THC Bomb & WW/Skunk - CFL Hood/Veg HPS/Flower

For flush I am planning to drop PPM down to about 300@.5 for about 3-7 days till the sugar leaves get pretty yellow then RO only for the last day or two unless otherwise advised by more experienced members growing simple hydroponics Capn style. To my knowledge, The Capn, S1ingblade and African Grower are the primary 3 that have steered my grow in good directions by doing great in their own grows. All grows are done Capn style with a simple media, simple top feed and drainage, simple nutrient recipe with a simple compost tea inoculant. If other conditions are met at least satisfactorily, great yields based of great plants on great white root masses are a no brainer. A lot of square inches are being consumed of my tiny 15"x30" with nugz due to a happy root zone, this at least I was able to provide and I know when harvested I will find some nice white roots and if possible, put right back in and revegged.
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+1 :high-five:

I'll have to take a couple of pics of my lower growth next update...it is very similar to yours, though I doubt it will all finish at the same time. What to do you think about your lower growth's harvest time? Will you give it a few more days on the stem?
 
I'm gonna cut most of it off tonight to sample and the rest maybe leave to reveg or possibly late harvest? I just want her to focus only on tric production externally if possible. I'm already too impressed with cola length and girth, just need some sugar poured out on those sugar leaves.
 
Being so young in my developing skills, my ideas for my grow are rarely my own. My mentor"S" can take all the credit, I'll take all the bud! Thanks guys!
 
The stem that is tied off by 2 garden wires is the lowest branch (2nd node above cotyledon) and has produced the largest and longest cola @ 15"+ and the girth of a soda can. Just an observation I am sharing.

I have it on very good and trusted authority that it's safe to remove some of the lower sites as they receive little to no light and are taking away from the primary flowering tops. I know some trains of thought suggest that these should be left for a short time after harvest to themselves be harvested, and I respect that, however the atmosphere near me locally has shifted slightly and I am not looking to extend this grow, even by a couple days, plus being flat broke with no smoke, this will give me an out to fall back on for the days ahead.

I was able to scope these small cuttings to view tric production and Capn was right, the gist of them are very close proximity to the buds. I will need to find my 30x-100x loupe as this 10x isn't really cutting it for glandular identification.

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Also, if anyone has any suggestions of how to lower my RH, I am all ears. Please don't say a dehumidifier as that is everyone's first guess and if I had the dough, I would definitely get one, but that's out of my reach currently.
 
Also, just now transplanted the other 2 Monster Clones into mini cubes. I guess it was fate for my beans to not germ at all. I do not fault this to The Capn's recipe or to Herbie's seeds, but rather I now see it to be grower (me) error. My trouble with germinating is that I can get the beans into a warm climate, but am unable (currently) to maintain a steady warm temp and I really believe it was the cooler times that ruined all my previous attempts to germ. I wish I had a modem/router that layed down, but we have a standup here and that's the only appliance I'd trust that runs 24/7.

So in the future, I will get me a fish tank heater and a 5 gallon bucket of ordinary water and heat that bucket up. I will again (next time I germ seeds) mix up 5ml of Aqua Shield, 4ml of Flora Blend with a gallon RO water. I will submerse some paper towels and shake off (not ring out) excess water that the PT sponged up. I will shoot for very damp, but not wet towels and lay the beans in each according to strain if I do multiple. I will then put the bean sandwiches in a cleaned butter bowl, then rest the bowl on the water in the 5 gallon bucket. Finally I will find a good heavy enough board and rest it on the butter bowl. The board will weigh enough to push the butter bowl into the constantly warm water (roughly 85ºF), but not so much that water climbs over the rim. Back in 91/92 when I first took to canna'botany, I used to germ seeds by the hundreds in a regular wash cloth that was slightly less than very damp and had great results. Back then I used a fish tank instead of a 5gal bucket. Also I had trouble removing some beans as the tap roots often stitched themselves through the wash cloth making it difficult to remove them. My knowledge has since evolved to know what parts of old experiences could be used today to find success and I don't know why I didn't do this with these beans. What a waste really, but you must understand that Skybound is pretty damn hard headed.

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b.real said:
your rh is fine but I used to use socks filled with baking soda
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Did you hang them, or is it fine to rest them on the floor? Also, at what humidity percentage does bud mold become inevitable?
 
Skybound said:
Did you hang them, or is it fine to rest them on the floor? Also, at what humidity percentage does bud mold become inevitable?
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not sure. I've only caught bud rot once, and it's when my plants were in those plastic containers, without a fan, sweating by the lights.
 
b.real said:
your rh is fine
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+1

Hey Sky, I know this device is not in your budget right now, but for the future, put it on your wish list. I have really enjoyed it over the last few months. Last night I got an alert that the water temp got up to 70. It was a false alarm though. I was messing around in the res and pulled the probe out of the water just before lights out. Nevertheless, it's a great tool and could save a grow!

Anyway, here you can see my room temp, there is a 10degree difference between night and day, which is perfect! The water temp (yellow line) stays at 66-67 (I have a chiller), and my humidity is.. not as perfect. It bounces between 65-72%. Right now it is running so high because the room is FULL of plants. Come summer, I'll get back to only 2 plants and I'll be ok. For me, a dehumidifier isn't really an option either. I don't know how to run one without heating up the room.

Check out Jan 12th. I had spilled a couple gallons of water on the floor and didn't dry it up :)

So, to answer your question, make sure your res is covered ALL the way. Hydroton on top of your cubes helps. Don't have open containers of water in your grow room, no wet towels. Basically, if you look in your cabinet, you shouldn't be able to SEE any water. I hope this helps! But like breal said, your RH is just right so don't worry about it.

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Skybound said:
Did you hang them, or is it fine to rest them on the floor? Also, at what humidity percentage does bud mold become inevitable?
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My humidity has been pushing 70+ (peak) thru all of 2013. No mold in any buds. That said, nothing I grew in most of 2013 had huge colas.

The bagseed I grew a long time ago, that had the HUGE chonger buds.... developed mold when humidity pushed 70. Giant colas are more prone to mold, for obvious reasons.

Even if your colas ARE giant, and you're staying under 50-60%, and you have good air circulation in there, you will PROBABLY be ok.
 
My air circulation unfortunately is not the best and there's little I can do to remedy it. I have since found via a Google search a product called DampRid which essentially is a cheap desiccant found at any big home improvement or the big department store for less than $10. It's supposed to be viable for 150-250 sq ft. Much more than I need but I'll look into getting some funds to get that. One of my concerns was that my large colas were crushing against each other further hindering air flow. I have since tied the larger colas to kind of float in between all surrounding flowers and hope for the best. I do have a minor leak where the catch basin meets the return line to the res. Necessity forced me to use a 90º threaded barb to conserve space and redirect runoff back to the res. I did have a cloth to catch the leakage but have since removed it. RH dropped a bit b/c of that, but not much though. Another reason I want RH to plummet is b/c I've read dry conditions help with trichome production. Don't know how true that is, but since I am wanting to prevent mold anyway, I figure that would be a no brainer if I can make it happen. I observe that I have 2 monster colas 15" long and soda can wide, these are hardening nice too. Not wanting my first harvest to spoil, of course I want to go well out of my way to try and dial in optimal grow environment.

I will look into getting that product you're using. I can see how it, combined with some other ideas I have can turn a grow into an almost completely hands free operation. If I had a nice bit of seed money, we do have the technology really to make a complete grow completely hands free, but that involves the use of a few web cams, a few robotic arms, some liquid metering devices used for taverns to measure out exact doses of a liquid and of course INSTEON for Android and WEMO for iPhone. Oh the pipe dreams I have, but hopefully in my future I get to play with all of these technologies. I suppose the email alert system could be in my nearer future than the robot arms, just gotta find some place better than where I am at.

Oh, I know it wouldn't work when using numbered pots, but what about syran wrapping the entire top of an air pot? All the way to the main stem I mean. This would definitely help to contain otherwise escaping moisture and with all the air holes on the side, air could be replaced via those. I'm looking to mitigate anything that lends to a bad environment when I recognize them.
 
Hey Skybound :) to lower RH I use little cupboard dehumidifiers. You get them at pound shops for closets. Little beads of the substance you mentioned above, sealed in plastic tubs, you simply peel foil back off lid. and leave. You get them at camping stores for motor home use also.
In the very beginning, I used fine table salt laid out in trays around my area. People said it wouldn't do any good yet it drew plenty of moisture into it sending it very clumpy. Its cheap and easy to get and does do something.
 
Thanks LA, I think you're describing the same stuff I found in my search. It works just like Ona Gel, set it and forget it.
 
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Some colas don't wanna stop growing either. The longest (lowest nodal) cola I have LSTed in 2 spots to manage the growth. I want to snip the tip in hopes to contain it, but in the same breath I wanna keep tying it off to see how long it will get.

I borrowed a nicer digital thermometer that has a hygrometer built in and took a few readings at different levels inside my grow cabinet last night and this is what I found;

Ambient Temp/RH - 72º/30%
Cabinet Floor - 74º/37%
Top of Pot - 71º/42%
Below Canopy - 71º/41%
In Canopy - 79º/44%
On top of Canopy - 105º/37% -//- I rested the "outdoor" monitoring device on a cola. The device was getting direct light and b/c of the material it's made from, no radiation passed through the plastics making it a lot hotter than the bud tips, so that temp IMO is completely biased. Also to note that when I retrieved it, the plastic was borderline hot, but it was definitely extremely warm to the touch, the cola tips are not. I can hold my hand at any part of the canopy for extended periods with very little burning sensation.

Also found a cola that had a decent sized patch of trichomes for me to inspect. Also found my 60x-100x microscope/loupe. The trics are still mostly clear with the occasional milky one. Also noticed the tric stems are pretty short when compared to trics I've seen in you all's pictures. If tric production continues (which I hope it does), I will shoot to harvest with roughly 5% amber trics to 95% milky ones. I am not aware (nor came across any discussion) of how much time is needed for a trichome to morph from clear to milky, then milky to amber. If anyone has any knowledge on this or can link me to any information on this, I would greatly appreciate it. I would like to time it out as best as I can to harvest at that 5%/95% time frame, though I expect to be told that this is mostly strain dependent.

After harvest, I will try to reveg this plant, but will terminate this journal. I may create a new journal if/when she gets back on track and/or her younger twins get into their growth spurts. I want to share this experience with everyone.

Oh forgot, I mixed up a weak batch of seedling feed last night in 1 gallon of RO water (not distilled). Right off the bat, I'd like to point out that I have noticed a big difference between Reverse Osmosis water and Distilled water. Distilled water usually has a PPM averaging 5PPM, RO/DI water swings between 0PPM and 1PPM. Also noticed the PH in RO/DI water is much closer to optimal grow ranges. Mine just so happen to land at 6.0/5.9. So after I mixed in the nutes at half the recommended strength of the Expert Drain To Waste schedule, the pH dropped to 5.1. I added 8 drops of PH UP and got it to 6.0.

1/2ml CALiMAGic
1/2ml GH Flora Gro
1ml GH Flora Micro
1/2ml GH Flora Bloom
2ml GH Flora Blend ....... I plan to also add a few ml of Aqua Shield to continue to nurse the young roots, but have since moved that product to another location. I am feeding about 20-25ml of the light nutrient solution to the 3 baby girls once per day in the incubator (mini fridge). PPM is 170 and PH is somewhere in the optimal range (5.6-6.1), but I don't recall.

Edit - RO=Reverse Osmosis, DI=DeIonized. DI is just an added optional filter the product manufacturer can add to an RO unit that essentially fine tunes the water to be as close to 0PPM as possible. I've read online that if humans consume RO/DI water, after about a week they will begin to experience some declining health symptoms but I forgot exactly which. I guess we humans require a base minimum of certain elements in some measurable concentration and the DI process removes those, or at least almost all of them.
 
Skybound looking good man! When it comes to trichome's from my experience I think it all depends on the strain of the plant and how long it takes to finish up. I usually pull mine around the 5% amber 95% milky and I love it like that!

My RO water comes out at around 5.8 -6.0 PH too and makes things sooo much easier. I have never really used distilled water, but I like my RO water much better than my tap.

If you are going to Drink RO water you need to put minerals back into the water after it is filtered. This aids in taste and also helps so the water by not stripping your body of the minerals already within. You can actually buy trace mineral drops that is designed for this!
 
Thanks for the info BP'n! I will definitely look into getting those additives because mixing iced tea or making coffee with city water here IMO is not the greatest thing. Our standing PPM (80) isn't that high, but there is a ton of chlorine and let's face it, nobody wants to drink from a swimming pool.

Distilled was still a little more reliable than tap and had a low PPM and neutral PH (+/- 0.2, but usually -). I can now see the RO/DI is easily swayed by the natural pH of each nutrient I add. Being in such a foreign place growing monster clones Capn style, I don't want to push my luck just yet by adding silica (as a PH UP). PPM is nice and low and I want to get more bennies involved. I realize I am combining a few different trains of thought and by doing so, I will gain that much more insight on each train which will further improve my skill set. I hope to keep roots very happy and mildly fed till vegetative growth begins and the little ladies really kick back into veg then incrementally increase PPM.
 
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