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- #61
Hey, MBS!
Beautiful plants, very cool set-up. I use a similar rig, but with 5" PVC fence posts instead of 6" pipe, and fewer plant sites. A few suggestions:
First: algae needs light to grow. I was worried about my plants roots getting too much light (even though I use a smaller 400W light), so I covered the tops of my fence posts with black electrical tape. There are no doubt more elegant ways of blocking the light, but I tend to go with what I got. Even though I changed out the nutrients only once during my grow (my first with hydro), between veg and flower cycles, when I took my system apart after harvest, there was no algae anywhere save a small amount in the clear tubing that feeds the manifold that distributes water to the plants.
Second: I'm not so sure of the wisdom in removing fan leaves. Fan leaves are the light converters of your plants. Plants generally want as much light as they can handle, and if there's too much to handle, they'll let you know. In short, the more light they get, the more nutrients they can use for growth, and therefor, more growth. There may be something I don't know on this subject, and I'd be thankful for any additional data or even opinions.
That being said, I am envious of your grow. I over-fertilized my first hydro grow, and although I ended up with a pretty good harvest of some wonderful Kali, it's probably half of what I would have gotten had I paid as much attention as you are.
And some questions: I know little of SCROG. Can you refer me to some good, informative posts, articles, books, etc? Also: what pump cycle timing did you end up with? Anybody want to chime in on that one?
Peace,
Ruckatruck
ok so i have no clue how to multi quote so i'll answer in order of your post.
here goes,
RE:FIRST-hey you might want to try AC reflective tape. it's opaque a very reflective. so any light that might make it's way through will reflect back up through the canapy. i feel any little details as small as they mat be will be appreciated by your plants.
Wow dude! i change my rez every 1 to 2 weeks depending on what they tell me. i figure if i keep the water fresh it will keep unwanted solids from building up and allow the plants to easily take up as much nutes as they wish thus increasing yield.
RE:SECOND-my idea in heavy prunning of fan leaves is to allow more light to hit the inner middle of the plants so as to create more growth from the center outward. i keep the exterior fan leaves in tact and prune any inward growing
fan leaves.
lets say a stem has three leaves, two growing left and right and the third growing towards the center, I'll take the third one off to allow more light to penetrate and stimulate center growth. I'll show you in a pic.
be advised i am only doing this till i see substantial new growth then I just let them go as i can't get to center growth for pruning once SCROG screen is set in place.
AND LASTLY-hey man I did the same thing and other mistakes as well, thats why i have four plants in my ICU as I like to call it. i'll show you in pics. they're just as old and half the size. live and learn brother.lol
as for SCROG it's my first and i just googled it and read a shit-ton of posts. anything i could find. never bought a book on it.
SCROG PUMP CYCLE is 1min on 5min off
ICU CYCLE is 15min on 30min off but it's a combo of sprayers/aero and DWC
they seem to like it fine.
i guess i have alot of experiments going on at once but how else to learn.
this used to be all about yield as it' still is but now i'm getting alot more technical and taking notes studying the plants and learning they can take a whole lot of stress and bounce back as long as you catch any problems in time.
YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE.
pics will be in next post gotta upload
MBS