Feral's Adventures In Homemade DWC - 2015 - 400W HPS

Hey guys, has been a while since my last journal and have been spending my time wisely dialing in my setup a bit better. I have moved away from LED's, now running a 400w HPS setup. Here is a lot of information about my grow so far, i hope you all enjoy :Namaste:

What strain is it?
1. Bomb Seeds - Atomic Bomb - Feminised
Bought this because i have had nothing but great success with Bomb Seeds, This is their most potent strain.

Type: Indica/Sativa Mix
Plant Height: Medium (80-150cm)
THC: Very High (22-26%)
Yield: High (450-550g/m²)
Indoor/Outdoor: Indoor/Outdoor
Indoor Flowering: 8-9 Weeks
Stoned/High: Powerful & euphoric

2. Strain Hunters - Money Maker - Feminised
This one i have read nothing but bad things about which i didnt really read too much up on before purchase, it was a cheap seed and sounded pretty decent from the way they marketed it (also just needed a couple of dollars more to reach the next tier of free seeds lol). However, for me she is powering on big time, no issues and showing signs of female traits already, keeping up with the atomic bomb nicely.

Genetics: Original Master Kush, Hindu Kush and Skunk
Type: indica: 70% - sativa: 30%
Height: short plant (average internodal distance 5-7 cm).
Flowering Indoor: 8 weeks flowering time.
Taste: nutty, vegetal, spicy, fruity.
Scent: berries, spices, kushy, roasted.
Notes: Production up to 1Kg per plant depending on the final size. Support for the branches is recommended.

3. Greenhouse Seeds - Great White Shark - Feminised
This one was a last minute seed i threw in because i was worried about how the other 2 were growing to begin with in the soil, was planning on moving it outdoors but its in the DWC now so thats where she stays, quite a bit smaller than the other 2 but im sure she will produce some decent meds.

Genetics: Super Skunk x Brazilian x South Indian.
THC: 14.97% CBD: 0.18% CBN: 0.25%
Height: Short, branchy, bushy plant.
Flowering Indoor: 9 weeks, with a yield up to 800 gr/m2.
Effects: Very strong body effect, stoned and long-lasting.
Medicinally effective in pain therapy.

Is it in Veg or Flower stage? If in Flower stage... For how long? Hydro or soil?
Has just been changed from Veg to flower 3 days ago, not by choice but the 400w MH retro bulb blew and i had no way to get to the hydro store to get a replacement. They had a 30 hour dark period before switching directly to 12/12 under the 400w HPS globe.

Currently growing both indoors and outdoors but this journal is focused only on the girls inside. Running Hydro in 25l(5gal) black plastic buckets, could not get black lids and net pot lids are not available to me here :( i ended up with white bucket lids spray painted black to stop unwanted light getting to the root system, i then used a holesaw to cut a 6" hole in the top of each lid to fit a standard 6" net pot and also a small hole big enough to run my air stone tubing through. In my netpots i am running canna aqua clay pebbles and the seeds were germinated in rockwool. After multiple tests of airstones, air walls etc, i found in my setup the 4" Aqua One long rectangular blocks output the most amount of air and aerate the solution perfectly with no signs of algae forming. Do not bother with the air curtains unless you are willing to pull it out and clean it every day because it will block up very quickly. Now onto the air pump i am using, tried multiple fish pumps and came to the conclusion for the best and most even results i would have to run a separate pump for each bucket, this was not an option as the noise would drive me insane, I ended up purchasing a Hailea ACO-208 Compressor, this little baby puts out 35L of air per minute and has a connection for up to 6 outputs being plenty to run up to 6 buckets comfortably off the one pump. Another good thing about this pump is being Magnetic it is a lot quieter to run than fish pumps as long as there are no air leaks.
UpGBv11.png


Size of light? Is it aircooled?
As stated earlier i am running a 400w HPS system, have just purchased a 5" air cooled hood as its coming into summer here and have already had +40c days, currently running a 6" axial fan with ducting to cool the hood, draws air from outside the tent then pushes it through the light and directly out the window.
ypj6Qbd.jpg


Temp of Room/cab? RH of Room/cab?
Temps in my tent fluctuate between around 21c - 31c(i know this is a bit warm but considering when it reached this temp it was 38c in the rest of the house), I try to keep the humidity up over 50% but will drop it off later in flower.

PH of media or res?
I set the PH around 5.6-5.8 and let it drift to a max of 6.5 before resetting (currently PH is stable and does not drift much at all so no adjustments, taking a week to drift to around 6.3)

Any Pests ?
Few fungus gnats here and there but have not seen any in a few weeks since moving my soil girls outdoors (They have been treated since).

How often are you watering? Type and strength of ferts used?
Being a DWC i am currently changing nutes once per week and topping up with PH'd water every few days. Each of my girls reservoirs are filled with 14L and kept around that level, i found at this height the bottom of the net pot sits just over an inch away from the nutes.
For my nutes i am using the Dutch Master Gold Range with a few additions:
For veg I used DM Silica, DM Zone, DM Gold Grow A+B, DM Add.27 Grow throughout, after 2 weeks into veg the girls got some ROCK Super Growth.
For Flower i am using DM Silica, DM Zone, DM Gold A+B Flower, DM Add.2.7 flower and also a half strength mix of Monsta Bud.
For foliar treatments every second day DM Saturator and DM Liquid Light, every other day was either straight water or water and canna rhizotonic mix depending on the root system growth.
PdiNaHu.png

RFYN5Ak.png


Other information about the grow:
This was not a straight up plan to grow in DWC, Im not sure about the veg life of these girls as i spent a lot of time if not weeks working out my issues with them at a young age and they were stunted for a long time. Yes thats right, they were started in rockwool but then planted into soil and thats where the issues began, I ran out of canna terra pro and went with a pre-fertalised soil from the hardware, bad move, no way to track what nutrients were already in the mix and what to add to it, even from straight water feeds i had nute problems in seedlings, by the time i made the DWC buckets and washed the soil from the roots i could see just how unhealthy they actually were, At this point they were topped once and were a total of about 4" high without being tied down. For 3 weeks straight i dealt with sludge and major PH fluctuations while they started to show signs of new life and get their roots growing. Its at this time i changed the lights from LED to MH as the old style MarsHydro panels just dont seem to work good enough by themselves, maybe perfect as a space filler or for frosting up a little at the end, IMO if you are looking at the Mars range of lights and will be using this as your only light source i would go for a minimum of the MarsII or reflector panels as they seem to give off a better spectrum of light for growing, Im sure there are better or worse panels from different manufacturers but im just throwing my 2 cents in from my experiences and the units i have tried. The guys that get great results with them dont stop what you are doing, you do an amazing job ;)
So after 3 weeks in the DWC i was happy the girls were showing nice pearlescent white healthy roots and new growth at the top, i then called this week 3 of veg and added my ROCK Super Growth, then 2 weeks later brings us to the switch, in the last 2 weeks i have seen more growth than i did in my whole last grow, these girls have quadrupled in size.

Here we have a pic of the girls on the 8th of November, this was just around the time of all the new growth starting and root system becoming healthy
E75uCDA.jpg


About a week after this i started stretching Atomic and MM out like this, GWShark im not going to do any training so it can catch up a bit to the others.
yXWD2Nr.jpg


This is the girls 6 days ago, the day of my MH globe blowing lol
ZQezk4u.jpg

RJU9g8c.jpg


:thumb:

My Light schedule does not allow me to enter the tent during the day so i will grab a couple of pics later tonight when i go to check on them :)

As always if you have any questions feel free to ask, i am in no way a professional but i will answer to the best of my ability haha :Namaste:
 
Ok so i took some more photo's, they didnt turn out so well under the HPS. I will wait till a bit later to check them again and will turn the light off for some photos :thumb:

I can assure you the plants are not yellow in any way, maybe light green in new growth areas but thats it lol

Psmbq1U.jpg


aG3qDZI.jpg


This is as soon as i opened my tent and took photos, i then checked the PH on all 3, all were either 5.7 or 5.8, each have drank about 2 litres of the solution so will think about adding either water or a weak nute mix tomorrow. Moved them a little further apart, Lifted the light about 4" for better light coverage followed by DM Saturator and Liquid Light Foliar to all 3.

Now time to kick back, chill out with some cheese and watch a movie before i check back in :ganjamon:
 
Good middle of the night to you !

I saw you over on Sorenna's thread and decided to take a look see. You are definitely well organized in your grow setup. :)

Nice flux job, great growth rates.

I may not have much to say here, no experience with DWC, DWC nutrients, etc.


One thing I might mention, before too much time in flower, is that NOW is a great time to take a few clones.

I purchased an inexpensive daisy cloner bucket 2 months ago and cloning is now effortless and effective.
With the water sprinkled roots, I have planted anywhere from 3 to 7 weeks after cloning. There is no reason to believe they can't be held in the cloner somewhere outside the tent for a full flowering cycle - leaving you with an easy way to regrow the plant you just harvested.


The cloner lid and water pump. A tool for $29 - $39

20150920_124321-1.jpg



2 week old roots

20151008_194933-1.jpg



4 week old roots

20151106_135458-1.jpg



As it looks today, with clones 2 days-2 months old. I take 2 clones per girl in the flower room and plant one of them.

20151124_180655.jpg


The spotted leaves are from spider mites. They looked like that when they were cloned. Withthis cloning method I lose about 1 in 4 clones. Half the surviving clones never even drop a leaf.
 
Thanks for stopping by Rad, I had the exact same idea with clones hehe, i managed to grab a few off her and get some good root growth until my dad thought they needed sun and fried them to a crisp lol this was about a week before the MH blew. as soon as the light blew i thought it would be my last chance to grab some and trying a few different methods to get them going without rockwool etc. i made another DWC with just PH'd water and 80mm net pots to try a similar aeroponic style to your cloner, also one directly into water (seems to be doing the best so far) but has only been a few days, will keep you posted :p
 
Girls are doing great, Looking nice and green again today :D
Both Atomic and MM needed 2.5L water added to their reservoirs, i set this to 6.3 to try lift the PH to the nute solution a little as it seems to be dropping not rising like the veg nutes do. I list this as Before(before anything was added or compromised to the res) and After(when everything has been added and set). I decided against adding a weak nute solution over plain water because i plan on doing reservoir changeovers in 2 days anyways and the EC seems pretty stable.

Atomic Bomb:
Before: PH: 5.6 EC:1.8
Added 2.5L PH 6.3 water
After: PH: 5.8 EC:1.7

Money Maker:
Before: PH: 5.7 EC:1.6
Added 2.5L PH 6.3 water
After: PH: 5.8 EC:1.6

Great White Shark:
PH: 5.9 EC: 1.8
nothing added

Foliar Feed:
All 3 girls foliar fed with rhizotonic + water mix, mixed at 2ml/500ml.


Apart from that not much was done today, tucked about 5 leaves that were shading budsites, photos are from the point when i first opened my tent.

xzUQAbG.jpg


D48HgrU.jpg


So now onto the clones, as i said there are a few different tests going on in the cupboard atm hehe, all this under a 125w 6400k CFL with a dimpled aluminium reflector.
ofTWoUb.jpg


And my plan if my clones survive will be to use this stuff on one clone and use the female pollen from her to pollenate the other clone and produce some fem seeds, not only seeds but to be able to start mixing strains etc :p
wOoQQGK.png


Thanks for reading, if you have any q's or think i am doing something completely wrong please let me know lol
 
So its morning for the girls, a few small updates. Took photos as soon as the tent was opened, after this same as yesterday and tucked about 5 leaves. Today is Liquid Light Foliar day but will not be applied til around 10pm tonight so i will have more updates then ;)

They dont look much different to the naked eye since yesterday but at 3am the tallest part of each plant was 12" from the top of the bucket lids, 6pm (15 hours later) they are sitting just below 14".

DwT4hif.jpg

8PGj5TF.jpg


and did someone say show me them pearly whites? :rofl:
should have turned off the HPS for this as they look yellow in the photos haha
XqdTidH.jpg


From what i have noticed with the flower nutes is they drop ph rather than raise, next mix i will set my ph around 6.3 and monitor the drop.

Atomic Bomb:
PH: 5.5 EC: 1.7
Drank around 1.5L overnight, not too worried about adding any more water etc as res will be changed tomorrow.

Money Maker:
PH: 5.6 EC: 1.6
Also around 1.5L drank overnight.

Great White Shark:
PH: 5.8 EC: 1.8
Down about a litre, this girl already had 2L added water earlier during the week, her root structure is not as advanced as the other 2 so does not drink as much yet.



Onto the clones, with all this spare time on my hands between checking on the girls in the tent i might make up my own cloner bucket. I have a spare pump here and misting sprinkler heads, im sure that would work on a similar principle if setup under the bucket lid. Quick couple of questions Rad or anyone using a cloner, does the pump run 24/7 or only for periods of time? and do you use any root stimulants like rhizotonic etc or find it better with straight water?

Thanks everyone for checking in, i will update a little later :Namaste:
 
Have not been home all day today but a quick update on last night, did not really do much apart from a liquid light foliar to the girls in the tent at around 10pm. The clones directly into clay pebbles didnt work at all lol, they were still being kept alive by foliar feeding so i recut past the next node and put them directly into pre soaked rockwool cubes. The GWS clone directly into water was still looking fine but no signs of roots so thought while i had the rockwool out, might as well transplant her also. Checked on them this morning and they were looking much happier and healthier but have not been in there yet tonight, will be in there shortly grabbing pics and some fresh updates.

In the way of a cloning bucket, i have a pump running 4 sprinklers that shoot up to the root system but not enough to completely drench them, worked great for a few hours however i lost pressure in the pump and then was useless lol, a bit of tweaking here and there should be sweet ;)

I shall be back soon with some updates and pics from today :Namaste:
 
Today while i was out i grabbed a couple more air stones as the GWS is suffering with a 2" ceramic ball that just doesnt make the cut, i decided to grab 2x 6" stones and replace the 4" in both Atomic and MM and move the 4" to GWS. Seems to have helped all round, i was skeptical at first with the packaging on these stones as they looked like cheap chinese knock offs yet printed Aqua One, apart from the label they work exactly the same lol

7AL7PNm.png


On to the girls in the tent, me taking maybe my one and only chance to get my sons xmas shopping out of the way meant i could not be home to change out the reservoirs, no dramas can get it all done tomorrow.

Atomic Bomb:
Before: PH: 5.4
Added 2L water (PH was 6.8 trying to lift the nute solution without PH buffers)
After: PH: 5.6

Money Maker:
Before: PH: 5.3
Added 2L water (PH was 6.8)
After: PH: 5.6

Great White Shark:
Before: PH: 5.8
Added 1L water (PH was 6.8)
After: PH: 5.9

Not sure if i noted down yesterday i tied down the tallest tops on each plant to bring them down level with the rest of the canopy, today the tallest tops are at 14" above the bucket lids, not much upwards growth but i have noticed the main stems to each branch are thickening right up, they really are looking devine ;)
Just a couple of pics today, the usual from the top and profile pics.

6AEFhPk.jpg

ty3p7eA.jpg


Hope you all have a great day :Namaste:
 
Quick couple of questions Rad or anyone using a cloner, does the pump run 24/7 or only for periods of time? and do you use any root stimulants like rhizotonic etc or find it better with straight water?

Thanks everyone for checking in, i will update a little later :Namaste:


Great looking scrog-free canopy you have going :thumb:

- - -

I dip the clone stems in liquid rooting compound.

In the bucket, I run regular grow and bloom nutrients at about 10% strength. This is based on the vitabloom brand nutrients and instructions that came with the daisy cloner.

My GUESS is the nutrient salts are a bit anti-bacterial as well as providing nutrition. I have been running the cloner 24/7 for about two months. I aim to clone 2-3 plants about once a month, so I always have some older and younger clones. I have added a pint of PH'ed water twice to replace water that has evaporated. When I look at the water, it is always crystal clear.

Using the sprayed water cloner works MUCH better for me than rockwool clones - the leaves stay healthy and the stems don't rot. .
 
Great looking scrog-free canopy you have going :thumb:

Thanks mate, she is spreading out more and more every day, much better than i expected lol

I dip the clone stems in liquid rooting compound.

In the bucket, I run regular grow and bloom nutrients at about 10% strength. This is based on the vitabloom brand nutrients and instructions that came with the daisy cloner.

My GUESS is the nutrient salts are a bit anti-bacterial as well as providing nutrition. I have been running the cloner 24/7 for about two months. I aim to clone 2-3 plants about once a month, so I always have some older and younger clones. I have added a pint of PH'ed water twice to replace water that has evaporated. When I look at the water, it is always crystal clear.

Using the sprayed water cloner works MUCH better for me than rockwool clones - the leaves stay healthy and the stems don't rot. .

Nice one, thanks for all the info Rad, Im thinking of running a water/rhizotonic mix to begin with. I finally managed to get my bucket operational by using a larger output and feeder tube up to a popup sprinkler (modified the spring inside so it does not take as much pressure to pop up). Water has great coverage for where the clone stems protrude through the collars yet with the lid off water stays within the bucket, also runs at a gentle flow so its not constantly blasting the base of the stems haha. To me it seems like it should work perfectly fine but i wont have any use for it for a month or so, i will test with some red diesel clones.
 
Updates for today, middle of the day for me and its hot hot hot lol, middle of the night in the tent and sitting around 26c which is a bit high for my liking but not much i can do till i get a cool enough day to jump in the roof and sort the exhaust ducting. for now i have turned on the fan for the lighting system hoping to draw a bit of heat out of the room in turn cooling the tent down. being dark period the tent was only opened for long enough to change over reservoirs and no photos were taken yet, will grab some tonight.

For my fresh mix of nutes to each bucket i added the following:
10L water
7ml DM Silica
70ml Monsta Bud
42ml DM add.27 flower
4.2ml DM Zone
36.5ml DM Flower A
36.5ml DM Flower B
4L water

after this i made sure everything was mixed in thoroughly and set the PH on each bucket to 6.2, Hopefully if im right it should drift down to 5.5 in a few days which then i can readjust.

Whilst in the grow room i thought i would check in on the clones, they are all standing to attention now and their leaves have perked right back up, looks like they might be saved yet its a bit early to tell hehe.

anyways, im off for a bit, should be back later with some pics :Namaste:
 
Its 1am, just past mid day for the girls and just from opening the tent looks like they have loved the res change and have thrived. The tallest tops are now reaching 15" but the atomic is getting a wider girth everyday lol, I could seriously see another of this strain taking up the whole 4x4 tent by itself in the future. Checked the PH on each and all still sitting right on 6.2, not much else done besides the usual leaf tuck here and there followed by a liquid light foliar spray.

Photos from point of opening tent.

HVzATZF.jpg

cKIu52H.jpg


Hope you all have a great day, time for bed now :Namaste:
 
Subbed. Will be following along closely since I'm going to use a 400w hps soon. Your plants look fantastic!
 
Back
Top Bottom