Ice LED topdrip hydro 2009

[Tead]

This is my second hydro grow. My first one failed for various newbie issues that I'll attempt not to repeat.

What strain is it? Ice
Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? Mixed, primarily Indica
Is it in Veg or Flower stage? 1st day of Veg
Indoor or outdoor? Semi outdoor (outdoor garden shed)
Soil or Hydro? Top Drip Hydro
Size of light? 139 Watts of LED, 50 Watt CF
Is it aircooled? No
Temp of Room/cab? Outside temp... usually too hot

Day 1
Grow area overviews

Hydro Ice babies

Hydro Ice Plant1

Hydro Ice Plant 2

This is an Ice growing in soil.

This is a plant I recovered from my last failed hydro grow

cheers!

 

[ledmcbucks]

Looks good! Are the cfls 50w a peice or total watt from all 4 lights?
Have you noticed a diffrence with them.
I have been thinking about using them to supplement the LED but I dont want to ruin my LED only grow.

 

[Tead]

I've only got 1 50W CF bulb running. It's it the top left of the cabinet. I kind of like it... I feel it might fill in a bit on any missing spectrum. The other light fixtures have small LED's in them (3 total). The big lights up top are 50W LEDs, and the small ones are 13W each, for a total of 139W of LED power.

I'd love to test things with just LEDs, but I need a harvest, so I'm trying to do whatever I can to get a decent harvest.

Cheers

 

[mafcs]

i recommend putting the leds inches away from the leafs.

 

[L8tNightSkunk]

I agree looks like they are gonna strech a bit if you dont! nice set up just put leds closer! good luck!

 

[Tead]

I'm pretty sure they're done stretching. Right now, they're stacking leaves. They've got about 6 pairs of leaves (not including seed leaves) stacked up and ready to jump up a bit more. I feel they're past any stretching they might do.

On a related subject, I'm not really happy with the way I sprouted these babies. I just basicly put the seed in the rockwool, gave it some water and let it sprout out with a light hanging inches above it. Then, as soon as it stopped growing upwards, I stuck it directly in the hydro bucket. There were no roots showing when I put it in the hydro setup. I checked about 3 days later, and there were still no roots showing outside the rockwool and the rockwool itself was really degraded.... minute pieces came off on my fingers.
So today, I pushed aside some of the hydroton and pulled the rockwool cube with plant1 in it gingerly out of it's resting place. The rockwool cube itself was very spongy and weak. When I rub the rockwool cube lightly with my finger, small pieces of it crumble off. There kind of appear to be small thread that might be roots forming. There appears to be an algea growing on the bottom of the cube... tho it might be dead... it looks like a Mandlebrot kind of stuff... Lightly lime colored, tho parts of it are white.
I've just started adding H2O2 to my water, and I'm burdened with a water temp issue that I can do nothing about. I've been adding ice containers to the tank and the water temps have been floating around 75. PH has been fluctuating, but I'm thinking that may be caused by some growth in my tank, and I hope controlling the temps and adding H2O2 will help that.

I may just pull them out of the tank, plant them in soil, do some testing, and start with a fresh round.
I might have to move the whole setup indoors, but I have no way to do that at the moment.
Next time I start seeds or clones, I'm going to wait until the babies have a decent root system formed.

Sorry to write a book.

Cheers.

 

[Tead]

I give up....

So, I just pulled the 2 plants I had in hydro. When I pulled the rockwool cubes out of the hydroton, the pretty much fell apart. I put them under a very small stream of running water, and most of the cube just washed away. Plant1 had a firm area around the seed area... no roots, I just stuck what little was left of the rockwool and the plant into some dirt. Plant2 had absolutely no roots, and a black marble sized area of semi-firm darrk black material around the seed area... no roots... all of it washed off under the water and I put the bare stalk of the plant into the dirt.

I think my temps are too extreme for hydro. I'm going to find a space indoors to test with.

Cheers

 

[L8tNightSkunk]

sorry for the mishapens but why not restart. Maybe your working with the wrong field why not try soil and cfls easy and works pretty good!

 

[Tead]

l8nightskunk... I comepletely agree. I've been growing outside for many years. I had decided to take the hydro plunge (pardon the pun) and try it out. While my personal experience showed me that growing hydro in high temps is too problematic. Like I said, I'll try finding cooler indoor spot to test.

In the end, I'm left with a bunch of lights and an empty grow chamber. hmmmm.... what could I do with that?????

The plan is to keep a big stock of veg'd plants growing in the 24/7 lighted grow chamber, then move them outside to flower. I'm pretty sure they'll flower out in about a month, and I should have a pretty good process going. With a small number of plants actively flowering outside, I should have a nice flow going.

Perhaps when winter rolls around and the cooler temps kick in, I'll set up the tank and see if I can complete a grow over the winter months when the outside temps are 60ish instead of 90ish.

Just in case anyone reads this and is contemplating doing hydro in an outdoor environment...

Don't even bother trying to grow hydro outside!!!

So, at this point, the ice babies that started in hydro are now in soil. They're going to make some roots I hope, then do some vegging in the 24 hour light.

cheers all, and thanks for the input l8nightskunk

 

[L8tNightSkunk]

yeah no problem i hope all works out for you!

 

[Tead]

I'm sure it will... soil is a much easier medium in hot areas, and I've been growing outside for many moons.

cheers

 

[L8tNightSkunk]

i like your confidence

 

[falcore]

wow that sounds frustrating. I don't know anything about hydro growing but i know how you feel about high temps. I'm on my first grow and have been battling high temps for the last 2 months i lost a lot of sleep during veg. (18/6) because i had to keep the door to my cabinet open the whole time just to get it below 85. LOL

When summer kicks in im gonna try an all cfl grow on 12/12 instead of using my hid's lamps. its a bummer that we all cant just plant em in our yard or on a balcony. whY ObAMa!!!!!!!!????

 

[Tead]

I have become one with the frustration. I've found failure to be a very good educator. That being said, any one know where to get an astounding deal on a chiller?

cheers

 

[Tead]

Just a quick update...
Lesson 1: Don't leave your camera on, lens open and pointed up. It will fry your ccd pretty damn quick.

The babies I've moved from hydro to soil are doing OK.
Plant1 took to the soil pretty quick and is now looking good.
Plant2 had no roots when pulled from the hydro and the rockwool cube fell apart. It was like planting a stick with leaves on it. It's going ok now, just a bit slower than Plant1.

The older Ice seedling is now enjoying natural sunlight and I'm waiting to see if it's female. She seems to have some really wierd leaves... one set of leaves looks like 1 side of the leaf grew normally, but the other side is stunted. It's strange.

I strarted anohter seedling in a chilled bubble tank. I borrowed a water cooler from a friend and I'm pumping the water thru the water cooler tank. The water temps are staying right at 60 day and night, so I'm hopeful that my previous issues can be avoided.

Cheers