Utopian Submarine - 2000W, Indoor, Perpetual

This is great and looking better all the time. I'd sure like to set my room up for remote control some day. I've been building my own and other peoples computers for 20 years and I grok this stuff. +rep and 5 stars 4 sure. :bong:

I await with bated breath. :peace:
 
I haven't really talked or asked about nutes and watering. I'm not getting great results early, and I'm open to suggestions. Also, I realized how many small/big things I had been neglecting in the veg area lately. Like its been about 15 days since a res change. And I've been testing more and less light. And its been very dry here lately so humidty in the room has been 30-50. All that having been said - I think I'm making mistakes in the feeding someplace.

I just don't feel comfortable with hydro when the plants are small. For some reason I just don't relate to them as well as soil for seedlings. Once they get to clay, I am getting better at the diagnoses. Lemme throw my current stuff out there and see if there are any thoughts.

I'm using the PureBlend Pro nutes. Grow, Bloom, and I plan to use Soil for the finish.
I also use Liquid Karma and Cal-Mag+ every watering.
I use Sweet from about the 3rd week of Veg.
Clearex every 10 days.

Res temp 63-69
Bluelab ComboMeter

CO2 about 1350

Seedlings:
I soak the cubes in tap water pH balanced to 5.5 for a half hour and check with meter at end - it reads 5.8, 50ppm. Then I dunk the cubes with Hygrozyme and PureBlend - both at the recommended dosages with pH up to bring it back to 5.8. This gets me to about 500ppm. Then that's all the water they get for a few days. Then I water with 1/4 strength PureBlend every day or two until they get to Veg.

Veg:

4" Rockwool cubes. I have tried different flooding schedules. 900-1050ppm. Can someone just tell me how often rockwool should be flooded? ie. - I really can't tell if its like clay and 20-30 minutes every 1-2hrs, or like soil. All I ever see or hear is "You can flood it and it drains to the proper air water ratio." But is it flushing nutes as well? Is it better more or less often? Should I switch to a drip - it would be easy.

Flower:

Clay. Seems to be working fine now. I was under watering them. Now I have increased their watering to 30minutes every 1.5hrs. ppm is around 1250-1350, likely to be raised a little next feeding.

Other:
I am also seeing some yellowing of the leaves and purple stems when young. I'm thinking of adding a little nitrogen at the beginning.

That's enough for this post. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
 
High WP. I'd like to help you out with the nutes but I have to plead ignorance to most of the stuff you've got there. I'm totally comfortable with DWC and my old 3 part AN nutes but not really up on the different brands and supplements.

I don't do rock wool either but I know it holds water and I believe a few times a day is what most people do. More often in clay balls even continuous if you want.

When starting in veg I always stay around 5.5 pH, 300 ppm until I see how the babies respond. Once vigorous growth starts after a week or so I bump it up to 6-700 then again to 1000+ when they get really rocking. If your plants are still small just keep bumping up the nutes gradually for the first month before you change the nutes. Look at my sig. I have a tub doing fine 53 days since start without a change. 41 days into flower @ about 1250 ppm. The other tub got changed about two weeks ago and I haven't even packed the old nutes out of the basement. I have a sump pump down there but it pumps into the septic tank and I'm not sure what effect nutes would have on all the bugs in there. Not good I suspect.

I hope that was of some use to you. I haven't read your whole journal yet so if I've stated the obvious that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. ;0)

Later. :peace:
 
LabRat said:
This is great and looking better all the time. I'd sure like to set my room up for remote control some day. I've been building my own and other peoples computers for 20 years and I grok this stuff. +rep and 5 stars 4 sure. :bong:

I await with bated breath. :peace:
Click to expand...

Thanks very Much!! Glad you're here, and hopefully we can get this thing to a point where anyone who can build a ballast could build one of these. Hopefully we'll get the code to a point where folks can just grab my code, build the controller and go.

And thanks greatly for the info on nutes. Every bit helps me build a picture of what I'm supposed to do. Some good tips for me there.

Welcome aboard the Sub.
 
Hey wiskey I would soak your rockwool for longer in ph solution before use you said you only soak for 30 min before use?
I soak at least 12 hr and it still rises some after that...

Last time I followed much similar nute schedule 500-600 ppm for seedlings, 900 pmm for veg...
My results were slowed growth and lockouts.
his time I started seedlings off at about 300ppm and Ive slowly been raising it now there in veg I guess you could say at 600ppm.
My results this time are amazing compared to last time green fast and steady growth. these are from bad seed too last time with good genetics at this point I was a couple weeks behind my current progress with growth.
cant wait till I fire up them good genetics when I get back from vacation.

For the watering Im using just cubes and Im on a 30 on 1hr off schedule the cubes stay more wet than Id like but no ill effects as of yet so Id say besides the algae growing on the tops of the cubes its good.

What have you spent total for the auto setup so far say One was to buy all needed parts what would it be costing at this point?
 
W/ rockwool I just sok them til their not fully moist but just til their damp. i use Ph'd water w/ hygrozyme and thats it. I get results within 5-10 days at the most. This depending on the strain. But you dont wat to have soggy rockwool thats bad juju for sure.
 
Stealthy1 said:
Hey wiskey I would soak your rockwool for longer in ph solution before use you said you only soak for 30 min before use?
I soak at least 12 hr and it still rises some after that...

Last time I followed much similar nute schedule 500-600 ppm for seedlings, 900 pmm for veg...
My results were slowed growth and lockouts.
his time I started seedlings off at about 300ppm and Ive slowly been raising it now there in veg I guess you could say at 600ppm.
My results this time are amazing compared to last time green fast and steady growth. these are from bad seed too last time with good genetics at this point I was a couple weeks behind my current progress with growth.
cant wait till I fire up them good genetics when I get back from vacation.

For the watering Im using just cubes and Im on a 30 on 1hr off schedule the cubes stay more wet than Id like but no ill effects as of yet so Id say besides the algae growing on the tops of the cubes its good.

What have you spent total for the auto setup so far say One was to buy all needed parts what would it be costing at this point?
Click to expand...


That's all really helpfull. Sorta reinforces what was in my head, but I needed some backup.

BTW as far as the length of pre-soak - not saying you're wrong, but they say on their site and on the package that you used to do 24hrs, but that is unnecessary now. Soak until it reaches the desired pH - and the instructions say .5 hr. That was a spot on 5.8 for me after 30 minutes.

Also, I'm in the middle of a nice little upgrade to the veg area that is designed to solve just that soggyness problem. Check in a few hours for pics.

As far as the price on the setup - remember - I'm trying to make mine control 2 areas - which may or may not work on a single controller. Anyways - so far I've spent about $200 bucks and I had the Dev board and chip already. The Dev Board is about $179. There are less expensive solution for the dev board, but if you think you're gonna do more than one project its a must have in my opinion. And the chip is regularly $79 I think. They were on sale over the holidays for $45 I discovered when I placed the order at the last minute.

And I think there will be another $50-60 for relays - I canibalized these two from an old A/C board. And finally the enclosures and AC outlets are gonna be another $30.

So to build for a single space without the dev board if you know what you're doing:

Around $200-250 in electronics and sensors + whatever you do for enclosure and outlets. And theoretically when its done it will serve the same functions as the CAP one does for $1300.

PS - Mine is likely not as safe as theirs :)

PPS - And this does not include the nutrient controller - which will be same price range PLUS the solenoids, some pumps, and the nutrient containers and mixing res.
 
The Butcher said:
W/ rockwool I just sok them til their not fully moist but just til their damp. i use Ph'd water w/ hygrozyme and thats it. I get results within 5-10 days at the most. This depending on the strain. But you dont wat to have soggy rockwool thats bad juju for sure.
Click to expand...

Right on. I had started with way too much water and have just worked my way to that conclusion. Frigin nice to get some substantiation from someone in the know. Also, I guess I just gotta be a little more patient. I don't want to wait days, I want sprouts in hours :)

Thanks for easing my mind on the watering.
 
O.K so every1 is going to get this post reminding all to vote in the contest. Oh and if you like my submission please Vote Butcher if you find others to fit your taste better then vote for your fellow Member. We just need to encourage more to vote. So here you go:​

Vote In Our Contest​

click this link : 420Contest

(And please if you can place a link to the contest on your signature to encourage every1 to vote. And please be sure to mention the contest to everynew member. :ganjamon:)
 
Quick morning update - pics to come later. Everything is good, basically.

The seedlings are doing well. 5/6 sprouted fine. I dug out the 6th and it had not done anything, so I let let it soak in water for about 30 seconds ( it definitely sank), and rolled it between my fingers with a little pressure and it still seems viable, so I put it back in the ground for another day. If I don't see anything tomorrow then I will go ahead and germinate another.

The room is filling nicely, but if I don't have at least one more female for that batch I will end up with an empty pot.

So right now there are 8 plants in veg. 2 Ak47 and 6 NYCD. Those seeds are not feminized, so I'm hoping at least 5 preferably 6 out of 8 are female. They are growing nice and bushy and evenly, but I'm not getting the height I would have liked. I think its because my lights are too close. If that's the problem, I can only free up another inch or two - so I will have to start thinking in terms of smaller plants.

I also think I was not using enough nutes. I have increased the strength in veg, and added rocks under the rockwool to allow for better drainage and the girls are definitely liking it. Going to increase it just a hair more. I figure I'll go up slowly till I see a little burn then cut back. I've gotta know what the right level is - period.

OK - gonna go do some maintenance and grab some pics.
 
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