Mars Hydro Grow Journal SP 3000: Blue Kush, RDWC, ScrOG

Hi GG! I just found this and i intend to start at the beginning and catch up. I just wanted to stop in and pay my respects first. Im interested to see what happens here. I just upgraded my little patch of happyness and that involved making my 2x4 tent into a mother house and in its place a 5x5x5 flowering temt using my trusty sp250 and my spankin new sp3000. Plus i'll be throwing my little hlg 160w rspec quantum board i. For the very end. Watts equal weight after all.
Best of luck. I look forward to seeing what up.
 
I had the pleasure of meeting @copperrein earlier today, and she inspired me to put together a post about how I go from cloner to RDWC. So here it is:

How to use Coco in RDWC​

Whether I am going from seedling in rockwool, or a clone from my aerocloner


I go into coco in a very small pot


I mix some Great White in with the Coco, as well as sprinkle some on the roots directly. Place the little one in a pot and cover fill with coco. You want to pack it down, but not too hard. It should be firm, but not solid. Ideally, keep it warm with a heat matt, and feed little and often ideally. Try not to let the coco dry out, it should always be at least barely moist. This is coco, not soil. Coco is a hydroponic medium.

Within a week or so it should look like this:

I then transplant into a pot like this (1.5L pot):


I do the same thing as last time. I mix some Great White in with the coco. I put an inch of coco in the pot, sprinkle some great white on the bed where I will place the little one. And fill with coco. Same again, firm, but not hard.

After 2 weeks. The roots in this pot should be nice and dense, and look similar to they did in the smaller pot. At which point i move them to a net pot:





I lay a layer of clay pebbles, about an inch high (using mainly smaller pebbles if possible to keep the bed even). Then i lay some coco on top, sprinkle some great white, and place the plant from the 1.5L pot on top of it. Pack the sides with coco. I use a chopstick to gently push the coco down to fill the sides.

And you eventually end up with something like this:


I duct tape pipe cleaners to the outside of the pots for my LST.

Flipping to flowering​

Personally, I flip as soon as the roots of all 4 ladies are touching the water in the system (which is sat 1inch below the net pots. As soon as the roots are in the water, the root growth can be explosive:


Doing it this way, I end up with this come harvest

Some tips​

- Sprinkle Great White on the roots whenever you transplant. This stuff is amazing.
- Keep the rootzone of young plants warm. This will encourage faster root development. It will require more frequent feeding. But the results will speak for themselves.
- If the roots you are transplanting are root bound at the bottom, be sure to pick them apart a little (gently) at the bottom, before you move them to their new pot.
- Protect the net pots from light when you transplant them - roots don't like light. I place the net pots in the 1.5L pots for a day or so, as soon as I see roots I move them into the system and hand feed until I get something like this, and then I full the system up to 1 inch below the net pots.

Some bits of coco can end up in the res, but never enough to worry about. The system I built uses 32mm pipe and 19mm to and from chiller and i've never actually had a blockage caused from coco.

I hope this is helpful. This is just the way I work with Coco in DWC. Any questions, please don't hesitate to ask :peace:
 
Hi GG! I just found this and i intend to start at the beginning and catch up. I just wanted to stop in and pay my respects first. Im interested to see what happens here. I just upgraded my little patch of happyness and that involved making my 2x4 tent into a mother house and in its place a 5x5x5 flowering temt using my trusty sp250 and my spankin new sp3000. Plus i'll be throwing my little hlg 160w rspec quantum board i. For the very end. Watts equal weight after all.
Best of luck. I look forward to seeing what up.
Welcome @Lazarus13 - happy to have you!

Sounds like you have yourself a nice setup going on there. And that sounds like a really lovely big space! I'm sure your ladies will be very happy!

Please do share you journal link with me if you start one and i'll follow along :thumb:

Are you a soil or hydro grower?
 
I am trying to decide if I want to switch my one plant to dwc so all these little write up are awesome
I'm glad they're helpful @Rollincoal

There are pros and cons for single bucket DWC. It's where i started, with individual buckets. DWC in general is awesome, and done correctly can award tremendous yields. There are plenty of people who grow in single bucket DWC and don't have issues or inconveniences.

If i may offer an insight based on my experience - after a while, I found checking the PH and EC of individual buckets quite time consuming. Also topping up the buckets is a little tricky without a control bucket, especially when they get big, as you need to move the bucket/tote lid to do it.

If you do decide to go with a single bucket. It might be worth building a modular system, with a single bucket - so you have 2 buckets, a control bucket, and the node with your plant in it (I call the bucket with ladies in, nodes). A benefit of this is you can always add more nodes. Another good alternative for a single DWC bucket, is to use a large tote, with enough room on the lip to allow you access to read and feed without having to disturb the plant.

If you do build you own - go with 32mm Tank Connectors as a minimum size. If you like i'm happy to share a post on how i built my system. They are cheap to build when you know what you need :peace:
 
I'm glad they're helpful @Rollincoal

There are pros and cons for single bucket DWC. It's where i started, with individual buckets. DWC in general is awesome, and done correctly can award tremendous yields. There are plenty of people who grow in single bucket DWC and don't have issues or inconveniences.

If i may offer an insight based on my experience - after a while, I found checking the PH and EC of individual buckets quite time consuming. Also topping up the buckets is a little tricky without a control bucket, especially when they get big, as you need to move the bucket/tote lid to do it.

If you do decide to go with a single bucket. It might be worth building a modular system, with a single bucket - so you have 2 buckets, a control bucket, and the node with your plant in it (I call the bucket with ladies in, nodes). A benefit of this is you can always add more nodes. Another good alternative for a single DWC bucket, is to use a large tote, with enough room on the lip to allow you access to read and feed without having to disturb the plant.

If you do build you own - go with 32mm Tank Connectors as a minimum size. If you like i'm happy to share a post on how i built my system. They are cheap to build when you know what you need :peace:
That would be awesome, the main reason I am considering going that route is to see if my one plant will like it better, as she is super picky. The other is more of an experiment/experience of changing from soil to hydro as she is about two months now so not a small root ball to work with.

My first grow had a plant that got root rot at about a month old and I toyed with just killing it off but decided to do as one member re opened and cut the rotten roots off and see if she was strong enough to survive, so I went that route and she lived hermied in flower:cough:
But I now have that little bit of knowledge and know it can be done.
 
I never thought I’d be considering growing hydroponically. That post was really useful! It was good to see how you go from small pots and slowly make your way up gradually. I find it stunning how the roots just burst out the pots like that :snowboating:

What would you say are the key items someone would need if they decided to grow in coco/hydroponically?
 
That would be awesome, the main reason I am considering going that route is to see if my one plant will like it better, as she is super picky. The other is more of an experiment/experience of changing from soil to hydro as she is about two months now so not a small root ball to work with.

My first grow had a plant that got root rot at about a month old and I toyed with just killing it off but decided to do as one member re opened and cut the rotten roots off and see if she was strong enough to survive, so I went that route and she lived hermied in flower:cough:
But I now have that little bit of knowledge and know it can be done.
No problem. I'll go through my old pics and see if i have enough to put together a post in the new few days :thumb:

I feel your pain with the root rot. Ive had some experience with root rot in DWC. If you are growing in DWC without a chiller you may also face this problem. I recommend you either need to grow completely sterile using h202, or grow with beneficials (i do it this way) - you cant use them together - h202 will nuke any bennies in your system. If you don't go one of these ways you may be susceptible to root rot. Nutrient solution with a temperature above 21c/70f is a nice environment for nasties and pathogens to thrive. :peace:
 
I never thought I’d be considering growing hydroponically. That post was really useful! It was good to see how you go from small pots and slowly make your way up gradually. I find it stunning how the roots just burst out the pots like that :snowboating:

What would you say are the key items someone would need if they decided to grow in coco/hydroponically?
I'd say instruments to measure PH and EC are crucial pieces of equipment when growing hydroponically.

These will be used a lot, whichever hydroponic medium you chose to grow in. It's worth investing in a good quality PH pen, and look after that baby! I use a bluelab truncheon as my EC and nutrient mixing instrument, but there are other equally good, cheaper EC pen options out there.

Great question @PowerPuffNugz :high-five:
 
The ladies have been sat, perfectly content at

EC : 0.9
PH 5.7

all day long.

The water level is dropping nicely. I'm going to leave them alone. If it stays like this come lights out, i'm going to bump it up a point to 5.8.

In the mean time, here is a snap some bud for a change. These are the other Blue Kush at Day 36 of Flower in my other system, identical to this one.

These are a good example of why you shouldn't grow multiple strains in a single system. They have different nutrient requirements, and trying to please them both was an uphill struggle. Hence the nute burn.

Blue Kush
Deep Cheese

These girls seem to have stabilised though and are now flowering nicely, the Blue Kush is probably a bit ahead of schedule.
 
Welcome @Lazarus13 - happy to have you!

Sounds like you have yourself a nice setup going on there. And that sounds like a really lovely big space! I'm sure your ladies will be very happy!

Please do share you journal link with me if you start one and i'll follow along :thumb:

Are you a soil or hydro grower?
Ive never been one to post many pics. LoL im old school and still really suspicious. And my area is assy enough to make me miserable over my personal little space. Ive had things taken before over less. LoL maybe I'll say eff it yet and do a journal. I like what we do and ive gotten ok at it these long years.
To answer your ? I started as a dwc snob. I felt so mad sciency. But then i got lazy and stopped wanting to pay for 30 or 40 gals of RO every week and lug them up 2 flights of steps. Now i do 5 and 7 gal perlite DTW. FTW!! LoL. Monster hydro plants with none of the uss and root rot. DWC was stupid fun tho.
p.s. those flowers look sooo sticky already. I love when they start young.
 
Ive never been one to post many pics. LoL im old school and still really suspicious. And my area is assy enough to make me miserable over my personal little space. Ive had things taken before over less. LoL maybe I'll say eff it yet and do a journal. I like what we do and ive gotten ok at it these long years.
To answer your ? I started as a dwc snob. I felt so mad sciency. But then i got lazy and stopped wanting to pay for 30 or 40 gals of RO every week and lug them up 2 flights of steps. Now i do 5 and 7 gal perlite DTW. FTW!! LoL. Monster hydro plants with none of the uss and root rot. DWC was stupid fun tho.
Fair enough my friend :peace: Good to have a fellow DWC grower along for the ride.

I absolutely love to grow in Coco too. I love it as a medium. If it wasn't for the small space i grow in, I would mix it up more often. I find coco is a little more forgiving that DWC. Both yield extremely well.
p.s. those flowers look sooo sticky already. I love when they start young.
Thanks. They're coming along nicely, hopefully it's a smooth run to the end :)
 

Day 7 Flower continued...​

The ladies spent the entire day at
EC : 0.9
PH : 5.7

I bumped it up to 5.8. Let's see if it stays that way til the morning.

There was a lot of growth today. I had a fair bit of screen adjustment to do. Nice work ladies!

Here are some photos of the ladies under far-red light. Which come on for 5mins after lights out.


And here is the light that I use. It's 6 years old. Still going strong. I have 2 of them.

 
Back
Top Bottom