Darth Fader's 1st Grow - DR100L/400watt CMH/wick/coco

[Darth Fader]

Day 55-58 Flowerr - Mar 26-29
MK - ph'd ro H20
CJ/Ch4 - 9ml Bloom

Battling resurging PM. I must have mixed the GreenCure to weak, b/c I'm more impressed w/ the 1:10 skim milk to water for knocking it down. It's light, so not a really big deal, but still a pain.

I've been neglecting the photos so let me catch up. My tent felt like an out of control mess & was getting me down. Was spraying for the PM & found that I had a bunch of colas that had been laying down for a long time. Still learning ...

Here's some day 49 pics

foxtailing Casey

So I haven't said much about the fragrance. The Chem4 smell so wonderfully .... chemmy. And the Casey Jones was just a plain rotting fruit/(mango?) smell on the fingers, w/ maybe a touch of kerosine but sniffing the buds smells of pepper. I just can't tell w/ the MK. Used to be rotting fruit during the first half of flower, but I just don't know now.

Chem4

Day 50 slideshow here

Expecting to chop MK on day 60. Gotta go check the trichomes under the scope.

 

[Fat J]

Nice pics man, my granddaddy has a real strong rottin fruit smell too... some killer colas in there!

Twisty leafs: It sounds like a PH issue... you may wanna do a ph'd flush, if not, it could be Mg def, theres something else that makes em look kinda twisty... forget atm

Look in the infirm and theres a guide to problems with good pics, find the one it looks like.

But... PH is the most common cause of lockouts. The silica u were using prolly bounced the ph wayyy up. flush, go to 1/2 or 1/3 str, no sili.

Silica shouldnt be applied IMHO till they are about done stretching in bloom. I use it like half way into week 1 bloom and add it for 2-3 weeks. I only reccomend using about 50-70 ppm max of it any more is useless plant dont use it and pushes PH way up.

I would try a good ph'd flush... if theyre dark green they have good nutes in em and can do with just water a day or 2.

 

[KosmoKramer]

Just read your grow. Nice for your first run!

As for the spotting C/M issues. I run a CMH, use the Head/Rez 6/9 with a little C/M+ (5ml per gal), and also use silica. Here's what I do and I get EXCELLENT results.

Mix your nutes, Micro first, other nutes, silica last, then adjust your pH. The silica is a "natural" pH UP so your pH is gonna rise after 24 hours "usually". Next day recheck your pH and I bet its going to be high. Readjust back to your target range and it should stay stable for the remainder of the week. It will go up slightly a day or two right before the nute change, but that is an indication that the nutes are being used up, lowering the ppms and buffers. This is what you want!!

I use the silica (5ml gal) from week 2 of veg until week 4 of flower then discontinue. This allows plenty of time for the stems to strengthen and hold up the fruits of you labors! From my experience using this method and formula in DWC for over a year or so has given me FANTASTIC results.

And I feel the CMH is probably the best bulb on the market, next to the Hortilux Blue halides, at less than half the price. People complain about leafiness, but I find the QUALITY is superior to none!!!

 

[Fat J]

Kos > A little earlier than I add it but ya, the PH will bounce for a day - thats why I dont like 2 bother with it early on - nice buds man they look tasty!

Oh, also for PM - I use AeratedCompostTea foliar sprays throughout veg every week or so, havent had PM since I started that and I used 2 have a lot due 2 humidity issues. The ACT will build up a herd on the leaves that will munch any contaminants such as pm spores. PM is a bitch, once U get it U cant totally cure it - it is a viral infection that spreads through spores. I'm glad we humans can't really get it!

 

[Darth Fader]

Kosmo, thx for the shout out. What strain is that? Glad to hear you like the CMH, as I have no basis of comparison myself. I've seen the H&G site say to mix base nutes, then PH, then add the roots/additives. Seemed odd to me and it's good to know you're pH'ing only after everything is mixed. I can't wait to try some other stuff, but I've got too much GH left & don't particularly want to start a massive bottle collection LOL.

Fat J, I'd love to hear more about that foliar spray. Sounds like you're killing 2 birds w/ 1 stone.

FTR, I'm not running a DWC, but the wick bucket has it's own challenges. I designed it this way so I could have a 2 gal res in case I wanted to go away for a long weekend & not worry. Problem is, after top-feeding thru the coco, the run-off in the res is really high in Ph/ppm. I mean it goes in at 5.5 and comes out 1.5 -2 pts higher. I guess there are 2 approaches 1) compensate by adjusting down until the run-off comes in around 6.0, or 2) Stop watering as soon as run-off starts & don't worry about it since coco is supposed to buffer well. LOL

I'm sure if you ask me in another year, I will have a definite opinion of which is better! For now, I think I'd rather just water w/o run-off. At least for the next run, I won't be running 372ppm tap water. I'm learning a lot of lessons though, that's for sure.

I cut a couple colas from the MK & 1 off the Ch4 & decided both were too early. I was freaking out after taking off & checking out a Ch4 sugar leaf - pure dark amber - & I hadn't even started the flush (supposedly 70-days?!?). Well after chopping & trimming the one cola I can say that the bud trichs are nowhere close to what I saw on that leaf. I guess it depends how much light was hitting that leaf. Flushing hard now either way.

 

[Darth Fader]

Day 60 Flower - Mar 31
-Began CJ/Ch4 flush - 10ml Florakleen only, pH'ed
-MK straight ph'ed ro water

Day 63 Flower - Apr 03
Well folks, this show is starting to wind-down. Pretty soon we'll be getting to the bottom line.

Chopped the Master Kush today at day 63. Could easily go longer for a more couch-lock effect, but since this is indica dom, I'll take her now most cloudy w/ 10% golden amber.

Here's the bounty.

The Chem4's probably going to come in a bit bigger, and the Casey Jones at least 50% larger, maybe double. ETA on those two is 70-75.

Lesson: siphoned out the (full) MK res & tested it. Unbelievable! Although I've been flushing hard for 10 days the ppm measured over 1000! pH came in at 7.0. I've been wondering why the leaves weren't yellowing like they should. The Flush went like this: 2 days w/ FloraKleen (10ml/gal) and 8 days straight ro water pH'd at 5.5-5.8.

I guess this coco is really retaining a lot of "stuff" for lack of a better term. I've flushed CJ & Ch4 3 days now w/ the FloraKleen. Maybe I should double my water & siphon everyday ... Or do some massive flushing until I hit a certain runoff ppm. Thoughts?

 

[Fat J]

Well, how much water were u flushing with? in order to do a true "flush" u need to run 2-3x the water as the size of the container ie: 1gal container would take 2-3gal flush. Maybe try that at the beginning of your flush period... I would reccomend against flushing hard repeatedly and shocking/overwatering ur ladies. if u flush at the start of ur 7-12 day water only period, there will still be nutes in the coco, but the plants should use em up pretty quick as long as ur giving only water. I would only do a full flush with 3-4 days min in between.

 

[delta9nxs]

Hey! You'll be smokin' soon, nice job!

Here are some ideas for next time just for you to consider.

I don't know much about powdery mildew as I have never had it, but I run rh at between 40-60% most of the time. I've only had two cases of bud rot (botyrus) in ten years. A lot of ventilation is the key. Next time you might consider stepping up the airflow. It also helps growth. I think 2 volumes per minute is a minimum. Everywhere you look in there you should see some slight leaf movement. Also try thinning the undergrowth a little more. Gets better air movement underneath. Since you are in a tent and already having problems with too high rh, you should be very careful with any foliar sprays. I won't use them in flower at all. I have 3000 cfm going through a 1200 cu ft room.

About your wicks, what is the distance from the bottom of your grow containers to the surface of the liquid in your res? If it is more than about 3” you are using it mostly as a drain as it won't feed much upward. This is fine but I would run drain to waste in your set up by catching and tossing run off. So if you water until you see a slight run off and then let the wick eliminate the perched water table you should not get a big buildup in ec. A hole in the sidewall of your res allowing run off into another container for disposal will help to keep ec under control. This hole could have a fitting with a hose set up to drain outside your tent. You are then refreshing ph and ec parameters every time you water. A forgiving technique. Monitor your res ec and when it starts going upwards out of range, usually week 6-7 of flower, feed ro water only until it comes down to under 950-1000 ppm at .5.

As you approach harvest and would begin flushing anyway monitor ec closely and begin watering with ro water whenever your ec gets over about 1000 ppm. If you continue this for approx the last 2 weeks you should not have to do any major flushing as you will be flushing a little at a time all along.

When you want to get away for a few days you could fill your res to the top with ro water only just for the duration of your absence.

Maybe your open topped res is allowing a lot of evaporation and this is adding to the rh problem. It will certainly concentrate nutes and raise ec.

Growing one strain at a time gives you more control over lighting effect. More yield.

I would switch medium to 100% high grade coco, like atami or canna or one of the other high quality products. Use the good stuff, there is a lot of inferior coco on the market.

You might try the micro and bloom at 8/16 to get the initial ratio (this will produce around 950 ppm) and then cut it back to around 750 ppm with more water to give you headroom for calmag, which you need with ro water with flora series.

Even though most high quality cocos have been pre-treated with calcium and magnesium to satisfy the cation exchange needs of coco, I feel this is a pre-conditioner that can be washed out easily with water. I do so to properly hydrate the coco and then immediately re-treat it with my ph corrected nutrient solution at the actual strength i'll be applying it at. I run about three gals of solution through it (5 gal container) slowly and then throw the plant in. I am not showing any problems after this. Coco needs to be watered small amounts frequently during the first week or two as the cation exchange process is happening at it's highest rate then.

You could use one reservoir to supply several plants, simplifying measurements and slowing down chemical and ph changes. This also gives you more reaction time if things start going bad.

You could also use one grow container for several plants. The “bed” effect will give each plant more room for roots. Maybe a bed with 2 plants, one at each end, and a single res would be easier in a 3x3 space.

I am really liking the jack's feed. It works in ro water exactly as they said it would. I'm still using 630 jacks and 216 calcium nitrate in 100% coco. Veg growth is ferocious. I have a plant ending the 7th week of flower in jacks and it is not showing any salt build up which means their feed strength is close to ideal. Some one down there put a lot of thought into this.

One more thing i wanted to mention is that your ph in coco should be 6-6.5 for adequate nutrient uptake. Magnesium availability. Coco usually has a medium ph of 6.2. As the jack's has been ph'ing at 5.2-5.4 in my ro water I have begun using a small amount of gh brand dry ph up to get it to 6. Maybe floating around between 5.8-6.5 would be a good thing.

Your problems with ph stability cannot be corrected by continuously adding ph down. It will cause antagonisms and excesses. Try starting at ph 6.

Again, congrats on a successful first grow and I hope some of these loosely jointed ideas might help you next time.

Later on, d9

 

[Darth Fader]

I would only do a full flush with 3-4 days min in between.

Sorry, can you clarify this?

You are correct, I never did a proper flush, I only discontinued nutes, basically maintaining the same feeding volume, but with water.

My pots are 2 gal. I measured the ppm's in the res for the CJ/Ch4 and they were over 2000!! Must be that KoolBloom boost. So I began siphoning and put 4 gal (1 distilled/3 tap) water thru for each. The Ch4 got down to the 750-850 ppm range. I'll have to check CJ tonight. Plan on putting 2 gal thru, ea.

That coco can really hold nutes. The siphoned-off water looked practically the same mango-peach color as it did going in. LOL, at least I know my girls got the "all-you-can-eat" special!

 

[Darth Fader]

Hey! You'll be smokin' soon, nice job!

Here are some ideas for next time just for you to consider.

I don't know much about powdery mildew as I have never had it, but I run rh at between 40-60% most of the time. I've only had two cases of bud rot (botyrus) in ten years. A lot of ventilation is the key. Next time you might consider stepping up the airflow. It also helps growth. I think 2 volumes per minute is a minimum. Everywhere you look in there you should see some slight leaf movement. Also try thinning the undergrowth a little more. Gets better air movement underneath. Since you are in a tent and already having problems with too high rh, you should be very careful with any foliar sprays. I won't use them in flower at all. I have 3000 cfm going through a 1200 cu ft room.

Since I switched the scrubber to run 24/7, my RH stays 30-60%. Tent is 39x39x72= 3.25x3.25x6 = 63.38 cu ft. x (2 per min) = 128 cfm requirement?
Fan noise is my biggest complaint. Figured I could upgrade to a 6 in fan w/ a controller & run at a lower speed (and noise level).

About your wicks, what is the distance from the bottom of your grow containers to the surface of the liquid in your res? If it is more than about 3” you are using it mostly as a drain as it won't feed much upward. This is fine but I would run drain to waste in your set up by catching and tossing run off. So if you water until you see a slight run off and then let the wick eliminate the perched water table you should not get a big buildup in ec. A hole in the sidewall of your res allowing run off into another container for disposal will help to keep ec under control. This hole could have a fitting with a hose set up to drain outside your tent. You are then refreshing ph and ec parameters every time you water. A forgiving technique. Monitor your res ec and when it starts going upwards out of range, usually week 6-7 of flower, feed ro water only until it comes down to under 950-1000 ppm at .5.

The riser, which creates the res, is 3-4.5" tall, so most the time I'd say the gap is around 2". Yes, agreed, I need to add a runoff valve. If I use a barb & a short piece of translucent hose, it could also serve as a res-level indicator if needed. I've decided the bucket walls (above the res) serve no purpose & need to be cut. The bottom can then catch runoff. Either that or I will ditch the buckets & just set the smart pots on a bucket lid which can catch runoff like a saucer. The res is really only necessary for long weekends or for flushing.

As you approach harvest and would begin flushing anyway monitor ec closely and begin watering with ro water whenever your ec gets over about 1000 ppm. If you continue this for approx the last 2 weeks you should not have to do any major flushing as you will be flushing a little at a time all along.

When you want to get away for a few days you could fill your res to the top with ro water only just for the duration of your absence.

Maybe your open topped res is allowing a lot of evaporation and this is adding to the rh problem. It will certainly concentrate nutes and raise ec.

Agreed. Could also be that the flushing solution FloraKleen) is working really well, grabbing salts and spiking the ppm's.

Growing one strain at a time gives you more control over lighting effect. More yield.

That's true. Guess I wanted a few flavors - still want lots more too! Did learn a lot w/ diff plants though, including how diff strains have diff tolerances, stretch, etc. Next run is all OG Kush, but I'm going to try to re-veg the Ch4 & CJ to save some cuts. The Ch4 is so frosty & sticky with an amazing smell. The CJ was so easy to grow & yields nicely ... but I've never even smoked it, so we'll see.

I would switch medium to 100% high grade coco, like atami or canna or one of the other high quality products. Use the good stuff, there is a lot of inferior coco on the market.

You might try the micro and bloom at 8/16 to get the initial ratio (this will produce around 950 ppm) and then cut it back to around 750 ppm with more water to give you headroom for calmag, which you need with ro water with flora series.

LOL, for some reason I thought you had recommended the H3AD,Rez recipe. So many threads I get mixed up. The Roots stuff has some perlite & amendment, but I wouldn't consider inferior in any way. People in these forums have problems w/ Canna too. I think my issues are feeding and set-up/environment related. Also, I need to mod-scrog if I'm going to scrog, otherwise it's fairly impoosible to treat the PM in the far corners of the tent.

Even though most high quality cocos have been pre-treated with calcium and magnesium to satisfy the cation exchange needs of coco, I feel this is a pre-conditioner that can be washed out easily with water. I do so to properly hydrate the coco and then immediately re-treat it with my ph corrected nutrient solution at the actual strength i'll be applying it at. I run about three gals of solution through it (5 gal container) slowly and then throw the plant in. I am not showing any problems after this. Coco needs to be watered small amounts frequently during the first week or two as the cation exchange process is happening at it's highest rate then.

You could use one reservoir to supply several plants, simplifying measurements and slowing down chemical and ph changes. This also gives you more reaction time if things start going bad.

You could also use one grow container for several plants. The “bed” effect will give each plant more room for roots. Maybe a bed with 2 plants, one at each end, and a single res would be easier in a 3x3 space.

True, aka NBG's 450gram 400watt scrog. I like the idea of bigger pots = bigger root system = bigger yield.

I am really liking the jack's feed. It works in ro water exactly as they said it would. I'm still using 630 jacks and 216 calcium nitrate in 100% coco. Veg growth is ferocious. I have a plant ending the 7th week of flower in jacks and it is not showing any salt build up which means their feed strength is close to ideal. Some one down there put a lot of thought into this.

I've been wondering lately how you would flush salt builduips w/ your PPK system. I'm stocked up on nutes at the moment but of course I want to try everything, including organics/coco-ganics I'll need a few years to do that, but since I've still got so much GH, I'm going to stick w/ it for another run (this time w/o the 370ppm tap water + CalMag! LOL)

One more thing i wanted to mention is that your ph in coco should be 6-6.5 for adequate nutrient uptake. Magnesium availability. Coco usually has a medium ph of 6.2. As the jack's has been ph'ing at 5.2-5.4 in my ro water I have begun using a small amount of gh brand dry ph up to get it to 6. Maybe floating around between 5.8-6.5 would be a good thing.

Your problems with ph stability cannot be corrected by continuously adding ph down. It will cause antagonisms and excesses. Try starting at ph 6.

I suppose the true test would be 2 cuts off the same mother, running one at 5.5 (aka rez) and the other at 6.0 and watch the results. I tend to think there's a lot of noise arguing over a fairly narrow range, when the coco seems to do what it wants anyway - esp when there are people claiming excellent results w/ un-pH'ed tap water.

Again, congrats on a successful first grow and I hope some of these loosely jointed ideas might help you next time.

Later on, d9

And Thank-You, again, D9 for all you time and help!

 

[Darth Fader]

Took down a couple Ch4 colas last night. They were heat stressed w/ burned leaves - I think it was the best move. Man they are sticky and soooo frosty. Hanging next to the Master Kush it doesn't look like a fair contest. Could be that lockout issues on the MK stunted trich production, so maybe it's my fault. But seriously, the MK looks grass-green hanging there and the Chem4 has a silvery-gray look or sage green due to the trich coverage. THAT is going to be some sweet smoke. Casey Colas are all swelled up but the trichs are still mostly clear so I'll let her keep swelling till she cries "uncle", LOL.

 

[Rushoe]

nice work bro

 

[Darth Fader]

Rushoe, thx for reading.

All, Been negligent in my updates so here goes ...

Day 68 was the last day of light. Was planning to chop the remainder of the Chem4 (took a few colas @65) and the Casey Jones on day 70/71. Well busy wknd & tired as shit Sun night. I mean shower, lovin', & asleep before 7. Woke up a 5am with a purpose! So chop chop on the morning of day 72 ... and me & the wife started trimming for the next 4 hrs.

The Ch4 had a great chemmy resin odor & the nitrite gloves were completely worth it if you know what I mean. Sticky Fingers!! The Casey Jones just keeps on impressing. Not as leafy as the Chem4 and the colas felt substantial & weighty in the hand. She's got natty dreads, this one: just fat, stacked calyxs that remind me of soft, chubby little fingers on a microfiber wash-mitt. She purpled up that last week & was really just beautiful to handle & smelled so sweet. I'll have to let H3AD know I'm in love with his daughter LOL. I snapped a tester (CJ) calyx that morning & it's very nice: smooth inhale w/ a floral, maybe grapey flavor on exhale. Great daytime smoke, like a Jack Herer, w/ no energy-sapping comedown. If the cure makes it any better, I'm calling it a keeper. I left a bit of growth & will reveg her for cuttings.

I snapped a bunch of pics after trimming and after hanging for half-a-day. I'll get 'em up in a little while.

So the first half has been in jars for a while & I figured I'd have a look at the numbers. I didn't want to stress over yield on my first grow, so I've intentionally avoided any kind of predictions, but my goal was 8 oz. Arbitrary, I know, but any less would be a disappointment and any more would feel like victory. LOL, anyone else ever have yield anxiety? Anywho, I threw the jars on the scale tonight and here's how it came out.

1st-half harvest:
MK: 3.5oz
Ch4: 1.5oz ... so far (approx 1/3).

The jars are at 65% RH and still have stems attached, so these totals will shrink a bit when completely dried & manicured. I figured the MK would come in around 2 oz so I'm VERY happy with this. Regarding the Chem4, this was about 1/3 of the plant, so I expect an additional 2-3 oz from the 2nd half and the Casey Jones to blow them both away.

 

[hazy]

Hey DF nice show. I hope you stick with coco for a while, it's great stuff. Once you get that less nutes cause they hold onto the m thing figured out. I bumped up my nutes lately and am having to back off, cause I'm getting some overnute signs.
Surprised to hear your pH was high with such high ppms. Usually that means low pH. Guess it was the water buffering it back up? I didn't read too close, maybe you use ro. lol. Might depend on additives etc.
Way to go letting that C4 go so long. I take mine at 60-65 days. I think it'll be 62 in a couple days when I take these. I let it go to 70 once, and I didn't notice enough difference to make it worth the extra time.
Have a good one bro.

 

[turbolaser4528]

df- your style man, its great. I was also thinking do the smart pots with a wick to a highly oxygenated nute solution, f*ckin simplicity + yields doesn't get much better than that


if i were in cali right now id give you a high 5 haha keep it up bro i think your onto something here

 

[Darth Fader]

turbolaser, thx bro. I have mixed feelings on the wick & have started my next round without them. Check this out though - smart pot + perlite/hydroton + airstone. How does that grab ya? I'd like to try that w/ 5-gal smart pots, but I'm going to try to make some bonsai moms & then run a perpetual SOG aka DrBudGreenGenes' style. Looking forward to when I can set up a room for trees w/ vert lighting.

The scrog locks your plants in place. This exasperated the pm issue since it was too difficult to reach the plants in back for proper examination and spraying. I need to figure out a good modular scrog set-up, but I can't figure a good way to construct that without giving up the smart pots. We'll see. I had a couple ideas last night ...

 

[Darth Fader]

Teaser ...

 

[Anti]

Friggin' Sweet. Nice work, homie!

 

[drpressure600]

. . nice lilk'grow you got there Amigo, i like it a lot . . good work . .

 

[Darth Fader]

Day 72 slideshow here (42 photos)

These all are pics of the beautiful Casey Jones

bouquet