ACE (and other sats) Indoor Tricks

[CowboyTed]

. . . the rez fills up with roots. Its a lot of work to dump out and clean. Any idea on keeping them out?

You might try adding a layer of cloth between the netpot and the soil above it. If you use something like the stuff airpots are made from, so water can pass through, but soil and roots stay put, that would make cleanup much easier.


I doubt the layer of fabric would interfere with wicking between the rockwool in the netpot and the soil above.

 

[Rodehazrd]

You might try adding a layer of cloth between the netpot and the soil above it. If you use something like the stuff airpots are made from, so water can pass through, but soil and roots stay put, that would make cleanup much easier.


I doubt the layer of fabric would interfere with wicking between the rockwool in the netpot and the soil above.

Thanks,
I tried a layer of that landscaping ground cloth didn't do much. I'll try the fabric, I got a big scrap in the last order of fabric pots I got.

 

[CowboyTed]

Thanks,
I tried a layer of that landscaping ground cloth didn't do much. I'll try the fabric, I got a big scrap in the last order of fabric pots I got.

Let us know how it works.



Like many here, I've been playing with SIP designs too. So far, the most functional design I've found is to fill a standard one gallon pot with about 2 inches of coarse perlite/vermiculite, then your soil mix on top of that. I let those pots stand in a large tray with about a half inch of water in the bottom, and the plants are happy. I just top up the water each day to 1/2 inch. On weekends, I let the water dry up, wipe out and disinfect the tray, and refill it with water.


My plants just love the added humidity from the open pan of water on the floor. It bumps humidity in my cabinet from about 20% (ambient) to around 50% in the cabinet.


I've considered adding a layer of cloth to keep the soil out of the perlite below. That would help keep my water cleaner in the pan.


I've also considered adding a layer of cloth in the bottom of each pot, to keep the fungus gnats from nesting in the loose perlite in the bottoms of the pots.



Thankfully, I don't worry much about the gnats anymore. With standing water in the tray, they can't make a home in the perlite in the bottoms of the pots. I keep a layer of clean, sharp sand as a sort of mulch layer on top, and to prevent the gnats from finding a home in the tops of the pots.



The sand got rid of 70% of them, and the water in the pan killed the rest of them (inside the cabinet.) I'll be curious to see whether they come back. I have a worm farm in the same room, so I'll never eradicate the gnats.

 

[izzypog]

I seen a design where you put strips of cloth from the bottom to the top, through the soil that is, so that water will travel from the bottom all the way true, would this be a good idea?

 

[izzypog]

I meant through.

 

[Terpene]

Boats N Hoes (Ace Seeds Zamaldelica x Panama) x Med Tree Seeds Catalina Wine Mixer - phenos 1, 2 and 3 are finished at 9.5 weeks:

Pheno 1 (the hairy, somewhat OG looking pheno):

Pheno 2 (stretchier branching than 3, but basically the same) :

Pheno 3 (more columnar development than 2):

The trio of purple phenos side by side:

 

[Terpene]

The watering system described in the first post made me smile. In an article written by former contributor, Mr. Greengenes, an even simpler system was described. MG stated that he had very good success in using drip pans mostly filled with water under his 3 gallon pots. He surmised that one could almost as good a result as hydro growers because of the fact that the plant itself would suck up water as needed.

The tray watering approach is a great method for those who don't mind losing floor space to water containers. I have lots of friends who do soil containers in kiddie pools with standing water with great result.

I wanted a contained unit that minimized footprint while affording me the ability to ignore the plants for a few days longer than standard top watering.
Nested buckets take the same amount of floor space as the soil container they also allow you to run plants perpetually with different levels of fertilizer in each water container. This way plants early in flower can be juiced without affecting later flowering plants.

I need a more detailed explanation on how to build one of these, third, can you use a regular five gallon pot?

Any two containers that nest together with airspace between the bottom can be used. Go to Global Buckets.org *LINK* and there is more than enough info there on how to build them. If you need more visual examples, Google image search "Global Buckets" and you should have more than enough to get you started.

I used 30 gallon totes nesting in one another with the netpot filled with rockwool. I threw a airstone in the bottom tub with a solar powered pump. I kept 6"of water in there to the level of the top of the net pot and got 12oz from one Bangi Haze. I'm putting some indoors too with the same Bangi cut. I'd like to keep reusing the same soil but the rez fills up with roots. Its a lot of work to dump out and clean. Any idea on keeping them out.

Stop stacking them and start using them with irrigation tubing on the bottom: https://albopepper.com/30-gallon-tote.php *LINK* This guy's design works GREAT in no till soil setups (all my outdoor plants run in this design) and I use black plastic and zip ties to seal off the ends of the irrigation tubing.

So far, the most functional design I've found is to fill a standard one gallon pot with about 2 inches of coarse perlite/vermiculite, then your soil mix on top of that. I let those pots stand in a large tray with about a half inch of water in the bottom, and the plants are happy. I just top up the water each day to 1/2 inch. On weekends, I let the water dry up, wipe out and disinfect the tray, and refill it with water.

Hempy buckets (the design you described) are very popular on IC. Usually all hydro, but they work well as you've seen adapted to soil. I currently use 6" pots sitting in clone trays with 1/2" of water (no perlite). As long as you let the plants suck the water down to nearly dry before rewatering, the plants never get over damp. This design also works well with fabric pots and other breathable containers.

I've also considered adding a layer of cloth in the bottom of each pot, to keep the fungus gnats from nesting in the loose perlite in the bottoms of the pots.

I just drench/water as normal with bifenthrin (2x over the span of a week) if they show up. Its a non systemic, pretty low toxicity pesticide and it costs like $30 for 3/4 gallon of concentrate on Amazon *LINK*. (A 3/4 gallon will probably last you 100 years at 1/4oz per gallon)

I seen a design where you put strips of cloth from the bottom to the top, through the soil that is, so that water will travel from the bottom all the way true, would this be a good idea?

Wicking strips are traditionally used sitting in water drawing up into the container. Using them in the soil would only be needed for really deep containers. As an example, I run 30 gallon totes outdoors (roughly 2ft deep) and the soil has no trouble transferring water from the bottom to the top of the container. If you ran a really deep container (like maybe a 60 gallon trash can) it might be necessary, but I have yet to see any issues just using soil as a wicking medium.

The biggest thing is to repot plants into SIPs when they are getting rootbound in the previous container. That way they're ready to suck down water like its going out of business. If you put seedlings into a 5 gallon SIP, its a bit more water than they can take down and you may see slower growth initially.

 

[izzypog]

The tray watering approach is a great method for those who don't mind losing floor space to water containers. I have lots of friends who do soil containers in kiddie pools with standing water with great result.

I wanted a contained unit that minimized footprint while affording me the ability to ignore the plants for a few days longer than standard top watering.
Nested buckets take the same amount of floor space as the soil container they also allow you to run plants perpetually with different levels of fertilizer in each water container. This way plants early in flower can be juiced without affecting later flowering plants.



View Image

Any two containers that nest together with airspace between the bottom can be used. Go to Global Buckets.org *LINK* and there is more than enough info there on how to build them. If you need more visual examples, Google image search "Global Buckets" and you should have more than enough to get you started.



View Image

Stop stacking them and start using them with irrigation tubing on the bottom: https://albopepper.com/30-gallon-tote.php *LINK* This guy's design works GREAT in no till soil setups (all my outdoor plants run in this design) and I use black plastic and zip ties to seal off the ends of the irrigation tubing.



Hempy buckets (the design you described) are very popular on IC. Usually all hydro, but they work well as you've seen adapted to soil. I currently use 6" pots sitting in clone trays with 1/2" of water (no perlite). As long as you let the plants suck the water down to nearly dry before rewatering, the plants never get over damp. This design also works well with fabric pots and other breathable containers.



I just drench/water as normal with bifenthrin (2x over the span of a week) if they show up. Its a non systemic, pretty low toxicity pesticide and it costs like $30 for 3/4 gallon of concentrate on Amazon *LINK*. (A 3/4 gallon will probably last you 100 years at 1/4oz per gallon)



Wicking strips are traditionally used sitting in water drawing up into the container. Using them in the soil would only be needed for really deep containers. As an example, I run 30 gallon totes outdoors (roughly 2ft deep) and the soil has no trouble transferring water from the bottom to the top of the container. If you ran a really deep container (like maybe a 60 gallon trash can) it might be necessary, but I have yet to see any issues just using soil as a wicking medium.

The biggest thing is to repot plants into SIPs when they are getting rootbound in the previous container. That way they're ready to suck down water like its going out of business. If you put seedlings into a 5 gallon SIP, its a bit more water than they can take down and you may see slower growth initially.

Thank you @terpene, very grateful for that.....I love this concept.

 

[CowboyTed]

Mr. Greengenes stated that he had very good success in using drip pans mostly filled with water under his 3 gallon pots. He surmised that one could almost as good a result as hydro growers because of the fact that the plant itself would suck up water as needed.

I started experimenting with self-contained SIPS, but I'm slowly migrating to simply setting pots (with a couple inches of perlite or vermiculite in the bottom) into a pan of standing water. it's much like the "kiddie pool" reservoir Terpene mentioned. My tray is a 2x4 foot "boot tray" that fits perfectly into my cabinet. It's about three inches deep, but I only use about a half inch of water in the bottom. I would add more if I were going away for a week, of course. Keeping just a half inch of standing water allows me to let it dry out over a couple days, and clean the tray, which I do roughly once a week.



Be right back. I'm gonna snap a pic.


Edit: Here's a pic of my setup: a testament to the great information Terpene and the rest of the gang have published in this thread.

In this cabinet, I try to keep all the plants in one-gallon pots, even unsexed seedlings. It keeps everything in the cabinet near the same height. I have my lights mounted under two separate shelves, so I can hang the lights higher or lower over part of the cabinet if the plants or pots call for it.


As you can see in the photo, the tray is empty tonight, and nearly dry after being sucked up by six new seedlings that were re-potted and placed in the tray earlier today. I'll add more water in the morning. I like having standing water in the tray, because it boosts the humidity in the cabinet, and the plants really respond well to the increase. My ambient humidity outside the cabinet is hovering around ten percent in winter, which is our driest season. Even with a tray of standing water and t-shirts hung on each side (to wick water up the side walls) I only manage to boost the humidity in the cabinet to around forty-five percent.

 

[hunter77]

Boats N Hoes (Ace Seeds Zamaldelica x Panama) x Med Tree Seeds Catalina Wine Mixer - phenos 1, 2 and 3 are finished at 9.5 weeks:

Pheno 1 (the hairy, somewhat OG looking pheno):
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Pheno 2 (stretchier branching than 3, but basically the same) :
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Pheno 3 (more columnar development than 2):
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The trio of purple phenos side by side:
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amazing colours well done terpene

 

[CowboyTed]

Boats N Hoes (Ace Seeds Zamaldelica x Panama) x Med Tree Seeds Catalina Wine Mixer - phenos 1, 2 and 3 are finished at 9.5 weeks:

Wow, those are some lovely colorful girls!

 

[Terpene]

Had a chance to try Boats N Hoes phenos 1, 2 and 3 - they are all VASTLY different.

For quick reference the genetics used:
Ace Zamaldelica x Panama
Med Tree Catalina Wine Mixer:
Platinum OG Kush x Girl Scout Cookies aka "Platinum Cookies" crossed to Grape Romulan x Xena Goo aka "Mindmeld"

Pheno 1 which I thought looks remarkably like an OG kush line as it was flowering is now making a hell of a lot more sense. Effectively, its the mango-citrus-lemon (pineapple-ish) pheno of Zamaldelica x Panama that leans more Zamaldelica (bit more mango than citrus) and only the Girl Scout Cookies expression of the other side. This explains why its so hairy with OG like development and somewhat low yield. The effects of this one are VERY strongly Zamaldelica with an OG kush twist. Of the purple, fast finishing side of the line, its my favorite. The real party trick of the line though is the exhale on the smoke - mango citrus pineapple Zamaldelica Panama changes into the strongest cookie dough / girl scout cookies I think I've ever had half way through and remains as cookie dough in your mouth after.

Pheno 2 is a dead ringer for Catalina Wine Mixer. Its berryish, purple, dank, mellow, relaxed and generally exactly what you'd expect if you've had CWM before. Its great, just nothing new.

Pheno 3 is basically Panama x Mindmeld and more specifically Panama x Grape Romulan with teeny hints of Xena Goo. Interestingly, this plant looked all but identical to #2 but the smoke effects and taste are night and day different. The bright, yellow-lemon-citrus Panama flavor is the start of the exhale but it has grapey-purple-berryish notes, almost like a berry-citrus kool aid. The effect is a slightly stonier, panama, very conversational, confident and happy with more heaviness in the eyes and a relaxed vibe.

 

[Mountainkush]

Pheno 3 sounds delicious. Love the name, I’m a big step brothers fan. Watched that movie way too many times.

 

[Terpene]

I took a quick snapshot of the Zamaldelica x Panama leaning Boats N Hoes #5 at 11.5 weeks under the lights with my phone.

#5 is what I was going for in terms of the mango-pineappleish smell and huge bud size but with much more frost and interest in coloring up. Its not as colorful or frosty as #4, but it smells more like the Zamaldelica x Panama side and has those skinny zamal-thai leaves that I like so much.

The mids of #5 have been pollinated by Obama Kush x Blueberry and the lowers have been pollinated by Violeta X Napalm. This should produce two very different examples of maximum color while retaining the very Zamaldelica x Panama leaning traits.


Here's Ace A5 Haze x Malawi (NL#5 x Neville Haze x killer Malawi) just starting out. I have challenged a fellow LED grower and friend to "Haze Race" me from seed with the Ace Super Malawi Haze. Pics of his progress will be here in a heads up fashion. It will be interesting to see the differences in both lines indoor with similar setups - though his LEDs are high quality pink units from Black Dog and mine are ghetto screw in LEDs.

 

[Terpene]

Boats N Hoes #4 (Zamaldelica / Panamanian leaning pheno) at 12 week chop under 25w per sqft of screw in LED:

structure:

This one best represents what to expect from the thin leaf side. Color, frost, that mango, citric, pineapple-ish tropical sativa smell and relatively short finishing time.

 

[White Beard]

I'm with Ya on the cheapening. We are gardening here. There is no reason it can't be done affordably.

Especially after legalization hits I think that will be the focus when zips won't be 200 and lbs won't be 1500 on a good day. Then we will really need to find sustainable methods.

I usually read an entire thread before I comment, but I had to jump in on this. Great remarks, sir!

Agree 100 with the top observation, what it all boils down to, is gardening.

I’m sure that as it spreads, legalization will bring prices down, perhaps way down, and I don’t really have a problem with that. It won’t happen fast, though: not as long as “legal” means only big companies with a mono focus on profit can grow it and sell it legally, and as long as said companies monkey with the goods in search of more profit. Unlike some folks, I do not trust the private sector to have any interest but their own in mind.

To be perfectly frank, I hope it’s slow enough so that I can buy some teeth, a new truck, and bring my retirement shack up to code before there’s no reason to sell anymore...but even then, even when it’s “legal”, I think there will still be plenty of reason for people to grow - and for other people to prefer *that* to whatever’s on tap at the dispensary.

On efficiency and sustainability, it seems to me that cannabis growers already have a jump on much of that: covert grow ops demand efficiency, and outdoors requires sustainability that indoor grows don’t need.

As I run it all through my mind, it seems that the single biggest obstacle to efficiency is the need to maintain secrecy: remove the carbon scrubbers and the need to hide and stay silent, and a great deal of expense and contraptions become unnecessary.

I think being freed from those constraints will result in another transformation of the grow scene similar to what we saw when HID lights came to the grow room. Along with it, I think we’ll see a sea change in what gets grown and to what standard, with no ‘market’ to cater to.

Okay, back to reading

 

[White Beard]

Stopped by Costco and picked up a 10 pack of Feit 14w 5000k leds for $50 bucks. So now my veg armoire is complete - large veg is (10) 14w 5000k bulbs and small veg is (6) 8.5w 3000k bulbs:
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Good move on the Feits @ Costco...had a long talk with an electrician working part-time at Ace Hardware when I was replacing the house incandescents. He told me in some detail how the Feits were the premier brand and not to bother with lesser bulbs. They didn’t even sell Feits....

 

[Terpene]

Boats N Hoes #5 got chopped at 14 weeks - a bit late to let the seeds mature. 2 males were used on this one, Obama Kush x Blueberry & Napalm x Violeta (Fire OG x Destroyer x PCK x Malawi). A little less color than I would like from the cross but the size on this plant is ridiculous. Its probably the biggest (production line dense) colas I've seen since switching to my little cabinet setup.

Close observers will note there are some very late flower herms that developed. As I was trimming her up, I noticed that they had viable pollen and quickly rushed to my cabinet to pollinate an Ace Panama x Honduras with them. Boats N Hoes x "My Precious" can't be a bad cross. What can I say, my favorite line in Ace's huge list is Panama x Honduras

 

[Spaventa]

You got viable pollen out of that? Cool
Hermie flower an all, really beautiful stuff.

 

[robotwithdreams]

Boats N Hoes #5 got chopped at 14 weeks - a bit late to let the seeds mature. 2 males were used on this one, Obama Kush x Blueberry & Napalm x Violeta (Fire OG x Destroyer x PCK x Malawi). A little less color than I would like from the cross but the size on this plant is ridiculous. Its probably the biggest (production line dense) colas I've seen since switching to my little cabinet setup.

View Image

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Close observers will note there are some very late flower herms that developed. As I was trimming her up, I noticed that they had viable pollen and quickly rushed to my cabinet to pollinate an Ace Panama x Honduras with them. Boats N Hoes x "My Precious" can't be a bad cross. What can I say, my favorite line in Ace's huge list is Panama x Honduras

Beautiful work. I love creeping around your thread and admiring your properly mature flowers. So very pretty.

Can I ask you to describe the effects from panama honduras gal. Your fav from aces catalogue , that is indeed high praise. Was it from the feminized versiin or the reg?