Closet DWC Skunk Northern Lights

[chiefgrnleaf]

This grow is taking place in my closet. Stealthily and on a budget.

-DIY Wood Box H:29"x W:29" x D:17"
-Lined with white plastic sheeting.
-2 Skunk Northern Lights Clones.
-Deep Water Culture (DWC)
- One is a 3 Gal/ one in a 4 Gal bucket.
-Individual Pumps for each bucket, driving two air stones each.
-Hydroton Clay Pellets.
-4 COOL CFLs.
-1 Warm 23" Fluorescent Tube.
-Reverse Osmosis H2o.
-Being Lit 24/7.
-2 Computer fans exhausting the box running off a 12v Power adapter.
-Passive/Active intake.(When the fan moves inside to breathe on the bambinas the intake might become passive.

Yesterday we put the SNL clones into their buckets, the the tips of the leaves are a little yellow. I've read a few opinions and decided to lower their light intensity until the little Ladies generate a little more roots.

For a while I had a makeshift clone chamber over them with some water sprayed inside it to try and up the humidity a little for them, but I took it off in an attempt to no do too much.

According to the guy at the Hydro store, we'd be best off to start flowering in about a week in anticipation that they will continue to grow vertically even as they bud. To aid in that process we're using SuperNatural Bloom Agua (No advertisement intended). It breaks down to 11-8-18 and contains ph Buffers. Also at the advice of the hydroHomie, we may use a bit of this during our brief Veg period as well.

 

[chiefgrnleaf]

Its been about 4 days and the plants dont seem to be growing vertically at all. We dug down in the hydroton to see what kind of roots have developed but there are just a couple little ones, seemingly the same ones the clones started with.

The leaves look a little sad at this point. They've been yellowing, browning, and in some cases curling up. I had aphids (or what i believed to be aphids), they were little black moving spots and some white ones too. They were on the top and underside of the leaves. Unfortunately in a bout of "quick thinking" I decided to go with some online advice for DIY pest control and sprayed the leaves with a 3:1 Water:Rubbing Alcohol solution. Though most of the pest arent visible anymore it also seems like it the solution took a tole on my already sensitive plants.

They are now on 1/4 of the recommended nute dosage. They are supposed to keep the Ph in range, so we'll see. Ive been keeping cups/buckets of ice and h2o in the box in order to boost humidity, there are also some damp towels rolled up for the same purpose. I pulled them down from the lights a little bit, many of the issues they're having also appear to be consistent with heat stress from the lights.

Any recommendations to get this baby girls out of this funk or is it just a matter of patience to some extent?

 

[Drewhauz]

Sorry to see that chief. I don't have experience with clones but it looks like you've got an issue there. You mentioned your solution contains pH buffers but where is the pH at? I hope you're checking it and not relying soley on those buffers. I did DWC/aero combo and when my pH got out of range i.e. below 5.0 or higher than like 6.2 I would see problems appear rather quickly but recover quickly when adjusted. The reason I say that is your first pic shows these random spots on the leaf showing necrosis (dead plant cells) along with some leaf margins and tips.

 

[chiefgrnleaf]

You caught me drewhauz, we are actually taking the water out of a filtered drinking fountain, freshly installed. (Lucky the grow is small). I don't have a pH meter yet(I know this is making people cringe, it makes me cringe too.) I've read lots of opinions on the necessity of a self calibrating, electrode using meter but am not sure exactly what I need. I've seen them on e-bay for $5.99.


In other news, one plant is starting to pick up and has grown about .5", though it does continue to have aphids, but I have been pulling them off manually and misting the plant. I was told by a fellow cultivator that as the plant grows and develops it will naturally become more resistant to predators. But I am, also at this friends advice, thinking about getting ladybugs to kill the pests. The Leaves have gotten greener again and look much happier, there are still some hints of yellow/brown but it seems to be on the upswing.

Unfortunately the other plant has not been so lucky as to be revived yet. In fact it seems to be wilting even more. Its biggest fan is yellow and wilting, there are still some brown tips and yellow ones, it has a ton of leaves for such a small sad thing, so if it recovers from this it may be a sleeper cell. But we'll see...

Today both plants had their tanks emptied and rinsed while they got 10 min. airbath for the roots. Mixed in the nutrients to just about full strength and hopefully they both start thriving.

I also threw the black light on them today in conjunction with the cool cfls for like 20 mins. Just for a little low stress experiment.

CO2 is another question in my mind, I have a small 24 CO2 tank that I can refill, yet I have also read about other ways to naturally produce it like, Vinegar and Baking Soda, Yeast/Sugar Water. I guess I'm just wondering, is it all the same?

I need to get some pictures up.

Any and all help appreciated.

Oh damn! I'm late....

 

[Drewhauz]

I know what your sayin man. Shit I spent like $90 twice on my pH testers, broke the electrode on the first one. IMO, I would of failed miserably if it wasn't for my TDS and pH tester. I bought gallons of distilled water, and it was incredible that although the ppm was consistently 0 the pH would be anywhere from 4.5 - 6.5. I feel fairly comfortable saying CO2 is CO2 whether it's from a tank or the product of a chemical reaction. Only difference I can think of, is that you have more control and precision with the tank. I haven't used CO2 yet because I was more interested in controlling the pH and ppm of the nute solution as well as ambient temperatures and relative humidity. Controlling those cost me enough money.
I hope they recover strong, I'm rootin for ya.

 

[chiefgrnleaf]

Thanks for the help man. The one is really responding well to the changes. Its grown a couple more inches and now has some roots in the water. Now that they're there its seems like shes loving life.

With the other one I've still been pouring water over the hydroton a few times daily until its roots hit the water. I removed the largest deadest few fan leaves, as they had started browning and curling. The plant seems to be less droopy and a little greener. I have a feeling that its only going to improve from here.

Last night I gave each plant a 10 min. air bath as well as a nice misting. I'm keeping 3 cigar rolled damp towels, 3 styrofoam cups of ice, and 2 cups with rolled newspaper in water all in there in order to keep the humidity up. Even with all that the towels are drying out pretty quickly.

I started my 2nd jug of DIY co2 last night. I mixed one pound of powdered sugar with a gal. of warm water all inside a milk jug. (an idea I picked up on another thread) Then cut a hole in the cap so that a piece of plastic tubing fits snugly and seal that with silicone. The tube acts as an exhaust, releasing the co2.

 

[highguyS2]

This is awesomeeeeeee!!!!!!!


keep the air bath's coming

 

[chiefgrnleaf]

Things are looking up.

Almost forgot the little one!

 

[The Hemang]

hey chief just joined the forum and i checked out your op and def will be keeping up with it ur doing a good job keep up the good work

 

[chiefgrnleaf]

Welcome! Thanks Hemang.

Heres the update.

The plants have been growing steadily, but I need to replace the H20 tonight or tomorrow AM. I had a couple Lbs. of dry ice in there for a while and they seemed to enjoy that. I've been misting them and topping off the water and I have a blue 15w cfl that Ive been spot treating the plants with which they also enjoy.

They're both getting trained right now. After some research I've decided that LST appears to be worth a shot.

I had the leaves on the larger one tied up in a cone shape the other day at the advice of a green crack grower I know, but after a few days decided now may not be the time. Though I do think the results were positive. A couple of leaves wilted. But it was literally two and I could use the thinning since I can't bring myself to prune them.

Im thinking about introducing a third plant into the mix. Actually I have the option of a 3rd, 4th, and 5th. But I'm not sure how kosher it is to try and buddy up these plants in there tanks. I feel like there would be no problem as long as the other plants are healthy and bug free females. They are actually from another hydro op I have in the works. So I suppose as long as I don't tamper with the other roots things should be fine.

Is my self question answering logical to anyone with growing experience?

So these have only been growing for 23 days, that seems so quick. Im excited.

My First Dro Grow

 

[BUD08]

Welcome! Thanks Hemang.

Heres the update.

The plants have been growing steadily, but I need to replace the H20 tonight or tomorrow AM. I had a couple Lbs. of dry ice in there for a while and they seemed to enjoy that. I've been misting them and topping off the water and I have a blue 15w cfl that Ive been spot treating the plants with which they also enjoy.

They're both getting trained right now. After some research I've decided that LST appears to be worth a shot.

I had the leaves on the larger one tied up in a cone shape the other day at the advice of a green crack grower I know, but after a few days decided now may not be the time. Though I do think the results were positive. A couple of leaves wilted. But it was literally two and I could use the thinning since I can't bring myself to prune them.

Im thinking about introducing a third plant into the mix. Actually I have the option of a 3rd, 4th, and 5th. But I'm not sure how kosher it is to try and buddy up these plants in there tanks. I feel like there would be no problem as long as the other plants are healthy and bug free females. They are actually from another hydro op I have in the works. So I suppose as long as I don't tamper with the other roots things should be fine.

Is my self question answering logical to anyone with growing experience?

So these have only been growing for 23 days, that seems so quick. Im excited.

My First Dro Grow

Sounds to me that every thing is going just the way that it should. The best thing to keep in mind is that for the first grow of new plants you dont want to mess with anything until you know that you have clones to back them up if something goes wrong.

The blue light also looks good and all but im not to sure that its going to do any thing other then making things turn blue. Alot of times the paint or chemicals they use to make the bulbs that color will block out any real light spectrum.

Keep up the good work and hope to see more updates!

Happy growin!

 

[VapedOutJoe]

Lookin good.

 

[chiefgrnleaf]

Thanks Bud08 and V.O.Joe!

Happy Halloween!

This is day 27. The plants got a little stricter training last night. The Champion sized plants stem is getting log-like. I love it. The LST seems to be working perfectly. I still have some bug damage on this plant, I still look around and pull of aphids and eggs, but I'm getting some ladybugs or whatever the best predator bug is tomorrow so they should start disappearing.

I also have some white spots on some leaves. I thought one was from bug spray I tried, but they just kinda look like bleach spots. Not that I've been bleaching my plants or anything. Overall the health is pretty good, I've had a few leaves shrivel up, or curl up, some get brown, but overall the plants doing great.

The lil' Plant is really coming into its own. Its getting thicker and bushier by the day. I tried to Top its lower shoot just for the hell of it, and I really can't tell if its worked yet. Its definitely growing, but this plant is so bushy already it looks like a lot of the branches have been topped by nature. Its getting trained around its bucket and is pretty stoked I think. Its got some leaf-age for sure.


I just added another plant to the smaller plants bucket. Its from my other grow and may just be a runt, but I feel like it just wasn't given enough time in the other place. It has a decent amount of roots so my hope is high for getting it growin. Its Dreamqueen I think. I also have a Cronkle clone that is almost as good as dead, its leaves are wiled and curled up, some with another clone. But the second one at least has roots. I want to save them, but dont have room inside my buckets for them. We'll see how it goes!

I'm dying to start flowering, but at the same time I want to veg the shit out of these girls.

More pics coming soon!Peace!

 

[VapedOutJoe]

White spots (powdery looking) on leaves could be from bugs being on them. Check the underside of the leaves that are showing white spots, remove bugs as needed.
Especially while in veg, I do recommend the No Pest Strips made by Hot Shot. I use them, as do many others, and they work great. Just can't be in the same room as the strip for more then 4 hours at a time it says.

Hope you get your bug issues taken care of soon!

 

[chiefgrnleaf]

Thanks again, I'll definitely have to go get something like that.

In other grow issues... I actually had to evacuate my plants from their comfy home last night in a scare of sorts. Luckily my girlfriend's friend had some space above her washing machine and right below a warm and cool fluorescent tube. But she wants them removed tonight and my original growing location has been slightly compromised at least for now.

I'm hoping everything goes smoothly cause these little plants have been looking beautiful and i'd hate to fuck it up now. I'm just thankful that I'm not flowering while all this is going down.

Any transport do/don't s besides the obvious ones?

They were only in the dark for about 45 mins or less yesterday but i've yet to seem them today so lets hope it hasnt bothered them. I think it will be fine. I just need to find a safe and permanent home for them.

 

[VapedOutJoe]

Major bummer!!! Good luck on finding a new home. As far as transporting, the quicker the better is all I know.

 

[chiefgrnleaf]

So we always hear if you love something you have to give it away, and now my larger plant is living in a cool cab under some L.E.D. with drip/fog/bubble system. So I suppose shes in a safer place, and better I suppose.

But I've decided to keep my original little one as well as the clone I wanted to save. They both seem to be doing well. I sprayed all 3 plants with an organic insecticidal soap today because there was in increasing number of moving black dots on the underside of the leaves. I'm not that down with that, and I'm really not down with them infecting the 13 other plants in that cool cab.

It was very hard for me to let that plant go in there. I hope that it doesn't get too stretched cause the lights are a little higher in there due to the canopy level.

I'm stoked to focus on the two plants I have now in one container. It gives me more space to play with less of a bucket footprint, so I can get a fan in there easier. It'll make the co2 fit better as well.

Got some L.E.D. Strips today based on this little sourcey source. We'll see what happens, can't hurt I suppose.


Not having my plants with me for a couple days was literally one of the hardest things I've done in a while. I'm sad that my big baby is gone, but I have big hopes for these plants I've got here.
Anyways, res.change coming soon, with a combined air bath so that should give them a little growth spike. That's a technique I learned here the index doesnt work anymore but, whatever the case, this is one of the best things i've read.

 

[RobbyGreen]

Im am pretty sure the reason why your plants leaves were turning yellow is because the acid in your water was probably to high it wasn't the light youll need to invest in a ph meter.

Hope that is usefull

 

[RobbyGreen]

Forgot to add if you begin the flower cycle when a clone is 6-8inchs it will finish flowering fully bloomed at 2-3 feet know as (scrog) I have a small closet grow as well this is how I do it.

 

[chiefgrnleaf]

Thanks Robby, it was actually just a total lack of nutrients at the time.

Now the issue is bugs. Ive done some research & this is one of the more helpful threads. Turns out I have spider mites and thrips. I bought some organic insecticidal soap, but I left it else where, obviously not that helpful.

On the up side the roots really seem to be getting heavier and the stem is starting to thicken up. Once these bugs are gone the plants will be in pretty damn good shape.

The Skunk X N.L. is just so bushy. The little dream queen is having a rougher life but I think it'll be strong in the end.