First Grow-Aero-Stealth Box

[RainStacks]

Things are looking awesome, I can't wait to see how this plays out. Your scrog screen looks heavy duty, washers and everything. I like it! My plants also have a slight clawed look and I was told it is from being overwatered and/or too much N. They now seem to be really benefiting from letting them dry out completely. Keep up the great work, +reps from me too!

 

[Skybound]

Thanks for all the REPs guys. Can't wait to cash them in for some puzzles or coloring books or something cool like that.

 

[Skybound]

Update 8-26 (posted 8-27)

Still no rooted clones and one of the 4 has a leaf that is yellowing. The seedlings look to be doing pretty good. All 4 rooted in their cubes and in the 3" net cups I have a single layer of clay balls on the bottom and can see that the roots are almost there. The donor plant is recovering from transplant shock. The new outer layer of soil has about 20% less perlite so will hold moisture for longer, plus I also foliar spray now with only Silica added, but maybe I will dial that back to make the plant drink from the soil as I'd like to water it soon and maybe flush out the soil a bit. Also pictured is my DIY carbon filter, DIY CO2 system and some pics of the Donor, seedlings and clones. when I got back from work last night, I noticed the donor plant bending in weird ways. One of the 2 tops bent nearly all the way over as if it super cropped itself. I read (I think) in one of donpaul's posts that this is attributed to the transplant shock, and since this is only the 4th day since I TPed, there may be some more of that. The outer layer of soil still holds a great deal of moisture with the finger test. There are still some burn locations and rusty leaf edges. I'm glad the plant chose to isolate these happenings to just a leaf here and there and not throughout the entire plant.

 

[stealthgrow]

Looking good sky, +reps for the DIY air filter and CO2. Looks like a little nute burn going on.

 

[mcloadie]

How do you know your clones don't have any roots?

 

[Skybound]

haha, I actually saw one of them popping out the side of the stem, about 1/16" above the rockwool top. Unfortunately there are none coming out the bottom and that's what I was referring to. The other day, I gave a very gentle tug and something in there suggests that a bond was made, so hopefully that suggests there are roots growing. Just hope they pop out soon so I can get 2 of them into the aero.

 

[mcloadie]

haha, I actually saw one of them popping out the side of the stem, about 1/16" above the rockwool top. Unfortunately there are none coming out the bottom and that's what I was referring to. The other day, I gave a very gentle tug and something in there suggests that a bond was made, so hopefully that suggests there are roots growing. Just hope they pop out soon so I can get 2 of them into the aero.

haha, don't pull on em silly, mcloadie says they'll grow.........

 

[Skybound]

I got a question, maybe 30;

I noticed that the clay balls were beginning to float the rock wool cubes up to the top of the cup so I carefully uprooted all 4 and pulled the bottom layer of rocks from the cups. I then put the cubes back in (roots onto the plastic bottoms), then carefully put a few rocks around to center the cube and back filled the 3" net cups with the rocks to the brim. Also, wanted to gain some insight and removed the plastic coverings from 2 of the cubes to see what the end result is. I guess my question is, is there a standard way of putting the rooted cubes into the cups? Also, if any of these plants are female and do good, 2 of them will graduate up to my 18gal aero/DWC 2 site tote for flowering and maybe even late veg, depending how crowded the roots become. at that time I expect the roots will be plenty grafted to this 3" net cup. Can I just lower the 3" net cup into the 5" netcup with some rocks on the bottom of the 5" cup and back fill the sides? Or should I expect to keep the plants in the 3" cups only, for the remainder of their lives?

For future grows, I plan to make me one of those aero cloners with the neoprene inserts. I can probably even repurpose this little 2 gallon aero/F&D setup I got for that. I want to get into heavy R&D of monster cropping. To me this seems the best way to invest my time and efforts, plus looks to be the most fun and highest yielding. Cloning flowers, bring 1 or two into flower and veg the others briefly. Flower the others and take clones again and toss the other out till the first ones are done. then I could bring in the recycled clones immediately after harvest. That's the gist of the way I interpret it at the moment.

Any thoughts?

 

[donpaul.p]

hi, not sure as ive not used the net cups, but once the roots have grown through the 3inch cup you wont be able to take the plant out of it without damaging the roots, so you would need to keep them in the cups you started them in and if you wanted to transplant to another grow area then you would need to find a way or holding the first cup you used in the new grow area, im pretty sure you wont get them out the first cup without damaging a lot of the roots, they will be all tangled up and gowing out of all the holes so i dont think it would be possible.
i just think you would cause damage when you handle the roots, i may be wrong as ive not used net cups so really cant say 100% if its possible, but i dont think id want to risk it,

 

[Skybound]

I don't know whether to call her "Lucy" cuz she's got some "splain'een" to do, or "Jeffy" cause she's definitely a "Ringer". So here we are the 5th day after I transplanted her from a 1 gal pot to a 3.5 gal pot and already she's poking out the bottom. I give her a home and she wants the whole neighborhood, WTF?? Typical woman I guess. (Hope this is a sign that it's a she, not a he)

I checked the pH of the soil last night and shared the results to another 420 member's thread, but in essence I collected a soil sample in a solo cup, added 6.0 - 6.5 water and mixed it to a slurry, poured that over a coffee filter to cup, then tested the remainder. It tested to be a little on the acidic side, so just now I mixed almost a gallon of distilled water with a full strength add of Armor Si (a silicate), which brings the pH way into the alkaline, then dialed it back to a high 6.0 range, maybe very low 7.0 range. I added that to the 3.5 gallon pot and when I pulled the pot out of the clear jug that holds the pot, I noticed 2 of the holes poked into the bottom have roots coming out already. Does this mean I should look to transplant again to a larger pot?

The color appears to be stabilizing again so maybe next watering I will add another 25% strength Flora series into the water.

Seedlings are dropping their roots out of the 3" net cups and should start adding mass really soon. the clones still have not pushed any roots out of the bottoms of the cubes in the clone dome. I keep spraying them, and they keep stretching which indicates life, but still no roots 8-\.

 

[mcloadie]

I would black the res pot and let it grow!

 

[Skybound]

Great ideaR

Maybe even feed an airstone down there

 

[mcloadie]

Great ideaR

Maybe even feed an airstone down there

Yep......

 

[Skybound]

I'll probably catch hell for this. I decided to take 5 tops at an even level to the 1 main top that I already took just over a week ago. I don't know what it is about me that I always have to "try and make it better", but I wanted to create the skeleton needed to support a good sized canopy that will later be spread out in the ScrOG net. At that time, I expect to have a dozen main colas which should pretty much fill my net. I also hope the 6 CFLs produce enough lumens to make some decent buds, if not, oh well I live and LEARN. Also am hoping mcloadie approves!

 

[mcloadie]

I'll probably catch hell for this. I decided to take 5 tops at an even level to the 1 main top that I already took just over a week ago. I don't know what it is about me that I always have to "try and make it better", but I wanted to create the skeleton needed to support a good sized canopy that will later be spread out in the ScrOG net. At that time, I expect to have a dozen main colas which should pretty much fill my net. I also hope the 6 CFLs produce enough lumens to make some decent buds, if not, oh well I live and LEARN. Also am hoping mcloadie approves!

LOL, you did fine, you topped your plant for more tops! Any energy that was going to those branches will go into the remaining tops and force new growth! It will slow down slightly, but it should be fine!

 

[Skybound]

I expect another 3+ weeks of veg, but probably more. Not experienced enough to judge timings yet. The lowest branch with a red circle will likely be lollipopped along with the rest of the under growth unless it rockets upward to catch the rest as I can definitely make room for it in the net if need be. Figuring out a decent and simple feeding schedule will be a little tricky, but I want to regain the veg growth that I took off today ASAP for the obvious reasons. I'd like this to grow 1' above where the net is going to be, then super crop all the tops down to fill the underside of the net, lollipop the under carriage and veg for just a bit longer to help the flowering tops reveal themselves through the net. then it's time to flip. I hope these 6 CFLs can produce enough lumens to make some decent buds, but my main goal is to develop technique that I can use for when I get my HID burning and some good seeds from our reputable sponsor, Herbie's. I got my eyes on THC Bomb and maybe a haze or fruit. I don't expect to have a good amount of space for a while so I don't want to juggle too many strains.

 

[KingJohnC]

I guess my question is, is there a standard way of putting the rooted cubes into the cups? Also, if any of these plants are female and do good, 2 of them will graduate up to my 18gal aero/DWC 2 site tote for flowering and maybe even late veg, depending how crowded the roots become. at that time I expect the roots will be plenty grafted to this 3" net cup. Can I just lower the 3" net cup into the 5" netcup with some rocks on the bottom of the 5" cup and back fill the sides? Or should I expect to keep the plants in the 3" cups only, for the remainder of their lives?

For future grows, I plan to make me one of those aero cloners with the neoprene inserts. I can probably even re purpose this little 2 gallon aero/F&D setup I got for that. I want to get into heavy R&D of monster cropping. To me this seems the best way to invest my time and efforts, plus looks to be the most fun and highest yielding. Cloning flowers, bring 1 or two into flower and veg the others briefly. Flower the others and take clones again and toss the other out till the first ones are done. then I could bring in the recycled clones immediately after harvest. That's the gist of the way I interpret it at the moment.

Any thoughts?

when you transplant to your 3" net pots your plants are there for the remainder of their lives. that would be a good plan to have a perpetual harvest going and a system to have plants immediately for flowering.

 

[Skybound]

I do plan to adjust my complete setup as I go to accommodate a perpetual harvest, however, not a big fan of the idea that a plant must remain in that little cup. so I will begin to work on a bubble cloner, something of a decent size for veg, but I'd like to finish in 10" net pots on top of the 28 gallon trash can that HygroHybrid uses. I love the way his setup works together and is so simple. I will of course make my own adjustments and tweaks, but the general concept will be preserved once I am in the way of doing so.

 

[donpaul.p]

looking good, now you have topped it a few more times it will have many main cola now, like mentioned above growth will slow for a few days to a week while the plant refocuses its energy on other parts then it will be back into rapid growth, i prefer topping over the fim method as i think the fim takes longer to recover from as the plant is trying to keep the damaged leaves growing so seems to be a lot slower for some reason,

 

[Skybound]

I tried FIM, but aparently I missed the miss. The sprout just pushed out into 2 fan leaves with no added branching. I then topped as advised by my hydro store guy and got 2. Earlier I just got to staring at the plant and imagined how I wanted it to look in the scrog net and viola, 4 branches came into focus with leaf sets at an equal level to the first successful top I took, so I figured might as well suffer the stint now then try and muscle all the lower branches into the net later, so I took 4, but noticed I accidentally cut one of the lowest branches, so I corrected by cutting the branch above making 5 cuts. I also forgot to mention that I took 2 more tops a days ago, (maybe a week) at the top of the 2 main stems, making that into 4. So now I have 4 main stems, with 4-5 added tops that will produce 8-10 more stems in a circular "menorah" shape under the scrog. I got a vision and a plan and I know it will work out.

Only draw back now is that I may have to move for work very far away, so I may have to shut this grow down or give it away. Hope I have enough time to flower it out or find a new job. We'll see though.