Hydro convert, 1000w tent, Lemon Thai Stick and Chocolate Rain

[marinemansf]

Hey all,

So this post is mainly for the people who have followed my grows in hydro, to let them know I didn't disappear cause I got popped, just got super busy over the last year. That and to say ive officially made the change from hydro to soil. I could never get the beneficial bacteria down pat, so i figured theres no point in running a sterile rez over soil with the bennies already in it. Super glad i made the switch, water 3 times a week and im done. No more chasing water leaks at 3 in the morning. Thats not to say ill never give hydro another shot, just when I understand it better. I think i might have water issues in my city with some nasty bacteria.

Anyway, so what im working with now is basically my old set up, just re-purposed. Im using fox farm happy frog soil in 3 gallon buckets, 5x5 grow tent, 1000w digital ballast, 100 quart cooler as a rez.

I was very fortunate to run into an old friend this summer who is also a vet that also has an interest in growing and hooked me up with some Lemon Thai Stick and Chocolate Rain clones. Were in week 4 of flower now and things are on auto pilot right now. These strains are great to work with, not fussy at all. I had a VERY minor issue with a few thrips in veg, gave everything a light spray of 91% iso alcohol 3 times in one week. Havent seen shit since. I also keep 1 half of a yellow aphid trap on top of the soil in each bucket. Every now and again ill see a flyer, but they dont last long.

Anyway, ill try and put up a few pics of the progress along the way.
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[starke]

Love to watch your transition to soil. I'm doing soil and dreaming about hydro.

 

[Ghostin]

Love to watch your transition to soil. I'm doing soil and dreaming about hydro.

Haha me too starke!

 

[marinemansf]

Hey welcome guys! Ive always had a strong attraction to hydro and its where i started growing (links to previous hydro grows in signature) and ive always been drawn to water in general all my life. I just could never get the benificial bacteria game right, which my system was based off of. So one day i saw my buddy doing things so much easier in soil and he basically gave me everything i needed to convert to soil on the condition that if i continued using soil, i would pay him back for the equipment, so i had literally nothing to lose by trying it out. Sure as shit, it cut my work time in the plant room by more than half. No more worrying if your basement will be flooded in the morning. Hydro is fun if you have everything 100% on point, if you dont, get ready for games. It seemed to me soil is much more forgiving in the sense that if you fuck something up in soil, its may be a one or two day period where the plant gets back to normal. In hydro, any fuck up is a week. At least that has been my experience. Ill give it another shot one day.

 

[cravin morehead]

hey big dog, mind if I hang out? I'll be the one in the back behind the clouds of smoke...

glad to see you up and growing. good genetics too...

grabbing a chair, a homebrew, and some bud to watch the show

cm

 

[Ghostin]

Hey welcome guys! Ive always had a strong attraction to hydro and its where i started growing (links to previous hydro grows in signature) and ive always been drawn to water in general all my life. I just could never get the benificial bacteria game right, which my system was based off of. So one day i saw my buddy doing things so much easier in soil and he basically gave me everything i needed to convert to soil on the condition that if i continued using soil, i would pay him back for the equipment, so i had literally nothing to lose by trying it out. Sure as shit, it cut my work time in the plant room by more than half. No more worrying if your basement will be flooded in the morning. Hydro is fun if you have everything 100% on point, if you dont, get ready for games. It seemed to me soil is much more forgiving in the sense that if you fuck something up in soil, its may be a one or two day period where the plant gets back to normal. In hydro, any fuck up is a week. At least that has been my experience. Ill give it another shot one day.

I feel ya, the forgiveness factor is the best thing about soil but the cost, independent watering + time, waste and yields are the con's. Imo, hydro is way better once you get it dialed in, it's all about experience, but both involve work, no getting around that, right?

 

[marinemansf]

I don't know, my costs are actually down from hydro. I downsized my water pump to a 400 gph from an 1800 gph that I needed for hydro, cuts power costs a little there and yeah the dirt is 20 bucks a bag but I only needed a bag and a half. Plus I'm using about a third of the water i used before. This becomes more of a factor when youre using RO like mine and mine is a 1:2 usable water to waste water ratio. Oh and when you have all that water you need more nutes to keep the same ppm. I had like 40 gallons in my system before and now 10. Also I have everything I need to make all the watering fully automated, i just prefer hand watering. Being around my girls is super therapeutic so I look for any excuse I can to go spend time with them, it's just now I can just go sit with them instead of having to do constant maintenance.

So less power, water and nutes. Plus 30 bucks in soil. I'm actually saving a decent amount by switching. I would go so far as to say I'm saving over a hundred bucks a run.

 

[cravin morehead]

I run hydro indoor year round and run soil for seasonal outdoor and to keep my mom plants.
just sayin'

cm

 

[marinemansf]

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey! What's up buddy?

Believe me, if had things locked down on my bio buckets I'd still be rocking those. I really think they're is a bacteria problem in the water. I would always remeber you sayin you never changed your water and that's how I knew my shit wasn't right. Everything would start out well and then sure as shit my rez would start going murky and It seemed like I could never get the Bennie levels stabalized.

And I'd love to do outdoor but I'm still in a prohibition state, otherwise I'd have my yard would be willy wonka'ed the hell out with plants!

 

[cravin morehead]

Hey bud-
No worries on my end, to each their own. I love my bio buckets, but also know that everyone has their own preferences. I'm not here to preach bio bucket eering. Just want to see you have some success how ever that may be. I started in soil and keep doing it too. I just like growing and enjoying bud, that's all. I'm cracking a beer and firing up a bowl and watching your show. Grab life by the horns and do your thing buddy
Glad to be here

Cm

 

[Ghostin]

Hey bud-
No worries on my end, to each their own. I love my bio buckets, but also know that everyone has their own preferences. I'm not here to preach bio bucket eering. Just want to see you have some success how ever that may be. I started in soil and keep doing it too. I just like growing and enjoying bud, that's all. I'm cracking a beer and firing up a bowl and watching your show. Grab life by the horns and do your thing buddy
Glad to be here

Cm

Sorry, my toaster over caught on fire, damn corn tortillas slipped through the grate lol.

I like your attitude @cravin morehead!

 

[marinemansf]

Cravin helped me when I was very new to all this, I modeled my hydro system after his.

 

[Ghostin]

Awesome, it's nice to have that kind of support!

 

[cravin morehead]

Hey ghostin, thanks.
Marineman, well, how about some more pics? Looking for some more details about your grow. Are you feeding? How do you deal with runoff after watering? What size pots? Multiple up-pots? Ph'ing water? Any LST'ing or other training?
Just trying to get a handle on how you do things now. First pics look nice. How long do you think that Thai stick will go?
Looking good. Sorry if my smoke clouds get in the way of you guys seeing the pics...

Cm

 

[marinemansf]

Haha no apologies needed, lets hotbox this fucker!

Ok so ill try and put in as many details as i can:

I started with the clones that i got from my buddy and moved them to 3 gal containers about week 2 of veg.


Soil: Fox Farm Happy Frog
Flowering food: Fox Farm open sesame, beast blooms and cha ching.
Dyna pro cal mag, rapid start and small amounts of molasses.
Water: RO
Im feeding about every third day or so and just let them soak up any runoff. Ill ph the water to around 6.1 after adding all nutes. I do top off the rez after each watering.

I did try ph'ing the runoff and jesus christ if you ever want a heart attack, try it out. It came out to like purple on my ph scale (i still drops because the drops dont lie), i didnt freak out though because of two reasons: the plants are healthy as fuck and I figured the bennies were doing their thing by creating that buffer. So i dont even pay any attention to the runoff anymore.

Supposedly the chocolate rain is an 8 week strain and the LTS is a 10 weeker. But, like you taught me, I check trichs to determine ripeness.

I think i have a real good shot at getting at least partial purple leaves this time around as some leaf tips are already turning. Love my grow area, never gets above 75 and never goes below 60. So it makes a good environment for the purps to show.

I didnt do much this time around as far as training, although ive done some selective pruning. One of my LTS's kind of topped itself just by the way it was cut and now has 3 mains, kind of cool. I also added so cheap led panels on the floor just to add some additional spectrum and lower branch light, thats the purplish glow in this pic.


Heres a top pic, the CR is in the middle and the triple top is back right. 5 total. I think i finally got this stretch thing figured out as everything filled out nicely and maximizes the available space. I over grew the fuck out of my last few runs.


And a few random pics


One other thing ive been doing is for the first two weeks of flower I kept my 1000w MH light in just to try and control stretch and it seemed to work pretty well. Then ive been doing a week of HPS then a week of MH, repeating. Just seeing if the extra intensity of the MH will add any weight to the final harvest, while keeping the HPS spectrum.

Im actually more excited for my next run. Gonna give a few african strains a try. I got some Zamaldelica and Malawi from ace seeds. I want to say they are around 14 week strains. I hear good things about african strains. But what i really want is to get my hands of some mother fuckin Black Magic. Dont know if i ever will, but im gonna keep tryin.

 

[Tarus Bulbar]

Looking really healthy marinemansf!
Lots of frost on them ladies already
Keep up what your doing, its working well!

 

[marinemansf]

Thanks man!

 

[marinemansf]

Just a quick pic post, took some side shots of the girls to give you an idea of their shape and size.

Chocolate Rain: 27 inches


Lemon Thai Stick: Tallest 30 inches Smallest 26 inches

 

[cravin morehead]

dude, it looks real happy in your tent. thanks for the details. them are some healthy happy girlies in there. back in the day I tried to FF nutes in soil. I cooked em everytime. I think my starting soil was hot enough and being a newb, I thought more has got to be better. wrong. you seem to have a good balance going with the happy frog and nutes, good job
that one you topped and got 3 heads out of. that's called FIM, as in 'fuck I missed' comes from not completely getting the top removed and it makes 2 more.
I don't pH my stuff, but I do use the drops when I do pH something. you're correct, the drops don't lie or ever need calibrating. so simple and cheap.
I'd kill to have your temps in my grow area, lucky. I now shut down my tent during the summer, electricity is too damn expensive here in So Cal.
funny, I just got my order from Ace the other day! I ordered Panama, Malawi, and golden tiger. also got some orient express fems as freebies. just got a OE to pop above soil today.
if it's the black voodoo magic you are looking for, check out cob curing here:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=309172
I can't wait to try it. I really, really miss the high from the old Skool bud/high we used to get. was mind blowing and none of these new skool genetics got that voodoo... mmmmmm, Thai stick
if I were you, that lemon Thai stick would be getting cobbled up for sure.
any how, looking good brother, keep it up. looking forward to more updates...puff, puff, pass

cm

 

[marinemansf]

Heeeeeeeeeeeeey!

Really sorry i havent been around to update, i know it sucks seeing the start and not the process. I actually decided to make this hobby of mine into a career, so school is sucking up all my time lately. But i did want to drop in and share the progress, cause it is good.


Good overall shot, you can def pick out the chocolate rain out really easy.


CR, giving me some great fall colors. Wont be a HUGE producer, but the nuggs are SUPER SOLID.


A few pics of the Lemon Thai, looks to be a medium producer with very solid nuggs. Getting some purple coloration on a few of the leaves.

Ill be sure to drop some pics of the finished product in about 2 to 3 weeks.