten my laptop back and i can freely and easily express my current progress as well as ever changing future plans/projects. Plus i kind of miss the peeps that been following. haven't really been posting any updates themselves so i thought i would at least give them a decent read of someones endless blabbering about growing this amazing plant.

.. .. and as always... stay

 

[CronicHempHog]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

Great Update GreenThumbJ

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

thanks Chronic.. i been trying to catch up to your latest journal, however, 245 pages is a daunting amount of reading!! i think i'll just skim through and pick up any tid bits of info i can find!!

the mothers in the bathtub look absolutely amazing!!!! since adding the pure blend compost tea and the subculture-M, these plants have bulked up for sure. they just look 10x more vigorous, and about 2" taller than yesterday.

Question for you or anyone else that reads this.. Whats the highest you have gone on PPM with your water res? my mothers are currently sitting at around 1700ppm in the buckets, and they aren't flowering, just vegging. The plants in flower get a res change on wednesday and the ppms will probably be around 1700 or higher.. I ask cause they dont seem to be affected in any negative way.. just drinking up those nutes and putting on some girth. No signs of nute burn whatsoever!! i just dont know what to think about it.. obviously i'm not stressing about it as my plants are looking amazing right now.

 

[CronicHempHog]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

I don't have a ppm meter
maybe one day

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

just playing it by ear eh? thats what i was doing up until i guess a few weeks ago? but i figured since hydro is apparently much more finicky than soil grows?... i should make sure that everything is dialed in.. bought digital hygrometers for the grow box and mother bathroom, and the TDS pen to make sure RH and temp and nutrient levels are where they should be.

the TDS pen was like $50CAD at the hydro store.. same with my PH pen i got as well. TDS pen isn't necessary at all, but its good to know how much you're feeding your plants when changing the water res, or watering if you do soil.

I just wonder how much these plants can take. The PPM of the water in the buckets for the mothers like i have said a few times is 1700 PPM. TheCapn has flowered plants and fed as high as 1600ppm but it was clearly too much for the plant so he backed down to around 1200 (according to his journal/posts) These mothers aren't in flower tho, just veg, and they are taking up the high levels of nutes like theyre in short supply!!! The plants in flower, when they get their weekly res change, will probably have a PPM reading of over 1800, which according to the bottle, makes sense cause the amount added each week increases. Which means by the time i'm ready to start flushing for harvest, these plants could be sitting in aerated water with a ppm of 2400 or higher even! i sure dont know anything by my own standards, other than what little i have learned so far. But of the journals i have read, PPMs this high are unheard of, and in fact no where near where other peoples levels are at. I'm still yet to introduce the automated co2 injection since i haven't gotten my co2 tank yet.

Everything seems to be looking to be going in the right direction so i guess the high PPMs dont seem to bother the plants.. I will continue on this path until the plants say otherwise.

That Pure Blend organic compost tea, surprisingly smells like over steeped iced tea. even tho its made with seabird shit and bat shit. And i gotta say again. the mothers seem to be loving it! I will get my humic acid supplement and start brewing my heisenberg tea so i can compare the two teas and see which one works better.

 

[Coffeeholic]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

Great journal!

For the fungi you could have a look at MycoGrow (same fungi as gw + some more i think). Kelp4Less also have Mycorrhiaze fungi. both cheaper and both send world wide i believe.

 

[TheCapn]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

According to Amazon.com, both General Hydroponics Ancient Forest and Plant Success' Great White cannot be shipped to me here in BC.

So after some research I decided I'm going to go with General Hydroponics Subculture M for my mycorrhizae supply and still unsure of what I am going to substitute the Ancient Forest with. Although TheCapn suggests not substituting Ancient Forest, it appears I don't really have a choice if I want to brew some bennie tea for the ladies as it appears it cannot cross the border. After I bounce from the hydro store in 20 mins, I'll have everything for Heisenberg's tea, minus the ancient forest. hopefully theres a similar product?

You will be just fine with the subculture M, Aqua shield and your pureblend tea. Since your in DWC, the main thing you need to worry about is keeping the water temp under 70F, which is hard to do without a chiller. The beneficial bacteria you are using are definitely keeping away the pythium, so don't stop using them.

>>For the fungi you could have a look at MycoGrow (same fungi as gw + some more i think).
+1 This is good stuff too, and CHEAP!

As far as PPM goes. I've grown out at least a dozen strains and every time I've gone over 1200ppm, I've dehydrated leaf tips, and regretted it. In fact, I don't go over 1000 now. You say you're in the 1600+ range. I have a feeling your meter is not calibrated correctly or maybe it is a different conversion rate. Is it .5 or .7 conversion?

>>>- I plan to build a second flowering cab, that will be big enough to flower out my mother plants, which by the time they are ready to be put to pasture, they will be of considerable size. Planning on using LED lights for that cab.

I agree. Sometimes I wish I were only growing one strain, as it makes it so much easier. After awhile, you'll learn how to throw away the ones that are low producers and keep only the best ones. I don't keep mother plants. It is a PITA and not necessary. I keep taking clones of clones of clones. Why do you want to use LED? HPS is so much cheaper, easier to cool a ducted hood, and the spectrum and intensity is 20X the LED, resulting in much bigger buds.

>>>Doing a "Capn" style grow using rockwool chunks and a top feed system in the new cab and try to reach a 1lb+ monster. A plant like that gets vegged for 2 months by his standards and then flowered for 2+months. That gives me a total of 4+ months to complete this grow.

I like the sound of that. You will see how easy the rockwool top feed is to maintain, and it will yield just as much as the DWC. You will use less nutrients too. Soon, you will get into a routine where you put a plant into flower and take a clone from it. While that plant flowers, your clone vegges, and 2 months later you harvest and put the next one into flower, take a clone of it, repeat. It's a fool proof system for a LB every two months.

>>>Build my own Aerocloner, even tho with my grow box and its space limitations, a high plant count doesnt seem like the efficient use of my space, therefore rendering a high site count cloner to be almost pointless, unless i sold clones to other growers. However, i only know one person that grows MJ

Check out my article about cloning in rockwool. 100% success every time. Much easier than worring about an aero pump, sprayer, water temp, etc.

>>>Still need to figure out a good source/replacement ingredient of humic acid since the hydro store guys and I seem to think thats what the Ancient Forest is used for in the Tea. They had quite a few options, but at that time my bill was already at $115 with taxes and i'm sure the GF wouldnt be too pleased to know just how much i spent there with only a little over 3 weeks until our vacation.

You will be fine with the beneficials you already have. Just be sure to use them 2-3 times a week in DWC. Once a week in rockwool.

Did you say you are going to Vegas? Where are you staying? I go at least once a year. You'll find me in a poker room, somewhere

I didn't get to go thru your entire journal, but from what I saw, you are doing amazingly well, especially for your first grow. Keep up the good work, and I'm subscribing and looking FWD to see how it goes.

 

[Radogast]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

>>> You will see how easy the rockwool top feed is to maintain, and it will yield just as much as the DWC.

Rock wool and cloning gel are wicked easy I am 15 for 15 on rock wool clones. Easier than seeds.


>>>Soon, you will get into a routine where you put a plant into flower and take a clone from it. While that plant flowers, your clone vegges, and 2 months later you harvest and put the next one into flower, take a clone of it, repeat.

+ reps. SOLUTION!!!!
I have just completed my first 1.5 month veg cycle, going into flower and decided I wanted to go for two batches of plants with clone+ veg=flower time.
It is very confusing to manage nutrients with plants in different weeks in the flowering room. Keeping the mothers out of flower seemed challenging in the winter.
Mothers make sense for the two week veg I've seed on so many nutes scheduled.
Growing clones of clones each cycle is a great solution for me and my evolving growing style.

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

Hehe.. i feel a little kiddish that The Capn actually stopped by.. i did PM him a question regarding the tea and he responded very quickly.. +reps for that.. and he's following along!

so yea i checked the TDS pen book thing and in fact the conversion rate is .5 like TheCapn said.. so my PPMs are at 850 not 1700.. i knew something wasnt right with that number. but ah well.. good to know i've got everything in check now.

Don't LED grow lights use less power than say a 600 or 1000w HPS? at least that seems to be the claim from what i read.. Also gives off less heat and the lights last longer. I use HPS in my flowering chamber (2x400w) and MH in my bathroom on a 600w dimmable digital ballast (set at 330w currently), and CFL in the grow box with the MH for Veg, when i veg in the box. LED might be the way to go to keep my electricity costs down.

TheCapn style grow will probably be my new way of doing it. I like rockwool already, its neutral, next to impossible to over water, and i have a lot of it already haha. Combined with the top feed system he uses, i think it will work out just fine. My new space will be dedicated to TheCapn!

I am going to clone in rockwool like suggested. I have tons of 1" starter cubes and a nursery flat and humidity dome and some rooting gel. I will wait till i get back from Vegas tho.. 3 weeks away!

Yes Capn, i am going to vegas. I will be staying at Mandalay Bay for a full 7 nights. we splurged and went with this hotel cause they have 11 acre surf and sand pool complex, and its the middle of june we will be going, my gf is pale skinned and will need sun relief! Plus it just looks badass!! I will be going once a year at least myself as my first Vegas trip was actually just last year in september for my birthday (stayed at NY NY, didn't really like what i paid for, wont go back) Less than a year later, i'll be back. (3 day music festival is my main reason for going in the middle of June!!! its gona be HOT!) I dont do much gambling as i still have so much to see in vegas before i dedicate a set amount of money to go and lose (or maybe win?)

I plan to use the bennies a few times a week like you suggest. Thanks for the quick response. You really are an inspiration i'm sure to so many on this site, not just myself

thanks for your advice, i will be putting it all to good use.

 

[Radogast]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

Congrats on the TDS pen answer.
You knew something was off and you kept mentioning it until you got your answer.

 

[Greenthumb J]

Re: Greenthumb J's BCNL "Producer" grow. 800w DWC - first grow ever! Multi-Strain

Thanks Radogast.. And thanks to everyone who has input something here or there along the way. The journey is far from over I'll tell ya that. And I feel much more at ease with everyone's input