Phantom’s RDWC Cherry Cookies Grow Journal

[HunterHunt]

Thats right, I used Hydroguard my my first few grows back when it was hydroshield i believe was the name. It saved my plants thats for sure. I was running a res of 85-90 degrees perfectly fine in DWC with hydroguard. Switched to RECHARGE and havnt looked back in years just due to have more good stuff in it and its a powder and not watered down.

I entered! Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Anthony Suszko]

I’ll definitely be washing a few buds just to give it a shot.

Checked on the ladies when I got back, not really that droopy but they could definitely be more perky. I’ll water them again before bed. I also took the liberty of getting an ok photo of each plant.

Front Right Corner (needs topping):

Front Left Corner (topped):

Back Right Corner (needs topping):

Back Left Corner (topped):

Its so pretty, you're making all the other hydro guys jealous .. Great Job!
Cant wait to see these F***ers all juiced up on Mega Crop heavy with buds..

 

[The Phantom]

Hydroguard isn’t made too far from me so I can find it just about anywhere in town, even the Ace down the street has it. I’ve actually been looking into some of their other products they carry for future grows, specifically two called Rhizo Blast and Silica Blast. I hear a lot of hydro people having success with a silica supplement on here. The Rhizo Blast is root mass promoter and I think it would be great to see these 27 gallon grow totes filled with fat, healthy roots.

I’ll definitely look into Recharge as well. Since the MC should/will take care of all the plants nutritional needs at a cheap price, I don’t mind spending a few bucks searching into supplements for the water quality or plant root healthcare. If I’m going to be pushing future grows hard with MC I should start looking at making sure the plant can uptake and process all of those nutrients properly, right? I think my grandma used to say something about me needing to find a woman with sturdy legs or something like that.

It wasn’t my intention to turn heads or make anyone jealous, I just tend to lean more towards the anal retentive side of things. I breathe easier knowing things are in their place and things are clean/streamlined. Simple, I also like simple, and that just feels simple to me.

Glad you all are posting to the Mars contest. I plan on waiting a few more days to figure out the lighting on my phone and for the girls to perk up before posting one. I also like to wait to the last minute to do things, like my taxes.

 

[HunterHunt]

Yep! Roots are the most important part! Bigger roots, bigger fruit... right? =)

 

[The Phantom]

Lunch break, time for some root porn.

They have all made it to the water. The distinct yellow/browning of the roots where the water level is due to the kelp extract in the MC tinting the water slightly, I think, you can see the drain screen also yellow/brownish.

Even got the boss’ sniff test approval.

You can also see the other MC supplements (haven’t touched) I have in the background and the Hydroguard I use.

 

[Modest Grower]

Happy Friday @The Phantom. plants are looking like they are settling in nicely!

 

[The Phantom]

That they are! Happy Friday to you, the misses, and puppers as well and to everyone else reading this.

The last root photo is of the tallest plant that keeps going droopy but the shortest roots coming out of the pots but she is getting roots to the water finally. This morning when I got up she was doubled over but you can see she’s perked back up after a quick watering. Turning the lights up did that I’m sure of it. I’m at 80% power now, I think I’m going to stay here now for power and height (20-22”). A lux meter would be nice but I’ll try and get by for now.

I think I may try shortening up some of the recirculation lines tonight. You’ll notice in most of the photos they are pretty long. It’s either that or I’ll end up dropping some beans, I just know it. I actually pulled them out yesterday to look at them and realized I have two Seedsman cheese strains, Cheese which is just the Skunk #1 pheno, and then some Badazz OG Cheese seeds. I know you like your lemon cheese you have going now.

I see the avatar change too, I noticed Futurama is a popular show around here. I enjoyed the hell out of it, I used to run around on occasion like Dr. Zoidberg. “WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP!”

 

[HunterHunt]

Phantom, The prolonged droopiness and slower root growth has me a little concerned. The pictures the roots look a little brownish in color? I don't see any air stones in your reservoir? Are they sitting in the water yet?

Plants are still looking good and still have root growth.... hmmm.

 

[HunterHunt]

I didnt read inbetwen pictures sorry, Even with the color of the water it shouldnt make your roots brownish. I run a very strong dose of recharge and its BLACK and it doesnt discolor my roots. Good to know they made it to the water!

 

[The Phantom]

There’s a ton of growth in the pot it’s just been finding it’s way out and to the water. I’m fairly certain the brown tea stain coloring comes from the kelp in the MC, if you look in the photos you’ll see the white drain screens installed in the grow tote and they are also stained the same color. They are still pretty white for the light staining, the ones above the water are pure white. Everything looks great health wise, we have fish boning of the roots in the water and the ones in the pot have fine white hairs like you would expect. I really think it’s because she was the tallest clone, needing more water but only getting the same as the other girls. It seriously took all of 5 mins this morning for her top 3” that was bent 180 over to being back upright after the watering.

I’m definitely keeping an eye on it though, especially since I’m still running warmer water temps. The diy chiller maxes out at 76F right now, in hindsight I probably only have about 15’ of coil inside of it, I think I’ll try to get 50’ in there this weekend to see if can lower the temps more. I have a beat up old hose that I’ll try using, at this point I’m not investing more into it. I shouldn’t need a chiller that much after this grow is over in September anyways and if water temps are still an issue, I’ll wait until next spring to buy a large chiller to be able to chill multiple systems.

 

[HunterHunt]

Awesome keep up the great work! I don't see any air stones in your reservoirs? What kind of air are you running?

 

[The Phantom]

No air just relying on the drop the water takes coming into the reservoir and from the recirculation lines to supply all the dissolved oxygen I need for the roots to not drown. I truly hate air pumps with a passion from my aquarium days. I know people use them to help circulate nutrients but I’m running two 800 gph pumps (I’d actually just run one if I didn’t have the chiller). One pump alone gives me 10+ times turn over of my system to where I don’t think I would need air to help suspend any nutrients that didn’t dissolve right away. The only thing I haven’t seen dissolve within 5 mins of mixing with MC is the kelp. The cal/mag is the second to last but since they ground up all the small balls of it to a powder it doesn’t take more than 5 mins to dissolve it all. I think since the kelp is dehydrated it needs to hydrate first before it can break down and dissolve.

 

[HunterHunt]

You will still need air stones and a bubbler. There is no way the drop the water takes will give it enough oxygen. Its not for mixing, its for the roots. That may be part of the reason they have not recovered from drooping yet. You are drowning them. Just my two cents. =)

 

[The Phantom]

On that note, I went and checked the roots again. I’m now 420% sure the staining is from the kelp. I did see one root on the big droopy girl that had died. It was 1/4” long, coming out of the net pot was brown-brown and dry. I’m guessing it just didn’t get any water and dried up. Everything else looks great.
pH 6.0 - I added 3ml of pH down to the reservoir. I don’t expect it to do much along the lines of dropping 75ish gallons of water down but I’ll see. I’ll check it tonight before bed and add more if needed, I’m just going to bring it down slowly since I’m in the window anyways. I do want to bring it down a bit more before the roots really start drinking and bring the pH back up.

EC 1.03 - This went up because the 5 gallons I added the other night wasn’t exactly 2 grams per gallon as the solution already in the system, so it went up a little.

Note: I’m going to just use EC from now on, no TDS (ppm), it’s just easier to follow for me. Also, I’m not going to worry about getting my nutrient solution to a specific EC/TDS, I will be dosing the nutrients based on grams per gallon. I’m only using EC to be able to track the nutrient uptake to the plants to make sure they are healthy.

I’m outside now babysitting the two autos I have growing. They are really reaching when I bring them out here.

 

[HunterHunt]

Thats great. Glad to hear its just the kelp. Yea 3ml might budge it .1 on the pH. For my 12 gallons I use 1 ml and it will drop it .1-.2. Autos looking good! I miss my soil grows sometimes. But then I think about having to mix and water everyday in flower LOL. I have not touched my reservoir in 4 days on my current grow. Its so nice. pH stable, ppm stable, drinking and eating at the same ratio so its all staying constant. Good days!

 

[The Phantom]

That’s what drew me to hydro. I did soil outdoors for so long but it was just ground soil with some time release crop fertilizer and chopped straw for aeration as the black dirt in some of the spots I grew in back home was dense. I was dying to plant something so I bought the Sunshine Mix 4 at the HD down the street come to find out it’s like Promix and considered hydro as well. These two Ginger launch autos I have growing are in my other journal, same deal with MC but they will be living outside under a shade canopy with my veggies. I’m setting up my irrigation controller this weekend to give them a watering ever so often when I’m not hand watering them MC. With 110F outside there’s so much water loss each day that if I don’t give them some drip irrigation and have my misters turn on in the afternoon they will fry.

 

[The Phantom]

Seriously I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Had 2 beers and the last of my smoke, next thing I know there were 5 new seeds in the water. Let me introduce you to the new group of girls I’ll be keeping around as mothers.

#1 Critical Orange Punch by Dutch Passion Seed Company

#2 LSD by Barney’s Farm Seeds

#3 Pineapple Chunk by Barney’s Farm Seeds

#4 Anubis by Pyramid Seeds

#5 K8 by V Elementum Seeds

I took my Jell-O shot cups, rinsed them in a 200ppm bleach solution (eyeballed, I will not use my meter to check haha), then rinsed under tap water before drying with a clean paper towel. Each one was filled with room temperature distilled water before placing the seed inside and putting on the lid. The only seed to sink immediately was the Anubis, all the rest are floating. Set them off to the side and I’ll check tomorrow for sinkers/crackers.

Hopefully this cures the itch I have. I seriously only dropped 5 seeds because that’s all the Jell-O shot cups I had, if I had more I guarantee there would be more strains in the water. I guess after a day or so the cups will be empty. Haha

 

[HunterHunt]

WOW! Such quality seeds and strains!!!! LSD from barneys was one of my favorite grows. Such amazing smoke. Cant wait to keep up with this grow.

*Edit to add* I need a few of those clones!! =)

 

[The Phantom]

*eyes dart back and forth* we may be able to figure something out. Did you get any of the reported psycho-active effects from it?

These strains were some specific choices by me, minus the K8 freebie (has me interested with a supposed citrus taste though), and I’m very excited. I think I have 5-6 more different strains on hand that I didn’t choose plus the rest that are one the way from Seedsman *cough* 12 strains plus at least 4 other freebie strains *cough*

Yup I definitely have a problem, a good problem.

 

[oldsmokey]

Yup I definitely have a problem, a good problem.

Me too I am thinking of starting a support group SAA seed alcoholics anonymous. nice choose of seeds all top notch breaders not familiar with the last one.