MrBubbles Perpetual Grow

[Backpackin420]

Looking good man! Is that a king cloner you have over there in your tent? If so how do you like it? I was thinking about getting one

 

[josh223]

Looking good bro! Looks like your Blue Blood is a bit further along than mine. I always have to do a double take because our tents look so similar.

 

[mrbubbles87]

Looking good man! Is that a king cloner you have over there in your tent? If so how do you like it? I was thinking about getting one

Thanks! Yes it is a king cloner 36 site. It's probably one of the best investments I've made so far. I've had almost 100% success on probably over 60 clones so far. I've lost a few but that was my own error. I forgot to plug it in a few times and had clones over clogged sprayers.

It would work even better for your hydro setup because the roots wouldn't need to adjust from hydro to soil. The only tip I have is don't add anything to the water otherwise your sprayer tips will get clogged. That happened to me from adding big bloom lol. I was able to clean most of the sprayers out in the sink but some are still clogged. It does come with a few spar sprayer heads.

Looking good bro! Looks like your Blue Blood is a bit further along than mine. I always have to do a double take because our tents look so similar.

Thanks! Wait til I post pics of my SOG. I've got about 15 2L flowering now

The critical mass is really impressive. It's growing at almost twice the rate of the blue blood. The funny part is the seed site listed them in that same order for least difficult to most difficult to grow. Just gave my seedling their first full strength feeding a few nights ago. Was a little scared of burn but so far they are looking good. Hoping to take top clones in the next 2 weeks.

 

[mrbubbles87]

Hey guys,

Think I may have found one reason for some of my nutrient problems. I posted a question in the soil cultivation section. I've listed it below:


I've been growing with the fox farm trio perpetually in pro mix for about 6 months. I am using a gallon set of the trio I had leftover from a hydro grow back in 2006.

Ever since I began growing with these nutrients I have questioned whether there is a difference between the Soil Grow Big and the Hydro Grow Big.

Today I finally stumbled into a comparison. There is a difference between these two versions. As you can see the soil version is 6-4-4 and the hydro version is 3-2-6. Obviously I can double my dosage to make the N and P equal but that would throw my K way off.

Can anyone please tell me how I need to convert the feed schedule on my grow big to make the hydro NPK value equal those of the soil version?


"Fox Farm Grow Big Soil nutrient (6-4-4) is mostly organic and will provide everything your plants need for rapid, healthy vegetative growth.

Fox Farm Grow Big Hydroponic nutrient (3-2-6), also mostly organic, is a potent, fast-acting water soluble fertilizer specially formulated for hydroponic systems."

 

[Backpackin420]

Wish I could help ya with this one man, but unfortunately I don't have any experience with Fox Farm nutes =(. I was using botanicares soil version of bloom in my hydro reservoir and had some deficiency's, but I do not know if that was just from my error as a newbie grower or if it was the nutes fault. Was probably mine lol

Interested to see how that World of Seeds plant grow's out for ya. I got my seed order in the mail the other day and picked up some World of Seeds Mighty Grape because they had a free offer to go along with it. I also got alot of other stuff so I should be set for awhile.

 

[mrbubbles87]

Wish I could help ya with this one man, but unfortunately I don't have any experience with Fox Farm nutes =(. I was using botanicares soil version of bloom in my hydro reservoir and had some deficiency's, but I do not know if that was just from my error as a newbie grower or if it was the nutes fault. Was probably mine lol Interested to see how that World of Seeds plant grow's out for ya. I got my seed order in the mail the other day and picked up some World of Seeds Mighty Grape because they had a free offer to go along with it. I also got alot of other stuff so I should be set for awhile.

No worries. I think the main difference is the soil version provides extra K and less NP. Probably something to do with the roots being constantly exposed to nutrients in a hydro system. Just guessing tho.

Basically I need to double my NP but I'm not sure how to do that without overdoing the K.

God I can't wait to finish these bottles. I'm helping a friend grow a few of my clones. Got them to the order the General organics go box. Pretty excited to see that in person. That's the beauty of helping other ppl learn to grow. They can help you try out products

I have high hopes for the NL x Skunk. Not only for the variety but also because it should hopefully be an easy grower. I had to dig the seedling out a bit. It sank sank quite a bit during watering. This promix is so light is just floats for a few mins after watering. It sprouted last night. I helped the shell off. Expecting some bright new leaves when I look in the tent during my lunch today. If so, that will keep me at 100% germination rate for Seedbank seeds. Consider myself pretty lucky after some of the horror stories I've read online.

Mighty grape sounds tasty! I love the fruity strains. I swear half my blue berry crosses taste like grape vs blueberry lol.

I'm been itching to grow some purple buds. Have only bought them a handful of times in my lifetime. Thinking some Ken Estes would make a great addition. The tough part for me is deciding which strains to keep and which ones to get rid of. So far I haven't had the heart to get rid of any but my cart at herbies keeps getting fuller. As a matter of fact I'm looking at strain on there today. Thinking blue dream, ak47, afgooey, and the list keeps going FML lmao

 

[Backpackin420]

Lol I feel ya on the seed business man! I find it quite addicting and already have a little collection going on! hahah

 

[Backpackin420]

Bubbles whats up man! How's everything been going for ya and how are the girls?

 

[mrbubbles87]

Update:

There have been a few updates in the garden and a few more tweaks to my overall plan. My new revised plan is to run 9 5 gal porta SCROG plants under 1 600W and to run 2 2x4 trays w/ a total of 40 2L coco plants with an automated drip feed system under the second 600W. I feel like this setup gives me the ability to play around with high brix, plant yields, and most importantly quality while at the same time providing a continuous supply of medicine for our friends/family through a fast producing perpetual hydro SOG. I’m working towards this goal and plan on making the change within the next month.

I recently made some purchases online and at Home Depot that I’m pretty excited about. First, I purchased grow through plant supports aka. Porta SCROGs. I stumbled into a great selection of these at Home Depot for only $2.50 ea. They also sell them on Amazon but shipping isn’t free. They are a little big (30in) but I believe I should be able to squeeze 9 of these on 5gal buckets in a 4x4 section.

I installed them on 2 of my flowering plants and 2 of my veg plants right away. I just drilled holes through the sides of the bucket for the legs to go through. Then I duct taped them in place. Kind of ghetto I know but I couldn’t think of a better way to secure them while still being able to adjust height. I couldn’t see putting it directly in the soil because the poles can move disturbing my roots and also may need to be adjusted for height. Suggestions are welcome here _______. lol

Here’s a few pics of the process before and after…

Along with these I got plant ties that come on a reel with a cutter. Seriously best $2 investment you can make. They are much easier than strings and work great for securing the plants to the new supports.

I purchased 2 packs of 5’ bamboo stakes. I cut these in half and now have 20 2’6” stakes. I put 1 stake into each of my flowering SOG plants. Hoping this will help support larger colas. It also helps organize and separate the plants. I’m thinking of putting my labels on the top of the bamboo stakes so I can identify each plant easier. This will be especially useful when I add a second tray of 20.

Here’s a few pics of the SOG before and after adding the stakes…

And here's the veg tent and newly updated flower tent...

I also decided to throw together a few 5gal DWC buckets. Figured it would be a good way to get back into hydro for when I run coco on my SOG. For now I just put a clone straight into flower using the 5gal DWC. Depending on success I might incorporate 3gal DWC into my veg tent.

I recently placed an order on Amazon too. I purchased a new bottle of Big Bloom, a bottle of Sledgehammer, a fan speed controller, and a small bag of worm castings. Hoping to flush faster and maybe boost my soil or make a simple earth worm casting tea.

And the final purchase I made was a new 600 watt HPS!!! This was a very tough decision for me. I was very close to purchasing an LED from one of our sponsors. I was hoping to reduce electrical costs. I ended up going back over my electrical bill. I was able to calculate that a single 600 watt HPS costs me $12.40 per month to run. Of course there’s the extra cost of replacing bulbs, extracting heat, etc. but I could only afford an LED that would cover a 2x4 section. The one I was looking at was $179 which is the same price as a new HPS that will cover the entire 4x4 space. That means Id still have to buy another light in a month to cover the remaining 2x4 of my tent. Plus my setup is perfectly designed for a 2nd cooltube.

Honestly if I had the money I’d go LED but money is tight and I need to be able to utilize my entire grow area now and not 2 months down the road so I’ll have to continue on the HPS path. I definitely see LED lights in my near future though.

That’s where I’m at right now guys. Just wading through the chaos of growing 10+ strains in a perpetual setup. I’m getting a pretty good system down. My plants are starting to look a lot healthier. I think I was underfeeding them quite a bit. All of the pics on this update were actually take 3 days ago. I’ve been so busy I don’t have much time to update the journal. I’ll try to post some updated pics in the next few days. Otherwise I should be receiving the new light and Amazon order within the next few weeks. Expect a big update then Thanks for following and reading guys!

 

[mrbubbles87]

Bubbles whats up man! How's everything been going for ya and how are the girls?

Been crazy busy bro. This perpetual gardening is no joke lol. It took me 3 days to post this last update. I've got so much going on now it's hard to keep the entires short. I'm afraid I might have to scale the journal entries back a bit which means ill only be able to share a little bit of what I've got going on.

Got some pretty exciting updates coming in the next month tho

Hope everything's going great for you!

 

[Backpackin420]

Sounds good man! Stay safe and looking forward to what you have coming in the future!

 

[mrbubbles87]

Thanks!

 

[CA215]

Very nice porta scrogs mrbub! Are you planning on the 9x 5 gal porta scrogs in a 4x4? That might get a little difficult brotha. The over lapping that is happening now on the two wont jive in a couple weeks with the new growth. I had been doing the same thing and was pinching off leaves and stems. It can be done but it might get mad irritating damaging the leaves, I was! Glad to hear you will be applying some more artificial rays for them girls! Totally understand your choice on picking up another hid versus the led.. I am on the same route, thinking a 1k hid upgrade Forgot how difficult it is to take photos and update when you are going 100mph everyday! Stay safe&well bro!

 

[josh223]

This perpetual gardening is no joke lol.

I feel your pain.

 

[mrbubbles87]

Very nice porta scrogs mrbub! Are you planning on the 9x 5 gal porta scrogs in a 4x4? That might get a little difficult brotha. The over lapping that is happening now on the two wont jive in a couple weeks with the new growth. I had been doing the same thing and was pinching off leaves and stems. It can be done but it might get mad irritating damaging the leaves, I was! Glad to hear you will be applying some more artificial rays for them girls! Totally understand your choice on picking up another hid versus the led.. I am on the same route, thinking a 1k hid upgrade Forgot how difficult it is to take photos and update when you are going 100mph everyday! Stay safe&well bro!

Thanks! I was stoked. All along id been thinking of how to make one out of a tomato cage when theres already cheap ones pre made lol Ill be happy as hell if I get half the results you did.

Really loving the results so far. Its so much easier than LST. I know exactly what you mean about squeezing 9 5gal in 4x4. The overlap I have now is manageable but I can see how out of hand it could get. I should actually have closer to 4x5 once I rearrange everything again. I may only be able to do 6 or 8. Either would work well. Right now I can only SCROG 2 5 gal at a time in my veg tent and then the rest of the space is for my 2L veg plants and cloner.

I'm sure you'd have amazing results with a 1K. I'd love one myself but the extra $75 was more than I could afford. I was really close to getting the LED. It turns out I have super cheap electric here (.061 per kWh). A 600 only costs me $12 per mo running 12/12. Really makes me wish I had 2 1k HPS. Maybe someday I'll add a 3rd 600 to really maximize my 4x8's yield potential.

I have tons of down time at work so it's not really the effort of typing up entries and taking photos that's getting crazy. Just trying to summarize everything I have going is really difficult.

I have 6 5gal flowering, 20 2L/1gal flowering, 1 5gal DWC flowering, 30 2L vegging, 20 Dixie cups vegging, 2 5gal vegging, and about 20 in the cloner all at various stages of growth. And I'm about to double my flowering numbers lol.

Needless to say this journal is going to have to be more of an overall summary of my entire perpetual vs details on individual plants and nutrients.


Any thoughts on incorporating earth worm castings as a simple tea? Also how much would you recommend mixing per gal of ProMix? I only ordered 1lb for now. It was $5 plus free shipping. I considered getting more and also getting bat guano but it didn't seem worth spending the extra money when big bloom already has both.

Here's a few pics from this morning...

Hard to tell from these pics but the majority of these plants are looking pretty healthy. I have been having some trouble with the 5gal Wild Thai. Pretty sure this was due to my early nutrient deficiencies and ph lockout. I know my yields on the 5gal agent are a lot lower than I was hoping due to this. I'll be lucky to get 2oz off of her. She's just hitting week 8. I may only be able to flush her until the weekend. The leaves are all losing color so hopefully that means most of the nutrients are gone. Really wish I could push her 2 more weeks. I know it would fatten up quite a bit more and would allow for a cleaner flush but were almost completely out of meds.

I knew the sativa's would be trickier. That's why I have clones. Plenty of practice to get it right. I won't give up a single strain until I feel like I've grown it to its best potential otherwise I feel like I might be throwing out a great strain that I just couldn't grow right. Plus I'm stubborn like that lol.

Really loving the SOG. I add a few plants every week. Eventually it'll be Christmas every week year round . I figure the SOG will be able to provide variety and consistent supply while the larger SCROG plants will be great for trying new grow techniques and learning to increase yields/quality in order to eventually reduce plant counts.

 

[mrbubbles87]

I feel your pain.

An auto drip feed is in my near future. Only $30 on Amazon

2L bottles are the bomb dude. I'm getting them at .84 ea. I can squeeze so many in such a tight space and I'm growing plants that were just as big in 3gal. Someday I'll upgrade to smart pots but I'll be using 2L for quite awhile.

 

[josh223]

An auto drip feed is in my near future. Only $30 on Amazon

That the white cube gravity fed one? I've been looking at one like that but I don't think it'll work for me.

I'm playing around with a few ideas to help me out. I have to take plants out of the tent to water the ones in the back. I'm picturing a large funnel attached to a 1" hose, then terminating to a plastic pipe "wand". I'd be able to poor X many ounces of nutrients in the funnel and have it delivered to individual plants without moving them. Might work, might not.

All I know is that it is a pain moving near mature plants around in 2 Liters. I've already been breaking branches.

 

[mrbubbles87]

That the white cube gravity fed one? I've been looking at one like that but I don't think it'll work for me. I'm playing around with a few ideas to help me out. I have to take plants out of the tent to water the ones in the back. I'm picturing a large funnel attached to a 1" hose, then terminating to a plastic pipe "wand". I'd be able to poor X many ounces of nutrients in the funnel and have it delivered to individual plants without moving them. Might work, might not. All I know is that it is a pain moving near mature plants around in 2 Liters. I've already been breaking branches.

I know exactly what you mean about moving the plants to water them. My veg tent isn't bad because of my table. Sucks moving them all around but not back breaking. Plus it gives me a chance to give them each individual attention for defoliating, training, and tilling the top soil. I've seen guys use PVC pipe as an "extender". The flower tent will be really difficult especially when I run two tables.

I found several low price systems. The one I'm considering is called "Deluxe Irrigation System for Container Gardening". It's $30 and feeds 30 containers. Just hooks up to a hose.

I already have an 18gal tub with a water pump that i use for water. My plan is to hook this up to the irrigation system and install a drain tube. Then I'll eventually convert to coco and run an automated system. I have everything ordered except the irrigation system so I'll be running a manual drain table in a few weeks. Just going to use the hose/reservoir to manually water. This will still be a lot more convenient and I really don't need to automate until I switch to coco. I'm watering every 4 days now.

 

[josh223]

I'm watering 5-7 gallons daily at this point for the flowering girls. Also another 2 or so gallons daily for the veg girls, Those are just averages. Some days get skipped. Some plants are drinking 4X what others are.

When we move I want to have a spare bedroom to flower in. Then I'll build some elevated drain to waste tables.

I'm going to go by my local Home Depot tonight and see if I can find some of those scrog screens like you have. My Holy Grail Kush is such a monster. I took here down at least 12" last week and she put it all back on. I'm trying to slowly trim here down before she gets flowered out. This pheno seems to stretch around 350% or so. I think my best bet, because of my height restrictions wold be to scrog her.

Sorry for hogging up your journal. Your plants look great!

 

[mrbubbles87]

I'm watering 5-7 gallons daily at this point for the flowering girls. Also another 2 or so gallons daily for the veg girls, Those are just averages. Some days get skipped. Some plants are drinking 4X what others are. When we move I want to have a spare bedroom to flower in. Then I'll build some elevated drain to waste tables. I'm going to go by my local Home Depot tonight and see if I can find some of those scrog screens like you have. My Holy Grail Kush is such a monster. I took here down at least 12" last week and she put it all back on. I'm trying to slowly trim here down before she gets flowered out. This pheno seems to stretch around 350% or so. I think my best bet, because of my height restrictions wold be to scrog her. Sorry for hogging up your journal. Your plants look great!

5-7 gal per day?! That's crazy lol. My veg tent takes 2 gal every 3-4 days and my flower tent takes 3gal every 3-4 days. That's for a total of over 70 plants. Is that just because of your medium or do you have super low humidity?

If only my wife would let me convert the whole room. Soon hopefully. Baby steps! Lmao

I def recommend the grow thru plant support. I found it outside at Home Depot. Even tho it's cold as sh*t they still had quite a but of stuff out there. Can't rate these things highly enough especially for only $2.

Your HGK sounds a lot like my Wild Thai. It's like trying to tame a monster. No matter what I do I can't slow this strain down. It's a perfect candidate for SCROG. Sounds like yours should be too.

Feel free to hog my journal anytime