GreatLife4All RDWC WW 1000W Grow

[BakedAlaskan]

Re: Harvest Time

Looks great - and a really clean grow!

Please tell me more about the solution you run in your cloner. My 1st batch came out well, but I killed some on the second. There is a spectrum of opinions about what to add, but if you have a winning mix I would love to know.

Thanks!

 

[GreatLife4All]

Cloneing

Looks great - and a really clean grow!

Please tell me more about the solution you run in your cloner. My 1st batch came out well, but I killed some on the second. There is a spectrum of opinions about what to add, but if you have a winning mix I would love to know.

Thanks!

Three days and I have roots - very small. I'll see if I can take some pictures tomorrow. I only lost one on my first attempt - but forgot to plug the clone box in on the second and lost many. But that is just my silliness and has nothing to do with the process.

I studied before I started and decided that the Clonex Solution was the best for my needs. I wouldn't switch now because it works for me. But I think it is a combination of several factors.

First, I take cuttings from the bottom of the plants - not the top. Lot's of opinions on this one.

I strip the bottoms - which gives me a great selection of cuttings to choose from. So I target shoots that are a minimum of 4 - 5" long with 3 to 5 nodes. This trip through, the tops were smaller and the roots larger - so the clones ended up 4" on the first cut. Most of them had 3 to 4 nodes.

Independent of the number of nodes, my bottom cut is done under water and it is always 1/4" under the node. I feel this is very important and will explain later. The cutting is then placed immediately into a pipette of the rooting gel. I cut as many as I can fit into the pipette and then start trimming.

Since 3 is the minimum - the middle fan leaves come completely off. The top set of fan leaves gets helicoptered to a maximum of 50% of their original length. I think this helps to ensure that I control the transpiration from the plant - since I don't use a humidity dome, this is likely a crucial step. When I didn't helicopter on the first cloning attempt, I spent the next two days doing so to keep the wilting in line. So just clip them right away.

If there are 4 nodes - then the middle two fans are completely removed and the remaining is helicoptered.

At 3" - I place an inch under the neoprene and accept whatever I have on top (about 1.5"). At 4", I place 1.5" under the neoprene. And at 5" - I put the stem all the way at the bottom. 5" clones definitely root the best at the finish line.

I place it into the cloner - but I don't turn it on till I am done. It usually takes me about an hour. So they sit absorbing the rooting gel for that length of time - I also believe this helps with the aeroponics - which washes the gel off quickly. Doing this, it tends to stay on for 2 to 3 hours before washing off.

Ok, you asked about solutions and I have provided a partial answer.

I mix the Clonex Rooting Solution at the minimum level specified on the bottle and I use R/O water. This gives me a very clean mixture.

I then adjust the pH down to 5.5. I know this is slightly low - but there is a method to my madness.

I then throw it into my veg tent at the beginning of the 18/6 veg cycle. I have also used various T5s and even a CFL. The CFL sucked. The T5s are very good. But I always plan to have an opening in the veg tent at this point - no need to waste electricity.

They will wilt overnight.

At this point - I don't open the box to look at them for a minimum of three days. Call me superstitious on this one - but I believe that you get faster roots if you keep it absolutely dark for the first three days. I have no real supporting evidence for this one - it is all anecdotal on my part.

They really don't seem too move much for the first 3 days. Typically the next set of new leaves will pop out - but not always.

On the second day, I go in during the dark cycle and I add a new round of Clonex Rooting Solution - but this time at the maximum rate. When I have checked - the water is fairly clear and the PPMs very low - so the boost doesn't get you to a dangerous level.

When I finally open the lid on the third day, the pH has typically risen into the low 6 range. I check the ppms and if it is below 600, I add more Rooting Solution to adjust upwards. Whatever it takes.

Thereafter, every two days I open the deck, adjust the pH, check the ppms, and adjust back to desired range. Typically I need to add the full rate of Rooting Solution.

Because we put a node under the neoprene - I get roots at that node first. They are always present within the first three or four days. Which means that cutting becomes very hard to kill at that point. If there is no node under the neoprene - it takes a minimum of 5 to 7 days, depending on the variety, to get roots. They come out from the sides of the stem - as you know. During the great self-imposed wilt on round 2, only cuttings with a node under the deck made it. That was very convincing to me.

I only use 1/3 of the cuttings in the box. Throwing away the ones that look the worst. This gives me a lot of lattitude to play around and not worry if I kill one or two.

I leave them in the box for 3 weeks total. Last time I developed a calcium / magnesium deficiency at the start of week three. So I added a small amount of Cal-Mag and they quickly got better. I don't remember the rate I used as I calculated it out. So... whatever it takes.

By the end of three weeks, the roots are large enough that I have to cut the bottom out of my net pot and push the plant thru. This also gives me long enough roots that I can hit the bottom of a 6" net pot. Thus I don't have to do any special watering or anything. I sometimes put them into square containers because they fit in the ebb and flow better. But from now on I will just put them into 6" net pots and save one transplant.

So that is pretty much the whole process, including the nutes. As you can see, the nutes are sorta integrated into the process.

Hope I didn't bore you. I am going to continue the journal until I finish that LOJ, so I will try and post pictures over the next couple of weeks so you can watch the progress. I love doing it in the EZ Cloner and watching the roots grow. Amazing stuff.

 

[Mono]

This an amazing journal!! Clean setup, very informative and intelligent posts.

Oh, and a really nice looking harvest there buddy!

+reps

 

[EzExtractions]

i like the bit about keeping the roots dark for the first 3 days, i have a feeling if none of us opened up our ez cloners for the first 5 days, we would open it on the 6 and have nice long white roots, but were just so damn curious to see if the roots are there we always open up the lids! next time i clone im going to refer to your method.


Also i am diggin the plant that you are growing in stones, will be interesting to see how it grows and builds its roots system around the rocks

 

[GreatLife4All]

This an amazing journal!! Clean setup, very informative and intelligent posts.

Oh, and a really nice looking harvest there buddy!

+reps

Thank you Mono - I appreciate it.

And yes, very happy with the harvest this time. It is... heavy.

 

[Mono]

Thank you Mono - I appreciate it.

And yes, very happy with the harvest this time. It is... heavy.

glad to see a happy grower

 

[GreatLife4All]

i like the bit about keeping the roots dark for the first 3 days, i have a feeling if none of us opened up our ez cloners for the first 5 days, we would open it on the 6 and have nice long white roots, but were just so damn curious to see if the roots are there we always open up the lids! next time i clone im going to refer to your method.

I am absolutely convinced that this is the case. I am the worst about opening the clone box and staring at the roots - As if that is going to help anything. I have used ppms as an excuse to check... pH as an excuse.. even just curiousity. Thus, my self-imposed rule.

Also i am diggin the plant that you are growing in stones, will be interesting to see how it grows and builds its roots system around the rocks

I only checked the root development on a front one that is easy to get to. But the roots in that pot were hanging down 3 to 4 inches last night. I credit the DWC for this - it is an awesome system for root development.

The biggest advantage for the grow stones that I can see is that the plants seem to grab onto them better than the hydroton. Those plants are solid, whereas it takes a couple of weeks to gain the same stability in the Hydroton (they roll around under pressure - the grow stones stay where I put them).

And I do love the fact that the Grow Stones are made from recycled glass.

 

[GreatLife4All]

And for anyone interested in the science behind why it is important to keep the lid closed... look up the word etiolation as it applies to plants. This is the process that you must induce to get root development from a cutting. And there is lots of research which states that etiolation is delayed or impossible to induce in the presence of light.

Lots of nitrogen in the plant tissue also slows down etiolation (undoubtedly why most good cloners who use mothers have better luck when they "starve" mom for a couple of days before taking the cuttings). It also means if your plants are very dark green because you run the light right on top of them while pumping them full of nitrogen for growth - you will have a harder time getting a cutting to take.

This may also explain why cuttings taken from the bottom of the plant do better. If they are "starved" for light - they turn very light green due to a lack of nitrogen. Cuttings taken from the top of the plant have lots of nitrogen in them.

 

[GreatLife4All]

Well, I was so happy with the taste, smell, and quantity - that I went ahead and finished the harvest today.

There were 4 remaining plants. Two of them were average size and yield. And two of them were huge.

Because of trouble in the tent - this wasn't a good night for me. Pictures were at a low priority.

I will do better next time. And I will post up some other photos as I get time to process the stuff in the drying tent now.

 

[GreatLife4All]

In the process of harvesting tonight, we had to untangle all the plants from the LOJ. My buddy and I struggled, which reminds me to stop mixing varieties like this.

The Unknown Indica is a well behaved lady...

After pulling them out, and , we started taking pictures. I suddenly noticed that the tent started swelling on one side... and opened back up. The LOJ was out of her bucket and on the floor! Damn.

We struggled to get everything back in place... she was wilting badly by this time... she knocked over the Unknown Indica in the process. So I tied her main trunk up to the roof. I then started trying to get the branches back up. No real luck and it started looking like hell in my tent. It took me so long, that my buddy pretty much had the four plants cut up before I even had her tied back up. No F'n pictures except my phone - and they were crappy.

I smoked a bong of the new stuff... came up stairs dejected and not sure what to do. That crap I put together was not going to hold her and I knew that I was strangling the stems and shoots. Starting to think it might be time to let her

My web browser was up and I hit refresh... BakedAlaskan's Grow Journal... And pictures of this very nice looking scrog set up that he just put together. I thought... Now that will hold her for a while without strangling her until I can figure out a better plan.

I only had sisel twine... no pretty bamboo... but this is an emergency. So I did my best.

Basically, I wrapped twine around the perimeter. Duct tape is my friend... BAs knot was my enemy.

I then ran twine across between the two sides and reattached her main stem. I then started building 8 inch squares out and bringing branches back up so that the rested on the twine. Once I got that... I put in the next 8" square and started attaching the next set of branches. I continued until I had removed all of my previous support and had her now resting on top of the SCROG.

It didn't actually take that much time to do... I know, it looks like it too.

Here is what she looks like currently... too embarrassed to take a picture of that first BS.

I must have been thinking about my girlfriend when I took this picture...

Anyway... I need a new plan. She is five weeks from finishing. I know that she will take a hit, but she is so full of immature bud that I just can't kill her. If you look - i had to reattach the SCROG to the roof because that front corner is way too heavy for the twine.

So what do I do? Build some kind of framework out of PVC and replace the twine?

There is no way to get a screen of any sort in there. It has to be built around her.

Here is an update on the Unknown Indica. She is looking very good. She just suffered her third complete defoliation but bounced back within a day or so. And of course today she got pushed over.

 

[Mono]

Sorry to hear about your chaos buddy. Would stakes from the base to the top of the tent be enough for you to lash the plants together until harvest time?

 

[mcloadie]

I'm subd GLA, looks like you're doin what you can, the pvc sounds good! + reps, I'll catch up soon!

 

[GreatLife4All]

I'm subd GLA, looks like you're doin what you can, the pvc sounds good! + reps, I'll catch up soon!

Thank you for subbing to my grow. I look forward to interacting with you to improve my technique.

Don't hesitate to jump in if you see something wrong.

 

[GreatLife4All]

Emergency SCROG

Ok... here is an update on the Emergency SCROG.

Right before lights out, I went in and checked on her. She was actually looking much better.

Feeling adventurous, I went ahead and started re-arranging everything to take the weight off the two front corners of my "netting." After I was done with that, I disconnected everything from the celing except one - which likely doesn't need to be there. The lights then went out for 12 hours...

She is not standing on her own - but she is standing and completely separated by the net now. After tightening, the twine is supporting her far better than I should expect.

In all honesty, I now have about 10 times more bud sites exposed directly to the light just 14" above her.

For such a disaster, I came out pretty good. I went and bought PVC, but I just don't think i need it anymore.

I feel that I need to take my own advice and just "Let It Ride" for now while monitoring.

Here is the updated picture:

You do realize all stretched out like this she is touching both sides of a four foot tent? She is only a foot shy of the front door and is definitely back over the top of that indica. I am going to move the indica away from her again. My light hangs 6.5 ft off the ground (80" tent, the light is supported by a structure above the tent, and pulled as high as the tent will allow) and the buckets are 14" tall. I bent the top over last night - otherwise she was touching the light again. By my calculations, she is over 4 ft tall.

So I now have nearly a 4x4x4 ball of LOJ. 90% of which is now within 26" of a 1,000W HPS. I didn't deserve to come out this well.

 

[GreatLife4All]

The drying tent is starting to smell fabulous.

A couple more days and I will open and take pictures. I will get a good camera this time.

 

[GreatLife4All]

Re: Emergency SCROG

Ok... I went in to grab one of my extra plants for a project today... and what the hell? All the plants in that ebb and flow table have yellow bottom leaves... and the first set of true leaves are a sick yellow. Here is the picture that greeted me:

Lack of Nitrogen? pH lockout? Probably not - 2050 ec (1025ppm) and the reservoir is not even two weeks old. So I checked the pH - running at 5.2... real low and an anomaly. The pH typically rises by this point in time.

I sit down perplexed. I decide that no matter what the ultimate issue, right now they need water. So I go and manually flip the pump on and... nothing happens. The damn reservoir pump had died. I had a backup.

At the beginning of this journal i stated that I started with a mix of old and new equipment. The old equipment has steadily been dieing. Fans, pumps, and connections seem to be the worst. I am so glad that I am paranoid and started buying backup parts when my ballast died. That pump just came in yesterday.... and I now have all new pumps, fans, and connections.

Shouldn't have been such a tightass. Would have saved me a lot of trouble and plant death.

These were caught in time - they will be OK. I will lose the dicots and the first set of true leaves on every plant.

 

[KingJohnC]

lower your ppm in your ebb and flow.

 

[GreatLife4All]

lower your ppm in your ebb and flow.

Done. Dropped it back to just under 1600 / 800 ppm.

 

[GreatLife4All]

In my new DWC the water is smelling musty... haven't experienced that yet.

I think I am going to go ahead and change the water in that reservoir. Might just be due to the fact that it is new.

 

[GreatLife4All]

Ok... I started trying to figure out that smell.

It is definitely in my new DWC system. It is also in the small 30 gallon reservoir that I use to feed this system via a float.

Continuing my trace back... and it seems that my large reservoir (60 gallon) that is hooked up to my R/O system has the same problem. Only there are no nutrients in this reservoir - I can typically see all the way to the bottom. This reservoir is very cloudy. It looks like skim milk - but that is an exaggeration on my part to emphasize what it looks like.

The DWC system in my other tent has no issues - but it was filled a while ago.

So I am assuming that I have somehow gotten a bacteria or fungus infection in my main reservoir? And that it has now gone to my secondary reservoir, the DWC system, and the clone box. All are exhibiting the same smell and were filled at about the same time from this main reservoir.

I cleaned this initially (yes, bleach and then soapy water followed by letting it dry for a couple of days and then filling) and the water has been clean and pure for months. I never open the reservoir - except to check the level (which is "written" on the inside of the tank).

This is the first time that I have ever had a reservoir where I store water. I have always hauled water before. I am in over my head on this one.

The reservoir is emptying right now. And the smell that I detected in my DWC is much stronger here as it empties.

So I will clean it again, then disinfect.

But my real question is should I be putting something into the Reservoir occasionally to protect myself from this sort of invasion? I can't really think of any other maintenance steps that I should take to keep the water clean.

Left to my own devices, I would start treating it with bleach. I don't know how much would be safe... and experimenting on actual plants seems stupid. This is the only source of water for all my plants (some delicate house plants included) - and this makes me very nervous.

So... suggestions anyone?