Hydro Showdown: Under Current 6XL vs Bato Bucket - DCxGOO - 2,400Ws

[opt1c]

Well i've been pretty busy but this has been taking up the majority of my time. Awhile ago i got a nice tray of some mislabeled SCxDC crosses from SR71 which, by now, everyone knows are really a goo x dc cross of pure dankness. That being said this has been the slowest growing plant i've ever vegged. But; after seeing those finished flower shots floating around i figured i'd give it a chance.

This time around i'm using grodan mini cubes as medium for the batos. I've been running them in my other garden for quite some time with great success. Right now however the batos are setup for dtw so i can't water as heavily as i'd like. That will all change though.

Here are the clones; ready to go to their new homes; got roots?

Here they are at day 1 of veg

Currently they are vegging under 2 600watt global greenhouse powered ushio cmh bulbs in radiant 6acs cooled by a 6" high output canfan; the room is sealed with co2 and the fans for the lights pull air from outside and vent it back outside through the attic

Here we are at day 33 of veg; notice the uneven growth; had a problem with root aphids which retarded some of them although they were never that even to begin with

And now a shot at day 55 of Veg; runts have been removed and tossed outside in a bed to flower outdoors; so much for that original SOG idea.

I started with 24 sites and now i'm down to 12; by now i've also decided that i want to switch my bato buckets to recirculating to feed heavier and not worry about pouring nutes down the drain.

During this period i ran a variety of veg nutes in the buckets all with equal results more or less. H&G, FloraNova, and Cutting Edge were all used.. floranova gave the lushest growth but the H&G has given me the cleanest reservoir; also i have a lot of it to get rid of so i'm going to use it till its gone.

I'll be posting some more updates shortly. Needless to say i'm a bit past 55 days of veg.

They got 76 days in all

As aways comments and criticism are always appreciated. I'll state right off the bat that these plants have been completely untrained, topped, or pruned so far...but don't worry they've had a haircut since.

Towards the end of veg i also sprayed em with the ultimate foliar feeding recipe which really greened up all the leaves; had very few leaves yellow or fall off for lack of light even in the thickest parts of the canopy; needless to say i haven't had any bug problems and the plants seem to love the foliar attention.

 

[stink.whistler]

Cool! I was hoping you would do another Bato thread...

Have you just been running the basic nutes, or have you used any of the additives?

 

[opt1c]

i've used all the additives in the past with H&G except the shooting powder as i was using coco last time; this time it gets em all but i've found, along with everyone i've talked to, that the algen extract is garbage and just junks up the res with no apparent benefits; all it is a kelp extract and there are hundred of other varieties that probably would work better... so i didn't use that additive during veg after a week or so but i did foliar with a kelp based spray... the foliars really fixed any deficiencies in the plants from appearing in the leaves; all my other friends around growing in the summer heat were pissed at how happy they look... i'm also supplementing with some floranectar as the h&g line doesn't include any carbo loading products and from my experience and what i've seen it can benefit from them

that and the cutting edge nutes do not like massive levels of DO so don't run em in systems that do; i got a funky buildup from them in my undercurrent; ok for a reservoir if you're doing drip or ebb & flow though

i like the roots excellerator to use it with pretty much everything now; and if i'm running anything in coco or with drip i'll use the drip clean as my pots look damn near unused from the lack of salt buildup... i'm also a fan of the multizyme and bud-xl and i may try combining them with different pk boosters in the future

i know a lot of people who've burned their plants with the shooting powder but i'm going to give it a try anyway; just probably not at full strength

as far as the bato's go if you're running dtw i think coco is the way to go; i felt that i could be feeding more in the rockwool and my switch to reticulating has proved that; that update later tomorrow probably

 

[NorCalFor20]

There looking nice, ready to flower for sure, but where is the under current system i dont see it?

 

[opt1c]

look harder.... jk.... it's not there yet... the uneven growth of all the various clones led me to change around my grow room; runt kept getting tossed outside until i was down to 10 decent sized trees and 2 bushes... well i decided to do a side by side and switch up the dtw batos to recirculating and install another 2 lights and the undercurrent in my room; which also has a hydrohut kindergarden and had a dr60 in it; needless to say that space, power, and ventilation all had to be worked out... the house i'm in is like over 50 years old and the room is about 10x12... but i'm uploading new pics now so it won't be long

thanks for dropping in; they actually went another couple weeks past those pics before flower to give the ones i tossed in the undercurrent time to grow roots; and yeah i transplanted 2.5ft trees out of batobuckets in rockwool into a rdwc system cuz i'm crazy like that

 

[opt1c]

Ok... so... another update

well that wasn't too hard... it tops off with its own ro unit and has a chiller too boot; shouldn't present any problems that i can think of

of course now we have the issue of transplanting gaint trees from 9x9 rockwool filled batobuckets into 8" netpots; they had already rooted out so i just violently pruned off loads of roots and shoved the remaining rockwool rootballs into the netpots... now at this point you're thinking opt1c.. bro... you're crazy you can't run rockwool in dwc... it'll get too wet

well u can if u drop the water level to the bottom of the netpots and run em krusty style

 

[opt1c]

I had to redo all the ventilation for the new lights; basically doubling the size of my room from 2 600s to 4 600s

New Intake setup was needed...

Another Fan for the new bank of lights...

Lots of fans...

And the exhaust..

So all that is done... now to build the table for the bato buckets

 

[opt1c]

To turn the batos into a recirculating setup i just built a 1 1/4 pvc frame to hold a 3x6 flood table... one drain plumbed in later and a 40gal res underneath and i'm good to go.. a 1/10th hp chiller keeps the reservoir moving and cool; the room with co2 can get pretty hot. I've been watering 3 mins every hour more or less with open 1/4" lines off a 1/2" manifold. H&G nutes with 25% dechlorinated water and 75% ro water; add backs only every week; i also add cal-mag at 5ml per gal and flora nectar at recommended doses since H&G doesn't have any carb based products. I also add about 3 cups of ewc tea twice a week; no slime or buildup in the res; no light leaks either but for recirculating i'm impressed

oh yeah... my camera sucks btw.. chiller is on the left

the runt...
http://icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=8979&pictureid=166237

the walkway between the systems...

Some shots of the canopy... mid week 4

Update on the UC6XL system coming soon

 

[opt1c]

So the under current system got thrown together and i needed some plants for it; the ones in the bato buckets wanted more room to bush out so i figured instead of throwing them outside i'd try throwing them into the undercurrent and running the water level right at the bottom of the netpots. I gave them about 2 weeks in the new system to veg as getting everything together to duct and install 2 new 600s on a mover was a process to say the least; a non aircooled t5-48 is much easier to install on a mover.

I also didn't like the chiller i was using; it was putting out too much heat for what little chilling the water needed so i switched it out with an oceanic 1/4hp chiller that allows me to upgrade in the future; this thing is nice; quiet; not too hot; and works

Here is a shot of the new chiller; i cut two holes into the lid of the under current epicenter to run the chiller's hoses as i didn't want to risk any unnecessary light leaks.

I think i have it dialed in; these pics are at mid week 4 of flower

This system has one runt too; it's in the bottom left of this pic sorta; i'll try to get some better pictures; my camera can't capture the crystals at all but they're already starting to frost up.

I'm topping off with ro water and adding dutch master gold nutes to get the ppms around 500 on the us scale; i'm sure the plants could take more but they seem fine so far and i don't want to burn the roots. Speaking of roots they've already filled up the buckets. Unfortunately i don't have an assistant to take photos while i hold up one of the bucket lids but if i do find one i'll snap some pics and post em up. Needless to say they're super healthy and white as well.

I have to say i'm impressed with the undercurrent so far; i transplanted 2.5ft tall plants fully rooted in 9x9 pots into the 8" netpots with zero transplant shock; leafs didn't even fall off or show deficiencies. To be honest i was expecting them to not like their new homes as much as they do. I mean i ripped off about 40-60% of the plants root mass i wasn't gentle either; just made em fit.

Going to try and get the local shop to order some add.27 to add to the mix; i'm hesitant to add a pk booster to the gold line; especially since pure flowers bloom booster is no more; anyone know of good substitutes? Anyone know if pk13/14 plays nice with the gold line?

 

[Mist]

Very nice so far, but MY GOD do you have 12ft. ceilings in there? If not you had better cut some holes in the roof for those girls to stick out, LOL!

I will have to keep up with this one.

 

[opt1c]

Heheh.... not quite... the ones in the under current have plenty of head room; the ones in the bato buckets not so much but they were on the floor before; wasn't planning on getting them that tall and putting em on a tray but u gotta do what u gotta do.. i have a super spreader on the radiant6's to avoid hotspots and the plants don't seem to mind the distance so far

only good thing; these plants DON'T stretch; those pics are in week 4 of flower... whatever stretch there was happened already; the top colas might put on a couple more inches but from everything i've read about this strain they just bulk and get fat.. no vertical growth at all; hence the insanely long veg time everyone recommends if any sort of yield is desired

 

[attila76]

Opt1c,

I have a very similar system to yours. I also had a similar pest, the root aphid (Phylloxera). I too had retarded growth. Healthy plants, but slow. And the aphids would not die... I tried high doses of Azatrol, did experiments with nicotine, high doses of peroxide. Nothing worked... I came to realize that the bugs would end up infecting any younger plants in the process, and I would be stuck with sub-par results forever.... that is unless I tore everything down, and cleaned with bleach.

I know started again, they are gone.

Did you find a way to effectively control these root aphids? Have they not begun to reach critical mass?

Heres a tip: If you fight them and it is 50%-70% effective they die off in the solution will cause havoc on the PH. You will come in the room and it will be 6.8 from 5.8. Or it may drop into the 4's.
You cange the solution, clean your roots with sprayed tap water.

Next two three days treat and repeat.

Ad infinitum...

 

[Hydrosun]

Sign me UP!!!!!!!!!!!! All side bets via pm



Peace,

 

[opt1c]

ebay merit 75 wp... it is systemic for 90 days so i used it at the start and vegged for 76 days; figured with 9 weeks of flowering on top of that; 139 days total, it'll be out of the system no problem... great for use on moms though... i think i used 1/2tsp for every 5 gals; there is a root aphid thread in the infirmary sub forum which is where i got the merit tip; you can also get the same active ingredient, imidacloprid, in a bayer tree & shrub mix from your local hardware store but if i'm going to use a chemical i want the purest form possible

i treated them once and they all died and did not come back; end of story
my only problem was misidentifying them as fungus gnats at first; treated with bt to no effect... i think that contributed to it at first but i'm sure there is some reason they are being phased out of production over at blue sky... i have a mom though so if i want to play with them again i can

 

[LiLWaynE]

 

[Flying High]

Nice set-up...

Regarding Pure Flowers, I was able to order some from the Hydroponic Connection in San Francisco(on Evans) within the last month. This was after I read in the DutchMaster Gold thread that Pure Flowers was unavailable.

 

[opt1c]

Thanks but i'm already on week four and i don't think i could source it in time; also i think it'd be intersting to see if another product works... i've used M.O.A.B. in my ez-cloner... it could work but with those concentrations i just see burn happening easier than normal... might try pk13/14 still

 

[GrnAlien]

Pureflowers is also available on garden dot com.

 

[krunchbubble]

looks great! wondering how those under currents did. you can get pure flowers at growers choice in San Leandro.

 

[opt1c]

Thanks for all the advice everyone; i was able to pick up 3 quarts form the horticulture source; seemed to have it in stock and got some express shipping; everywhere else was like a 1-2 week wait which would have taken this crop past the window of opportunity for bulking before flushing.

Does anyone have any pic requests? Plumbing? Controllers? Etc? Specific plant shots or angles. I try to capture the frost on the leaves and buds but i think i'll have to sneak in before the lights come on and try to milk my cameras flash to give me something to work with; using an old canon powershot 2.1mp... not exactly cutting edge but its what i got right now.

I have to do an addback tonight for the bato bucket reservoir; i'll try to snap some before an after pics to give u an idea of how clean the res is staying without being drained fully so far for this grow... addbacks for the undercurrent just involving small amounts of nutes a bit at a time to avoid any root burn every week as well but i think i can bump up the frequency as the plants are feeding heavy; ppms drop like crazy and ph stays stable; but they don't look like they're in want of additional nutes so far; no yellowing of leaves or anything like that; seem to be hanging with the batos which are getting the full h&g line at recommended strength