Jango's Hydro CFL Snow White Grow! No Dwarves Allowed!

[Jango]

Hey tortured soul, thanks for stopping by! Good tip too, if I was just doing one grow id throw it in there but I'm working on getting a perpetual garden going lol. The original plan was to start 3 each of the NL and SW from seed and then mother 1 of each and throw the other 4 into flower but since I killed my first 3 NL I'm just gonna mother the 1 going now and the one SW. I've got about 5 other strains I want to get going too but its baby steps for now lol. Do u know anything about scrog? Can I start to do it when I put them in to flower?

 

[Jango]

New veg setup is working great, the girls finally have some room to spread their arms out! On another note 2 out of 4 plants got the chop in the flower box, im guessing dry weight will be around 3/4 to 1 oz for them which doesnt sound like much but if you guys could have seen how bad they were when i took them over id say its very good! lol wet weight on the first two plants was 50g, here's a few pics

 

[Jango]

Man is my grow really uninteresting or something, too much blabbing!? Come on guys 260 some views and like 2 comments! Join me friends! Little do u all know but your looking at the plants that are going to produce Bud of the Month for July or August!! lol

 

[TorturedSoul]

Man is my grow really uninteresting or something, too much blabbing!? Come on guys 260 some views and like 2 comments! Join me friends! Little do u all know but your looking at the plants that are going to produce Bud of the Month for July or August!! lol

Well, you chased off the contingent of 2,500 Little People (and some 80's band called Killer Dwarfs want you to come out back for a little chat)... (Just kidding, lol.)

Lots of journals and it can be hard to catch people's attention. You've linked to your journal in your .SIG which is good; do you visit any of the more popular journals and comment so that people actually see the link? I'm not suggesting you make a pest of yourself in a spamming fashion, of course, but if you're... sociable(?) then people will start recognizing your handle more. And if you do it by answering questions or providing tips, it helps people. If you don't see anything that you have enough knowledge to help with, there's always the reverse - if you see something that you don't understand or would like more information on, asking can help you, other members, and the many "guests" who have not yet taken the plunge and joined our fine site. (Not everyone likes to have a lot of Q&A in their journals, but many don't mind. You can usually get a feel for which way things are and if you have any doubt, a PM to the journal's author will clear the question up.)

Other than that, it's Spring and I wouldn't be surprised if Internet activity in general goes down a little this time of year.

Do u know anything about scrog? Can I start to do it when I put them in to flower?

A bit, yeah. I've always been a fan for a number of reasons. You can start when you switch to flower, but you'll likely end up with only a partially-filled screen. Best time to start the scrog process is when you start the grow. But you might get some branching during the first 40% of the flowering period (aka "the stretch").

Might be best to just do more traditional training LST-style this time if you're already (or soon to be) flowering. You have separate veg/flower areas, yes? That would give you time to put together "movable scrog" setups so that in the future you can scrog from day one (well, as soon as your plants reach the screen) and then roll the reservoir-with-attached-frame/screen from one chamber to the other.

Or not, lol. I don't know how your area is set up, if you have to use stairs or go to a different location to move from veg to flower it would be a major pain, I guess.

im guessing dry weight will be around 3/4 to 1 oz for them which

I'll guess 13.8g after they've dried/cured and the stems are removed. Hope you end up with more, but either way they came into existence by your own hand - and one assumes you learned a lot and had fun in the process.

BtW, have you thought about building little reflectors for those CFLs out of aluminum drink cans? The materials are free (assuming you drink from cans) and it's generally way more efficient to mount the light horizontally with such a reflector than it is to use one of those round utility-light hoods (where almost all of the illumination only reaches the plants after it goes outward from the bulb, hits the hood, and reflects down to the plant). That doesn't apply if you've got a bulb hanging vertically close in between plants - and wouldn't want to use any reflector/hood - of course, but if you aren't doing that then you don't want to have any light shining at the walls/ceiling/next door (lol). I've seen some surprisingly nice grows/harvests from CFLs, but the best ones had the bulbs as close to the plants as the plants would tolerate, had as much direct (non-reflected) light hitting them as possible, and reflected as much of the rest of the lights' output as possible back at the plants.

Just rambling.

 

[Jango]

Might be best to just do more traditional training LST-style this time if you're already (or soon to be) flowering. You have separate veg/flower areas, yes? That would give you time to put together "movable scrog" setups so that in the future you can scrog from day one (well, as soon as your plants reach the screen) and then roll the reservoir-with-attached-frame/screen from one chamber to the other.

Or not, lol. I don't know how your area is set up, if you have to use stairs or go to a different location to move from veg to flower it would be a major pain, I guess.

I do have everything in one room but its kind of tight quarters and the flower part is setup in a cabinet. Lol its already tough to maneuver in there! I think i might try to scrog anyways, they cabinet is 2dx3w and the two plants are already bushy enough to pretty much fill it in so we'll see what happens, ill ultimately decide when i put them in which needs to be very soon cause they are getting too big but im waiting for my brothers plant to get done but its taking forever!

I'll guess 13.8g after they've dried/cured and the stems are removed. Hope you end up with more, but either way they came into existence by your own hand - and one assumes you learned a lot and had fun in the process.

Yeah i was originally thinking about that much but the last plant in there is filling out quite nicely and ive always been a big optimist! lol

BtW, have you thought about building little reflectors for those CFLs out of aluminum drink cans? The materials are free (assuming you drink from cans) and it's generally way more efficient to mount the light horizontally with such a reflector than it is to use one of those round utility-light hoods (where almost all of the illumination only reaches the plants after it goes outward from the bulb, hits the hood, and reflects down to the plant). That doesn't apply if you've got a bulb hanging vertically close in between plants - and wouldn't want to use any reflector/hood - of course, but if you aren't doing that then you don't want to have any light shining at the walls/ceiling/next door (lol). I've seen some surprisingly nice grows/harvests from CFLs, but the best ones had the bulbs as close to the plants as the plants would tolerate, had as much direct (non-reflected) light hitting them as possible, and reflected as much of the rest of the lights' output as possible back at the plants.

Yeah i have all the reflection pretty much set up. In the flower cab the whole cab is lined in mylar and the hanging light fixture is as well so thats all taken care of. The veg part i just set up the whole new shelf system and installed the hanging cfls a day later and also have some mylar on the walls and hanging down but the pop cans would work good for the extra cfl's i just installed in there. I do have the plants pretty close too so they are doing really good!

Well glad to see your back and thanks for all the good advice! Hope your health woes are getting better and ill be keeping an keen eye on your EFDL journal! Thanks bud!

 

[Jango]

First pic is of the two big girls, going into the flower box tomorrow! Next pic is the NL who's gonna get mothered and then my other snow white who's getting mothered too.

 

[Jango]

Sooo this grow definitely keeps evolving on the fly. As the weather gets warmer I'm having a much more difficult time keeping temps down in the flower cab. That being said I have let my two SW's that are about to be flowered get too big for the cab anyway! Both are about 18" tall right now and I'm not even gonna bother trying to put them in cause I know it's gonna be a problem. Since the main starting idea was just to build a room to house the cabinet I obviously have more room around the cab I can use, so right next to the cab is an area about 4x4x5h that is plenty cool and will be easy to control the temp during flower. I'll have pics up in a day or two when i get them switched over

 

[brocious719]

They look very green and happy Jango ... fine job!

 

[Jango]

Well major setback, my 2 girls I put in to flower on Friday both got hit with root rot. One really bad and lost about half it's root mass, the other one I caught pretty quick. Both are currently on just water and h2o2 after washing out the roots and pulling out the dead parts. What a huge downer as they were doing so great, I'm not worried about being able to save them but it just sucks to have such a big setback. I could have caught it sooner but of course I was out of town this weekend when it happened. Any body with good root rot advice I'd love to hear it. I'm really shocked by it as the tubs are lightproofed, good supply of oxygen and res temps kept in the 60's. The only thing I can figure out is that this is the one time I didn't wash off the air stones when i did the res change and I just grabbed from the setup that had my brothers plants in which also had root rot at one point so lesson learned I guess

 

[TorturedSoul]

Well major setback, my 2 girls I put in to flower on Friday both got hit with root rot. One really bad and lost about half it's root mass, the other one I caught pretty quick. Both are currently on just water and h2o2 after washing out the roots and pulling out the dead parts. What a huge downer as they were doing so great, I'm not worried about being able to save them but it just sucks to have such a big setback. I could have caught it sooner but of course I was out of town this weekend when it happened. Any body with good root rot advice I'd love to hear it. I'm really shocked by it as the tubs are lightproofed, good supply of oxygen and res temps kept in the 60's. The only thing I can figure out is that this is the one time I didn't wash off the air stones when i did the res change and I just grabbed from the setup that had my brothers plants in which also had root rot at one point so lesson learned I guess

H2O2 is great as long as you're not doing the organic thing (it tends to kill what lives in the root zone).

Not really a suggestion about how to remove it, but to prevent it: O2, O2, O2, and more O2. When you think you've got enough DO in the reservoir... Double it. Supersaturate enough and you won't see rot even if temps have US drooping beside our plants, lol. Air stones are nice and all. But get one of these for your reservoir:

It's an aquarium power head. You can find them at pet stores, aquarium shops, even Wal*Mart (one of a very small amount of items that I'd not shake my head at someone for buying there). Actually, the one at China*Mart is pretty decent for what it is. I've got one around here somewhere... Ok, it's an Aqua-Tech Power Head (by Regent). Comes with a clear tube (supposed to be to hook up to an under-gravel filter) which will allow it to pull water from down low, the venturi effect causes a LOT of air to be sucked in, they're mixed together and "spat" out with a fair amount of force. Has a 10' power cord. 170 GPH. Around $22. Probably last you a year or two before it starts getting noisy. If you're bad about letting your reservoir level drop, you'll hear the difference when it gets low enough that it's spraying at the side of the reservoir instead of in the mix.

 

[Jango]

H2O2 is great as long as you're not doing the organic thing (it tends to kill what lives in the root zone).

Not really a suggestion about how to remove it, but to prevent it: O2, O2, O2, and more O2. When you think you've got enough DO in the reservoir... Double it. Supersaturate enough and you won't see rot even if temps have US drooping beside our plants, lol. Air stones are nice and all. But get one of these for your reservoir:

It's an aquarium power head. You can find them at pet stores, aquarium shops, even Wal*Mart (one of a very small amount of items that I'd not shake my head at someone for buying there). Actually, the one at China*Mart is pretty decent for what it is. I've got one around here somewhere... Ok, it's an Aqua-Tech Power Head (by Regent). Comes with a clear tube (supposed to be to hook up to an under-gravel filter) which will allow it to pull water from down low, the venturi effect causes a LOT of air to be sucked in, they're mixed together and "spat" out with a fair amount of force. Has a 10' power cord. 170 GPH. Around $22. Probably last you a year or two before it starts getting noisy. If you're bad about letting your reservoir level drop, you'll hear the difference when it gets low enough that it's spraying at the side of the reservoir instead of in the mix.

Hey TS, that is extremely helpful! I originally asked the guy when i was first getting stuff for my setup if i had enough oxygen and he said yeah but i still felt like i needed more and with the plants getting bigger and moved to their own tubs ive been forced to split up my airstones more so i bet thats exactly what happened, just not enough O2! Well here are some pics of the girls in their current state with root pics. The bigger one that i was able to save is doing pretty good, but the one that lost most of its roots is not happy at all! Another problem is with having to leave for the weekend i rushed them in to flower since they were getting so big and i dont quite have the area set up all the way since i decided not to use the cab, so i have to finish getting some more light around them and also some mylar. The biggest problem is ive run out of damn money! lol

They are still in plain water with H2O2. But how should i proceed from here? I was gonna leave the one in for another day or two but the one that is still doing good i was going to switch back to nutes. Is that the right things to do? I figured since much damage wasnt done id do that and get that one back on track but the other one obviously is gonna need some time to regrow some roots but im thinking since i just switched them to flower this past friday that i should just keep them on that light schedule and let it rebuild roots in there, correct? Should i keep the weak one on the same flower nute mix or switch it to something else to promote root growth? I dont know i guess im just not sure what is the correct action to take to bring her back to health!?

 

[Jango]

Ok so based on tortured souls great advice i decided the best thing for my current setup was to just upgrade my air pump. So my two girls in flower are now each receiving 6x more oxygen and the mothers got doubled up. So hopefully that will take care of any more rot issues. The plant that is doing better smelled a little bit when I was adding the extra o2 so I'll wash her roots out again tomorrow, hopefully no more damage is done to her as it would be really upsetting for both of them to be set back so bad.

 

[Jango]

Well I washed the healthier girls roots out tonight, not sure how bad the roots got damaged but obviously more than I'd care for, uggh woe is me, this grow was going fantastic up to his point, waaaaay better than I expected in fact but as everyone says it is definitely a learning process! At any rate the new pump is absolutely blasting the buckets with o2! Tomorrow I'm gonna pick up a couple more air stones as the pump came with a 6 port divider and I only have 2 hooked up and I'm sure a couple more stones will help deliver even more o2!

 

[Jango]

When it rains it pours. . . well I'm pullin the plug on my girl that got crushed by root rot, way to bad of shape to keep trying to save. On the other side of things to add to my problems my big mother plant has a small bout of spider mites, sprayed them today so that shouldn't be an issue. Monday I'll get some hygrozyme to help with things. Other than that I guess things are going ok, my mothers have shown sex and both are female as well as my girl I put in to flower so that's good

 

[Jango]

A bit of an update and some pics. Finished drying my brothers last plant and put in to cure on friday, 19.1g! So the total harvest from all his plants was around 32g, way more than i thought he was going to get! The bug spray also worked VERY well, suck it bugs! So besides my one plant not making it things are back on track and going well! Lets of new root structure and repair from the rot, havent got the hygrozyme yet but definitely will be getting it. Added subculture B which seems to be helping a lot too.

Harvest from brothers last plant not the best pic, still using cell phone lol

Bummer . . . . i tried to save her but it got too bad to be worth it. She looks better in the pic than in person!

 

[Jango]

This lovely lady however is doing just fine!! On a side note i definitely need to get more reflective material around her. Ran out of money! Ive also decided cfl's work great for the cabinet but since the cab got put on hold cause of temperatures its time to upgrade. As soon as i start cloning in a week or two im definitely gonna need a bigger flowering setup which definitely requires a bigger light. Will be getting a 600w setup in about 2 weeks!

 

[Jango]

Hygrozyme added to my flowering girl with a nute change, will add to veg tub with thurs nute change

 

[Jango]

Big root improvement and growth overnight! Ive decided its time to name my flowering girl, perhaps thats why she has been acting up. Sooooo her name is BETTY MMMnnnnngggnnnnngGGNNNNGNGNG! For anyone who's seen Kung Pow: Enter the Fist lol. So at any rate one night after nute change for her with subculture B and Hygrozyme added there is definite root improvement. But perhaps someone could help me diagnose what some of these leaf symptoms on her are, they pretty much all showed up after the root rot flared up. Any ideas guys?

ignore the plant on the right in this first pic lol

And you can see the spots on the left side of this pic

 

[Godisalie]

I hope you gave her a proper burial it looks like she had a hard life.
Rest assured More positive yields in the future will provide compensation for the ones taken away. Lets all light one up for our fallen homies/homettes?

 

[TorturedSoul]

That one looks like someone got a CFL too close (rounded heat damage). Probably not, lol. Then again, (surface temperature on one can reach 154°F) they're somewhat less efficient overall than a 4' tube and concentrated in one area instead of spread out - so if you had a bulb really close with no air movement, that could cause it.

But probably not since that's not the only damaged area.